Lockdown Reading: Take 4. Review.

As of last Wednesday, Greater Manchester has been placed in Tier 3, meaning the shops and gyms can reopen, but we can’t go to the pub. The recent 3-week circuit breaker came to an end, and during this period I hammered through as many books as I could. Here’s what I read:

Burnt Tongues

What is a ‘burnt tongue?’ It’s a writer, or a story from a writer, whose style departs from the norm- who shocks, discomforts and transgresses societal norms. Whose style forces you to read a sentence twice to fully appreciate it.

In 2011 author Chuck Palahniuk, of Fight Club, set up the LitReactor, a fiction feedback website, where budding writers could show of their literary prowess in short story form. Palahniuk, Richard Thomas and Denis Widmyer picked out the top 20 stories from the site, all of them deliciously depraved, tantalisingly twisted and explosively ended.

As you would expect, a lot of these stories are heavy on Palahniuk’s style- immediate, chatty narration with broken protagonists- some physically, most morally- usually with some eye-watering, characteristic end twist. A great read.

I Think There’s Something Wrong With Me

Find this psychology-themed book review here.

The One

I was donated this book by a friend. Sci-fi-romance murder mystery, lauded by The Sun newspaper as ‘compelling,’ but is some kind of cross between Sweet Valley High, some American teen soap opera, and Black Mirror: Hang the DJ, in which romantic partners are linked up by a phone system dictating how long they’ll be together. I made it barely 20 pages in. Very cringey.

So. I had 2 days of lockdown left after 'finishing' the pile. Lockdown has been a tough time for a lot of people. It was definitely not something I’d have chosen to do, but, at the risk of being a smug git, it wasn’t that bad. I had plenty of time to do what I enjoyed, or some of the things I enjoy at least. Point being, I kept myself busy with this reading challenge to deny myself the opportunity to stop, stagnate, wallow, or let depression get the better of me.