The Summer with Books!

Ok - time to take you all completely off piste with some non-craft posts. As you may have gathered, my creative activities have somewhat dried up with the summer cessation of classes. In their stead the gap seems to have been crammed absolutely full of words, text, narrative and tales. Yes, that's right, I've been doing a lot of summer reading!

As it has been epic, I'm breaking this down into print, ebook, audio, in progress and on the shelf (for autumn reading!)

So, here's my summer 2012 booklist (part 1)...

In glorious ye olde fashioned print (that's proper books):

The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Book-club choice. I'm afraid to report that to date this was my least enjoyed of the summer reads. Beautifully written, but not my thing. A tale interwoven with the book Mrs Dalloway and the life of Virginia Woolf. Neither of which I am well acquainted with, so this probably coloured my judgement. Current book club list is based on film adaptations, I have the film sat on the shelf, but as yet unwatched.

Read if... You simply cannot get enough of Virginia Woolf. You love beautifully crafted and subtle personal melodrama.

I have a bit of a cover design crush on this one!

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick
My own book club choice, based on my love of the recent film. Visually stunning, very stylish, highly recommended in the 'Silversmith' household. So, would I love the book equally, without being able to watch Robert Downey Jnr?! Yes! Most definitely. I absolutely loved reading the book. I must say, I am glad I'd seen the film first as the writing style and 'plot' may have been a challenge otherwise. Our book club meeting for this title seemed to revolve more around discussions of what was actually going on rather than literary analysis and it certainly provoked a mixed reception. Please don't be put off by the notion of it being 'sci fi', if anything it feels like a period piece now since the slang is dated and we are ahead of its setting.

Read if... You loved the film. You are a sci-fi newcomer or sceptic. You like edgy environs and psychologically disturbed characters.

I found this beautiful illustrated edition of Harper Lee in my local Oxfam - result!

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Another book club title! What a read! I seem to be one of the few who didn't read this at school and had been immune to its long lived popularity. I am so grateful that my book club gave me the chance to overcome any bizarre misgivings and give this a go. A fantastic book in which I was immersed from start to end. A brilliant and gripping good old fashioned story.

Read if... You haven't already - it really does live up to its reputation.

Next up - E-Books including Siri Hustvedt & Rachel Joyce!

ps. Yes, the jars in the background do contain hand made origami cranes, familiar to those who attended the Silversmith wedding ;)