Niamh’s Reads: For The Love of Words

Deputy Editor Niamh McGonnell-Hall bids her farewell to Grapeshot and leaves you with one final Niamh’s Reads

My dearest readers, the time has come for me to say my goodbyes to this wonderful magazine. Whilst it is a bitter moment, I shall try to focus on the sweetness and on all the amazingly creative people I met along the way.

I wanted to do something slightly different for this final instalment of Niamh’s Reads, and give you all a list of my most treasured reads, from any genre and form, that have spurred my love of words. Perhaps you will find Niamh’s Reads in another space in the future, but for now, I shall leave you with a perfect package for you to open and rummage through any time you feel the need to blush about ink on paper.

The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Book Shop - Takuya Asakura, translated by Yuka Maeno

This recent read of mine transformed the way I thought about a single literary work. It is told across four seasons and four different personas, who each visit the bookshop. The owner, Sakura and her cat, who is just as important, guide these visitors through the difficult events in their lives. I want to especially highlight the translation. First published in Japanese, the translator has preserved the author’s simplistic yet moving language, making all the difference in its impact. The book, whilst having a blushing pink cover, makes readers swim into deep wells of emotion, yet is ready to gently lead them into the sun again at its close. I cried during the last chapter, on which I won’t elaborate further, but I can assure you the tears were happy ones.

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-reum, translated by Shanna Tan

An even more recent read of mine, and another translation that has provoked a deep yet comforting reflection on books and what they mean to different people. In fact, I didn’t realise that it was written in a mixture of both first and third person until halfway through, a testament to the writer's skill and how each chapter, paragraph, and sentence envelopes the reader in a warm cocoon of peace. This book, for me, has a mood that is neither melancholy nor estatic, but one that is perfectly balanced between “harmony and dissonance” [1]. 

“The Mark on the Wall” - Virginia Woolf 

This modernist flow of consciousness details a woman staring at a mark on her wall, musing over picture frames, a ro

se leaf, Troy and the persistent and ever-present World War. A journey into her mind, a wandering between the words on the page and how her brain makes jumps and skips between each word to the next.

Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi

Science fiction is more than future technology and unrecognisable worlds. They are the books that examine the very notions of power, relationships, society, class, and life itself. The struggle to survive in the world that the Shatter Me series creates illuminates the very reasons why one should keep fighting. Anger, frustration and despair were at the forefront during my reading experience. Yet they lay on top of a solid foundation of resistance and hope. Something that the world needs now more than ever.

The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

One of the most lyrical novels I have read, this tale follows the myth of Achilles and Patroclus and is steeped in a love so intense you feel injured as you turn the final page. After unwillingly crawling out of the daze-like, albeit devastating bubble it put me in, I look back on it now as the blushing cheek of the Greek Heroic Age. 

I hope that these reads inspire you in some way, make you see the world differently, or give you a sense of peace. Stories have the power to change us and change others. And if you haven't experienced this, then you just haven’t read the right words yet.  

By Niamh McGonnell-Hall

References

1. Bo-reum, H. (2022). Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop. Bloomsbury.