So, as I’ve been pointing out far too often on my blog and Instagram lately, I’ve been ill for the past few days. I must have caught flu from somebody at work so have been achy, shivery, and pathetic since Friday. I’d hoped that I would spend the time in bed to get ahead with some reading but I’ve basically had no energy. The idea of picking up a book and trying to take it in was more than I could cope with. It meant that I was faced with another Wednesday without a review, which made me feel even more pathetic. But, thankfully, Haruki Murakami came to my rescue. In honour of his 70th birthday this year, Murakami’s short story Birthday Girl was released in its own adorable edition. The story focuses on the 20th birthday of a waitress so, I guess, it’s kind of fortuitous that today my Facebook memory was from 11 years ago: one month before my 20th birthday. I hate this long-term memories just remind me of how horribly pretentious I was. Highlighted by the fact that my status update was an Oscar Wilde quote. I mean, geez. So, god knows what would have happened if this story had happened to 20-year-old Laura. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
You may remember that last week I read a purposefully quick read in order to get another review posted. After starting the first book in the Mistborn trilogy last week I knew I wasn’t going to get that finished in time. I mean it’s an epic fantasy novel that’s over 600 pages long. At this point in time I’m only about 1/6th of the way through. I’m being pretty slow at reading lately so even if I had forgone sleep every night I still wouldn’t have done it. And it really wouldn’t have been worth going through work being that tired. It’s been a rubbish few days as it is so I don’t need anymore problems! So, realising that there was no way I could write anything about Brandon Sanderson’s novel but wanting to continue my streak, I decided to pick a short novel to read. That ended up being this novella by Joyce Carol Oates.
The idea for this post has been screaming around my head for a while. Ever since the end of February when, yet again, we found ourselves in the midst of another snow storm. Not that I minded about the actual snow. For one thing, I don’t drive so my commute is only affected when the trains go mental. For another, I’ve always loved snow. I’ve never understood why people hate it so much. I’ve always been annoyingly pale so the sun always makes me feel uncomfortable. Every year I see people rejoice when the sun comes out whilst I only wish for winter to return. Yet, whenever we are lucky enough for snow to fall I am expected to react as though it’s a massive inconvenience. It felt as is every day last month I was faced with someone panicking about potential snow. Getting updates every minute about tiny changes in the weather. I’m sick of it. Winter isn’t the bad guy here. It’s magical. You just need to look at the world of literature to see that.
Dear Dear Fahrenheit 451,