Blog fatigue and book loot
Posted by elena | Posted in General | Posted on 22-07-2010
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This blog was my creative crutch for over a year. I was working part-time hours for a publishing company that specialised in non-fiction books I had no interest in ever reading.
A few weeks ago I started my publishing internship with a fiction imprint of a much bigger house. I’m surrounded by beautiful books and writing all day. I’m reading for work, and for pleasure, and, to be honest, the brain is getting too full.
This, if you hadn’t realised, is my pathetic excuse of an apology for the lack of posts lately. With a few reviews in the pipeline, I’ll take this opportunity to show off my book loot from an impulse book-buying frenzy that occurred a couple of hours ago.
Do you work with books night and day? Is this fatigue common or am I just weak, with a soft-spot for trashy tv?
* 2666 by Roberto Bolano
* Revenge of the Lawn, The Abortion & So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan (3-in-1. Score!)
* Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.
* The Trial by Franz Kafka
* Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
You’re going to love Sargasso!
ooh 2666! I loved this, can’t wait to see what you think, could be a while though it’s huge… have you read any other Roberto Bolano books?
Oh! I want to read Atomised. I tried 2666, but it didn’t go so well…
Enjoy the loot!
Oh wow your job sounds wonderful! Sometimes it is hard to juggle it all – the job, the home, the life, reading and the blog.
Atomised is one of my favourites. Entirely offensive in pretty much every way, and just so god damn well written. Hope you do a review of it.
As for blog fatigue, I know it well. I think that the idea of maintaining a blog is far more interesting than the reality. Sometimes you just don’t have anything to say. What you need is for someone to say occasionally “i like what you blog, keep doing it. It’s worth it.”
I like what you blog, keep doing it Elena. It’s worth it.
I’m doing The Wide Sargasso Sea for uni this semester, I’m really looking forward to it! :)
Looking forward to your review of it, too!
Oh, lucky you! Congrats on scoring the internship! Please send any ARCs and freebies my way when you get offered the boss’ position. :-)
I work in a library, borrow books from there (after swearing I won’t) then I go home and what do I do? I go to my local library and go borrow more stuff. Ugh! It’s a never ending cycle.
Mae: Hehe no problem (you might have to wait about fifty years before i’m in the boss’s position). That sounds like a never ending cycle of awesome! :p But it’s quite torturous to be surrounded by books all day and night, no?
You are not alone. I read and write for work and want to do more of both for pleasure. My first book (coincidentally set in the year 2666) was done in my spare time, and I think it benefited in some ways and suffered substantially in others because it was written in dribs and drabs. Better because it was written with joy, but suffered for a lack of consistent focus. But hey, we learn from experience so the next one’s got to be an improvement, right?
PS. Am jealous of your list, particularly Atomised. Although I can’t complain since I’ve had a few early looks at (still unpublished) books from Australian authors lately, most of which have been good. And it’s nice to get hands on advance and unbound copies, and feel like you get them first. Does that sense wear off if you do it full-time?