I ended my last “My Reading Life” update with this statement:

I’m hoping to get back to my Classic Club list and pick up another couple of African authors. That’s the idea – whether April will turn out that way is an entirely different matter.

That turned out to be wishful thinking on my part. I didn’t read any books from my Classics Club books nor did I read a single African author.

I blame John Steinbeck.

I chose his final novel Now is the Winter of our Discontent as my contribution to the 1961 Club hosted by Simon and Karen. Though I started early enough I was still reading it when the club came to an end. It was only 276 pages long so why did it take me the best part of three weeks to get to the end?

The plot — about Ethan Allen Hawley , an ordinary man who struggles to maintain his honesty and integrity amidst a corrupt society — was interesting. But I didn’t find Hawley’s character engaging in the slightest. And why Steinbeck chose to make Hawley’s interactions with his wife so ridiculously frothy I can’t imagine.

I kept reading in the hope that the novel would improve but since I could only bear to read four or five pages each time, it took forever to get to the end.

As an antidote I ended up reading the kind of book that’s the equivalent of “comfort food”:

The Lost Man by Jane Harper: a strongly atmospheric crime novel set in the Australian outback. Review is here.

Still Water by Rebecca Pert: another novel that drew me in because of its setting. A small Shetland island forms the background to a novel exploring an unresolved trauma and a fractured relationship between mother and daughter.

In search of even more light relief I picked up You are Here by David Nicholls, a wonderfully poignant tale of two mature people hemmed in by loneliness. Thrown together on a long distance walk across the breadth of England, they begin to open up but misunderstandings might get in the way of happiness. With some genuinely lough out loud scenes and wonderful depictions of the Lake District, the Pennines, the Yorkshire Dales,

Future Plans??

What’s on the horizon for May? I don’t know is the short answer. I’ve made a return visit to the TBR Book Jar to help me decide what to read next, the results of which I’ll be sharing shortly. I’m also slowly making my way through The Finest Hotel in Kabul – it’s fascinating though I can absorb only so much at one time. After reading so many contemporary novels lately I now have a hankering for a really solid classic.

Beyond that you’ll just have to watch this space!