Allow me to recommend...

This book.

One of the great things about being on a year abroad is the chance to read for PLEASURE again. It feels so indulgent to kick up my feet in some woolen socks and just read and read and read not because I HAVE to, but because I WANT to. One of the best places to read is on long journeys and I find that the kindle is the perfect way to enjoy a book without getting travel sick. Don't ask me how or why, it just does. So when I was anticipating my 5 hour train journey to Berlin last Thursday evening I thought it might be a good idea to find a good read to make the time pass quicker. The lovely Bridget from The Deer Circus has been raving about this book of essays by Sloane Crosley and I thought the title sounded pretty yummy so I picked it up on the kindle store and started reading.

I laughed out loud. That never happens to me when reading. I found the first half of the book really original and witty. From then on it went downhill a bit, it felt like she'd relapsed into  the generic wry, independent, self-indulgent city-woman that often has a column in a newspaper magazines and finds talking about her love-life, the state of her underwear drawer, slating her highschool-friends' wedding and what a bad vegetarian she is not only interesting but completely hilarious. Some parts of those chapters were funny, but I felt like I'd heard most of the prose before.  A lot of the reviews on Amazon suggested that it could have benefitted from stricter editing, which I think I agree with. I also think reading a book of essays by Sloane Crosley about Sloane Crosley in one five hour sitting was inevitably going to drive me nuts. Perhaps if I'd split it up into chunks I wouldn't be drawing such conclusions and I would have loved the whole thing. Apart from the minor lapse in the middle, this book IS worth reading, if for the opening chapter alone. She's got a real gift for writing eloquently about the most random situations and when read slowly might be  a real treat for afternoon tea.