I mostly hibernated in February. Usually with the dog snuggled up next to me or on my feet. Which is lovely but I also feel guilty that I left the house so little. It’s not unrelated that spring seems to be just barely getting started a month later than usual this year.

There is one new thing in my life – I’ve started playing D&D! About 18 years after Tim started playing D&D and telling me how great it is, I’m finally giving it a try. Two sessions in, I really enjoy it.

And now it’s March. Happy St David’s Day.

Books read

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Morrison’s prose is amazing. In 1940s Ohio, Pecola is a young Black girl living in the direst circumstances – poverty, abuse, bullying, you name it. Yet this isn’t a tough read because Morrison uses a touch of humour and exquisite language to tell Pecola’s story, introducing us to all the people around her.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
In 1980s rural China, Li-yan has been raised to farm tea with her family and live the same way their village has for hundreds of years. As Akha, an ethnic minority, they have largely been left alone by the Chinese state. But just as Li-yan is coming of age, outside opportunities beckon and she is faced with huge decisions. I really enjoyed this novel.

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee
Translated from Korean by Anton Hur
An unusual variant on memoir, Baek combines short essays and transcripts from sessions with her psychiatrist. She is trying to get on top of her anxiety and persistent low-level depression. She is trying to learn how to curb her harmful behaviours. It’s a very open, frank book though it doesn’t get into the darker side of depression (despite the title, suicide is never mentioned, and there is only passing reference to her having an eating disorder). I must admit I found it a little repetitive and lacking in resolution, but this is real life after all.

Giant Days Vol. 14 by John Allison and Max Sarin
The final volume of the comic series set at Sheffield University. Daisy and Esther are graduating and face their futures, with Susan and their other friends cheering them on. This is a suitably surreal, strange ending that doesn’t wrap up anything neatly but does give a satisfying point to leave these three young women.

Decline of the English Murder by George Orwell
A thin volume of essays by the incomparable Orwell. I love his humanism, his championing of the poor, his wit and his range of interests. These essays explore the types of murder case that British newspapers cover; magazines of short stories aimed at boys and women; naughty seaside postcards; attempting to get arrested to find out what a night in jail is like; and hop-picking in Kent. The only essay I didn’t love was the last one. Orwell plays at being homeless, following the itinerant jobseekers from the streets of London to the hop farms of Kent. It’s the same act he pulled in his research for Down and Out in Paris and London, and I understand the motive, but this essay is peppered with misogyny, homophobia, racism and antisemitism.