My Year in Books: 2020

Hello saplin's, 

   It's been a while. Although 2020 has encouraged me to indulge in a number of activities, writing has not been one of them. Sometimes I have returned to my blog with every intention of writing something new, only to see the previous post and feeling suddenly unable to focus on any single thought or feeling or word. I know that many of you will feel the same when I say that this year has been unimaginably awful. I have, however, punctuated the carnage with books as usual. Unsurprisingly, concentrating on reading anything has also been a challenge, so I am very pleased I made at least some attempt. Just like last year, please continue for this year's reading round-up. 

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse - Charlie Mackesy

What a beautiful book. I am so pleased I began the year with something so uplifting and human as this. Something everyone can and should read, if only to bring you a little peace for a little while. 

The Starless Sea - Erin Morgenstern

Magnificent. 

So delightfully unique, plush and delectable. I was enchanted from the first sentence and have remained enchanted with it, so much so that it makes my heart ache and my head feel like it's floating. It is the book which made me turn to someone and say, "can you be intoxicated by a story?". 

If you want an adventure, here it is. 

Help Me! How self-help has not changed my life - Marianne Power

You got me, I'm one of those people buying the self-help books - no wait! I was. It was a turning-point in itself to discover that I had received a sort-of self-help book for Christmas. However, it turned out to be the best self-help book I've ever read. Because of Marianne Power, I have not since bought a self-help book and won't be buying any more. You see, she points out the obvious which is that self-help books do not work for the majority of people who read them. How does she prove it? I imagine you ask. She decides to follow a self-help book every month, to the letter, for an entire year. Sound easy? Guess again! 

The Vagina Bible - Dr. Jennifer Gunter

If your first thought was, "why are you reading that?" consider that you might benefit from reading it. Humans don't know half as much as they should about vaginas, some people never actually having looked at their own. Yes, you read that correctly. 

Without wishing to be the feminist waving around the vulva imagery, something so politicised is something we should know more about. 

"Buy this book if you have a vagina or if you spend any time at all in reasonably close proximity to one" - Ayelet Waldman

Varjak Paw & The Outlaw Varjak Paw  - S.F Said

By this point, we were in lockdown. The world had not yet started to feel like it was crumbling, and I was encouraged to do a little more reading in the extra time I was getting from not having to catch the bus in the morning. I used this time to read my favourite childhood books. I am convinced that these two stories have contributed to my identity as a reader and to who I am in general. I always felt a little bit like an outsider and an ugly duckling, and these books gave me comfort and a narrative which told me I could still work hard, gather strength. and find friendship. 

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

This novel had somehow managed to escape my attention until last year. I watched a charming film called The Bookshop with Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy where one of the characters is captivated by Farenheit 451 and urgently seeks out Ray Bradbury's other works. The next time I saw it when I was out shopping, I impulsively picked it up and finally felt inspired to read it because I was teaching a module on utopias and dystopias. It was good, and it was cold. It made everything and everyone around me feel fleeting and vulnerable, like the walls of my house were damp cardboard, and would cave in if I pressed on them too hard. 

Whispering to Witches - Anna Dale

I smiled when I typed the title. My earliest memory of having a favourite book. It's whimsical and magical. It's like sitting in front of a warm fire in the middle of winter. I can read it over and over and every single time I feel like a child again. 

Alice - Christina Henry

I felt compelled to write about Alice at the time of reading, you can find my scrawlings here. One thing I would like to reiterate here is that the reason I love the darker retellings of Alice in Wonderland is because they capture the anger and the volatility bubbling under Carroll's characters. I have always likened living in Wonderland  like being in a relationship with a red-faced bomb that insists on lighting its own fuse. 

The Familiars - Stacey Halls

Beautiful and earthy and it left me feeling heartbroken for all of the richness and texture of lives lost and stories unheard. How people suffer, and how they defy.  

Pretending - Holly Bourne

 

As an established fan of Holly Bourne, I was worried I would not like this book. It started very strongly in a mindset I recognise so well, and it was difficult to look at. It was all mangled pain and fury and fear. I didn't know how to look at it without feeling hot buttons all over me being prodded and pushed in. However, it's Holly Bourne, after all, so I pushed on. The growth and the strength displayed at such a time that it felt like she wrote it just for me. I know so many others will read it and feel the same way. It's a book for when you're ready to heal. 

Who Goes Here? - Bob Shaw

A book recommended to me by my Dad. I turned pages swiftly, smiled often, and was frequently intrigued. A spoofy introduction to sci-fi for someone who has hardly read any. I sense a re-read is necessary as the first time round was spent mostly in confusion and repeatedly saying "what?"

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samanth Shannon 

I must say, I admire my optimism starting this book when I was feeling so low. Despite it being so large, I found myself really sad when it was over. I had grown so attached to the characters and their individual quests and desires, and when everything finally came together I spent the latter half of the novel in a state of bliss and awe. This book is worth reading for the dragons, the lore, the swashbuckling, and the romance, but I could read it for the mouth-watering descriptions of food alone. 

The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

I can't not read something by Matt Haig. His most outstanding feature is imbuing every word with hope and understanding. Wonderfully indulgent but also sobering, to explore so many lives you could have lived and to ask yourself: why not do the best I can with this universe and this reality? (because another me might visit it someday?)

The Red Queen - Christina Henry

Something strange happened here. I felt completely enthralled by Alice, but reading The Red Queen felt quite difficult. Not because it was not just as good as Alice, because it was, but because it lost it's anger and morphed into a kind of sadness which felt neverending. Though I tend to favour sad storytelling, something about this felt defeating. I think perhaps the loss of some characters and the lack of satisfying resolution for others made this one a little harder. 

How to Argue with a Racist - Adam Rutherford

When I opened this book, I thought I was in for something that would take place in the realm of Twitter and various isms that would fall neatly into the context of the conversations I have had this year. However, it turned out to be a fascinating discussion about race and racism within the context of genetics. If you'd like to see how it helps in arguing with racists, I recommend trying it out. 

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson

Far be it from me to try and sum this up when Jeanette Winterson has already used the perfect combination of words. An outstanding retelling of her life, which she recollects however she likes. 

I am currently in the process of reading Angela Carter's collection, The Bloody Chamber, which is grizzly and excellent and nauseating and addictive. You can read about it next year, or maybe you'll decide to read it yourself. 

Take care saplin's x

Down the Rabbit Hole

   ...beware the claws that catch...

    It's a warm Thursday afternoon. I can hear someone mowing the grass outside and the edge of  my desk is pressing familiar indents into my forearms. I've been slicing up my work hours over the Easter holidays. A few hours here and there instead of long blocks. In some ways, working from home feels busier, but it's just so much more quiet. Aside from working, I've been doing some housework, playing Animal Crossing as usual and I recently completed one of my favourite series of all time, Gravity Falls. On top of that, I've been returning to some favourite childhood books. S.F Said's Varjak Paw series, Anna Dale's Whispering to Witches and I will undoubtedly dig up one of the battered copies from my Jacqueline Wilson pile. It's safe to say that my tastes have always been somewhat deliberately regressing into my childhood. I have never enjoyed horror. Gore and violence keeps me awake at night, and if I do sleep I always have awful nightmares. I considered watching Supernatural for the first time an adventurous choice, just so you know who you're dealing with. 

   If you were to observe me in my natural habitat, pouring endless cups of tea, excitedly gesticulating over animals and shuffling around in various states fluffy pyjamas, you would never suspect what's going on inside me right at this moment. You would never guess that under all of the smiles, the dedicated working at my desk, and the watering of flowers on Animal Crossing, that I am suffering from a terrible case of Book Limbo. Have you heard of it? Book Limbo is the frustrating and crushing feeling of enjoying a book so fully that when it finally comes to an end, you feel two main emotions. Complete disinterest in any other book and the feeling that you are betraying an entire world by walking away from it. 

   I'm talking about Alice by Christina Henry. I had just finished Whispering to Witches and when I returned it to my bookshelf, I set about immediately finding another book to devour. The thought of actually devouring my books is quite a violent and grotesque image in itself, and I found myself thinking about a terrifying book-devouring monster for longer than I should have done when it dawned on me as a strange phrase. I imagined a thin, papery animal with ink-black eyes, unhinging its jaw and dryly swallowing as many stories as it could find. Then again, many of us have read books we wish we could get closer to or crawl inside. I never anticipated that a reimagining of The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland would be one of those books, especially not one of the horror variety. I have always inexplicably related to Alice. Ever since I was little, I insisted on watching the Disney version over and over and over again, which displeased mostly everyone else. My family and friends found it to be the least interesting and most boring Disney film, and couldn't understand where I was finding my enjoyment. Later, when I read the books, I fell even more in love with the stories. I even blended my own life with Wonderland in a reflective piece about growing up, my experiences, and my eventual job as a teacher. 

   I picked up Alice without thinking too much about whether or not I would like it. I reminded myself that it had been an impulse buy in Waterstones (because we were in a rush to reach the food court before the shopping centre closed) and that it would be a waste for me to never read it just because it was a horror. I loved the original stories, so why shouldn't I try it? No less than a minute after the final word of Whispering to Witches, I was immersed in Alice. I cannot explain what it was that held me to the page, but I felt physically incapable of tearing myself away from the words. I did find it difficult to cope with the subject matter at times and I would recommend you judge the risk for yourself before diving in, but the characters of Alice and Hatcher were so complex and addictive that I had completed the book by the next day. I think what Christina Henry did was capture something that was so subtle and implicit in the original stories, and brought it right to the forefront. There is an aggressiveness and a violence and a cruelty in the original stories. Even in the Disney version, the Hatter and the Hare are intimidating and scary, and the flowers are manipulative and bad tempered. On top of everything else, there is a complete lack of control as Alice is thrown around Wonderland by the angry, impatient and insistent beings who live there. Christina Henry channeled all of this perfectly and created utterly terrifying villains. As someone who is pretty hesitant when it comes to violence and gore, I felt that the way it was navigated in Alice was entirely purposeful and necessary, and that I found myself so relieved and exhilirated by the fighting and the violence which was quick and exacting instead of drawn-out and needlessly spurting. This is not to say the novel isn't bloodthirsty or gruesome, as it most certainly is, but it was done in such a way that every drop of blood felt deliberate. This was not a lazy retelling, it was an excellent insight into what the characters could be. 

   I realise now that my subconscious excitement for this novel sprang somewhat from my previous enjoyment of Alice: Madness Returns, another dark retelling. However, it was never quite enough for me and there was something missing. Alice is exactly what I needed and I highly recommend it.

   However! There is excellent news. Although I am doing my very best to keep all online shopping to essential-items-only, finding out that Alice and Hatcher's story continues in The Red Queen might tempt me a little bit too much. If I can just get hold of it, I can finally break out of the Book Limbo. 

Take care saplings x

Day Twenty One

Day Twenty One

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   It is another day on the endless carousel of waking up, completing the same list of limited activities, going to sleep and starting again. However, there was added excitement today when I realised that I forgot what the car looked like, so I stared out the window for five minutes whispering, "it's so blue". 

   I feel like 2020 is just one big swirling cloud of uncertainty, striking the ground with questions and dilemmas that I have never felt before. I feel grateful that I can stay at home to keep myself and my family safe. I also feel guilty and conscious that I am very priviledged to be in that position. I don't want to complain whatsoever because I am very lucky. However, I also feel deeply hurt that I am separated from my partner, and will be for the rest of the lockdown. I feel helpless because my family and I are all too frightened to leave the house because of underlying health conditions in the household. We are all lacking sunlight and fresh vegetables, the latter being something I never thought I would miss. I am stuck on a seesaw of ignoring the news completely and keeping an eye on the news far too much. I see posts both praising and criticising the goverment, and truthfully I have absolutely no idea how they're doing. I've never seen a pandemic. I've never thought about how I would deal with one. All I know is that one death is too many, and that all deaths should have been avoided if it was possible. I don't know anybody who would advocate for anything less, unless of course we're talking about our friends over in the Herd Immunity Camp. I don't know anything about Herd Immunity except it sounds like a fucking terrible idea. 

   In an oddly fitting way, I am teaching a module on Utopias and Dystopias this semester. We have covered technology, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, war, natural disaster and totalitarianism. Next week we are looking at Utopian and Dystopian Music, and I wonder how close we will feel to the desperation, anger and hopelessness we will hear. I wonder what music will be born from this time, and will it be remembered like all of the music we'll be studying next week. Some of us could have a little laugh at the idea of robots or animals taking over the world, but I'm not so sure how close to home we're going to hit in the coming weeks. Incidentally, I just finished reading Fahrenheit 451, and it felt very, very strange reading a dystopic novel in these circumstances. I can only imagine the terror of trying to make it through lockdown without books. I would have liked a little more from Millie and Faber, but I get this story was focused on Montag's transformation. I will probably read it again in the future when my ability to concentrate has returned. 

   I'm missing my partner. I'm missing my extended family. I'm missing my friends and colleagues. So what else is there to do but fill the void with fictional characters? I read something recently about how children who struggle to make friends tend to fix this problem with fictional characters, and I felt called out, and then I accepted it. Not only am I slowly making my way through Supernatural, but I am also watching Gravity Falls, one of my favourite animated tv shows. I'm also being kept company by my virtual villagers on my virutal island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I'm pretty proud of how my island is developing and I'm THIS close to making a YouTube video about it. However, online teaching has taught me that seeing my face and hearing my voice online is one of my least favourite activities. All you need to know is that my museum is surrounded by waterfalls and I love it. 

   Please do direct me to how you are dealing with this situation. Share your blogs, currently-reading, hobbies and Animal Crossing islands!

Stay safe saplings x

Day Thirteen

Day Thirteen of Staying Inside 

   In normal day-to-day life, the little progress I have made since the last time I was here would not be considered as very important by myself. However, I'm takin the small victories. 

   Working from home has been an experience that I did not expect for the last few months of my job. It feels like it's been cruelly cut short and if I had known the end of face-to-face contact was on the way, I would have brought the end-of-semester classroom party forward (which is really just a "let's eat biscuits whilst we sort out your essays session). I hope that when all of this is over, I will still be employed at my current workplace and I can experience a tiny bit of normality there before I move on. I am very tired of grappling with Zoom, because my computer cannot handle 20+ moving images at once and gives up altogether (it used to be a fancy gaming computer but it's pretty old now). I am going to spend some of this week trying to fix it so that my colleagues have the pleasure of seeing my Mickey Mouse wallpaper. If they didn't already see me as a child pretending to be an adult, they will by the time the next staff meeting rolls around. 

   Aside from Work Things, which has the added pleasure of letting me explore Pop Culture for educational purposes, I've been watching Supernatural, clay-modelling, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, crocheting a chunky cardigan and revisiting childhood books (let's not dive into the psychology of that). I am also exercising reguarly which is something I have never done. 

   I just finished the first season of Supernatural, and I truthfully didn't realise I was going to get so hooked on it. It helps that by "hooked" I mean that I also crochet my cardigan at the same time. It's become a hugely enjoyable combination of activities. Nothing to report on Supernatural yet except I'm enjoying it and that watching with the captions on sometimes makes it more amusing than intended. It is worth noting that the captions are normally at the bottom of the screen, but when I pause it, the pause menu pushes the captions up, which I only found more amusing. 

   I am not quite ready yet to share my clay-modelling updates, but I am taking progress pictures. I've decided to have a go at modelling Legoshi from a recent anime called Beastars. Watching it made me extremely uncomfortable at times, and I'm not entirely sure I'm actually okay with how some of the subject matter is portrayed, but I watched it quite eagerly nonetheless, so there's a reason I wanted to finish it I haven't put my finger on yet. It's definitely a much darker telling of the prey vs. predator story we see in Zootropolis, which is one of my favourite films. I don't believe that stories like this are just for the furry fandom, but I have noticed recoil from non-furry watchers of Beastars. It's an understandable reaction. 

   Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting me through the endless monotony of the days by providing something different each day. We're not going to talk about the horrifying personification of Easter by the name of Zipper, but I am looking forward to the 13th of April when he goes away. The 13th of April brings other joys though. It is the supposed "end of lockdown" marker. I have doubts that this will truly be the end of the lockdown, but if it is, I will very gladly reunite with my partner. It is his birthday today and I'm devestated that I'm not there, but I ensured that I took many virtual gifts over to his Island in Animal Crossing, to get my appreciation across. 

   When I'm not digging up virtual fossils, creating a cardigan, or working, I am reading and exercising.

   I know the reading is working, because it's the first time in weeks I have felt like reading anything. I re-read Varjak Paw and The Outlaw Varjak Paw by S.F. Said. These were my absolute favourite books growing up (I must have found them when I was about eight years old) and it was a joy to revisit them. I'm hoping to pick up reading again, but it all just feels a bit too overwhelming at the moment, so I won't pile the pressure on myself.

   I know the exercise is working because my muscles hurt if I crochet a bit too vigorously (clearly a scientifcally accurate way of testing results).

   I know my anxiety is working because beneath the aching muscles, working hands, and scrolling of emails, I'm still churning away. All of this is very much an effort to block out the outside world. All of us in this house are too frightened to go outside, and we have all stayed on one side of the front door. I am very much hoping that by the time the lockdown lifts, I will have regained the courage to Go Outside.

Stay safe saplings x

My Year in Books

Hi daisies,

Hope you are all doing well. I want to take this time to say that I very much appreciate you if you are reading this right now, as although this is a very small blog, the readers I have mean very much to me.

This year has been both challenging and brilliant. I've experienced some very low lows but also some ecstatic highs. I've learned that it's really important to discover exactly what "self-care" actually means (hint: it isn't always bubble baths and treating yourself) and that it's okay to cut yourself some slack when things don't go the way you intended. This year I have worked on some things that needed resolving, grown in my confidence, gained a little more control over my migraines, and I stuck to my quest to read more books this year!

I stopped reading in my teens because I was in a situation which meant that concentrating on a book was nearly impossible. I got out of the habit of reading before bed time. I stopped buying new books. It is with huge pleasure that I can say I'm back to my bookish ways, and my shelves are overflowing with exciting new words for me to discover. I'm hoping to share where I've been with you.

My Year in Books

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

I re-read this novel this year as I felt I didn't truly appreciate it when I read it in high school. I felt so much more despair this time around reading it as a young woman rather than as a child. 

The Secret Lives of Colours - Kassia St Clair

I always took colours for granted, and now I appreciate the hard work and sacrifice that went into producing so many beautiful colours. The hardback cover was also lovely and textured. 

Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones

I have always adored Howl's Moving Castle by Studio Ghibli, and I would be tempted to name it as my favourite film of all time, so I was both excited and nervous to read the book. As usual, I discovered that the story had been heavily changed for the film, but I also realised that it didn't matter. The book is special and wonderful, and the film is gorgeous and magical and I highly recommend both. 

Are We All Lemmings and Snowflakes? - Holly Bourne

Holly Bourne is a fantastic author who I discovered through reading It Only Happens in the Movies. This was no exception to her consistently brilliant stories. I wince to use the word "relatable" but there's no other word for it. Her senstive and humanly funny characters who navigate issues with their mental health are so very needed. 

Vox - Christina Dalcher

A recommendation from a student which was a truly interesting read. Recommended for fans of The Handmaid's Tale. 

Matched | Reached | Crossed Trilogy - Ally Condie

Another student recommendation. Even though in parts I felt the story was fairly long and drawn out, it was actually eerily immersive and consuming, and I did feel as though I were sucked in. A very talented author and a pleasurable read, despite feeling utterly on edge about the trials the characters face.

The Book Thief - Markus Zusack

I have read this book countless time as it is probably one of my most favourite stories. I love the way the story is told, and I am completely enchanted by the characters. It is also one of the rare times that I love the film almost as much as the book. If you haven't had the pleasure, please seek it out!

Invisible Women - Caroline Criado-Perez

Wow, I got mad reading this book. The research compiled in this book suggests very much that all data should be disaggregated by sex. Although I do have some issues with the way this is approached entirely by looking at cisgendered humans, it's important to note how designs incorporate binary ideas of sex and thus must be analysed through that lens to learn how the designs occured. It is without doubt that most things are designed with the idea of the "binary" in mind. 

The Gods Lie - Kaori Ozaki

Utterly heartbreaking

Inkheart - Cornelia Funke

One of my favourite books from childhood, though I must admit that having watched the films many times, I found it quite tedious to finish and I have yet to read the other two books in the trilogy. It was lovely to revisit this part of my childhood, though.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

The only thing I have to say about this story is that it made me feel cold, uncomfortable, small and out of control. I don't regret reading it, but I don't think I can ever pick it up again, it was far too traumatic. 

Alice in Wonderland | Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carrol

I have always loved Alice in Wonderland and it was wonderful to revisit. As always, not a little bit surprised by the notion that Carrol took a lot of drugs. 

The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

I didn't expect to like this book. However, I loved it. Although the atmosphere was uncomfortable and awkward and painful at times, it is so important.

You Know You Want This - Kristen Roupenian

I still don't know how to feel about this collection of stories. It is a horrifying, sickening, stomach-turning feeling to turn each page. You feel physically and emotionally damaged by the experience. I absolutely could not put it down. 

His Dark Materials Trilogy - Phillip Pullman

A masterpiece of fiction. I did not expect to fall so in love with this story and to be so upset when it was over. It cannot be overstated enough that the characters are so rich and beautiful and nuanced and wonderful. 

How Do You Like Me Now? - Holly Bourne

Funny and comforting. A must read. Holly Bourne always very unexpectedly displays all of your feelings which you thought were unqiue and secret on the page in front of you. She makes you feel united. That you are never alone. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

Re-read this coming-of-age classic. It is as heart-wrenching as I remember. Although I do have some problems with the characterisation sometimes, I think it truly illustrates how fucked up being a teenager is. The film is also a must-watch. Warning: ensure you read a little about the story before you dive right in if you have experiened depression or abuse. Watching/reading it can put me in a bad place emotionally if I'm already feeling down. 

How to have Feminist Sex: A Fairly Graphic Guide - Flo Perry

I picked it up as I loved the cartoony illustrations and I am very much a sex-positive feminist. Although I did take issue with some of the things in there, I think it just shows that feminism is very much an individual thing. Overall, it was pretty wonderful, and I have so much respect for Flo Perry and also her mother, Phillipa Perry and the work they produce. 

Beastars vol 1. - Paru Itagaki

Highly anticipated after seeing the trailer for the anime online. I'm a huge fan of Zootropolis, and I think this is going to be a far darker telling of a similar story of prey vs. predator. 

The Prince and the Dressmaker - Jen Wang

Absolutely beautiful. Excellent artwork. Wonderful story. I cannot recommend this enough. I especially hope that young people who feel different can find this story and feel they are seen.

Testaments - Margaret Atwood

Highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid's Tale after such a long break. I was concerned about how the story was going to unfold, but I was not disappointed. I adored this addition to the universe, and it was so beautifully articulated in Atwood's usual way, it was impossible not to devour it.

The Places I've Cried in Public - Holly Bourne

See: here

https://shr-inkingviolet.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-places-ive-cried-in-public.html

I Go Quiet - David Ouimet

Charming and beautiful. 

The Power - Naomi Alderman

Brilliant concept and incredibly thought-provoking. It made me realise how terrifying it is that violence and fear can be so normalised in our world if the context is deemed reasonable. 

Although I struggled with the outcome of the novel, and felt a bit confused the closer I got to the end, I do believe the concept is worth exploring. 

Over the Garden Wall - Distillatoria

A comic based on one of my all-time favourite shows Over the Garden Wall. There are no words for how much I love this show, and receiving a copy of this book from my partner on my birthday was a memorable moment for this year. The show is just everything I could ask for and the comic completely surpassed my expectations and made me feel like I was experiencing new episodes of the show I love so much. 

So that's my year in books! I struggled quite a lot towards the end of 2019, as my teaching load got quite heavy. However, I am very happily just starting Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea, which I hope will appear on next year's reading list (as I definitely won't have time to finish it before January, I will be busy eating).

Take care saplings x

The Places I've Cried in Public

Yesterday I finished reading Holly Bourne's The Places I've Cried in Public. 

I have read a few others by Holly Bourne, It Only Happens in the Movies, Are We All Lemmings and Snowflakes?, and How Do You Like Me Now? are all wonderful, and each brought tears and smiles to my face in their own ways. The Places I've Cried in Public is different for me, so much so I feel compelled to tell somebody about it. If you take nothing else away from this post and want to stop reading this now, please just go and read it. It's a book that I never knew I needed until it was here. 

As you might remember from a comic I drew a couple of years ago, crying is not an alien concept to me. 

Quietly. Loudly. Neatly. Messily. Just-a-bit. Floods. Three minutes. Three days.

Just to clarify, I'm still talking about crying.  

The point is, I know how to do this thing, and it's a thing I'm quite happy to talk about and share with other people. I think it brings people closer together if we remind each other that we are all just human after all. That crying serves a normal, human purpose. That crying is good for us. We all know this stuff now, and it's not going to be news to you. But despite my superior tear-producing powers, it's something I have always preferred never to demonstrate. 

Blinking rapidly. Trying to feel numb. Compartmentalising. Looking down. Looking up. Looking at anything to avoid making eye contact. Avoiding hugs. Gritted teeth.

Classic, "I'm not going to cry in public" moves. 

If that fails, push all the tears into your hair. Get out a tissue and blow your nose, "I've got a cold starting". "I've just got something in my eye". "Just resting my eyes". 

You've seen and heard and done it all before. 

Crying in public is always something I've skirted around. I've cried in supermarkets, cried in restaurants and cafes, cried in a park, cried on the way to work, cried on the way home from work, cried in an Uber, cried on the bus, cried in public toilets, cried in the office. I got away with them all, because we all learn how to hide it so well. 

The most recent time I cried in public was when I went for a little tea break yesterday and decided to finish The Places I've Cried in Public, which I had been dreaming about since I started reading it. I was sitting in a very quiet and empty cafe, my back to the rest of the chairs, very quietly letting all the tears out as I hurried through the remaining pages. It felt so important that I reach the end, that I let it all out. Common Sense might ask, "why not wait until you got home?" or "why read it at all?" and the answer is that I physically had to finish it there and then or I felt I would implode. 

Can't help but smile a little bit now, because my inner voice commented, "dramatic, much?" as I wrote it down. Dramatic, indeed, reader. Dramatic, indeed. 

The night before this, I was three quarters of the way through the book, crying privately this time, and ever since then it has has felt like a crutch, but also like a weight on me at the same time. The only way to describe this book is as a guttaral sob that you absolutely need to have before you can get back up again and carry on. 

I'm sorry to every single person who reads this book and connects with it the way I do, because then I'll know that you have gone through the same experience. Reading it was physically, agonisingly painful, but I needed to know if Amelie was going to be alright in the end, because I was Amelie once, and I'm still waiting to see if I'll be alright in the end. 

I almost hope that this book is boring, unrelatable or nonsense to you, because then I will know that you have never experienced that pain. I also hope a little bit that you do think it's all a bit over-dramatic, because then I can pretend it's not all that serious either. I started writing this post with the intention of getting things off my chest, talking about the things I've started to address with a counsellor, admit the real truths of events that I have been through. But I don't think I need to do that just yet. 

Knowing others might find this book and feel the hope and relief that comes from escaping a "Reese" is enough. 

Knowing that I am not at fault for ending up where I did is enough. 

Knowing for real that I am not alone, because Holly Bourne came along and wrote my story for me so that I wouldn't have to do it, is enough. 

Stay safe, saplings x

Of Pain

Hello daisies,

Several months ago I began writing a post which I never finished. Today, I feel inspired to re-write it. 

In December 2018, I decided that motivation, as a force, never shows up when I need it. It is, of course, remarkably present when it's time for me to go to sleep or when I log into Netflix. This being so I can binge a series that I would have no interest in watching if I did not have work to do. 

It is an oddly specific problem which I think nearly everyone has. 

So after my realisation that motivation was not on my side, I decided that I would force myself to start reading again. For reasons which are too complicated to address today, I stopped reading for quite a long time. As someone whose identity was summed up consistently as "bookworm", this was a weirdly disorientating thing for me to do. Upon arriving at my undergraduate induction, I did not feel particularly well-read. By this, I mean that the last things I had read were children's and teenage literature, and some Danielle Steel novels. Thirteen-year-old-me sobbed uncontrollably over rich middle-aged people getting divorced. 

Turning up to studying for my degree in English Language and Literature was daunting because evidently I had never read any 'classic' literature. I hadn't even heard of some of the authors. I have no doubt that this is true for most new undergraduates, but I felt especially alone and behind. I felt I was amongst true academics who would eventually find me out. The abstract, giant shadows of these novels convinced me that, un-read, they were the reason I was feeling so unaccomplished. 

Perhaps it will comfort those of you who are just embarking on your degree that I still feel like that now. I've read Dracula and Frankenstein and other "classics". I've carried out independent, academic research. I'm teaching undergraduates myself as a graduate teacher. Despite all of this progress that past-me would be in awe of, I still feel very much like an academic imposter. Someone is going to find out I don't know what I'm doing! But it turns out that I did not need to have read every classic novel by the age of eighteen to be worthy of my degree, and neither do you. Not only will there be ample opportunity to read these novels during your study, but you will hopefully come to the same realisation that I have. Some of them are brilliant, some of them not-so-much, and none of them are worth feeling paralysed over. At this point, I'm not sure we are entirely sure about what "classics" really means. There are the culturally ingrained ones (see above), but there is certainly always the argument of subjectivity. I know incredibly successful academics who dislike the work of Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens, and others who are bewildered by Austenmania. 

The point I am trying to make is don't feel pressured to be a stereotypical academic. You can be an academic and exclusively study an area of your interest. You need only read what you want to read (and what's on your required reading list if you're a student, I'M SORRY). Although we must also remember the huge importance of reading texts you hate, texts that you might feel are objectively terrible, and texts you would never normally pick up. There is a lot of interesting insight to be gained by reading your literary hell. I think my real point is that not having read particular books does not contradict your identity as a reader, as a student, as an academic, as a teacher or as a person with valuable contributions. There is something terrifying about a mountain of books we feel its absolutely necessary for us to have read, and if you really feel that you need to check some off the list, don't wait for motivation! Motivation will not come and save you from book-mountain-related paralysis!

Since my decision in December 2018, thirteen books have been read. This might not seem like a lot, but it's a large step for me in finding time and concentration for reading. One of the books I decided to pick up was inspired by my own book-mountain-paralysis (read: don't die before you read this!): 1984 - George Orwell. The most wonderful thing about finally reading a book with a repuation like this is that you realise it is not the huge undertaking you imagined it to be...and you finally understand a lot more pop-culture references. 

In the middle of all of this, though, I made a connection which I did not expect to make. I felt a strong reaction to the quote which reads; 

"Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes". 

As someone with chronic pain, physical pain is never far away. I am in pain every single day to some degree. Sometimes it's so faint that I can distract myself and nearly forget about it. Other days it is at the forefront of my attention and there is nothing I would not do to take it away.  

I know there are so many people out there who are experiencing their own pain, and so many who share the unusual, frustrating and so-awful-I-need-to-laugh-experience of having migraines. Needing to laugh because they are so awful might sound strange, but when you dramatically flee goalkeeper-style from anyone spraying perfume, you gotta laugh.When you find that the nausea and flashing lights only cease when you bend at an exact right-angle, so you walk around like that all day and your mom catches you emerging from the bathroom hunched over and grunting, you gotta laugh. When you're hanging out a car window, vomiting, wearing obnoxious yellow glasses and a bright purple ice-pack-hat on your head and you stop at traffic lights and you're valliantly ignoring everyone in the car beside you, you just gotta laugh. 

In the face of pain, there are no heroes. Nothing and nobody in the world exists that can instantly take it away. However, George Orwell reminded me that I am not alone, and I don't know how soon another reminder of that kind would have come along. 

It's okay if you put down the books, but take comfort in knowing that there might be something there waiting for you if you decide to pick them back up.

Take care saplings x