Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week, from Vasily Grossman discussions to bookshop discoveries to the latest affliction of bookworms: sleep-reading.

flavadaveflynn has just finished Teju Cole’s Every Day is for the Thief and also recommended Gordon Burn’s Alma Cogan:

[...] An excoriating examination of corruption in the author’s native Nigeria. This roman a clef, written in an allusive, lucid style, is brimming with intelligent insight about the troubles faced by Nigeria – both past and present. I’ve now moved on to Gordon Burn’s novel about the underbelly of fame: Alma Cogan. The ever reliable John Self recommended this on Twitter, and luckily for me I stumbled upon a copy on my parent’s bookshelf. Burn’s novel casts dissimulation and surreality as fame’s bedfellows. I’m only thirty pages in but I’m mightily impressed with what I’ve read so far. Stylistically it’s akin to Martin Amis, it’s all fizzing adjectives and punchy description. Highly recommended.

julian6 shared his thoughts about Joyce Carol Oates’s epic novel, Them:

It covers the poor and struggling between 1937 and the late sixties, focusing on one family who are not sentimentalised but are richly drawn – their hopes, fears and failings presented without varnish. Yes, you could say there are longeurs but somehow she maintains her grip – and the sense of a constantly unfolding psychological drama silences criticism. Oates offers no glib solutions and above all wishes to present inner conflicts in all their turbulence and irrationality – thereby making her characters live long in your mind, their vulnerability magnificently exposed.

Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman has been sparking a number of discussions lately. Albertine67 shared:

I am still thinking about how on Earth one can begin to talk about Life and Fate. When I finished it the other night I turned the light out and went to sleep, feeling emotionally and intellectually drained. I still haven’t picked up another book yet, I am still feeling its power.

There are perhaps two things that are particularly haunting me: the choices made by the characters (and the depiction of the decision-making processes) and the ending. The main protagonist, Shtrum the physicist, makes a choice that is almost noble, saintly, given the impact it will have on him, his work, his family; and then, in a later chapter, makes a choice which is pragmatic but is completely at odds with his principles. [...] Similarly, there are many loose ends left at the end; I feel that is completely right for the book, and have to admit that I prefer that type of ending generally, but I realise it’s not for everyone.

It is just unbelievably good, and I want to run out and buy copies to give out to strangers on the street, as well as my friends. Maybe that’s really all there is to say: give it a chance and read it.

conedison introduced us to the concept of “sleep-reading”:

My wife awakened in the middle of the night to find me sitting up in bed with the light on. I was sleep-reading ... again. You may consider this a strange circumstance, but what’s even stranger is that I held no actual book in my hands. My wife claims it didn’t stop me from turning the pages, though. I wish I knew what book I was reading, but ... but what if – what if it was something ... (forgive me, Lord) something low-brow? I mean something REALLY low-brow? Or even worse, what if I have an entire virtual-library of the mind made up solely of low-brow books and Barbara Cartland’s the Head Librarian?

Finally, Audrey Schoeman in China shared a brilliant discovery – and raised questions about whether a book’s accessibility can work against it:

I am bursting with excitement to let people know what I did this weekend. Wait for it ... I found a bookshop! A real one, with paper books, in English, for sale in deepest Chengdu. I piled them up and in the end was talked down by my husband and left with only four (including a Sichuan cookbook).

I feel I could have justified buying more as I’ve already raced through Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests. It’s a great book and a great read, but I have some lingering doubts about whether it really belonged on the shortlist for a major prize. Now this may well be me being a book snob, and I’ll take that feedback if it comes, but it didn’t feel to me like a thought-provoking or reflection-inducing enough book to merit the recognition. A ripping good yarn, yes, although perhaps a bit wordy. But able to compete against a book like How To Be Both? No. Do I sound like an absolute pretentious twat? Can being too accessible actually work against a book?

Interesting links about books and reading

• Can Reading Make You Happier? A New Yorker article explaining Bibliotherapy, “the ancient practice of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect” – which takes many forms today. According to it, “regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers.” VelmaNebraska and other readers with first-hand experience discussed it on last week’s thread.
  
• The Eternal Mystery of the Reclusive Writer: from Mitchell to Pynchon to Ferrante, this piece explores why literary hermits are so appealing. On Literary Hub, and recommended by Swelter.
• The Writer’s Shadow: “How is it possible that even when I know nothing about a novelist’s life I find, on reading his or her book, that I am developing an awareness of the writer that is quite distinct from my response to the work?” Tim Parks on our (lack of) awareness of and fascination with authors, for the New York Review of Books.
• Inside the passionate “girl-topia” of BookCon: Where authors are rock stars and geek-chic girls rule. A Salon piece about Comic-Con-style fan conventions for book lovers. Check also the Vice article inspired by the same event, the “publishing-slash-pop culture convention” celebrated recently in New York City.
• Daggers Drawn: “The bloodbath has become a featherbed” is the thesis of this piece on Literary Review about how book reviewing has “lost its serrated edge”.
  

If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.

And, as always, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see us covering beyond TLS, do let us know.