Wabbit

Felt really tired after lunch so, instead of getting on with my plans, I retreated upstairs and spent the afternoon napping and reading and feel the better for it. 

I have three books on the go at present: 

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara which I started a few weeks ago. It is chronicles the lives of four college roommates (all men)  who settle in Manhatten, focusing on the life of one in particular.  It is beautifully written but is not an easy read. It is also a long read at over 700 pages and so I am taking it slowly. 

This meant I had to start my next book group read Fleishman in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner before I'd finished A Little Life as our book group meets next Monday. This too is set in Manhattan and features a male protagonist but is very different. It is interesting to compare the two. 

The third book is a short account of the life of Lady Evelyn Stewart Murray (1868 to 1940) the youngest daughter of the 7th Duke of Atholl.  I became interested in her when I learnt that she had collected 100s of Gaelic stories from people living on the Atholl estates and translated them into English. The were collected over a short period of time when she was still in her early 20s. They have now been published as  Tales From Highland Perthshire which I got at the same time. It is a wonderful book - beautifully presented with English translations presented alongside the Gaelic originals with plenty of footnotes explaining both the context and the language.  

The rest of her life  is also interesting - it would  seem that she was anorexic/bulimic and was sent away to Europe by her mother, ostensibly to get treatment but possibly to avoid embarrassing the family for refusing to behave as typical Victorian Lady.