BOOK 93: The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami.
“All I did was go to the library to borrow some books.”
THE STRANGE LIBRARY follows a young boy who stops off at the library to discover how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. To his surprise he’s led to a special ‘reading room’ in a maze under the library, where he’s imprisoned by the sinister old librarian. His only companions are a strange sheep man and a girl who can only talk with her hands.
Visually, this book is stunning. The illustrations are nothing less than gorgeous, and hand in hand with the small snippets of text, this book makes for an astoundingly imaginative and creatively told tale. That said, I feel like it's this book's aim to eschew the normal. From the subject matter to the characters to the ending, this tale goes beyond weird. I mean, it's utterly insane. If you're not a fan of the abnormal, and don't enjoy the occasional frisson of excitement, then please don't read this book. Though only a short read, this book is bursting with colour and ideas, and would make the perfect gift for any reader who isn't afraid of surreality.
How to Be a Heroine is a non-fiction book by Samantha Ellis. Within the book, Ellis takes a retrospective look at her life through the different literary heroines she'd had along the way. Ultimately this book explores the role heroines play in shaping our lives – as well as touching upon some of Ellis' own experiences, such as growing up in an Iraqi Jewish community.
It's been over a year since I read HOW TO BE A HEROINE, and I still can't articulate the brilliance of this book. As a lifelong reader and lover of heroines, this book just clicked with me. I felt overwhelming nostalgia when I read the passages on Jo March and Anne Shirley, and I just got everything Ellis said about Esther Greenwood and Elizabeth Bennet. Samantha Ellis talks about books and characters in a way that only a true book lover could. If this sounds at all like a book that you'd enjoy, don't hesitate to give it a go.
BOOK 180: Perfume by Patrick Süskind.
“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”
Perfume begins in the slums of eighteenth-century France, where Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift — an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"— the scent of a beautiful young virgin.
Smell is not a sense I've ever fully appreciated, yet Patrick Süskind's lavish (albeit morbid) descriptions of various aromas enlightened me to its beauty. He's just a fantastic writer, and I fell in love with the prose of this novel. PERFUME is a seductive thriller, and one I loved every second of.
BOOK 70: Ariel by Sylvia Plath.
“The frost makes a flower, the dew makes a star.”
Ariel was the second book of Sylvia Plath's poetry to be published, and was originally published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. The poems in Ariel, with their free flowing images and characteristically menacing psychic landscapes, marked a dramatic turn from Plath's earlier poems.
I read ARIEL earlier this year, and Sylvia Plath has since become one of my favourite poets. Though I found it very difficult to read at times (because of its connection to Plath's own fate), I couldn't recommend this collection highly enough. I've never experienced such raw and sincere feelings within such beautiful words, and there were so many times I had to pause in awe of Plath's talent. Each line of every poem is affecting in some way: “I am terrified by this dark thing / That sleeps in me / All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.”