A heatwave, a holiday, a birthday, and a big long list

My goodness has it been hot this month! We went to Corfu 🇬🇷, for a few days, where the weather was a mixed bag, so it was a bit of a surprise to come back to the UK and suffer through a heatwave in May, which is like 30 degrees Celsius here (the humidity makes it worse I swear!). It’s been pretty busy on the writing front too. And with my birthday this month (I was 25 once again) came an influx of new books for my TBR pile, woop-woop 🥳

The Guardian published its list of the 100 greatest novels this month and, let me tell you, I’m here for a good list. I love them. Always have. Whatever the list is about, I don’t much care. If someone goes to the effort of creating a top 20 list of the greatest balloon artists of all time, or toilet manufacturers, I’ll read it. I’ve always loved reading about new things, sometimes the more weird or even mundane the better, and interesting people. A top 10/20/50/100 etc. list is sometimes the best way (I find) to get stuck into the history of a topic, the main influences and stars, and people at the top of their game often lead interesting lives / have interesting characters.

There’s a hugely subjective element to such lists, as they’re often done to create debate, but still, you can learn a lot and that’s what sucks me in each time. As I’ve said many times to my wife, who just shakes her head in bewilderment, if we ever won the lottery I’d probably become a permanent student, completing degree after degree after degree in whatever topic next takes my fancy. That’d suit me down to the ground.

Also, with a list of the greatest books of all time, I’m not going to lie, there was an element of that English literature student / snob in me that thought, I’ll tick off half the novels and feel really smart. Well, that feeling disappeared immediately when I realised how few I had read 😂! I’d started and not finished almost as many as I’d finished (and I didn’t count books I didn’t finish).

My overall stats were 15/100 read and 10/100 started and not finished; though 6 of those 10 are in the top 20, which either proves how subjective these lists are or that I’m simply just a philistine. Perhaps I’d have felt a bit too smug had I read ¼ of the novels on the list. My lack of conviction and inability to persevere when I get a bit bored did me over there, or maybe it rescued my wife from a fortnight of me wandering around in turtlenecks quaffing black coffee and quoting Sartre.

Well, another month and nothing written on my novel!

However, I did write and submit two new short stories to anthologies this month, so it’s been a pretty productive. That makes it 4 new short stories this year and one heavily edited that was about 50% new, so, like, 4 ½ new stories this year, almost one a month. Not bad going, I’d say, given how busy life is at the moment.

After this month, my focus for the summer will be my novel (if I can settle on which idea it is I will actually write…) and then I may take a break and try and write another hard SF story to submit to next year’s Jim Baen Memorial Award contest. I had fun writing my last story for that contest and enjoyed all the research about current and planned developments for space travel.

I’m going out on a limb and recommending a 1,000 page epic about the construction of a fictional cathedral in 12th Century England. That may sound dull, but trust me, it’s such a great book. It is set in a fascinating time, known as “the Anarchy”, when Henry I died (1135) without a (male) heir and Stephen of Blois usurped the throne from Henry’s daughter, the Empress Matilda. The story starts following the sinking of the White Ship (1120) which claimed the life of Henry’s male heir, and it ends around the murder of Thomas Beckett (1170). The book itself follows the riches-to-rags story of a noblewoman who learns to be strong and independent, a monk who leads the construction of the cathedral, a project that transforms the sleepy village of Kingsbridge into a major town, and the visionary apprentice stonemason who works on the build and is in love with the noblewoman (and whose story takes you through architectural developments of that time). It’s just brilliant. Love, politics, power, intrigue, the precariousness of life in an unstable time, this book has it all.

On a side note, I personally love visiting cathedrals (my favourites in the UK are St. Davids, Exeter and Gloucester), and I find them just awe inspiring, especially when you consider they were built at a time when technology was so rudimentary, yet they still take your breath away a thousand years later. I don’t know, maybe I am biased on this one, but I can’t recommend it enough.

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What I’ve been reading: I read “The Memory Police” by Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder). I’ve heard it called the Japanese 1984, and that kind of fits the bill from an atmospheric sense, though the storylines are very different. Essentially, on an unnamed island, things start “disappearing” (such as birds, roses, and ribbons) and the island’s inhabitants simply stop being able to recall anything about those items. Those that do remember, however, live in hiding from the Memory Police. This was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, I believe, and it was very well written, though my grounding in a Western storytelling tradition meant I was left with certain expectations for a resolution to questions raised in the book, which were ultimately left not answered and that left me scratching my head as to whether or not I liked this. Overall, I do like it. It’s a great concept that produces some alarming and unsettling scenarios, the descriptions and minutiae of life are really well handled, and there’s even a book within a book that I wish was expanded on too. I think it’s a case of a book written in a different story telling tradition that, in some ways, did not align with what I have learned to expect. I’m certainly no expert, but I don’t think Japanese story telling tradition is as result orientated as the Western tradition, and there’s more a focus on the journey itself and the change (an increasing gloom and despair) rather than the outcome. And that’s cool. It’s always an edifying experience to read something from a different culture and see how writers there tackle stories and visions of the future (or dystopia).

I’ve started reading short story collections alongside a novel each month, which has been great for refreshing my palette and seeing what other short story writers are up to. This month I’ve been reading Uncertain Sons and other stories by Thomas Ha, who has been a finalist in recent years for most of the major speculative fiction awards (Nebula, Hugo, Ignyte, Locus and Shirley Jackson). It’s his first collection and it’s all killer and no filler, in my view. Tense, creepy, unsettling, and just so imaginative. I’m thoroughly enjoying. It’s also got a pretty cool cover that sets the mood for what you’re about to read.

FYI, I’ve added a “What I’m Reading” carousel to the newsletter page on my website, if anyone ever wished to scroll back at the titles.

What I’ve been watching: We watched all four seasons of “Love on the Spectrum” this month, which was quite the binge by our standards. We loved it. A very heart warming documentary that follows the lives of a number of single adults with autism as they try to find love. Tears were shed, let me tell you. I think for a while we were nervous the programme might have been a bit exploitative. It can be hard to trust the motives of some shows these days; I think of the first season of Married at First Sight (UK), which (from memory) seemed like some effort had gone into matching compatible couples but then that no longer happened and the entertainment factor seemed to rule. However, we were reassured early on and it seemed that the producers did a great job matching a lot of couples together. It was also very insightful into the lives led by people with autism and the challenges they face (and overcome) on a daily basis that I had not considered / been really aware of before.

It had to be a heatwave meme!

And it’s so true 😆

Until next time, keep dreaming.

Joel