WWW Wednesday: I’m finally joining in with a meme!

WWW Wednesday is the brainchild of ‘MizB’ over at Should Be Reading. Every Wednesday loads of book bloggers join in and I’ve enjoyed reading their posts, so thought I would finally get involved. The rules are very simple: all you have to do is answer three questions.

1. What are you currently reading?
2. What did you recently finish reading?
3. What do you think you’ll read next?

So here goes:

1.  I am currently reading Hild by Nicola Griffith. It is published on 24th July 2014 by Blackfriars, an imprint of Little Brown, and was very kindly sent to me early so that I could review it. It’s about 500 pages, and I’ve been reading it for over a week now, which isn’t usually a good sign for me – but I’m really enjoying it. It’s a huge hardback and really annoying to take to work with me, so I haven’t been reading it at lunch, which has slowed down my pace. I’m devoting lots of evenings to it though, and so far I love it. It is a fictionalised account of the life of St Hilda of Whitby, who lived in the middle of the 7th century. She was the niece of King Edwin of Northumbria and from a very early age was declared to be a ‘seer’ due to her connection with nature and her way of noticing things that others didn’t. From this dually privileged position she witnesses the upheavals of England and the intricacies of court life, all whilst trying to grow up and be a normal child. So far in my reading she’s only thirteen years old and it’s already very exciting and dramatic, so I can’t wait to see what the rest of the book holds.

 

2.  I recently finished reading The Blue Room by Hanne Orstavik, which I reviewed here. It covers a day in the life of the teenage Johanne. She wakes up to find her mother has locked her in her bedroom, and rather than trying to escape spends the day musing over her relationship with her mother, recent events in her life, and her new relationship with a young man named Ivar. Johanne and her mother are both quite, shall we say, odd individuals and have a very complicated relationship. Johanne is very religious, but is also preoccupied with images of violent sexuality, which burst out of the text and surprise the reader. I found The Blue Room to be one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read, and I can’t say I actually enjoyed it – although the writing is excellent, and I think Orstavik is a very brave writer.

 

3.  I’m actually not 100% sure what I’m going to read next – I have a few choices! I think it will probably be After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell. Headline have recently reissued O’Farrell’s entire back catalogue with gorgeous new covers in the style of her latest novel, Instructions for a Heatwave (which I loved and review here). Mary-Anne at Headline kindly sent me a copy of After You’d Gone as her recommendation of which O’Farrell book I just had to read after I commented on how gorgeous the new covers were on Twitter (thank you Mary-Anne!). I’ve only read Heatwave and The Disappearing Act of Esme Lennox, so I’m very eager to read more and #discovermaggie (the official hashtag).

 

I would love to hear your answers to the WWW Wednesdays questions!