{"id":207625,"date":"2025-04-26T22:59:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T22:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/a-snapshot-of-my-reading-3\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T22:59:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T22:59:30","slug":"a-snapshot-of-my-reading-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=207625","title":{"rendered":"A Snapshot of My Reading #3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<p>Quite a mixture this month including one from a much-loved author with a long career behind her and two others by writers I\u2019d not come across before.<\/p>\n<p><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-35250\" src=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/My-Husband-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"Cover image for My Husband by Maud Ventura\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/My-Husband-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/My-Husband.jpg 323w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\"\/>The novel I\u2019m reading<\/strong> is <em>My Husband <\/em>by French writer Maud Ventura (transl. Emma Ramadan) in which the narrator is still in the grips of obsessive passion for her husband over fifteen years since they met, alert to slights or any hint of infidelity, and oblivious to their children. I\u2019m on the last of the six days spanned by the book which deserves its Virginia Feito endorsement. Darkly funny at times, there\u2019s a definite sense of menace knowing, as we do, that the husband has told his wife they need to talk. What does he want to say, and what will she do as a result?<br \/><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-35251\" src=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Metamorphosis-196x300.jpg\" alt=\"Cover image for Metamorphosis by Penelope Lively\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Metamorphosis-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Metamorphosis.jpg 326w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The short story collection<\/strong> I\u2019ve just started is Penelope Lively\u2019s <em>Metamorphosis <\/em>whose overarching theme is change, as its title suggests. The collection bookends twenty-four stories, published from 1978 to 2016, with two lengthy pieces from 2021. I\u2019ve read the first which follows seven-year-old Harriet from 1915 into her eighties in a whirlwind tour of the twentieth century in which she proves herself to be resourceful, talented, bookish and bright, ready to take up any opportunity life presents and create a few of her own. It\u2019s a brilliant start to what I\u2019m sure will be an enjoyable selection.<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-35252\" src=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Look-Here-199x300.webp\" alt=\"Cover image for Look Here by Ana Kinsella\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Look-Here-199x300.webp 199w, https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Look-Here.webp 332w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\"\/>The non-fiction book I\u2019m reading<\/strong> is Ana Kinsella\u2019s <em>Look Here <\/em>subtitled \u2018On the Pleasures of Observing the City\u2019. The city in question is London where Kinsella lives and works, having grown up in Dublin. I\u2019m about a third of the way through these enjoyable short pieces which range from interviews to observations made in cafes, on the Tube, in parks or simply wandering around the city. My favourites are the seasonal Field Notes, glimpses of other peoples\u2019 lives noticed by Kinsella who is a sharp, witty observer of idiosyncratic detail with a keen eye for a stylish dresser<\/p>\n<p>What about you? What are you reading?<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-block sd-like jetpack-likes-widget-wrapper jetpack-likes-widget-unloaded\" id=\"like-post-wrapper-52859811-35249-680d61ae6143a\" data-src=\"https:\/\/widgets.wp.com\/likes\/?ver=14.5#blog_id=52859811&amp;post_id=35249&amp;origin=alifeinbooks.co.uk&amp;obj_id=52859811-35249-680d61ae6143a\" data-name=\"like-post-frame-52859811-35249-680d61ae6143a\" data-title=\"Like or Reblog\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Like this:<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"button\"><span>Like<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"loading\">Loading&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sd-text-color\"\/><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quite a mixture this month including one from a much-loved author with a long career behind her and two others by writers I\u2019d not come across before. The novel I\u2019m reading is My Husband by French writer Maud Ventura (transl. Emma Ramadan) in which the narrator is still in the grips of obsessive passion for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[79169,79170,79171,79172,35204,79173,79174,3646,5388,79175],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-207625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-ana-kinsella","tag-emma-ramadan","tag-look-here","tag-maud-ventura","tag-metamorphosis","tag-my-husbans","tag-penelope-lively","tag-reading","tag-snapshot","tag-snapshot-of-my-reading"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Snapshot of My Reading #3 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=207625\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Snapshot of My Reading #3 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Quite a mixture this month including one from a much-loved author with a long career behind her and two others by writers I\u2019d not come across before. 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