Reading while dead

Reading while dead

Friday 12 October 2012

Book bloggers - Hilary Mantel

A lot of blogs become "influential" because they are about books, I have read some of these, they are not always interesting, if they focus on the kind of genre fiction I'm not crazy about.

I do occasionally write about books I'm reading - but frankly, I have not been working on getting a following for this, or any other aspect of the blog.  I also think that most of the books I read are not recently published, and therefore not "hot" and therefore not of interest to the fashion conscious reader.  That said, I have read two books that are just about to be published and I suppose I could write about those, but I am not going to do that.

However, despite a heavy diet of books published in 1910, 2005, 2007 and 2003 (I think), I am now reading a current book: Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies.  I really enjoyed Wolf Hall and am finding the way she challenges my Catholic-educated prejudices about Cromwell very enjoyable.  I doubt whether I will finish before the great day of the Booker Prize.  I really admire her work - she has written several books that have made an impression on me, most notably A Place of Greater Safety, 8 Months on Gizzeh Street, Beyond Black.  I have liked some of her other books too.  I particularly like the fact that she writes both contemporary novels and historical novels and takes up interesting topics.  I guess in so far as there's a writer I would like to be like, it's her.  Sadly whenever I have submitted my texts to the I Write Like website, the answer is still HP Lovecraft (why? why?)  Actually, I don't particularly aspire to her style - I aspire to her range.

Today the PM announced there would be major national remembrance of the outbreak of WWI.  Perhaps I will get my book snapped up as a result...I wonder if Hilary Mantel has ever toyed with the idea of a WWI book.  It wasn't my choice to use that period, but it happens to be when the events happened.  I am looking forward to getting back to it.  Meanwhile I have been re-editing The Romantic Feminist for the "last time" - taking on board the advice Denise gave me.  She recommended I take out a lot of the discussion about Feminism and Romanticism... I think she was reading a different book called Lucy gets Laid  or something... that was what she enjoyed about the book!

No comments:

Post a Comment