Vilnius Poker

Read 10/10/2021-27/10/2021

Rating 3 stars

Over the Baltic to Lithuania for the next read in my literary tour of Europe. Vilnius Poker was recommended to me a while ago by fellow blogger Inga at Readingaread. Coincidentally, Inga’s blog documents a literary tour of Europe in 20 books. Inga is from Vilnius, and recommended Ričardas Gavelis’s novel to me as a classic of Lithuanian literature.

The Polyglot Lovers

Read 03/10/2021-10/10/2021

Rating 4 stars

I’m starting my Euro Tour in Sweden with Lina Wolff’s The Polyglot Lovers. I read Wolff’s first novel, Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs, not so long ago and have intended to read her second for a while. Wolff is Swedish, from Lund in Skåne. She lived in Spain for a while, where her first novel and some of the stories in her first collection, Many People Die Like You, are set. The Polyglot Lovers is set in Sweden and Italy.

Random Thoughts: A gendered reading of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery

I’ve been thinking about Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery, which was the starting point for the October 2021 Six Degrees of Separation. In particular, I’ve been thinking about the character Tessie, and what she represents for me. I found a few essays online analysing the story in relation to public reaction, symbolism, the purpose of ritual, even Marxist theory. I didn’t find anything about gender roles that satisfied me, though, so I decided to marshall my random thoughts on the subject here.

Random Thoughts: Meeting People is Easy

Image from EMS-FORSTER-PRODUCTIONS/DigitalVision/Getty

I don’t know why I’ve chosen the title of a film I’ve never watched about a band I’m not that bothered about as the heading for this post. Perhaps because I don’t think meeting people is easy. And yet here I am about to pretend to meet people by answering some questions about myself. Thank goodness we’re not in a room together.

I don’t often do things that involve tagging, but Chris over at Calmgrove’s recent post in response to a new tag #goodtomeetcha invented by Mayri at Bookforager sent me off to the origin post.

I enjoyed both Chris’s and Mayri’s answers so much that I’ve decided to have a go myself. The questions are all as they appear in Mayri’s post.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Lottery to The Resident

September has flown by and suddenly it’s the first Saturday of October. Which means it’s time for Six Degrees of Separation, hosted as ever by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best.

October ends on Hallowe’en, making it the spookiest month, and our starting point for this month’s chain is a Shirley Jackson short story, The Lottery (available online here).

A heads up – I’m thinking a lot about Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa this week, two women brutally murdered by opportunistic men while simply going about life in a way we should all be free to, regardless of gender, but that women are conditioned to feel at risk doing. So there’s a flavour to my choices this month.

Random Thoughts: European Book Tour

Political map of Europe from vidiani.com

I’ve been perusing my stack of books that I have yet to read, and have decided that I’m going on another book trip. I enjoyed “holidaying” over the summer via the books I’d bought on recent holidays. As it’s unlikely that I’ll get to Europe for a while (thanks pandemic, thanks Brexit), I thought I’d knock a few titles off the stack that are by European authors and head off on a virtual tour of the continent.

Lorna Doone, A Romance of Exmoor

Read 28/08/2021-01/10/2021

Rating 4 stars

R D Blackmore’s Lorna Doone is a novel I have long meant to read. I bought a well loved copy of the 1900 edition, published not long after Blackmore’s death, from Withnail Books in Penrith.