HOW I FEEL AT THE MOMENT:

"She felt mute and contented, loaded with potential, yet entirely unproductive."
- The private lives of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller

AMERICANAH

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, by David Levenson

CHICK LIT

Read The wonder spot by Melissa Bank a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure I agree with Curtis Sittenfeld's very well-written review in the New York Times where she calls The wonder spot chick lit. While it is a bit lacking in substance (in the way that you don't really care about what happens to the protagonist) and it isn't nearly as good as Bank's debut novel The girl's guide to hunting and fishing, I just don't think about it as chick lit which to me are books where the girl more often than not works in PR, the designer labels that she wears are randomly mentioned on every second page, as is the salon where she does her hair, she has a group of girlfriends that she drinks mojitos with and who all seem more interested in the protagonist's life than their own, she has her eyes set on her dream guy whose outfits and hair is just as meticulously described as her own and the ending always consists of the girl realising that he loved her all along or - in order to switch it up a bit - that she didn't really love him but that other guy waiting in the wings who maybe doesn't have the right credentials (i.e. money, an interest in celebrities) but who nevertheless has great hair and loves her for who she is. Basically, Everyone worth knowing by Lauren Weisberger (I think I might have just inadvertently described the plot) or Bergdorf Blondes by Plym Sykes, or anything by Sophie Kinsella. And that's not what I got out of The wonder spot. (Side-bar, while we are on the subject: I also don't regard Helen Fielding's novels about Bridget Jones or anything by Marian Keyes as chick-lit. And also, I don't necessarily think that chick lit novels are always a bad thing).
Having said that, I didn't especially like The wonder spot.

After that, I read some books in Swedish, so feel free to go to the Swedish blog. Now I'm reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which is just so, so, so good.

HOCUS-POCUS TEENAGE-GIRL THINKING

I finished re-reading American wife yesterday morning and then spent the rest of the day reading Muriel Spark's The prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which was quite good. Currently trying to decide what to read next.

"Of course I later wondered: When you are the object of a person's affection, do you naturally credit him with a sympathetic heart and an understanding of the world? Perhaps your impression is right only insofar as it applies to you; in your presence, he is indeed possessed of these qualities for the very reason that you are the object of his affection. He is not observant so much as observant of you, not kind so much as kind toward you."
- American wife, Curtis Sittenfeld

AMERICAN WIFE

Currently re-reading Curtis Sittenfeld's American wife.

What I've read these past two-three weeks:

Samantha Hayes - Until you're mine

A badly written thriller, but with a surprising ending. Made me kind of forgive the writing, though not quite.

Doris Lessing - A proper marriage

Her writing is perfection. Enough said.

Margaret Drabble - The pure gold baby

Liked it very much, though not one of her best (but that's only because it is impossible to top her early books.)

Ian McEwan - Atonement

It might be too early to tell, but I think this novel might one of the best ones I've read this year.

Curtis Sittenfeld - The man of my dreams

Again! Yes! But it's just so, so good. I don't think any contemporary writer so fully understands teenage girls' and young womens' minds today as Sittenfeld. Also (and again): this book is just so, so good. The perfection of these sentences (the last ones):

""Hannah's boyfriend is cute, right?" Fig says.

Aunt Polly cups one ear.

"Hannah's boyfriend," Fig repeats and gives a thumbs-up gesture. (Hannah's boyfriend - they will always be the weirdest words Hannah can imagine. Jumbo shrip, she thinks. Military intelligence.)