What I'm reading ...

I have started The Green Road by Anne Enright. It is time for fiction and I have not read any Irish writing for a while. Here’s the blurb:

Hanna, Dan, Constance and Emmet return to the west coast of Ireland for a final family Christmas in the home their mother is about to sell. As the feast turns to near painful comedy, a last, desperate act from Rosaleen - a woman who doesn't quite know how to love her children - forces them to confront the weight of family ties and the road that brought them home.

Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling - by Philip Pullman

This book, as the title says, is a collection of essays, which were written under a variety of circumstances. The background/origin of each is provided and this explains the varying style. There is also so update information at the end of a few, as many were written quite a few years ago.

Overall, I gained quite a few insights and it has made me think about writing and storytelling in a different way. I would recommend it to any aspiring writer. It was also interesting to get the author’s views on various topics, including education and religion; in most cases, he aligns with my opinions.

If I have any criticism of the book, I’d say it is a little long - a bit of culling might have been good. There are also a few examples of repetition, but I guess that was inevitable, given the essays’ origins.