JANUARY BOOK HAUL | 2018

JANUARY BOOK HAUL 2018

Firstly, charity shops are amazing for books (and someone who is addicted to buying books). I could 100% get carried away with books in charity shops because they are SO cheap! Today, I picked up a few that I'd luckily been intending to pick up over the past few months. Firstly I picked up 'White Teeth' by Zadie Smith; I've heard a lot about Zadie Smith and her books, both non-fiction and fiction. This one was her debut novel, with amazing reviews as well as it won the Guardian First Book Award and James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. From reading the blurb, I can gather that the book has an accumulation of friendship, love, war which spans over generations and centuries. I think this books is very much going to centre around the characters that Smith has created and the relationships with each other; just about life in general. It's going to be an interesting read. 
To be honest, I've picked up books that somewhat out of my comfort zone, I tend to focus on one genre that I like without really venturing in to others, as I'm going to be a English student I want to travel in to different genres and who knows I may fall in love with a genre and enjoy the aspects of it. 
The next novel I picked up was the renowned 'The Underground Railroad' by Colson Whitehead. I first heard about this book when sunbeamsjess on YouTube was reading it I think for part of her dissertation. The cover is amazing, may I add but also the context is never one I've come in to great contact with; it's about the slave trade and the brutality of it. But there's inevitably an Underground Railroad (hence the title) that is an escape route for the slaves. This will be an interesting read also, but nevertheless hard-hitting and devastating. I've never really read fiction focusing on the slave trade, so I think this will be very eye-opening and a poignant read.
I bought a non-fiction books; Erving Goffman's 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life'. I studied Sociology at  A-Level and I'm proceeding to study it at University. I've come across Goffman's work before in textbooks etc and somewhat agreed with his theories and thoughts; so I thought I'd pick this one up to read more in-depth about his thoughts and paradigms, as he was branded the 'most influential sociologist of the 20th century'. 
The last book I bought was Patrick Neate's 'Twelve Bar Blues' (again the cover is very aesthetically pleasing). This book was the Winner of the 2001 Whitbread Novel Award, in context from the text on  the blurb it doesn't sound too dissimilar to White Teeth, but of course every book is different. The book revolves around the 'Twelve Bar Blues' of the Jazz scene and music in New Orleans. Whilst also  the book time travels from two ends of the century. I think overall the novel is a journey to find your roots, and historical context of the time its set as well. 
I hugely recommend just popping in to your local charity shop and browsing the books, because you never know what you might find, as well as investing time to visit your local library, it seems like its the only place that is free in society, and they're not asking for money off of you. 

Happy Reading 
Rose x