Falling back in love with an old favourite

My to-be-read pile is steadily moving into the double figures (ok, who am I kidding it’s been there for a while) but I still struggle to pick a new read. What am I in the mood for this day/week/month?

So after finishing my last book (I didn’t particularly enjoy it so I’m not going to link it here- if you’re desperate to know what it was, it’s on my Goodreads!) I took to my tbr shelf – yes it has its own shelf now – it can take me a while to pick really. Sometimes I start a few books but give up after a few chapters. This doesn’t mean I won’t read those books just not right now.

Then Facebook came to the rescue!

It’s been a year since my two girls had kitten so I’ve been checking my memories on Facebook every day for any kitten goodness! But this morning I also had a memory from two years ago. It was an interview with China Mieville to mark the publication of his latest book October – which unsurprisingly was about the Russian revolution 100 years before. I had posted it on Facebook with multiple love-eyed emojis and I did in fact get the book itself for Christmas that year.

A little context

I am utterly and unabashedly in love with China Mieville. I originally heard of him in 2007 when my dad got me to read his ‘Tis The Season short story. I fell in love. Pretty soon after that my collection of China Mieville’s books started. I read Looking For Jake first – loving pretty much every single story then moved onto King Rat as my first novel.

I’ve since seen China Mieville three times at the Edinburgh International Book Festival – getting a lot of my books signed in the process – each time managing to completely embarrass myself.

I know people will be reading this thinking, it couldn’t be that bad surely??!! Believe me it was. From not being able to produce words or make eye contact to being able to find the words but all the wrong ones and finishing completely red faced each time has been pretty eventful and horrifying.

While researching possible MAs to attend when I read how much the tutors at Napier loved China Mieville; also the possibility that he might actually come for a guest lecture was kind of enough for me to choose the course (other reasons did appear but honestly? That was the initial spark)

So it’s no surprise that I actually have an entire shelf dedicated to China Mieville – I just feel really bad that I may have reread Looking for Jake multiple times I haven’t actually read all of the books a first time.

Fast forward to 2019

So he didn’t end up starring as a guest lecturer; although I did get to read his short psychogeography of London: London’s Overthrow and I made a new friend who also loves China Mieville (the wonderful Brittany – who also writes awesome weird fiction!) so I guess I can forgive him for not coming north of the border to teach us!

And that brings us back to today, with me standing in front of my bookshelves trying to decide the impossible and suddenly remembering I had all of these China Mieville books left to read.

So I’m off to start reading one of the lovely, lovely books from the author I’m most in love with.