what i've been reading this week
21/7 – 27/7
Hello! It’s been a lovely week, spent a lot of writing and hit 75K in my second draft and can really see it starting to all come together. Then at the weekend I went to Newquay in Cornwall with two friends and we had a lovely time—drank lots, caught up, attempted surfing, swam in the sea, got tattoos (we won’t mention the other incident…if you know you know i guess…) But here’s the books I read!
If you wanna find more book recommendations you can find me at ReadsByRoss on Instagram and TikTok!
On Writing by Stephen King
I finally read my first Stephen King book! And I’m very glad I did. I picked this up mostly because the 25th anniversary hardback edition is gorgeous, and I understand why it has the fame and praise it does. It’s a lot more of a memoir than I was expecting but King is a funny, compelling writer and there are lots of tips in here for writers, some more than others. It definitely taught me to CUT the adverbs, lol.
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Finally got around to this one too, and have to say I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. I definitely like Maggie Nelson as a writer, she’s got a very unique voice that I find really interesting. This is a memoir of her relationship with her partner Harry who is undergoing gender reassignment surgery. It speaks about a lot of things, like gender, love, family, motherhood, philosophy, religion. I thought as a whole it was a bit erratic and messy and felt it needed a bit more coherence. I thought Nelson wrote beautifully about motherhood in particular though, some of the passages really moved me. I preferred her more recent book Pathemata, and will definitely be keen to get around to more of her stuff.
Outrageous! by Paul Baker
Just realised that it’s been all nonfic this week! I lapped this up - mainly picked it up as a bit of research for my novel but I found the tone so accessible and informative. It delves into the history of Section 28, which was a law that was passed in 1988 to ban the “promotion of homosexuality” in schools. It was awful reading this knowing that it feels eerily similar in this current climate for trans people. But overall, I enjoyed this book and found it well researched and a nice mix of information, personal anecdotes from Baker’s own life, and humour too!
And that’s all from me this week! Let me know what you’ve been reading/loving. Until next time x
V similar feelings on The Argonauts. I really liked Like Love!