Marcus Hobson > Recent Status Updates

I love the way objects from the observations in the book keep reemerging in the story, continuing to play a part.

I still have another 60+ pages to go in my copy of this book.

There are some great throw-away lines in here:
'Nick mistook his love for my potential as love for me.'
Lots to unpick in that observation, but it just flashed past in a mass of other great lines...

One Chekhov story and one Turgenev so far. So completely different but only 45 years between them. How different these writing styles are.

This is a great way to slow down your reading & think "What did I just read, absorb, understand or not see'\".

This is stunning!

It is a rare thing, when you read all the time, to be confronted by a book that feel utterly unique. This is unique, unexpected and brilliant.

Like Angela Carter has been reborn.

Wonderfully candid and inspiring. And at the same time interesting.
"I've never been in therapy as I like to live with my demons...I guess this book is a massive act of self-interrogation."

This is beautifully written.
Describing an unhappy family life where the house is too small and the couple no longer care for each other, is this concluding sentence:
"When they decided they could afford to re-cover the sofa, they chose a fabric neither of them liked."

"Sex was the root of all society's suspicions. People saw it everywhere, in everything: low necklines, tight skirts, red nail polish, black underwear, bikinis, the fraternising of the sexes, the darkness of cinemas, public toilets, the muscles of Tarzan, women who smoked and crossed their legs, girls who touched their hair in class, etc."

So many good stories.

After reading the first chapter I feel like I have found a new W G Sebald. Not so much like going down a rabbit hole but entering a whole subterranean warren.

Not matter what I do, I cannot read this book quickly. It takes all my energy just to absorb a handful of pages. It is a book worthy of that time taken.

Lost in the beauty of this book.

This is beautifully done.

WTF Mr Porter.
I've finished and I have NFI - no fucking idea.
Perhaps if I read it again...

Very enjoyable.

I have no idea...

Finally I have got further than I did four months ago. I must have been reading it in the dark, because there are so many things that I missed before.

I've started reading this again - it is much better this time, so perhaps my frame of mind wasn't right four months ago!