My last read for #NovellasInNovember - I didn't quite finish it in November because it demanded slow reading and reflection of me.

The Sense of an Ending is a story about the paradoxes of existence, the unreliability of memory and the way we curate our memories to tell a manipulated version of the story of our lives.

It's utterly brilliant.

https://thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2022/12/03/the-sense-of-an-ending/

#NovNov22 #Jans2022readinglist #Books #BookReview #JulianBarnes #TheSenseOfAnEnding

#MonaArshi's novel Somebody Loves You is exceptionally beautiful and sad in its depiction of a family trying to maintain stability. Seen through the eyes of Ruby, a girl who has internalised her own otherness while observing the otherness around her, the story deals with mental health, racism, sexual assault and the complexities of suburban life.

https://thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2022/11/28/somebody-loves-you/

#Books #BookReview #NovNov22

Is A Pale View of Hills a ghost story, or is it the true memory of a Japanese woman transplanted from Nagasaki to an anonymous village in England?

#KazuoIshiguro's debut novel introduces the writer we now know him to be, over a career of eight novels (so far). It's full of observations on Japanese life but also his bread and butter observations on alienation and being an outsider.

#NovNov22 #NovellasInNovember #APaleViewOfHills #Books #BookReview

https://thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2022/11/27/a-pale-view-of-hills/

The Philosophy of Libraries

I've had Packing My Library on my To Read pile for a while, but the #NovellasInNovember reading challenge gave me the impetus to pick it up.

I loved #AlbertoManguel's perspective on libraries, literature and reading. I relished the way he allowed his thoughts to wander off on certain topics, and the way these apparently disparate digressions all threaded together into a coherent whole.

https://thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2022/11/23/packing-my-library-an-elegy-and-ten-digressions/

#books #novnov22 #nonfictionnovember

A Very Normal Man tells the curious tale of Giovanni Vivaldi, a clerk in the Ministry of Pensions, working towards his own retirement when a swift and shocking tragedy occurs.

The tragedy leads to a moment of decision that takes an unexpected turn, with Giovanni taking a brutal revenge on the perpetrator of the tragedy.

I loved it.

#jans2022readinglist #averynormalman #vincenzocerami #isobelgrave #novnov22 #novellasinnovember #books #bookblogger

https://thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/a-very-normal-man/