My Reading is a Blur
Sounds Good!
There I was just last week talking about all the Lockdown Reading I’d be doing. And it started off not bad. I’m still reading some of the volumes of The Stand graphic novel – and it’s great, I’m just biting them off in tiny snack-sized gulps. I’ve read a few other graphic novels. Some poetry. Made a bit of progress with the new 2pac bio – and I finished that pesky Woody Allen memoir (pesky in that I started it last lockdown, parked it – then finally decided I had to get through it. It wasn’t great. But it’s done now).
So it was going okay.
And then this week I could not pick a book to read.
Books everywhere. All through the house. The good people at Wellington Central Libraries messaged us all to tell us our books would be auto-renewed until late-September. Which is good because I’ve got a heap out. And of course there’s all the other books at home already.
The other night I started reading essays, only to stop at the end of the foreword. A book about a person going incognito to examine the hate-groups of online extremists, a new book about the films of Stanley Kubrick, the recently reissued Bessie Smith bio, some Helen Garner short stories, a bunch of Stephen King titles (some old, some brand new) and Danyl Mclaughlin’s new set of essays.
All of them look great. And some of them started off brilliantly! But my mind wanders through too many open tabs.
And there’s movies. And music. And – gah! – home-schooling. There’s work. My own writing. Family. All the usual things. And yet they all feel like they’re under a different type of pressure in our level 4 confinement. (A necessary confinement).
I’ve already talked about the many books there are on the go.
And as with the previous level 4 lockdown I always feel like I’m really neglecting my podcast-listening – what with the lack of a commute. There’s walking to be done, but it’s usually with the family now. Which is great – but it means no headphones.
These are the complaints of the privileged. There is food in the fridge. The bills are being paid. We all have clean clothes, and the roof doesn’t leak.
To have time to read is, I swear, the ultimate luxury. But at the same time, it’s nourishment for the soul. And I consider it a necessity. To be brain-fried to a level where you cannot sit with one book for FOMO regarding all of the other books you’ve bought or have on loan might sound like making up an excuse to write something because a thrice-weekly deadline has just snuck up out of nowhere and it’s a lockdown and newsletters don’t (quite) write themselves (yet). But it’s still real to me, dammit!
I’ll get through some more books. I’ll settle into one of the ones I mentioned above.
But today I (also) wanted you to spare a thought for Megan Dunn.
She is a brilliant writer.
I chatted to her for my podcast a couple of years ago – back when she had her first book out. That was a painfully funny account of working at Borders (which was something I had also done, though not at the same time as Dunn).
Well, Dunn’s new book was meant to be in stores today.
Of course there’s no way you can buy a brand new book in a level 4 lockdown…
Or is there?
If you’re a Kindle-app person (you don’t need the device, you can use the app on your phone or iPad or some such) you can buy the e-book– I believe you can even get it on that Kobo device thingy too.
Now, Megan Dunn won’t the only author having their launch compromised by the lockdown – but she’s the one I’m aware of, and her book (I was lucky to get an advance copy) is brilliant. She’s a funny, engaging, thoughtful, wise writer.
You might have heard her on RNZ last weekend? Or you can now.
Here’s an extract that ran in the Spinoff recently.
And here’s one from The Guardian.
Buy the book. Check it out. And tell me what you think.
When we get out of this lockdown and down to (at least) level 2 I hope to speak to Dunn for the podcast again. Until then my podcast is on lockdown under lockdown, I’m taking a wee break.
Now, is your reading all a blur under lockdown too?
