Reader’s block

Strangely, I had a bad start to my Booker bookathon. I was beginning to feel like one of those Olympians who showed so much promise in the lead-up to competition but then bombed out once the Games began. The reader’s equivalent of writer’s block.
I just couldn’t engage with Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bones, which on paper is the Gold Medal favourite. But in a wild variation of my usual training program, instead of pushing on I just changed horses mid-race. Radical but as it turned out, successful.
I raced through The Strange Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. It was a joy, quiet and understated easily meeting the criteria set by Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement (so good you wouldn’t want to leave the book behind on the beach and you’d be happy to read it twice).
Now on to Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil. Quiet and gentle this definitely is not. Harsh and ugly, in a very poetic way.
Things are looking up. After stumbling at the start I now feel fit and ready for the marathon.
I intend to do my country proud.