Pandemic Dispatches Photo by Daniel Tafjord / Unsplash Unrequited love I download a book. One of those books—for women. Certainly not porn, but you know. Never mind the shirtless guy gracing its cover (his lumpy, bumpy abs—oh my!), or the wanton splay of the woman draping him like a second, luminous skin. It’s online, so who’s to know? I bought it on a whim: because of pandemic exhaustion and political brouhaha. Because of stuckness—which, you know, makes sense under the circumstances. Because everything but chocolate tastes gray these days. And no, I don’t have Covid. I’ve tested three times: negative negative negative. Anyway, I barely leave the house. Still, I miss the wanting, the all-over body shivers that come with desire—for anything at all. Because Netflix? Meh. Puzzles? Eh. Sex? I guess. Breadmaking? Knitting a roof-cozy for the garage . . . Really? Who’s got such stamina anymore? And—horror of horrors—for the first time ever, reading has lost its bite. My usual fare: literary fiction for entrée, magical realism for spice, even that old fallback, the sci-fi and fantasy of my teenaged years (call it the candy course). Snore. As for my old lovers, Ms. Austin and the Brontës—usually good for another spin cover to cover . . . Nope. Can’t slog past chapter 1. Then there’s this book, I won’t say its name or author or trope. I won’t bemoan the lackluster writing. It hardly matters. There’s a heroine—pretty as a pearl... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2021-06-16 13:40:35 UTC ]
Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 25/05/2011 - 09:41 The safeguarding of Waterstone's future will secure the midlist of history and science writing, literary fiction and memoir, the m.d. of Faber has said. Stephen Page, writing in the Guardian, said if the Waterstone's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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