What have you recently finished reading?
The last thing I finished was, on a total whim based on seeing it in the offering in my library’s Comics Plus subscription, Chiuko Umeshibu’s Yankee & Carameliser. It turned out pretty cute, with a “bad boy” protagonist who loves to bake and a supportive classmate who encourages him, and (of course) ends up falling in love with him. There’s some pretty sad/homophobic backstory for Maki which doesn’t entirely get addressed, keeping the toneĀ mostly light.
What are you currently reading?
A lot of books at once, more than usual still, but I can’t say I’m actually focusing on all of them. I most recently started Cecilia Edward’sĀ An Ancient Witch’s Guide to Modern Dating, which so far feels a bit too rom-com for my tastes… but I’m giving it a chance, especially as I remember seeing some positive reviews of it which led me to add it to my TBR in the first place.
I also recently started Alexa Hagerty’sĀ Still Life with Bones, on a much more serious note: it’s a bit like Sue Black’s books about her work as a forensic anthropologist, but focuses on work in Latin America pursuing the truth about state terror and genocide. I’m not very far into it yet.
What will you be reading next?
I’m trying not to start any new reads, and instead focus on some of the ones I’ve got started but haven’t got far with. That means I need to get back to Gareth Russell’sĀ Queen James, for a start, since that’s the BookSpin choice for me for April’s challenge on Litsy — though I also need to start S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws.
Ingo Niermann’s “Complete Love: Solution 257” [Sternberg Press] was interesting. I picked it up in a London bookshop, and its narrative of contemporary Berlin was descriptive and intriguing. It appears as a polemic, or a novel to advocate for completism. It would be interesting to compare impressions. What is completism? Niermann describes it as a complete commitment towards justice to move beyond human rights into the idea that everyone – disabled people, those with diagnoses such as Down’s syndrome, and so on – have the right to intimacy and love. Niermann’s protagonist is a writer who meets a completist and travels, searching for her, to a completist festival. It’s a poignant demonstration of how emotionally and socially crippling the lonliness epidemic really is for those who are mobility impaired.
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