What I have been reading recently

After reading Mr Norris Changes Train it seemed appropriate that I continue the Berlin theme with Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin. I found it to be compelling, and gripping despite knowing how inevitable the tragic ending would be. I wish my German was better so I could have read the original version of the text, but I still felt I got a lot of enjoyment out of it.
I followed it with By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham. I had read The Hours and enjoyed it (an admission that would crush Dr Sutton who taught the Virginia Woolf module I took at university), so was curious to see what it was like. I was worried that I had made a mistake in buying it after a few pages as it felt a bit forced, but that feeling soon evaporated as Cunningham’s prose became beautiful and washed over me. The story touched me, and I found myself wanting to know what happened to the protagonist after the story came to its conclusion… one of those books, like A Single Man, where I found myself wishing for a sequal but knowing that I would not want to read it in case it spoilt the original (which it undoubtedly would).
The next book I avidly consumed was Amateur City, which is the first in the Kate Delafield series by Katherine Forest. I found Murder by Tradition incredibly empowering so was excited to read this book. It was engaging and a nice change of pace.
Currently I’m reading The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. It’s probably something I’d enjoy more if I had lived through the 1970s but it is witty, and the characters are bizarrely compelling.
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