Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?

Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them

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Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week, including a novel on 90s culture, a study of mid-life crises, and books that help us practice acceptance and kindness.

Grace Barclay is reading The Once & Future King by TH White, and left this moving comment:

Why the story about King Arthur? As a survivor of all that life has thrown at me over the course of my 53½ years, I have finally decided to read one of the stories that has motivated me since the late 1960’s. Might for Right; not Might is Right. I live in South Africa, growing up in Apartheid. Was abused by a close family member. Have come to understand that life is never easy and we as human beings just cannot give up and let all the negatives take over. I practice in my daily life acceptance of other human beings, whatever their colour or religion or lack thereof. I do not give up, even in the face of overwhelming negativity from other people. I retreat strategically and then come back again, each and every day. This is what I am learning from The Once and Future King.

This is a beautifully written study of a man’s life, and a contrast between a hopeful inner life but an outer life that never realizes his full potential nor dreams. William Stoner finds himself in mid-life admitting to himself: “He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.” A tragic thought. He does have times of happiness, and it is interesting that the author thinks William Stoner had a good life. He did his job, in a field he enjoyed, knew passion, experienced friendship. But, to me, this is a very sad book, and yet a rich reading experience. contributed by

The book is about two teenaged girls in 1991 who live in a working class area of Pennsylvania. They are both alienated from a culture that expects girls to behave in certain ways, and the book charts how their longing for independence and unique identities goes awry. Kurt Cobain, of Nirvana, plays a huge role in it, as he is the music “crush” of one of the girls.

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