Books

I read a fair few books yet I never remember all the books I read, so during the course of 30before30, I will be blogging a review of every book that I read to serve as an aide-memoir. Here's to reading  in 2011/2012.

The Life of Pi - Yann Martel (completed on 22nd September)

Started this book years ago and then left it at my friend's house who then took it to the charity shop even though I hadn't finished it, so jumped at the chance to complete it when Ms E-J offered it to me. Anyway interesting book, by no means my favourite nor has it left me with a sense of questioning the world or my place in it, but nonetheless a good read and a testament to the human will and strength of survival. Sure everyone has read it so not going to rehash the story. Possibility of an Island still resonates with me and I see examples of Houllebecq's dystopian vision everywhere, from the effeminate asexual images in men's fashion magazines. Seriously disturbing, 

The Possibility of an Island – Michel Houellebecq

Monsieur Houllebecq manages to do it again – seduces me into delving his car-crash of a depression inducing book. You would have thought that I’d learned myself after seeing Atomised (years ago when I was still naïve and innocent) and then READING the damn book and it leaving me in a slightly dystopian comatose state. The man is obsessed with sex and I would argue that his books verge on the pornographic – damn verging, they are pornographic and misogynistic and Islamophobic (if he were a visual artist he would be David Altmejd – especially his The Healers sculpture – not that I think Altmejd is Islamophobic) BUT I think he does a very Orwellian thing of capturing the society that we live in its most dystopian sense. The Possibility of an Island explores themes of aging, beauty, commodification and oddly for Houllebecq,  the search for love and how it really does complete us (even if that love is held together by sexual depravity) I’m not even half-way through yet, but it’s such an interesting book which is told by a comedian (of the Rusell Brand variety) living in our time and his future clones. Will detail more when I finish

Tappin on Thirty - Candice Dow

Yes I’m sufficiently embarrassed to reveal this as the first read on my list!!! I never read chick-lit (but this is BLACK chick-lit I hear you cry), but my mother gave this to me in order for me to see what black women prioritise as they approach 30 – i.e finding a man and settling down, blah blah blah. This was an uber easy read and I was not sufficiently agitated to put it down without completing it.  Could not relate to the characters and their super hotness, expensive watches and high-flying careers and there isn’t really a lot for me to say about this book, other than it’s not staying on my bookshelf!!!