MY CURRENTLY READING PILE

As I mentioned in my 2019 Reading Resolutions, I'm taking the pressure off myself to read a certain amount this year, my only goal is to try and read every day. One side effect of this is hopefully buying fewer books and not spending so much money on things I just never get round to. As a way to track and control this I've split 2019 into quarters of three months each (very business-like I know), and will only buy a number of books I can reasonably expect to read within that time frame. If I get to the end of that stack with time to spare I can pick up something else, otherwise any more book-buying will have to wait until the next quarter.

So I thought I'd share my reading pile for 'Q1' (how corporate) and go through the bits that I'm hoping to finish by the end of March.

THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS - PAT BARKER 

Pat Barker is probably most famous for her unapologetically anti-war novel Regeneration, and its siblings withing the trilogy. The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of The Iliad, from the perspective of the women caught up in the fighting, who see the great classical heroes like Achilles as monsters and butchers. I love modern retellings of classical literature and I LOVE women-centric stories, so I can't see how I wouldn't love this. 

MELMOTH - SARAH PERRY 

Perry's debut novel The Essex Serpent was a smash hit in the literary world, and her second release seems to be following in its footsteps. I don't know much about the plot, but I'm assuming that it's going to be some kind of nod to the 1820s irish play Melmoth The Wanderer? If I'm right then I'm expecting Gothic, Victorian creepiness and I am here for it. I know Perry has been commended for her atmospheric writing and gripping plotlines, so I have high hopes for her.

ANGELA CARTER'S BOOK OF FAIRY TALES 

I actually found this beautiful collection in a charity shop some time ago, looking a little battered but also thoroughly enchanting and like a necessary addition to my life. It's a huge collection of fairy tales and folklore spanning centuries and continents, and is illustrated by Carter's childhood friend Corinna Sargood. I'm so tired of buying books and having them sit there like plastic flowers, and I'm determined to start dipping into this in over the next few months. I won't finish it by then, but I feel like this will be a collection to return to when I need some magic.

GHOST WALL - SARAH MOSS 

I read Moss' The Tidal Zone in the summer of 2017 and loved it so much that I gave it its own full review so naturally picked her latest release up straight away. Although Ghost Wall is only 150 pages long, I know that Moss is capable of packing a huge emotional punch in just a few sentences so I am incredibly excited. The novel follows a family attempting to recreate iron age life in the wilderness as part of an archaeology experiment and I can't wait to see how one of my favourite authors deals with such a weird premise.

WORDS OF RADIANCE - BRANDON SANDERSON

If you follow me on instagram you'll know that I've been reading The Way of Kings, the first in Sanderson's 'Stormlight Archives' series for about nine years now. Well, three weeks actually, but that's a long time for me to be kicking through a single novel. The chunky boy is over a thousand pages long though, so I don't feel too bad, and I've been enjoying it so much that I've already purchased the sequel, Words of Radiance. The series feels like the huge epic fantasy that I've been gagging to sink into ever since I abandoned A Feast for Crows and I'm already excited to carry on with the world that I'm falling in love with.

IF WE WERE VILLAINS - M L RIO

This is probably the book that I know the least about. I'd seen it in a few bookstagram posts and had been told that it was a literary thriller, and great for fans of Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Having never read any Donna Tartt I had no idea what that meant or if I'd like it, but the premise intrigued me, so I picked it up at an indie bookstore in London last week. The novel centres on a young theatre group, their rivalries and relationships, and what happens when one of them is found dead. Crime and thrillers are definitely not my wheelhouse, but a 'literary thriller' might be more my style. Or it might be all the stuff I dislike about crime novels with a side of pretentious assery. I'll find out! 

Let me know if you've read, or want to read, any of these books. I'm feeling really positive about the reading I'll be getting done over the next ten weeks and I'd love to know your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

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