books of the month: august

Hi hello! 

Sorry for the radio silence, have been in Spain without my laptop and with 2 euro glasses of wine - hoping to get some blog posts out this week so as to keep you all happy. 

I can't promise this segment is going to be a consistent one, but I've read some crackers recently and thought it would be a shame not to share them with you...

everything i know about love - dolly alderton

It's been one of those books that EVERYONE had been talking about all through summer, so earlier this month I bit the bullet and gave it a go. Honestly, I didn't really know what to expect - I'm not a big non-fiction reader (the thought of an auto-biography really doesn't do anything for me), and I hadn't heard of Dolly Alderton before seeing the book. Ashamedly I'm a sucker for pretty covers, and it came highly recommended from my colleagues at Waterstones, so I bought it to read over my day off. 

I have to say its been a long time since I've read something that's truly unputdownable; this is one of those books. It's a book that works for any age - I feel like it's equally as resonant to me as to someone in their 40s. The string that ties it all together is its insistence on the unconditional love of female friendship, which Alderton finds to be the defining force of love in her life. And she proves it convincingly; the book is laced with an incredible sense of empowerment from a shared, female experience. 

Alderton's voice tumbles off the page in abundance, drawing you in in a way that makes you feel like you've been friends forever. Crucially, it is a voice that many can hear themselves in; from the first page, entitled 'Everything I knew about love as a teenager', the book's personable humour resonated painfully and profoundly with me. I can hear my own voice in between the pages, claiming that "When I am a single woman in London I will be extremely elegant and slim and wear black dresses and drink Martinis and will only meet men at book launches and at exhibition openings". Too close to home, really. I swear I had this conversation with my friends last week.

It's the kind of writing that makes you feel warm and giddy inside, and is therefore vital reading for anyone who feels or has ever felt a bit lost or uncertain of themselves; I have a feeling this book's necessary frankness will stay with me and anyone who gives themselves the gift of this book for a long time to come. 



a spy in the house of love - anaïs nin

I've been desperate to read this book for years now, after becoming fascinated by Anaïs Nin as a writer; one of the first female writers of erotica, Nin pushed the boundaries of what was conventionally approved of in terms of subject matter for female writers during the 1930s. 

And I think her transgressive nature permeates into this novella's protagonist, Sabina, a woman constructed of paradoxes who attempts to navigate 1950s New York. The reader follows her complicated existence as she tries to enjoy a level of sexual freedom typically available only to men. 

What stands out to me the most is Nin's exploration of the fragility of female sexuality; Sabina's desperation to experience sensation and pleasure, running alongside a simultaneous desperation to feel secure, is one that often is explored in literature, often to a lesser effect. The delicacy of Nin's characters speaks of the rawness and fragmentation that coincide with a longing for coherence of the self. 

The book is also about the loneliness of living in a big city, the ultimate and universal shared condition that transcends time. She asks the reader to question how we deal with the loneliness of existing amongst millions of other people, all experiencing the same thing. 

Though at points it is quite a dense read that requires you to fully immerse yourself in the thickness of its language, it is ultimately a highly rewarding experience if you indulge in the beauty and boldness of Nin's expression. 


a complicated kindness - miriam toews

This book was on my reading list for uni, but thought it should get a mention. It particularly resonated with me, having just watched a TED talk on a cult survivor describing the systematic child abuse she encountered and experienced in her time there (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7mBbXxJYA&t=1072s). It seemed strangely prophetic when I opened this book and found that it explored a similar experience, but through the eyes of a teenager still very much part of such an institution. 

Toews's book is a thought provoking foray into the conflict between fundamentalist Christianity and the growing pains of being a teenager - we are pushed headfirst into a small Mennonite town in Canada, in which the outer shell of perfect Christian living is seen to be profoundly flawed. We are told of the lives of the young teenagers who have been born into this regimented lifestyle, who attend church during the day and desperately try to forget about it at night. 

Nomi, the protagonist, is a fireball of a character, whose narrative voice compels you to continue further into her world despite it being one of profound isolation and the darkness of organised religion. she's the best thing about the book, and I really got a sense of her as a living, breathing being. She is equal parts rude, funny, vulnerable, brave, mature and naive - she is a full-bodied character that grabs you and entrances you with her voice. 

Thought the book seemed to slow down in the last few chapters, resulting in a frustrating ending, Toews's was clearly attempting to reflect the quickening deterioration of the Nomi's mental state through her narrative voice. Overall, the book was delicate, hallucinatory and unsettling, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested about the inner conflicts of life in a cult.