A Snapshot of My Reading #16

June’s snapshot includes a short story collection which may turn out to be patchy, a biography for book nerds and a novel about art, writing, race and academia.

The short story collection I’m reading is Irish writer Rebecca Ivory’s Free Therapy. I’ve read two stories, the best of which was the first about a two adolescent friends, fiercely competitive about their bodies, one of whom emerges happy the other still engaged in the same old psychological habits years later. I’ve all but forgotten the second suggesting the collection might be a bit hit and miss.

The non-fiction book I’m reading is Jeremy Lewis’s biography of Allen Lane, The Man Who Changed the Way We Read, reissued last year in celebration of Penguin’s ninetieth birthday. I’m quite some way into this doorstopper which is a bit heavy on detail even for this nerd but enjoyable, nevertheless.

The novel I’m reading is Danzy Senna’s Colored Television which I picked up after enjoying From Caucasia with Love years ago. I’m not far into it but I’m enjoying her satirical take on identity politics and academia in which the main protagonist, who’s been struggling for nine years with her second novel after the success of her debut, has just sent off the first, very lengthy draft after an epiphany that’s unlikely to please her publisher.

What about you? What are you reading?