Been some time since I’ve updated this blog!
In the past four months I’ve been reading quite a lot but have not finished that many books, which is what happens when you read multiple books at once.
- I’ve finally finished Lud-in-the-Mist and really greatly enjoyed the second half of the book more than the first half. The only thing that puts me off is the fatphobic language used. Oh well.
- I finished re-reading a couple of Helen Oyeyemi’s books for an article I’m revising, am reading a Kamila Shamsie novel for an article I’m co-authoring, and am now burrowing into the third book in The Wheel of Time. I have not reread these books since I was a teenager so it’s been a fun and refreshing re-discovery of the world.
- I’m also reading The Unbroken by C.L. Clark, still enjoying slowly Hafzah Faisal’s We Free The Stars and about to embark upon a read of the Bridgerton prequels which I acquired in my latest book haul from my favourite indie bookstore.
- Usually for my birthday month, a series of book hauls happen, so I’m really excited for that. This year, however, I started early and before June came around I already had several parcels delivered. The most notable would be my final purchases from Book Depository (😞 ), the rest of the books that make up the History of Middle Earth. I’m still slowly reading The Book of Lost Tales 2 for my night-time Tolkien fix. Look forward to embarking on the rest of the History of Middle Earth this year. I’m still teaching my Lord of the Rings course in the second half of the year so it’s good to keep abreast of things.
- I’m hooked on the Outlander series belatedly on tv and am tempted to finally get the books but I’ve read that they’re even more r@pe-y than the series and I’m unsure I want to do that to myself. But we’ll see. I feel very invested in the Fraser-McKenzie clan but man, wth is going on with all of the sexual violence.
- Apart from that, I’ve been reading a whole lot of theory not just for my personal research projects but because I now have over 20 supervisees and most of them are working in my areas of interest/expertise: Gothic, ecoGothic, Science Fiction, Space and Spatial studies etc. Which means I need to always be ahead of the game so I can help them better. Well, this is what I signed up for. Making a living by reading books and writing articles (and hopefully, both academic and fiction books, geez why do these things take so long).
And that’s it for now! I regret I cannot do the short story picks this year because this year has been incredibly intense. Apart from the heavy supervision load, I’ve been teaching a full load (but I enjoy all my classes so that’s a reward in itself), still finalising my novel, catching up on my music studies after losing several months last year because of my injury/new disability. Oh, and various other things. But so long as I can have long, quiet moments reading, all is well.