Reading has been a lot slower this year compared to 2024. There are a number of reasons for that, the main one being that I perhaps read too much last year and have been struggling to find books that I can as easily get into this year. That, plus work, makes it slightly harder to find the time to sit down and read. All that being said, I’ve still been reading what averages out to a book and a half a week. This year has also been the year of my audiobook renaissance, although I’m not sure if it can really be called a renaissance when I was never an avid audiobook listener, but here we are. Some audiobook highlights include Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Women Talking by Miriam Toews. I’ve also been reading some plays, including Closer by Patrick Marber, Betrayal by Harold Pinter (a re-read, excellent classic), Private Lives by Noël Coward and Strategic Love Play by Miriam Battye. I have been extremely light on the romcoms this year, largely because I left my Kindle on a flight in April and haven’t been able to get it back, though I am holding out (very faint) hope. Despite that, I’ve come to realise what a winner Kennedy Ryan is and how much I enjoy her storytelling is by way of reading Before I Let Go. Another highlight is Real Estate by Deborah Levy, the last in her memoir trilogy that I really enjoyed. I both want to go back and read them all again and watch them all as a film series in the vein of the Before Sunrise trilogy and the film adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter. I have a couple of Deborah Levy novels on my shelf from my hoarding books days and really want to try some of them too. In the meantime, I have also been reading some proofs but yesterday started The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa which I’m speeding through so far. Her bio begins: ‘Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award.’ A flex if I ever read one.
Watching a few TV shows, namely Will Trent, The Buccaneers, Running Point, The Studio and Forever. I’ve also been avoiding watching the last four episodes of Severance season 2 for some reason. I feel like I need to be in a certain mood and that mood is yet to arrive. I’ve also paused watching Shrinking because of a storyline I didn’t like, but it’s very pathetic of me and I need to get myself together and just finish it. The TV highlight though has to be The Pitt. I used to watch Grey’s Anatomy because clearly I was in an I-love-misery phase, and was apprehensive about watching yet another medical drama but this is very different and very, very good. Fair warning though, this is a no-holds-barred HBO drama, not a pre-watershed show, so if you hate full-frontal everything and do not like seeing every detail of the reality of working in an emergency room them do not watch this. There are a lot of things you cannot un-see. Finally, obviously, because I have good taste (and want to understand hype), I watched Sinners. Yes.
Listened to the same playlists that were getting me through my work days last year. I have done little to no listening to new music other than a randomly shazamed song here and there, which is why my monthly playlists have either not existed or contained 2 or 3 songs max so far this year. Will that change any time soon? Probably not. But it’s a good job I have a bank of existing playlists that do the job. One playlist I’m always adding to is my ‘Love’ playlist. Not all the songs are even about love, but some of them just evoke the feeling. If you want to feel feels, then it’s a playlist for you.