The Week - #3

Round-up of all the cool things (and not-so-cool things)

Welcome to my weekly round-up of all things consumed and created (apart from food and drink). It’s been an odd week with quite a bit of sadness, but here we go…

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Books I’m Reading / Books I’ve Read

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi is my bookclub read for October and I have really loved it. Oyeyemi’s prose is a thing of real beauty, but more is her ability to blend complex yet very real characters with otherworldliness, where you are never entirely sure what is happening. She switches POV constantly, and sometimes I found myself lost but it felt like I was supposed to be, like I would be if I were living in that house and it had control of me the way it controls the people living there. And under the skin of it all is a story of generational grief, the effects of war, immigration, race and class. It’s a special book, for sure, although I can see it not being to everyone’s taste. I adored it so much, I got my pen out and underlined passages that were so, so beautiful, some that literally made me gasp. Passages like this:

“But I doubt it was just the thing with the French lessons that came between Lily and Sylvie; there’s also the fact of Sylvie being impeccable. Lily was a bunch of crumpled pockets and Sylvie is a black dress, perfumed scarves, iron posture and whatever else turns a person into an atmosphere.”

This is one of the best character descriptions I’ve ever read precisely because it tells us so much about Lily and her own insecurities when she’s beside Sylvie. And this book is full of stunners like this that made me swoon.

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TV and Film

We took the leap and subscribed to Apple+ so we could check out this little show called Slow Horses that absolutely NOBODY has been talking about. Jokes. Everyone is talking about it. Gogglebox even gave a big episode away last week (thanks for that!). And after a couple of slow first episodes, we are now hooked. It’s making me miss London, which I wasn’t expecting. It also reminds of the time I was on the tube and a man ran into my carriage, looking over his shoulder, then crouched down and ran through the carriage, jumped off the train, ran along the platform and jumped back on the train a bit further down, hiding behind the closing doors. I was convinced he was a spy. Maybe he thought he was a spy, too. He was definitely acting like one. London is so wild. And so is Slow Horses!

I attempted to watch the new series from the Tiger King director, Chimp Crazy, but the garish ridiculousness of Tiger King was a little lost in this series, the thing that made it impossible to look away. Instead, it was replaced by something a bit sad and depressing, a woman who valued her chimps over her own children, who was incapable of seeing the horrendous conditions in which she was keeping her beloved chimps. This wasn’t for me at all, and only served to remind me that America really does have a problem with animal welfare and allowing just about anybody to keep, breed and trade exotic animals.

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Podcasts

I MUST talk about the beautiful essays from Katherine Rundell on Radio 4 (you can listen to them here). She talks with such passion about the importance of children’s books and how they can quite literally change lives. It was a wonderful trip down memory lane, a reminder of the special place that children’s books hold for so many of us, and also the sad reality that this is slipping away as devices take over, as more than 50% of eight to eighteen-year-olds don’t enjoy reading for pleasure. She asks how children are supposed to find their way in the world without the safe space of stories, how they will make sense of anything. And she says this:

The books you read and enjoy as a child become part of you. If the books are good enough, they get into your blood and bones, hair and eyes and fingernails, and live on inside you for long after you’ve forgotten the details of the plot.

A really gorgeous set of essays that you absolutely must listen to.

In my search for a new gripping podcast, I came across Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder. I’m only a few episodes in but already I’m struck by the sadness of this case, of race, mental health and a society that just left the victim to die. It’s on Wondery if you are tempted.

I listened to Hailey Piper talk about her new vampire novel, All the Hearts You Eat, on The Scares That Shaped Us podcast, and the influence that the movie, The Lost Boys, had on her. It was a wonderful episode. Vampire chat, alongside discussions of one of my favourite movies, made this goth girl happy. Memories of watching it back to back, as I lay on the sofa sick and off school, munching on Halls Soothers, getting to the end and pressing rewind because my copy was on VHS recorded from the TV. Happy days!

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My Favourite Reads

It would be silly to not include a section on my favourite books. So to start us off, we have The Colony by Audrey Magee.

I told anyone who would listen about this book last year. It tells the story of a remote Irish island and its very traditional inhabitants as they are set upon by an English painter desperate to capture the island on canvas, and a French linguist desperate to preserve their ancient language. One is for progression, one is for conservation, neither ask the islanders what it is they want or give anything in return. Told against the backdrop of the brewing troubles in 1970s Ireland, this book is an absolute stunner and I urge everyone to read it.

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I’d love to hear your recommendations in the comments. What are you reading and loving? What TV show or movie has gone under the radar but deserves shouting about?

Until next week. Happy consuming and creating! x