![]() The relationships that are often lost or irreparably damaged in the midst of fierce competition. ![]() I enjoy reading about driven people with a singular focus and a passionate determination to reach their goals, about the things this makes them do, the way it brings out both the best and the worst in them as they seek achievement at any cost. I’ve written here about my interest for political campaigns, and I think the ballet world draws me for similar reasons. I love the behind-the-scenes glimpses of that world. It was the start, or something like the start, of my fascination with dance. It is packed with things I like in books: doomed love, the Cold War, characters who are exactly my age. The writing is lovely and the structure is rich and complex in a way that adds to the book and that I hope to learn from as I rework a previous novel of my own. (That summer, for precisely this purpose, I practically lived at Politics and Prose, my fabulous local independent bookstore.) Astonish Me turned out to be my favourite read of the year. I hadn’t read her first novel, Seating Arrangements, but I’d heard great things about it, and I was thirsty to learn as much as I could from good writers, especially women. In the spring of 2014, though, I picked up Maggie Shipstead’s Astonish Meat a book signing. ![]() I don’t have heart-warming stories of my mother taking me to the Nutcracker every year, or anything more than the fuzziest of memories of my few lessons as a five-year-old. ![]() I came late to ballet, as I have to many things. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |