here comes the weekend: coffee and reading plans

I recently purchased The Love Letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West and I am reading them alongside Nabakov's Letter's to Vera. I am LOVING this actually.

I'm feeling a lot behind on everything  in my life, but this is a good weekend to get caught up honestly. I am going to make sure that I get in bed at a decent time, and make some plans for my reading and re-reading.

I've decided that The Brothers Karamazov is my "ending of summer re-read". I have only read 2 tiny chapters, and I am already so glad that I chose it. Picking up Dostoevsky right after Tolstoy is pure psychological therapy- especially if one journals alongside their reading. I could use some existential exploration and I will find it by reading these two titans.

I have been favoring instant coffee lately. (a tad embarrassing is it not?). I think it's more a reflection of how exhausted I am in the morning, but I still miss my morning coffee-making rituals. I'll be happy when they return. Also, learning that Nestle bought this company means I won't be buying this coffee again so I'll sip slowly until it's all gone.

Yesterday I combined walking on the treadmill with reading a physical book. That was as difficult as walking a tightrope until I got the hang of it. Yikes..., but the things we do to get to the end of a chapter. After successfully walking and not falling, I kept reading that way for an hour. I now have a new hobby. 

So, that is what this weekend entails. Tidying up. Getting my life fully back on track after travel and med appts, working out, and reading.

Wishing you well as your weekend begins. Happy reading. ☕️ 

anita brookner: look at me opening paragraph and novel revisit

my copy i picked up in new york a few weeks ago

In continuation of my Anita Brookner project, I have to resurrect the title I began in May and haven't picked up since! 

Her novels are best when sunken into, so in order to do it justice I needed to clear a few things off my plate first. Now that I have, I am eager to spend my evenings with this great work.

Goodreads summary

A lonely art historian absorbed in her research seizes the opportunity to share in the joys and pleasures of the lives of a glittering couple, only to find her hopes of companionship and happiness shattered.

Opening paragraph:

"Once a thing is know it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And, in a way that bends time, so long as it is remembered, it will indicate the future. It is wiser, in every circumstance, to forget, to cultivate the art of forgetting. To remember is to face the enemy. The truth lies in remembering." 

I'm excited to get back into her world. I always find myself journaling heavily while reading her works. I love how quiet and real her works are. If you've never picked her up, you can start most easily with Hotel Du Lac (her booker prize winner) and you'll know if she is for you. (She has to be!)

my sister, the serial killer: a RAVING review

You know how sometimes all the stars align to create a perfect and magical reading experience and it changes you forever? That's what happened when reading My Sister, the Serial Killer by Nigerian-British novelist Oyinkan Braithwaite.

I did NOT have this planned. I owned this physical copy for about a year, and something made me go over to my shelves, and pick it up. I thought, "I'll make this coffee, and read a few pages and see how I feel."

A few chapters in, I stumbled from my reading chair to the couch, book in tow, and settled in with a few snacks vowing to read "just a few more pages."

Quickly I realized that I wouldn't be able to get up until every single word was digested into my soul.

Braithwaite's writing is succinct, punchy, and powerful. I struggle to review books that affect me deeply, but will do my best to do so here.

How stunning is she?!!?! I am fascinated by her storytelling ability, and her layered character development that sinks you down into the story and situates you RIGHT in the place and time of the events.

 

What this novel explores:

• familial relationships
• enmeshment
• duty
• being exploited
• anxiety
• sibling dynamics
• relationships
• romance
• turning gender norms upside down
• parental endorsement of behavior

As I typed that list, I still struggled not to add things because doing so would spoil the novel in my opinion, and I hate spoilers so I don't give them.

All I can say is if you've been thinking of reading this one, ignore the 3.67 star rating (I always find that the world's 3 stars are my 5 stars), and pick this up immediately. 

I have to try Braithwaite's short story Treasure now. 

one book book haul: ghost mountain by Rónán Hession

Only purchasing what I feel most called to, and novels that I feel will change me or my life.

I am so excited for this novel. Rónán Hession is an author to watch for sure. 

heading out of town with war and peace

This novel, this sweeping story of love, duty, loss, pain, regret, envy, duty.... I can go on and on. This is my company as I feel overwhelmed and stressed. 

Heading out of town for a busy, hot, rainy vacation. I thought of taking another novel, but War and Peace will be my companion for any downtime.

It's a fallacy that  you have to read a contemporary novel for vacation vibes. I am loving this reread :)

Here's hoping that what you are reading is transforming and changing you, and that you find peace while reading. 

poetry pause: spotlight :: langston hughes: the negro speaks of rivers

(  To W.E.B. DuBois )

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, ad I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. 

-Langston Hughes

books i want to read to finish out the summer

The summer has been extremely busy, and quite overwhelming if I'm to be honest. Reading (my constant companion) has been littered with dnfing up a storm- anything moderately uninteresting or boring GOES immediately.

Sorry not sorry.

I'm slowing working my way through War and Peace. I love Tolstoy so much, and his characters are so remarkable. So rich. So real. I don't think I am in the minority with this thought (though I may be), but I love even all of the war bits.

It's interesting to read alongside the Napoleon biography that I picked up. 

I am getting the itch to re-read as my life gets super busy in the heat of this summer. I'll allow myself to be pulled towards books I haven't read, and will reserve my favorite re-reads for the Fall when I am back in graduate school (unrelated in every single way from literature).

Here's what else I'm reading this summer...

snippets from letters to vera (mr. nabokov) : part II

SO different from our current time when "wyd" is meant to signify interest. {insert huge eye roll}. Vladimir writes to his wife with an obsession passion that I enjoy slowly working my way through.

Quotes from the letters to vera...

I'm so sorry I wrote nonsense to you. My brains are disheveled- their hairpins have fallen out: just as there are bare-headed people, I'm somehow bare-brained... Do you understand?"

Without you I wouldn't have moved this way, to speak the language of flowers.

I am becoming more and more firmly convinced that art is the only thing that matters in life.

See you soon, my love, don't be angry with me. I know that I am a very boring and unpleasant man, drowned in literature... But I love you.

My delightful, my love, my life, I don't understand anything: how can you not be with me? I'm so infinitely used to you that I now feel myself lost and empty: without you, my soul.

 How strange that although my life's work is moving a pen over paper, I don't know how to tell you how I love, how I desire you.

I'll have to see you forty-eight hours a day... 

 
I'm loving these letters. Part obsession. Part entertaining. All love. Gorgeous.

Other posts in this series:

• Snippets from Letters to Vera (Mr. Nabokov): Part I 

poetry pause: spotlight :: t.s. eliot : IV

stock photo of a beautiful night

IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies,

That fade behind a city block,

Or trampled by insistent feet

At four and five and six o'clock;

And short square fingers stuffing pipes,

And evening newspapers, and eyes

Assured of certain certainties,

The conscience of a blackened street

Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gentle

Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;

The worlds revolve like ancient women

Gathering fuel in vacant lots. 

-T.S. Eliot

Lolita by Valdamir Nabokov : A Review

Place holding a post to review Lolita. This was from August 29, 2023. I have yet to be capable of writing a review. 

I literally JUST finished it. My mouth is agape. My soul is burning. My heart aches.

This is my successful 4th attempt at this novel. The first three times I never made it past the 7th page. I am so happy that I endured this time.

I am going to read Nabokov's "On a Book Entitled Lolita", and I hope that within 2 days I can come and complete this review.

annotated Lolita with Nabakov's essay at the end