Reading Review

The Story of a New Name - Elena Ferrante

This novel follows on from My Brilliant Friend and is every bit as good. It follows the same set of characters through early adulthood, their relationships and journey into parenthood. It was a great read and I'm looking forward to the next installment in this saga.

Letters to Tiptree

This is a collection of letters written by modern writers to James Tiptree Jr. This was another gift from Nico. Previously, I hadn't heard of James Tiptree Jr. This was the pen name of Alice Sheldon, a sci-fi writer in the 60s and 70s.

The story of this author is so special because of the dual identity and the gender barriers that they broke. At that time, many believed women couldn't write good science fiction, yet here was a woman writing some of the most popular stories of the time and she had everyone fooled.

The letters themselves took a bit of getting through, especially as I learned the background as I went along. Afterwards there's a short explanation of each writer's background which I felt would have been better collated with their letters.

The most interesting part for me was the collection of letters from James Tiptree Jr./Alice Sheldon herself to her contemporaries and their replies. This provides more of an insight to the story. I'd love to follow this story a bit more.

On the Road - Jack Kerouac

This one was a gift from the 100 classics list I am working my way through. With this one it really was work and took me a while to get into.

It is a novel about different road trips taken by the narrator across the U.S. and is written as he thinks (as a stream of consciousness). That's why it took me a while and to be honest, while it reflects its context (1940's America), it's not a page turner.

For me, it fits in with old fashioned prose like The Great Gatsby. I'm glad I stuck with it but not one I would especially recommend.