Since becoming unemployed I’ve applied for a lot of jobs, wrangled with the job centre, read quite a lot of library books, done some drawings (more of that later), tried and failed to do a sour dough bread starter and started freaking out about applying for a masters.
Here’s some of the books I’ve been reading or re-reading. Brief descriptions only, because I’m not particularly in the mood for writing.
The Magic Toyshop- Angela Carter
I’d forgotten how much I love this book- I love the creepy atmosphere and lush descriptions, and Uncle Philip is a great ogre. I want to watch the tv version, but love film doesn’t have the dvd.
Perverted by Language- Short stories inspired by the Fall
Each story was by a different author and inspired by a different song title- it was a real mixed bag in terms of both quality and tone. It was much better than the similar Belle & Sebastian anthology I’d read, but some of the stories were still pretty bad though, too much either macho writing posturing (all the Bukowski wannabes) or the sort of super-cryptic nothing writing much favoured of people trying to make their journals sound mysterious. The Stuart Lee one along with a few others were pretty great though, and Michel Faber is one of my favourite writers.
Endless Night- Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie books are a kind of comfort food- there’s so many of them and they’re mostly the same. I hadn’t read this one, and when I saw the publication date of 1967, my heart sunk a little, because the 60s is when she started to go a bit senile and write detective stories that made absolutely no sense. It was an extremely pleasant surprise though. It’ s a dark psychological thriller written in a totally different style to her normal one, in the first person, that really racks up the creepy atmosphere. It reminded me a lot of Engleby, but if I write more, I’ll give away the whole plot. I put the film version on my love film list, it only had 3 stars though.