I need a cure
Here's a terrible truth: since becoming so immersed in the revisions of my own manuscript, I've found it hard to read fiction. For about a year, my reading pattern has been something like this:
- read a review of a book
- buy said book
- read first two pages
- frantically return to own ms to compare style
- get depressed
- force self to read first two chapters of neglected book
- give in to urge to compare hook and structure against own ms (and get depressed)
- go back to revisions and forget about book
- blow dust off book cover and feel guilty
- try to ignore book
- buy another book.
Needless to say, my bedside table is groaning under the weight of worthy half-finished novels.
But today I embark on a new plan to revive my own reading practices. The Miles Franklin Longlist was announced yesterday. As I was reading about it, I also read about the Stella Prize shortlist. At Gleebooks Dulwich Hill, I scoured the shelves with my iPad in hand (tragic swot) looking for titles in either list, in order to do my patriotic duty.I came across Michelle de Kretser's Questions of travel, which appears on both lists and has a front cover endorsement by AS Byatt and a back cover endorsement by Hilary Mantel.Is this book the cure for what ails me? There's only one way to find out ...