My mind is terrorising my body, or maybe it’s the other way around. This September brings with it a number of big decisions for me and I’m taking the first steps towards becoming a writer first and everything else second. That’s scary. In essence, I’d be throwing off any semblance of a secure and well planned out life for the lure of the unknown, immersing myself in words and experience. It’s not well paid. Or respected. (That’s half the appeal.) It is also a pretty terrifying leap. After all, shouldn’t I be seeking a stable job, settling down - all those milestone life events? Probably. And yet…

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote book cover
What’s life for if not for taking chances, for living in the moment, for sending oneself spiralling headlong towards the fiery pit of disaster and trusting that a solution to imminent immolation will present itself before it is too late?

I’m beginning to sound like a heap of bad slogans rolled into one. I’ll stop. What I am saying, though, is that I might be around here a bit more often as I dedicate more time to writing and less to having a life. It’s a fair trade, I think.

In the meantime, while I plot my own downfall, here’s what I’ll be reading in September:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I really enjoyed Truman Capote’s lively novella when I first read it a few years ago and I knew I would return to the book again. Many of you will no doubt be familiar with the story of New York socialite-cum-call-girl Holly Golightly and her happenings – at the very least you’ll know the image of Audrey Hepburn playing the role in all her finery.

Amerika. I’ve dabbled with Kafka’s most famous works but I haven’t read him too widely. Amerika is one of the novels published posthumously from writing pieced together from notebooks. It is the story of a young immigrant to America, who seems never to get the rub of the green.

Things Fall Apart. I’ve mentioned this one before and haven’t gotten around to writing up a review. The most famous of Chinua Achebe’s works, it is taught all over the place as an example of African literature in a style far removed from the Western literary tradition and deals with colonialism and how it changed the landscape of African tribe life.

And that’s me for September. I wish you well for whatever turns your life takes this month.