Lots of laziness on the reading front lately. Since finishing the Narnia Chronicles, I haven't really tried to read anything new this year. I've reverted instead to those old classics, St Clare's and Malory Towers.
I like to think of these boarding school stories as the book versions of When All Else Fails, a dish our family makes for dinner when we can't think of what else we'd like to have. When All Else Fails is simply chicken cooked with soy sauce and lots of ginger, a fragrant and comforting dish to fall back on when you just want to cook and eat without too much thought and fuss. In the same way, St Clare's and Malory Towers are books to read when you don't feel like straining the critical faculties too much.
When I finally get round to reading, however, there will be plenty of new books waiting:
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
- The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay
- Piano Rock by Gavin Bishop
- The 10PM Question by Kate de Goldi.
De Goldi's favourite place for reading was, and still is, bed. "I would wake up on Saturday morning in that deep pleasurable warmth of my bed, with the lovely smell of my pillow, and in my memories it's seemingly, somehow, always raining outside so there's the sound of rain, and it's almost a narcotic experience. I would stay there and read for hours and hours."
I just think anybody who had a childhood like that and, more importantly, remembers it, will surely write the kinds of stories I want to read.
