lowered expectations | reading log #3

Last year I read 100 books. It was a close thing at the end there, but I did it.

(Honestly, looking at the above, I’m not sure what happened in July and August. Some form of unhingedness probably.)

But this year? Oh no. This year I’m lowering that figure to twelve books. Just twelve. I know, I know – gasp, sit down, send for the smelling salts, do whatever you need to do. I’m shocked too.

so far …

I have found the thoroughly charming ‘Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries’. It’s a wonderful audiobook and I would absolutely recommend. It reminded me of ‘A Natural History of Dragons’ by Marie Brennan and the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, if that’s any enticement.

(And a little of my own small book too.)

I also read Volume 2 of ‘The Unreal and the Real’ by Ursula K Le Guin and it was fantastic; it’s really given me a thirst for short stories, & for the potential they give. She’s marvellously creative and an inspiration to us all. Thank you.

From time to time one or two of her short stories will just pop into my head, particularly the one with the winged people. Hmm. Maybe it’s time for another reread?

it went very nicely with the congee

I have another audiobook on the go – ‘QAnon and On’. I was just listening to it on the train. Unfortunately I was rather too tired so I had to skip back to try and understand what was happening. I … definitely was taking it all in. Ah-hem.

And then, in news that shocks no one, I’ve been rereading ‘The Goblin Emperor’ by Katherine Addison which has now been on three continents. A well-travelled tome.

a blurred image of The Book, in case you have forgotten what it looks like.

I’ve literally been talking about this book since 2016. Wow. It still holds up, though I believe perhaps I shouldn’t read it quite as often. It might wear its magic out.

… Ah. Upon reading the above, I think that my twelve book goal may be attainable this year. However, I refuse to amend it. No, no. 2024 isn’t going to have the massive to-do list that 2023 had. I’m going to keep my goals short and my attitude that of one willing to being pleasantly surprised.

happy reading & what are YOUR reading goals this year?

2023 – it also happened

(I’m borrowing shamelessly from last year’s post title.)

This year has been immensely eventful. I’ve worked a lot, travelled a little, and attempted to study. I’ve picked up hobbies, I’ve laid down hobbies, I’ve done an entire year of learning Mandarin (shout out to my tutor who is very patient with my snail-slow progress), sat a few exams, read 100 books and have done very, very, very little writing.

I’m studying it instead, you see. So it kinda counts?

me telling this bloke a joke. obviously it is very funny.

LIFE

Life was lived and it’s had some very lovely turns of events and other rather tricky ones and all the emotions in-between. Our brains are not always the kindest things, but you have to keep going – joy comes with the morning, as the good book says.

(I still can’t believe I got to travel with Hayden, who visited this blog long before visiting me.)

i learned that if a country is hot – you must use an umbrella for shade. i then used one in london during a heatwave and a man made a snarky comment about expecting rain. ah, the british. this photo is not of london though, it is of porto

But, dear friends, Romans, countrymen … 2023 has left me feeling tired and recovering from a particularly horrid cold, and so you will forgive me if I’m content in closing its chapter; I’m ready, and indeed, quite excited, for the new one.

READING

100 books have been completed. Thank you, thank you – I did stay up late reading The Angel of the Crows , and I learned that it started life as fanfiction; a final plot twist in a surprising Sherlock Holmes retelling by the author of my favourite book. And no, it did not unseat The Goblin Emperor. What could?

I’ve just finished the Hunger Games Trilogy which was interesting. Yes, I’m late to read them but pfft. Better late than never!

This year, I also read three books on cephalopods and one, ah, enlightening book about animal penises. What can I say? My curiosity cannot be contained. I also went on an environmental exploration and became very upset about the fate of vaquitas, dragged ‘The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History’ all the way to Portugal with me, reread the Red Rising trilogy, went on a Greek Mythology kick and … okay, look, it’s been a busy year of reading.

And I’ve … really enjoyed it?

I would recommend ‘the sixth extinction: an unnatural history’ but it is also very very depressing

WRITING

The less we speak of this, the better. I’m studying it now. And that means you simply have to write short stories, and poems, and little blips etc etc.

However, on the topic of my bigger projects – they are forever and always in the back of my brain. They haunt me. I am hoping that in 2024 I’ll be able to lay at least one of them to rest. And by that I mean … completing them.

Thank you.

MUSIC

As you know, I’m part of a musical duo and this year? We released this absolute bop. Yes. I’m allowed to call it that. It has 20 YouTube views now, so we’re like, super famous. (Let me know if you want an autograph.)

a b s o l u t e [cowboy] b o p

I’ve been informed that it needs words. But pfft, does it though? DOES IT THOUGH?

MISC

By now, I’m heartily sick of tales of my own hubris life. I wish for you that if there were any wounds inflicted in 2023, that 2024 heals them, that whatever joys you encountered carry on into the new year and that we all remember – in this often unhinged and tumultuous world we inhabit – to find our courage, and to be a little kinder.

(And my gosh, let’s pray, hope, and work for a kinder world for everyone. Our circles of influence may be small, but ripples … er, ripple. Butterfly effect and all that.)

happy reading & happy new year!

apologies to the bystanders caught in this photo

the loneliness of being | reading logs #2

I’m falling shamefully – shamefully – behind on my goal of 100 books this year. But that’s okay. It’s about the quantity, not the quality of the books. Ahhhh, I mean: the other way round. Quality, not quantity. Thank you.

cosplaying belle

Despite falling behind, I’ve been thinking about books. I know. How unexpected. But I have. They’re magic to me, and they feel even more so now.

It would be impossible to live in every country, walk in everyone’s shoes, time travel and witness history, become an astronaut etc etc, and yet through turning a page, I can be there.

‘… the odds of me becoming a teuthologist are quite low …’

– me, sadly

I’ll never forget listening to the audiobook of Scott Kelly telling me all about his year on the ISS. Even now, when I hear about the ISS, the memory of his stories drop into my brain. As if I was there. Getting congested with him. Feeling solar flairs flash behind my eyelids. (Okay, so sometimes I remember the wrong things.)

And cephalopods! Let’s be honest, the odds of me becoming a teuthologist are quite low, HOWEVER, let me flip a page and then tell everyone I know about squid’s brains. (THEY’RE LIKE A DONUT!) or the tragic woes of a cuttlefish (‘They’ll never get to see the Titanic – their bones are too brittle and wouldn’t last under the pressure. So sad.’).

which is larger – my hand or the books? YOU’RE RIGHT. it’s my hand. i am a giant.

Right now, I’m reading:

• a large tome about Hong Kong; I’ve just finished a lovely chapter on the Opium Wars. I’d read about this moment of British History a while ago, and it’s really pleasant to revisit it. Makes me proud to be British. (This is sarcasm.)
• two audiobooks that I swear I’ll finish (extreme side eye)
• a book about squid I’m delighting in making lots and lots of notes in … but haven’t picked up in weeks
• a library book that a Waterstones bookseller recommended oh, months ago
• an old favourite of mine, about this mild-mannered woman who finds out she is destined to fight evil sand creatures. (Typical Tuesday, you know?)
• … and an Agatha Christie, also retrieved from the library, waiting to be started, perhaps next week.

My point is … my point is, reading opens the mind, throws you into experiences – for example, I would never be able to live the life of a battle weary orc setting up a coffee shop, now would I? But Legends & Lattes lets me live that experience. Wow. Thanks, Legends & Lattes!

Don’t lock yourself away into a reading room, life’s a bit too big for that. Didn’t The Good Life And How To Live It teach us better? Life, amongst other things, is about connections. The ones we make with people. Relationships – friendship, romantic, familial – that sort of thing.

may i suggest … reading with someone??? it’s bliss. best of both worlds.

But books add flavour, they enhance, they are the je ne sais quoi that makes life just a little better. Eases the loneliness of being. Cracks you out of any mental isolation you may accidentally incur. Broadens the mind. Opens … horizons?

(I may have mixed my idioms.)

… happy reading!

so, we’re eating rubbish. noice.

I listened to Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken. And it was pretty life changing. Since reading the book, my consumption of ultra-processed food has fallen dramatically. I’ve cooked potentially edible meals from scratch and baked pizza, biscuits, cakes, bread, and many more bagels.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

(Oh, and my regrets? Zero. None. Zilch.)

This book isn’t preaching at you – it’s more of a ‘this is information you probably should be aware of‘ and then deposits it gently in your lap, and leaves you to get on with it. Do with it what you well. That sort of thing.

(Hence the bagels. I promise it will make sense.)

i called the dough ‘barry’, after the dough i’d just made

I guess it’s this study that perhaps started it all, finding an ultra-processed food diet caused excess calorie intake and weight gain. I’m sure that’s not exactly surprising, but it is quite concerning. I was Concerned.

‘But what is ultra-processed food?’ (…I hear literally no one ask me.)

barry was BRUTALLY SLAUGHTERED

Ultra-processed food isn’t for our nourishment, let’s be clear, it’s for profit. It makes sense – how can you manipulate people to consume as much of your product as possible? Why! Lure them with carefully manufactured scents and tastes, concealing the blandest, most processed ‘food’ imaginable. Alllll smoke and mirrors, my boi.

We’re eating edible products, not nourishing food. Your eyes and nose and tastebuds have been fooled.

i boiled barry!

The idea that our food is in the hands of impossibly large corporations that participate in actions that are devastating to the environment, is terribly disturbing. Lowkey really not the vibe 2023 needs. (Yes, I did cringe after writing that sentence. I am capable of feeling shame. Unlike the corporation that caused tragedies amongst mothers and their babies in the developing world.)

… and i had no regrets

So I decided that I didn’t want to participate or partake in these processed products, thanks but no thanks, take your noice marketing, cheerful ‘if you eat this food YOUR FAMILY WILL BE TOGETHER AND HAPPY/YOU’RE HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE’ adverts and shove them in some dark, horrible hole, and not on a boat up the Amazon river to sell junk food to children. (I don’t need a social life anyway, pfft.)

I finished the book. I craved some bagels, and instead of reaching for processed bagels, the ingredients of which I wouldn’t be able to find in my kitchen … I baked some.

And those bagels? They tasted good.

---

An eye-opening investigation into the science, economics, history and production of ultra-processed food.

It’s not you, it’s the food.

We have entered a new ‘age of eating’ where most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food, food which is industrially processed and designed and marketed to be addictive. But do we really know what it’s doing to our bodies?

Join Chris in his travels through the world of food science and a UPF diet to discover what’s really going on. Find out why exercise and willpower can’t save us, and what UPF is really doing to our bodies, our health, our weight, and the planet (hint: nothing good).

For too long we’ve been told we just need to make different choices, when really we’re living in a food environment that makes it nigh-on impossible. So this is a book about our rights. The right to know what we eat and what it does to our bodies and the right to good, affordable food.

storygraph / hive / waterstones / bagel recipe

orwell in burma | reading logs #1

I’m nose-deep in Burmese Days by George Orwell. It’s going … well, it’s going. 1984 reduced me to a state of battered and boggled bewilderment. I don’t feel like that just yet. But you know, there’s time.

It’s quite alarming to encounter so much racism, a jarring reminder of how awful the world was and is and can be. Flory, the protagonist, has strong anti-British Empire sentiments, and yet he’s still going through the motions of being a cog in its brutal machine.

It is a corrupting thing to live one’s real life in secret. One should live with the stream of life, not against it.

page … ah I can’t locate it again

I’ve just left off at page 87 – Flory has just encountered an English girl and I’ve got a terrible feeling he’s going to tumble into love with her and it’ll end horribly.

Actually, you see, I already know the ending because I’ve also just finished ‘Finding George Orwell In Burma‘ by Emma Larkin.

Reading Burmese Days afterwards feels like watching a movie after going ‘behind the scenes’. Larkin visits locations that Orwell uses in his book; she describes how they were during his time working in Burma for the British Imperial Police, and what they were like when she travelled there.

On a surface-level, Larkin is following Orwell’s footsteps in Burma/now Myanmar, but slowly her book unfolds into a sobering and somewhat haunting picture of a country; how its people are trapped by their government, and where the only place they can be truly free is in their own minds.

Finding George Orwell in Burma was published in 2004, I believe, and there’s a lot that has happened in the country since then – if I want to find out the latest news, I’ll have to locate a different book regarding it.

Okay, that’s enough procrastinating. I’d better get back to studying …

burmese days // finding george orwell in burma