Greetings loved ones, and happy new year!

I realise I am a little (11 days) late posting this, but trying to film the reel to go with it when it stays bright for approx 2.5 hours a day has been a challenge, and I was also sick until literally January 3rd, the day I went back to work, so that was fun. 

Anywho, the reel for this blog post is up on my Instagram if you'd like a peek, otherwise, let's get into the books I read over November and December.

1. The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

First up was The Golden Notebook - a relatively chunky book which took me a little while to get through, the text is also miniature so my visually challenged eyeballs couldn't stay awake very long when reading in stints.

This book follows Anna, a writer and author of one very successful book, who now keeps four notebooks - each with a different purpose, and each included in this book. The black notebook contains writings on her experience in Africa in her younger years, the red notebook is where she records her political views and experience of socialism and communism and her disillusionment with the latter, the yellow notebook contains a novel she is writing in which the main character bears a resemblance to Anna herself and her experiences in life, and the blue notebook is her own personal diary.

At a stage of her life where her romantic relationships begin to threaten her sanity, Anna decided to thread aspects of all four notebooks into one - the golden notebook.

I did enjoy this book - I like a long book because I feel you can really become engrossed in the story and familiar with the characters - but I did find it a little rambling at times and in some parts confusing switching back and forth between the different notebooks. I did enjoy her style of writing and would definitely read something by her again, I just felt this book was probably dragged out longer than it needed to be. 

2. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

This was my next read of November, and I have to say - I absolutely loved David Sedaris' book Calypso (review here), but this book and the Theft By Findings tome I read a few months ago just do not measure up. He is comedic in some parts but often quite crude, and as these are slightly older books, some of the topics and ways of speaking about things can be quite offensive (and that's not coming from someone in the woke brigade, I can just see why people find him offensive).

Sedaris seems to have had an unusual and unconventional upbringing, as he describes in this book and others, and maybe that lends itself to his unusual writing style.

The first part of this book contains essays about the author's life and upbringing in Raleigh, North Carolina before he makes the move to Normandy, France. The second part of the book dictates Sedaris' move to France with his partner, Hugh, where he does not speak the language despite many frustrated attempts to learn it.

If you own it, give it a read and see what you think, but I wouldn't be going out of my way to purchase it. Definitely try Calypso first!

3. Jump - Daniella Moyles

I heard so many great things about this book, and I'm sorry to say, but it irritated me to no end. I kept thinking it would improve, but it didn't.

This is a memoir, said to be about growing up, making bad decisions, adventures, love and loss. The author writes about essentially her attempt to "find herself", and I got to the end of the book wondering when that part was going to come up.

The first half of the book was relatively interesting as the author gives her background on how she became successful as a model and how she had what looked like an idyllic life from the outside, while the reality was very different, her difficult relationship with her father growing up, and her struggle with her mother being ill a lot. This half was interesting and promising for what the next half held, but it kind of went nowhere from there. 

She decides to end her relationship and go travelling to find herself, her purpose, what she is meant to be doing etc, which is what we read in the second half. I just felt like I was constantly waiting for the moment where she was going to have a substantial life change or epiphany or key "ah-hah" moment, but every time you thought you were getting close to one she would then say she went to a party and took a load of drugs and meets a random guy on the beach, travels here and there and doesn't seem to have any real desire to change or inspect why she feels the way she does. 

In general wasn't a fan, but a lot of people are, so maybe I just didn't get what she was trying to achieve in the book, despite the first half appearing promising.

4. Double Blind - Edward St Aubyn

It's not all "meh", the books improved from here and I enjoyed this one (and really enjoyed the next one, promise).

This story follows three close friends and their wider circle through an intense and dramatic year in their lives, set between London, Cap d'Antibes, Big Sur and a "rewilded" corner of Sussex (rewilded, as far as I can gather, means making the land and area more sustainable and using it to its full potential for the greater good of the planet).

Olivia and her new boyfriend Francis (who is into "rewilding", nature and lives off the grid) find themselves looking after Olivia's best friend Lucy who suddenly becomes unwell and whose whole life appears to turn upsidedown, just days after moving back from New York and getting a new job.

Throughout the rest of the book we find out the unique traits of Lucy's boss, Hunter, Olivia's psychoanalyst parents and one of their clients, Sebastian. The overlap among their lives will change them all in different ways. While the book is educational on the topics of ecology, psychoanalysis, genetics and neuroscience, it is also about love, fear and courage. An enjoyable read.

5. Here Comes The Miracle - Anna Beecher

This was without doubt my favourite book of the lot and has also made it onto my favourite books of 2021 list (blog post on that list coming soon).

This is such a gorgeous and emotional story, so if you're feeling fragile at all (which I was at the time), brace yourself.

The story starts with a baby being born too early, but miraculously he survives. His name is Joe. Decades earlier, a 17 year old boy falls in love with his best friend Jack, in a secret patch in a hedge. The boy turns out to be Edward, Joe's grandfather, now married to Eleanor.

Emily, Joe's little sister, watches him defy the odds dealt to him at birth and grow into a musically talented young man and longs for a boyfriend (not unlike his grandfather, Edward). He is ready for the excitement life has to throw at him. However, instead of excitement, Joe gets a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer, and is left waiting for yet another miracle.

This is such a gorgeous story about love, loss and family, told from the perspectives of each of the people closest to Joe. A must read!

Let me know what books you've been loving recently - I am always looking for new reads, despite my To Be Read pile ever-growing to the point where it will be taller than me soon.

Keep your eyes peeled for the next post which will be a wrap-up of my favourite books that I read in 2021, so you too can create a To Be Read pile that will become taller than you.

Thank you for reading as always, sending lots of love and manifesting great things for you for 2022.

S ✗