I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, but I’ve been on a bit of a book buying spree. I’ve some across these new-to-me texts and I needed them ASAP.
I picked up Cassandra and Ariadne because anything dealing with Ancient Greece I need, so there’s that. Also, can we admire how beautiful both of these book covers are?
My friend Lauren started her independent online book shop - if you are in the UK please check her out - Lauren is the best! She currently has Grove by, Esther Kinsky on her site and the description sounds like something I would enjoy - overly detailed writing about almost nothing but observations, with a bit of an existential crisis? Sign me up! Thus, I came across River by the same author and said, to myself, “Why not? Go big, or go home. Get both!” Also, I just couldn’t resist the Fitzcarraldo Editions - this deep blue and white typeface screams understated, minimalistic, literary and a bit pretentious. All things I’m oddly attractive too... Side Note: When people first meet me in person, they think I’m stuck up LOL. I’m actually pretty down to earth, but so what if I like to go grocery shopping, sometimes dressed to the nines in a cashmere sweater and velvet smoking slippers? Life is short, embrace the luxurious. I also have serious RBF, so that doesn’t help my case much…
Milkman is a novel, that when I looked into the plot, it really intrigued me. Lyrical writing, a bit stream-of-consciousness, a touch dystopian for some readers, though it’s actually about what happened in Ireland in the 1970s. Who knew such a vibrant pink cover (for any one who doesn’t know, I have a slight aversion to bright pink shades; I live in black and grey…) was encasing something rather eerie. I know, I know, don’t judge a book by it’s cover, yet here we are…
Speaking of pink, how about some millennial pink? Actually, if I’m drawn to pink, I do prefer softer, dustier pink shades, which I call “champagne pink.” Not quite the millennial pink we have here, but dustier, more neutral. Regardless, Severance and The Idiot are toted are “Millennial Fiction,” typically meaning the main character is fed up with the hamster wheel of life. What made me pick these titles up is actually due to another book I’m (slowly) reading - At the Existentialist Cafe by, Sarah Bakewell. I would like to dig a bit deeper into these modern novels, and not just ones written by millennials, but other novels that also focus on the minutiae of life in the 21-century (I.e. ducks, Newburyport) and how this tension between outward material success, internal worries, and the monotony of everyday life seem to be inadvertently alluding back to the philosophy of existentialism. Whether authors are intending this or not, I think it’ll be an interesting conversation to have.
Have you read any of these books? Have you purchased any books recently?
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