I’ve read outside, sleeves pulled up to the elbows, twice now this month. Glorious. I currently have a couple of books I’m right in the middle of and a couple more I’ve put on hold for the time being. Those on hold I hope to get back to soon – I know I should finish them anyway but there’s the additional downside of it seeming as though I’ve read more books than I have: my reading log has six unfinished books on it which inevitably ups the overall number of ‘books’.

At the moment I’m concentrating on two novels – Sally O’Reilly’s Dark Aemilia and Rory Gleeson’s Rockadoon Shore.

The O’Reilly is a book I chose from a back catalogue. It’s one I heard a lot about around the time it was published and was intrigued by, but I’m glad of the space in-between its release date and my reading it. It’s about Aemilia Lanyer, a poet/minor courtier who lived in the 1600s. She was the first woman, at least in Britain, to be paid for her craft and knew Queen Elizabeth. ‘Craft’ in the other sense is also relevant – literature about her involves a level of what would have been termed witchcraft (herbs, potions) and Lanyer is known to have visited an astrologer.

I’m glad I waited because I have added context in which to read it; Elizabeth Fremantle’s most recent release, The Girl In The Glass Tower, is another interpretation of Aemilia and so I liked the idea of hearing two different voices on the subject in a short period of time. Both books are indeed very different – whereas Fremantle’s Aemilia is widowed, poor, and focused on her possibly fictional friendship with the Lady Arbella Stuart (great-great-granddaughter of Henry VII), as well as the rumours of witchcraft, O’Reilly’s book takes place at court during Aemilia’s younger years and concerns the possible connection between the poet and Shakespeare. Both books are written in very differing manners so whilst they’re fictional you do get the feeling you’re reading widely.

(Of Shakespeare it has been proposed Aemilia was his ‘Dark Lady’, hence O’Reilly’s title. It’s suggested that Aemilia may have been his muse; the film Shakespeare In Love seems to have been a starting point for O’Reilly and after having read up on Aemilia, I was rather surprised to discover the film does not directly reference her.)

Dark Aemilia is a good book; there is a lot of period detail and O’Reilly’s evidently taken her time over it. The chapters are appropriately titled ‘scenes’ and there are a fair number of nods towards the theatre in the narrative but for me it’s proving a little too theatrical. Aemilia, here, is also quite black-and-white in her thinking and quite frustrating. I’m appreciating the book rather than actively enjoying it.

Rory Gleeson’s Rockadoon Shore is a book I picked up at the John Murray Fiction Showcase earlier this year. Many of the books highlighted will not be published until much later in the year; Gleeson’s publishing date was January. At the event the author made the book sound quite humorous and very intriguing; it’s about a group of friends who go on a weekend away – the story takes place over a couple of days. Growing up I always wondered why characters in books so rarely ate lunch and hardly ever bathed so the short time period in the book appealed to me. There are indeed more showers and much food and drink is consumed. The general style of it I’m enjoying – there’s a lot of white-space as the dialogue often consists of single words (the F word is one of them) and Gleeson has a pretty good knack for characters. Interesting is the way he writes the women, often in the male gaze and yet other times a lot more objectively, more as a woman would write them – I’m sensing a deliberate decision here to portray both genders from various perspectives. This said, when it comes to the female characters’ narratives (Gleeson’s narrative is third person and the chapters cycle through the characters, one at a time) they aren’t completely realistic.

I’m yet to work out where the story is going; at this point I’m under the impression it may just be an exploration. If it is an exploration then I’m not sure how successful the whole will turn out to be, partly because the scope is so limited. But it’s a good escape and relatively short, an easy read. As a slow reader I’m enjoying being able to read 70 pages an hour.

As a general update on the books I’ve put aside for now: Vanity Fair is still there, but now alive and kicking. I recently decided to re-start it which may be ill-advised as I was already half-way through but I could not see myself getting through it otherwise; Tender Is The Night lounges somewhere at home – I last picked it up at Christmas and I’m not worried about that; Twelve Years A Slave is excellent, I’m just aware I can’t give it the full attention it requires; A Brief History Of Seven Killings I’ll be going back to after my current two books; With Her In Ourland I’m slowly making my way through. The ‘problem’ with the Perkins Gilman is it’s very much a lecture, a sort of fictional political tract, than a novel, and as Herland was so good it’s been quite a let down.

So that’s my reading – a bit all over the place at the moment, rather like me in general. I’m hoping it’ll settle down sometime soon.

What have you read recently?