Orange Fiction Prize reads

Most of the country faces downpours of rain and the outlook is for more rain to come.  Meanwhile there is no let-up as far as the hosepipe ban is concerned, even though it has rained non-stop now for about 10 days and the birds are wading through the water on my drive.  Never mind – we’ll stay inside and take stock.

It’s time to give an update on my reading or at least let the world know that I’m still around, don’t give up on me yet.  I’ve collected lots of books on my kindle even though time  has been at a premium (again).  There have not been many lazy sundays or empty evenings for that matter in which to read let alone write reviews.

I’ve read a lot of quick and easy spies, thrillers, short stories, and other enjoyable frillies; I’ve sent the odd comments on books on my twitter, but that’s been all.  It’s made me think that the rest of the world is probably not exactly waitng for my reviews, and that is quite a consoling thought:  I simply cannot keep up with all the things I need to do, must do, am expected to do, think that others expect me to do, wonder if others expect me to do, etc.  No need to pile more ‘to-do’s ‘ on the list

However what I am doing for the sheer pleasure of it is read the shortlist of  books for the Orange Fiction  Prize 2012.  I’m over half way through Esi Edugyan‘s Half Blood Blues, but I do find it slow going somehow.  It’s the vernacular that gets me, the first person , Sid, tells  the story of the jazz musicians, black Americans, caught in Berlin and Paris at the beginning of world war 2.  It’s a fascinating story and well told, however, I find the voice difficult to follow at times and am probably reading at a much slower pace than usual.  I’ve still got to read the other four on my Kindle:

Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles; Georgina Harding’s Painter of Silence; Anne Enright‘s The Forgotten Walz and Cynthia Ozick‘s Foreign Bodies.  

As I’m off on a lovely break to Singapore this week to visit son (and hopefully blessed by a lot of sun) and we intend to spend a lot of time lazing around Bali (yes!) I might just get through this list.

Having tried writing this on my new iPad with a small keyboard on bluetooth , which seems to work even though it is quirky, I might even be able to blog a bit more!  I just haven’t quite worked out how to add the links, apart from simply applying the ones that come up automatically when drafting the text.  Mmmm something else to do.

Related articles

• Orange shortlist announced (newstatesman.com)
• Orange prize 2012 shortlist puts Ann Patchett in running for second victory (guardian.co.uk)

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