reading habit
Book Editor’s note
Hi all, last Thursday, March 4, was World Book Day, made all the more special this year because I’ve been in the process of shifting houses. The 200-odd books in my small space reminded me that while I could throw away literally anything to make the process easier, not a single book shall remain behind. They are home.
A list of good literary reads
One: Misquoting classic books and movies on the internet and at parties is not quite new, but commemorating stories and people by misquoting them on official, long-lasting things—like coins—is just downright embarrassing. The latest victim of one such debacle is Lewis Carroll, who appears on a collection of 50p coins in the UK alongside a number of wrongly-attributed quotes.
Two: Vladimir Nabokov, best known for the needs-no-introduction 'Lolita', wrote an astonishing poem about… Superman and Lois Lane. Named 'The Man of To-morrow’s Lament', the poem is a sorrowful expression of Superman’s inability to have children with the love of his life. The full story, in the Guardian, is fascinating.
Three: In this gorgeous audio episode over at the BBC, we hear writers Max Porter, Richard Powers, Robert Macfarlane and others talk about the irreplaceable role forests play in our imaginative lives. While they feature prominently in fairy tales, they also help us understand our adult lives. It’s a stunning meditative listen.
Four: Earlier, women rarely wrote spy fiction. Now, not only are their numbers increasing, they’re also changing the face of the genre, bringing fresh outlooks on stories both familiar and astoundingly new. CrimeReads did a roundtable with Lara Prescott, Lauren Wilkinson, Rosalie Knecht, and Tracy O’Neill, and their insights are eye-opening.
Five: The Jhalak Prize is Britain’s top literary award exclusively for writers of colour, and one of my favourite prizes, since it never fails to make my TBR pile teeter just a little bit more, and it was founded by the amazing Nikesh Shukla. The 2021 longlist is out, and it looks like my next few weeks are sorted.
Six: Mashable has one hell of a challenge-slash-experiment: sure, you can binge-watch media content all day long, but can you read the entirety of 'The Lord of the Rings' in one day??? Chris Taylor speed-read and recorded his day-long adventure so that you can ride shotgun with him and still come out with a strong sense of achievement.
Quick fixes, aka a few varied recommendations
What I’m reading: I’m juuust beginning 'The Library at Mount Char' by Scott Hawkins so I can’t say much, except that it is thrilling and madcap and it’s truly a prime example of how speculative fiction should be.
A childhood fave: Skulduggery Pleasant isn’t your regular detective. For one, he is a skeleton. And two, he might be facing an ancient evil to stop it from ending the world alongside… a twelve-year old? This series, by Derek Landy, is still going strong, and for pre-teens with a penchant for epic fights and relatable heroes, this is top-notch.
Book-adjacent rec of the week: Epic Reads is one of the largest young adult fiction communities online. They radiate pure love and enthusiasm when championing a book or an author, and honestly that alone makes them worth it, but they also have a variety of content to partake of, including interactive quizzes, lists of all kinds, and colourful charts that serve as recommendation tools.
Underrated author of the week: It pains me to include Josephine Tey in this category, but the criminal truth is that not enough have read her, or even heard of her. A pioneering writer of detective fiction combining locked-room mysteries and the darker side of crime, her best work remains ‘The Daughter of Time’, which was selected by the British Crime Writers' Association as the greatest crime novel of all time.
Bookish adaptation to watch out for: This is an old one, but I have been re-watching it as a stressbuster and it never fails me—'Elementary’, an even more unusual take on Sherlock Holmes than the Icarus-like ‘Sherlock’. The mysteries are actually puzzling and require hard work and logical reasoning, the character development is everything I can hope for in real life, and Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson is a right inspiration. It’s on Prime Video, so please run to it and start watching.
Still waiting for: ‘My Salinger Year’, which is based on Joanna Rakoff's memoir of working as an assistant to literary super agent Phyllis Westberg, who presented JD Salinger. It released in theatres earlier this month, but we will likely have to wait until it hits a streaming platform near us. But we can always read the book, or enjoy the trailer:
Note: Reading Habit is curated by our books editor Anushree Kaushal. Want to send along recommendations, feedback or just say hi? Email her at kaushalanushree@gmail.com
