Book 3 is off with the initial readers, so I am contemplating something completely new. It’s quite exciting. I’ve written the opening line in my head about four hundred times already. As most of you know, I never know where a book is going until it gets there, so I’m not sure what I can say. A contemporary story that is set in … a place I know well, I wonder where that will be!
At reading group we’ve just read the Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath. The idea that mental illness can come down like a bell jar, so that you are completely isolated, cut off, and that the world is distorted by the closeness and the shape of the glass. A book that will take reading again before I forget what it was about. The sadness is that though we know a little more about such suffering today, there has been no money in the system for such a long time that provision is patchy and strained. It makes me want to cry with frustration at the suffering and fear, and not just by the person struggling but their friends and families too, trying to work out what to do for the best.
Reading is literally the best hobby in the world. A new book is a new world that can comfort, stretch or simply entertain. The Bell Jar wasn’t always an easy read, though the writing was easy to read, but I’m glad I persevered because I am definitely a little changed by the experience. What books have affected you?
