Walls and Indexes

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer is a 1960s sort-of sci-fi novel, about an unnamed protagonist who goes on holiday to a hunting lodge and ends up trapped alone behind an invisible wall for years, with only a few animals for company.

Despite the fantastical concept, the book is mostly an incredibly mundane, overly detailed, memoir-esque account of a woman working out how to survive on her own in the wilderness. But it's also very absorbing, affecting, sweet, tragic and somehow extremely compelling.

There are no chapters, no scene breaks, and no dialogue. And basically nothing happens.

But I really, really enjoyed it and was immersed from start to finish.


Index, A History of the, by Dennis Duncan is exactly what it says in the title - a nonfiction history of the development of indexes for books. This book sat on my shelf for over three years and I had no intention of ever reading it.

But I did. And it was awesome. And I was wrong to have ignored it for so long.

It had me laughing out loud multiple times per page throughout the introduction - and the entertainment value persisted throughout the book. It's fascinating, surprising, conversational and, most unexpectedly, hilarious.

I really wasn't expecting to enjoy this book, but it's the best book I've read in absolutely ages.