It's so easy to talk about what you're reading but I think it's just as important to talk about why you're reading a book. Isn't that the fascinating part? Finding out what made someone pick up a book and read it just as much as what they thought of it. So I want to take some time and write a little post about why I'm reading a book and encourage everyone to share their reasons and thoughts about the books they read too.
First up I'm currently reading Ali Smith's How To Be Both. My foremost reason for reading this book is because it was nominated for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist and I started reading it just before it won the prize. Aside from the spotlight that the Baileys prize has given it, I know I would still be reading this book because it is a work of genius. Ali Smith is such a craft-maker when it comes to her writing and she experiments with writing style and structure with this book and makes it into an art form as well as telling a succinct and wonderful story. The book itself is written in two parts - one set in 1400's Renaissance about an artist of a set of Frescoes and the other set in modern day following a girl who has lost her Mother - both parts are both separate from each other and intrinsically linked. Two versions of this book have been published simultaneously, each with the two parts printed in an alternating order and it's up to chance (or choice) which version you end up reading. I think this is such a clever idea, not only does Ali Smith bend the conventions with words but also with the publication too and that is why I love her, and love this book, and I can see why it won the Bailey's prize. Depending which version of the book you are reading defines which way round you are given the story and I think it is absolutely fascinating that other readers around me are reading a different story within the same book. It really does show off how it is to be both and that neither is right or wrong but shines alternative perspectives on interpretation and experience.
This is why I am reading Ali Smith's How To Be Both and why I think you should too!
