Currently Reading: Over the Top, Mao: A Very Short Introduction and Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time

Dear readers!

Hope you're having a fantastic week. Have you been reading much? If yes, what's hot for you right now? Leave a comment below!

I'm always reading 2-3 books at the same time. I mean, not literally but I will keep a couple of options on my night stand and on our coffee table as for me, what I want to read depends on my mood. I'm a big on autobiographical books and memoirs because I am always super interested in lived experience: it doesn't matter who they are or what they did, I just want to know how they felt, what did they say or do with their friends or family, what is/was their intimate passion.

Without further ado, let me introduce my current reads: Over the Top, Mao: A Very Short Introduction and Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night Time

Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness

For my birthday Joe got me nearly all of the memoirs of the Queer Eye cast; I got Tan, I got Karamo. JVN was the last one missing from the collection (Antoni wrote a cook book and Bobby a decor piece). My gorgeous 'Little Book of Sass' - a collection of JVN quotes - soon accompanied the real thing and the book hasn't let me down. It's raw, it's honest and it shines Jonathan's eternal inner positivity and harmony (which, I now see, took years to discover). Jonathan is an example to any young LGBT+ person who struggles with finding love & acceptance and falls into the company of drugs, escorting and unhealthy food as a way to self-medicate. His story is one everyone should read. It gives you chills, but it will make you forever look at him and think to yourself "if he could get through all that darkness and find the light, I will, too".


Mao: A Very Short Introduction by Delia Davin

Random, right? I know. That's what I thought when I clicked the Add to Basket button on our university website. All I can say is that I'm interested in stories, no matter what they've done... I've learnt a lot from this book, such as how Mao was both a feminist and a misogynist: he supported equal pay & other human right equalities for men and women, yet he dumped most of his girlfriends and wives like they were nothing - some of them he left together with the child he fathered. He had a weak ego, he was competitive and a hypocrite: Mao criticised scholars who voiced their political opinions, stating that the privileged shouldn't lead the country - yet Mao studied in various universities himself. Thus far I have also learned that Mao was an enthusiastic reader, he was a passionate person and devoted to his friends. I am looking forward to learning about his time as a chairman for the CCP, as we have recently studied the concepts of communism and socialism at university. I recommend this book because it's an interesting read. Yes, you'll learn about the personality of Mao, but you'll also learn what China was like in the early 1900s.


Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

This book got given to me anonymously at university for a writing task and I am absolutely in love with it. It's one of those books in England where you kinda need to read it because most British people did in their youth (it was first published in early 2000). The story is about a 15 year old boy -"a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties" - called Christopher who tries to figure out who killed the neighbour's dog and during his investigation he finds out secrets about his family. Half-way through, am looking forward to finding out who, indeed, killed the dog, and will Christopher see his mum again?

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Before you go, I've got a couple of questions for you...

Do you like to read one book at a time or do you like to pile a couple and alternate between them?

Also, I want to hear what your reading experience is when you're not on holiday (everyone reads by the pool, right?): where do you like to or tend to read? What's your favourite spot ever?


Nelli x