I’ve been catching up on reading, researching and discovering new books that inspire.

Reading outside, in the sunshine, is such a lovely way to spend lazy time, the body resting and rocking in a hammock, the mind travelling to a place far, far away.

The two books I’ve recently read come under the category of novels I was really glad I read. I enjoyed one a lot and the other much, much more. They are both novels that are written with so much confidence and belief in their own style that the reader feels in safe hands throughout. The storytelling is strong, the plot and characxters completely fascinating and the tale unravels cleverly, each stage impressive.

I loved reading The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatikala. It’ a captivating story about a photographer who is dead, and finds himself in some sort of celestial office with seven days to contact the man and the woman he loves and to lead them to photos that will somehow save Sri Lanka.

It’s a Booker Prize-winner that fizzes with humour and resonates with serious meaning. I loved it. A friend of mine thought it was ‘weird.’ I know what she means. But it’s so much fun and so consuming.

The Sky Is A River by Elif Shafak is probably on my list of the best twenty five books I’ve ever read. I adored every moment. The three stories in one are so cleverly interwoven. A young boy with a brilliant memory, born into poverty in Victorian London on the Thames; a contemporary woman who lives in a houseboat there to escape a finished marriage; a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris who wants to be baptized.

It’s a breathtaking book, each episode so cleverly told, and the three plots are so intelligently interwoven. I didn’t want the book to end. All three characters are fascinating, the storytelling absolutely masterful, and each person is connected by a single drop of water.

It’s a staggeringly good read. I’ll read more by this author.

My TBR pile is still a skyscraper. Watch this space…