getting back to great fiction

Some time ago, I wrote about going Back to Fiction.

After a period of exclusively reading non-fiction, I felt that I’d gotten lazy and that I ought to recommit to the made up.

It’s been great. Until recently.

Book club has stalled slightly, with some unavailabilities killing our momentum, and the books I’ve read recently just have not been inspiring.

Our most recent read The Wasp Factory had its merits but was largely a sty and somewhat pointless read, with the denouement feeling both rushed and slightly unearned. I found the writing excellent and the descriptions of animal and human murder suspiciously detailed; the result of an excellent writer exercising their imaginative capacity we hoped.

I also read The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden on the side and didn’t particularly enjoy it, even if it was startlingly well researched with dozens of references just thrown away in the text. It was an ok light read but nothing that I’d recommend.

Having two underwhelming experiences back to back has thrown me off somewhat. The solution I suspect, is to go for n ambitious read or to recommit to one of the books that I said I’d go for last time, like Ocean Vuong’s debut.

The problem is, like many other I suspect, Amazon have me in their grasp, their emails bringing me amazing discounts on books that I’ve hd lined up to read for a while. I’ve developed a logjam, with too many on the go and nothing really grabbing me. I think what I should probably do though, is really go for Marlon James’ A Brief History of 7 Killings and be done with it.

Yeah I should do that.