January Books: Fiction

 I had fun with fiction in January, immersing myself in the following books:

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

I had started this at the end of December, set it aside partway through, then picked it up again and got stuck in. It's all about timing! I enjoyed this book a lot. I did think at first that I might not like the second part, but after getting further into it, I found I did!

Voices: An Open Door Book of Stories, Patricia Scanlan, ed

Someone gave me this collection of short stories. The proceeds from the sale of the book go to the National Adult Literacy Association. It’s a nice collection and very current—several stories had the current pandemic as a theme. This book contains both fiction and nonfiction stories. I like the cover art, too.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (audiobook read by Casey Mulligan)

I clicked on this title when scrolling through the e-audiobook section of the library website. I had read a book by this author and really enjoyed it, and this one seemed intriguing, so I borrowed it. It was great! The reader was quite good and I loved the book. The ending was not a surprise, but that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book.

The main character is Nora Seed, a woman in her mid-30s who is having a rough time. Her parents have both died (her father when she was still a kid), her brother isn’t speaking to her, she has a job at a music store, but is let go, her best friend is in Australia (Nora lives in the UK), and then her cat dies. She decides there is no reason for her to live, so she tries to kill herself. Instead of dying, she finds herself in The Midnight Library, which is staffed by Mrs Elm, her childhood school librarian who was extremely important to her when she was young. Mrs Elm tells her that between life and death there is a library. The library contains an infinite number of books, each one a different life that Nora is living. She gets to choose any of these lives and try them out, but at the first sign of dissatisfaction, she will find herself back at the Midnight Library. She proceeds to try to do over the things that caused her regret. She learns a lot along the way.

When I came across this book, I was able to borrow it right away—there was no queue. That was about a week ago. I don’t know what happened, but now if someone wanted to borrow it, they would have to reserve it and wait for it to become available—in September 2034! Glad to return it so the next person can start listening!

Humans: An A-Z by Matt Haig

A few years ago, I read the author’s novel The Humans and laughed and laughed. That book is apparently something of a sequel to this one, fleshing out the experiences of the main character, an alien who has come to earth to put on the persona of a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. It’s about his attempts to understand what is going on and to learn the culture—I’m a big fan of culture shock/adaptation stories. This is more of a glossary, providing words and funny definitions from the point of view of a newcomer to the planet as a way to inform his fellow non-earthlings. This is from the description on the site:

‘... this user-guide to the human race will help you translate their sayings, understand exotic concepts such as 'democracy' and 'sofas', and make sense of their habits and bizarre customs.

A phrase book, a dictionary and a survival guide, this book unravels all the oddness, idiosyncrasies and wonder of the species, allowing everyone to make the most of their time on Earth.'

Like the novel, this one made me laugh out loud.

And now, to proceed into a fabulous fiction-filled February!

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