Sorry, I'm late! Not as late as spring though, amirite?

The days are getting shorter and the weather is finally warming up, but unlike the seasons, there's no change here. It's business as usual!

Now, what does a fantasy classic, a Welsh coming-of-age comedy, a gay erotic romance and a political drama about Communists in Manchester all have in common? Nothing! Except that I read them this month.

Here’s my March mix up...

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Every day in March I walked 10,000 steps to raise money for Cancer Research. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a Fellowship but the company of the definitive book about walking. And I’m not exaggerating when I say there is a lot of walking in The Lord of the Rings. A lot of walking and descriptions of nature.

J.R.R. Tolkien originally intended the epic tale of one hobbit’s mission to destroy the One Ring to rule them all to be one book but publishers dismissed this and now everyone considers it to be a trilogy.

Usually, I’d be on the side of respecting an artist’s creative vision but I’m with the publishers this time. Personally, and you may think I’m weak but I couldn’t read all of this in one go.

I’m not a fantasy reader. I enjoy aspects of the genre but it’s just not for me. My brain doesn’t have the room for all the lore but as I’ve seen the LOTR movies, I thought I would be alright. Nope.

Tolkien, mate, why does everyone and everything need at least three different names? Maybe it’s my bad for not keeping up, but the more characters and places (sometimes I can’t tell which is which) are introduced, I get more lost than the Fellowship.

Helpfully, LOTR is broken into six “books” and my copies, which I think are movie tie-in editions, are published as six individual books. I’ve had them for as long as I can remember and with World Book Day at the start of the month, I thought it was time to dig them out, dust them off and finally read them.

Because it’s a lot to take in, I’ve been reading one book at a time then reading something else in between so I only managed to finish The Fellowship of the Ring, books 1 and 2, in March, hence why I’m only reviewing that and not the whole story.

I will say though, as I’m writing this, I’m enjoying The Two Towers far more than I did than Fellowship and that’s because a) stuff is actually happening and b) the first half, book 3, doesn’t feature Frodo.

Everyone in the Fellowship is more interesting than him but they don’t get a look in during books 1 and 2 and I’d be fine with that if Frodo did anything. The very definition of a protagonist is a character whose actions drive the narrative but Frodo spends act one of LOTR falling asleep as much as I did.

I didn’t plan to have a “hot take” or be contrarian about LOTR because trust me, I do like it, I admire it, I grew up with it because my dad’s a big fan (I mean, we used to have a map of Middle Earth in our dining room!) but I don’t get the hype when the first third of this epic tale is more concerned about the direction of the wind and five pages of nonsense lyrics than the hobbits themselves.

The Fellowship keeps saying how the enemy is after them but rather than get on with it, they sit around for days discussing what to do or recapping the little that has happened. There’s no sense of urgency whatsoever. I’m not worried about the characters because they seem to be safe and when they are in danger, the action scenes are ironically rushed.

To cut a long review short, Tolkien could’ve saved himself clashing with his publishers if he’d, well, cut his own long story short.

The Fellowship of the Ring is charming and I adore Sam and Gandalf and I appreciate the thought Tolkien put into his worldbuilding. I mean, he invented entire languages and people have been trying and not even coming close to copying him ever since. That sort of creativity is rare and enviable and undeniably worthy of such a legacy. So even though I struggled with this and it didn’t grab me, I love how much it means to so many people.

Submarine by Joe Dunthorne

In 2010, I bought a DVD on a whim, probably with money I had to ask my parents for, simply because it starred two of my favourite actors, Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige, from CBBC’S Young Dracula and The Sarah Jane Adventures, respectively. Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut quickly became one of my all-time favourite films and it took me longer than I’d like to admit to find out it was an adaptation.

I think I first read the novel about six years ago? And while I’ve been rewriting my own novel, I had a sudden urge to revisit it only remembering that it was rather different from the film. Whilst that played on my penchant for the 80s, Dunthorne’s coming-of-age story about eccentric 15-year-old Oliver Tate falling in love and trying to save his parent’s marriage was written around the same time I grew up, giving me nostalgia for the early 2000s.

It is significantly weirder and darker than the movie simply because we are in Oliver’s head with his unfiltered, pretentious and totally teenage thoughts. Dunthorne’s voice is so specific and off-the-wall yet captures how melodramatic all 15 year olds can be.

The character of Oliver has stuck with me for over a decade because I can relate to him on a molecular level. Like, how he uses big words for no reason that no-one understands, how he feels isolated or how he burdens himself to feel like he has to fix things out of his control.

Also, Dunthorne is excellent at painting a picture in your head. You know exactly what Oliver is experiencing at all times in all of his senses. It’s a talent for description that reminded me of David Nicholls. Sometimes Dunthorne is unnecessarily vulgar, but it is entirely rooted in his realistically flawed protagonist.

I don’t think Submarine is for everyone, but the awkward humour and the short diary entry-esque chapters are perfect for me. As one review said, it’s a modern Catcher in the Rye. An underrated gem.

All The Lovers by Harry F. Rey

Did you sing the Kylie song in your head when you read the title? Because I did, and that’s exactly the mindset you need for this book written by my lovely fellow Penguin WriteNow shortlistee, Harry F. Rey, who recently contributed to my article where I interviewed queer artists about their experiences of AIDS.

Harry is HIV positive and his diagnosis inspired the subplot for one of the supporting characters in this novel.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never read a book or watched something featuring an HIV positive character where their storyline was, well, positive.

As important as Russell T. Davies’ It’s A Sin is, it only shows the harrowing side of HIV/AID. But that’s because the series ends in 1991 before treatment was made widely available.

Harry’s novel takes place in the early ‘00s (with a fire soundtrack of the decade to boot - you can listen to the playlist here), “exploring love and sex in a pre-Grindr world”.

Not to give too much away but Mylo, best friend of the protagonist, Nick, is diagnosed with HIV. At first, he thinks the worst until he is told there is a medication he can take and still live a normal life, leading to the best scene in the book where he throws out pills in a doctor’s office and goes on to have a happy ending.

Considering most mainstream media narratives are hellbent on showing how depressing being LGBTQ+ can be and often veering into the Bury Your Gays trope, it’s reassuring to know there is positive representation and uplifting queer stories out there.

Even though It’s A Sin eventually focused on the darker side of things, it started showing, and ends by reminding the audience, just how fun being gay can be and All The Lovers does that too.

Don’t get me wrong, Harry is not afraid to try and break your heart - Nick is fairly fucked up and falls far before he rises - but his novel is riotously fun, dancing from the scene in Leeds to the Gay Village in Manchester.

Even as a bi person, I’m still relatively new to all things queer and this year has been eye-opening for me in terms of learning about the history and culture of my brothers and sisters.

All The Lovers was a learning curve for me. Not only have I never really read erotica before but this gave me an insight into a world I realise I’ve only scratched the surface of.

Even if the sexy stuff isn’t for you, I think Harry’s novel is worth reading for the raw, unapologetic and most importantly, the truthful story underneath. Also, support independent authors like him and not only do we get more queer romances but so does everyone else!

You can buy All The Lovers in paperback here, check out Harry’s other novels on his website and follow him on Twitter @Harry_F_Rey.

Letters To Lenin by Olivia Lewis-Brown

A couple of years ago I was a volunteer script reader for a theatre company. They would send me submissions to appraise and I won’t lie, most of them weren’t any good. And then I came across one that was not only formatted properly and professionally for once but actually delivered on its interesting premise.

Most of the time, I just read the first 15 pages of whatever I was given. That was usually enough to decide whether it was performance-worthy and as much as I could handle. But once I started reading Letters To Lenin, I couldn’t stop.

After I wrote the script report, I immediately reached out to the writer who turned out to have her own production company and had already turned the play into an audio drama! Naturally, I asked if there was some way we could work together and she was flattered enough by my compliments to arrange a meeting the next week. She said she had an idea she wanted to propose to me. That idea was the website you’re on right now!

Basically, if I hadn’t randomly read Letters To Lenin, I wouldn’t be writing this review or set up Screamwriter with Olivia. I wasn’t just confident in her abilities, I was blown away (and a little jealous) of her talent from day one.

Letters To Lenin is about a group of Salford miners who are radicalised by a bomb-making anti-monarchist immigrant, Nikolai Patrenko.

The concept alone hooked me right in, and as I am quoted on the front of the script book as saying, it is “rich and compelling”. The play is a fascinating look at the origins of Communism, with fun cameos from two of its proponents (I shan’t spoil), and sparking with tense twists and turns. I genuinely didn’t expect some of the directions it went in and I love how the soap-opera moments and character motivations overlap with the political themes which are both relevant today and make you question whether the ends always justify the means.

Nikolai is the hero, but he’s not without his moral grey areas and I think this along with the tragedies he suffers only make you more invested in his story.

You can either read the script or listen to the audio version of Letters To Lenin on Audible and fully appreciate the charming Mancunian accents by the terrific voice cast.

Follow our fearless leader @olivia_lewisbrown on Instagram and keep an eye on @magnus_albion for future audio projects…

Thank you for clicking on this month’s book corner. There will be a theme next time, just a very loose one…

As always, you can follow me @jstodtv on Twitter and Instagram and keep up to date with what I’m reading on Goodreads.

P.S. If you want to donate to my walking challenge for Cancer Research, the fundraising page is still up here!