Sometimes in the book blogosphere we’re all looking at books of the moment – several reviews will be posted about a new book or a title in the news – there’s a synchronicity about it all …
Take the book I’m reading now for instance – Warwick Collins new novel The Sonnets which puts Shakespeare’s poems into a novel setting to explain the context of their writing. It’s published by Scott Pack’s the Friday Project and he’s been active in pushing it – I was lucky enough to get a freebie. My review will follow next week, but meanwhile you can read John Self’s on his blog here Asylum.
Then there are cases which display both synchronicity and serendipity …
Take the book Blindness by Portuguese author Jose Saramago. Now Emilia in our book group chose this for us to read weeks ago – I’ve just finished it, loved it – but will wait until our book group has discussed it to post my review. However you can read Teresa’s over on Shelf Love. While that may appear to be a totally serendipitous choice for us, it turns out that the film of the book, starring the rather fab Julianne Moore is due out soon and looks well worth seeing. Maybe we were all subconsciously influenced by this?
Lastly there are books that appear to be purely serendipitous choices that we just pick at the same time without any other influences …
The recent one I’m thinking of is Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. A few weeks ago I promoted this to my bedside pile – the ones which will get read next, and lo and behold someone else has recently read it and posted! It’s that man John Self again … you can read his review here on Asylum.
Or is it pure serendipity? Yesterday on the radio, I heard there is loads of buzz about Nabokov’s original story he based Lolita on!
It is interesting when you find a blogger reading something you’ve just read or plan to.The Nabakov story is that his son is publishing a novel he was working on before his death and wanted burnt. You can read about it here.
Blindness is definitely in the air right now, probably because of the movie, which has already come and gone over here. Oddly enough, I discovered Saramago completely independently this summer and didn’t know anyone who had heard of him. Imagine my surprise at seeing him mentioned all over the blogosphere these days! It does make you consider the whole idea of a collective unconscious.
Thanks for the pointer on the Nabokov story – I couldn’t remember any of the details when I heard about it!I’d bought Blindess this summer too – it was on the translated fiction table in Waterstones, but I wouldn’t have read it so soon if someone hadn’t picked it out for me – I’m glad they did it was an astonishing book.