The Duchess of Cornwall's Reading Room: "Where The Crawdads Sing". A Novel.

 

New York Times #1 best-seller

Back to the world of Reading

Got to love reading books again. Thanks to the reading room of Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and its ubiquitous book recommendations.

During lockdown in 2020, I have also watched Sarah, Duchess of York's story telling episodes which re-ignited my interest in reading. 

So it takes an influence of a Duchess to stir me back to reading. Something I haven't done in a while.

For years, since writing scripts for books, I totally abandoned reading. Although I read books sporadically on weekends, the dedication is not as lively as before where I read compulsively everyday and bought books almost every month.

I got so tired. My brain could no longer grasp with the pressure of reading lengthy chapters. absorbing thoughts, understanding scenes, and finishing chapters. I've got other things to do.

My focus was on developing plots, building characters and improving scenes, and even writing blog posts that reading tboroughly became a nuisance to me. So I've to give it up.

At times, I would read books on weekend but only self-improvement books in my collection. And I would not spend more than two hours.

I have not bought a single book since 2019. The last time I bought was a self-help book about embracing singlehood, understanding God's message about finding a lifetime partner. Solo Flights. 😄

Duchess of Cornwall's Reading Room

Lately, I started following Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall's Reading Room in instagram. It is an account dedicated for reading where she would recommend books to read in a week.

I find it a great platform to spend with because it reignited my interest in reading once again. I became curious also what books royals are reading.

Yesterday, Camilla's recommendation is a novel of an American author with an introducing title: "Where The Crawdads Sing".

I became curious.

Honestly, I haven't heard such book, nor its author, Delia Owens. So I made some round of research and readings in the internet. 

I was surprised to find out the book has been New York Time's Best-seller in 2019. And would be soon a Hollywood motion picture. Wow!

Published in 2018, "Where The Crawdads Sing" is a debut novel of American author, Delia Owens. According to Camilla, this book made her cry.  And something she could not put down.

My curiosity grew. 

I did not understand what's crawdad means so I googled the word and found out it's an informal name of a crayfish, part of the lobster's family.

Later I understood why it was chosen as the book title. Actually, it's a metaphor. The setting of the story happened in a small fishing village where the protagonist spent most of her time fishing crawfish and collecting shells. 

Where The Crawdads Sing

I have not read the book but I have read the book summary and reviews  in the internet, and it sounds interesting. 

Reading the plot summary alone, I could feel the title describes the atmosphere where the protagonist grew and thrived. 

The metaphor of her existince in a small fishing village where she was forced to sustain herself alone after she was abandoned by her entire family.

Here is the summary of the book from The Goodreads

"For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.

But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world–until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures"