where have all the happy books gone?

I love to read and over recent months have been churning through books faster then Speedy Gonzales can say "¡Andale! ¡Andale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Yii-hah!". However, I’ve found a lot of this reading to be mostly unpleasant due to the subject matter of my chosen literature. For some reason I seem to be picking up book after book full of doom-and-gloom involving humanitarian crises, abuse and death. I fully appreciate the importance of exposing ourselves to these things in order to remind ourselves that we live in a world where there is great need but books are a form of escapism for me and seriously…five books in a row is too much for one person to handle!

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton came highly recommended by Mom who omitted to tell me that I might need to pop a couple of Prozac when I’m done. The book takes 650 pages to pick up and then ends 5 pages later with the death of a women who lived her entire adult life with a horrible, life destroying secret. There, now you don’t have to go through the same torment as me.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was a short and surprisingly good read considering the author, Jean-Dominique Bauby, wrote the entire book by blinking his left eye while confined in his own body by locked-in syndrome. Not much feel good factor there either.

After gathering many months worth of dust on my bookshelf I finally summoned enough courage to attempt reading Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns detailing life in Afghanistan. Why, why, oh why did I not think to take a back-up book on holiday? Graphic descriptions of unbelievable abuse and hardship don’t feature high on my checklist of what makes a good holiday read.

Okay, enough! I’m helpless. I can’t save the world. I can’t stop people’s pain. I need a happy book! So I scan the shelves at Waterstones and pick out The other Hand by Chris Cleave who claims it holds a secret that can’t be divulged on the back cover. I’m intrigued. So I include it in my 3-for-2 offer and within two days realise that the reason they don’t tell you what it is about is because it’s depro. Argh! And now I can’t tell you what it’s about either or the author will probably hunt me down and make me read ten other books just like it as punishment for giving the big secret away.

Right. I’m left with little choice but to turn to the queen of chick-lit, Marian Keyes. Her latest novel, This Charming Man, starts off in her usual light-hearted tone and I start to relish each page of girly antics. However, this is not the book to break the cycle. For within its pages are excerpts containing insights into the horrors of domestic abuse. While hugely relevant I think I’m going to give my heart a rest after this one. I can only take so much before I’m likely to crack and I’ll have to be rushed off to Charing Cross A&E on account of tear induced dehydration.

It’s now a case of self preservation. Perhaps I’ll pick up a few copies of The London Paper and find out what’s happening with Lily, Kate and Amy. And for half an hour in my day I might be able to pretend I’m naive to what is going on all around me. But then again, maybe that’s not what I really want to do at all.

when harry met sally

I realised today that I really have neglected my blog over the last few weeks. Between wrapping up at O&L, trying to find a simple pair of black shoes and compiling an entire website for a friend, I have found myself barely scrapping together enough time to eat and sleep.
I can’t believe that I will be cleaning out my desk drawers and bidding farewell to the fabric industry in one week. It has taken its time in getting here but the end is nigh and that silver lining glows brighter with each passing day.
Finding black shoes – I don’t want to talk about it. How hard can it be in a city this size? Very.
The website went live today and was good experience but, after a succession of late nights, I’m feeling somewhat bleary eyed and ready for a weekend.
Anyway, now that we’ve re-connected I feel to move onto a matter far more trivial – the release of the final book in the Harry Potter series. I’m not an avid Potter fan but having recently watched the latest movie I feel a bit caught up in all the excitement.
People have been queuing for 3 days, according to the BBC, to be one of the first to get their sticky little “muggle” hands on a copy. While I paged through the sensationalists delight that is the London Lite paper, yesterday, my interest was sparked by an article based on this review. The New York Times ran a pre-release review which not only broke the terms of the publisher’s agreement regarding the book’s release date but also gave away significant detail about how the series ends. Does a good reviewer truly take satisfaction from ruining a book for millions of readers who can’t wait to escape to Hogwarts for one last time? Power-trip of note.
Apparently, Childline have requested extra volunteers for the next couple of weeks to cope with the expected influx of calls by youngsters who are psychologically affected by the end of the story. I think I’m going to write a response series called “Sally Porter – the Girl Who Cared about the Real Issues in the World” but I suspect I might not rival JK Rowling for the No.1 spot on the bestseller chart. Maybe I’ll just pretend I’m Sally Porter and leave it there.