Zadie Smith's 'Swing Time'.

When reading, it's sometimes to take ourselves away from our own world. But I find myself often relating and reading a novel as if themes were borrowed from my own life. 

A truth was being revealed to me: that I had always tried to attach myself to the light of other people, that I had never had any light of my own. I experienced myself as a kind of shadow.

It's how I felt when reading 'Swing Time' by Zadie Smith – a story following the development of a friendship and the dedication to work which ultimately will end, no matter how much dedication you put in. 

However, you shouldn't dwell on this as that's truly what life should be about. Living in the moment and trying to make a different, not only for oneself but for the world around us too. 

The development of characters and the changing of time is, at least in my experience, true of life. We have bonds with people that last eternities, a shared past as much as a shared future, never able to fully let go. 

And perhaps most interesting in Smith's book, is the relationship between mother and child as they both aim in different directions, sharing a lack of acceptance in the others life, but ultimately retaining the love that such a bond creates. 

As a reader, we aren't rushed through a story, and like life there are moments where I wanted it to speed up, and slow down. Like most good books I’ve read, there isn’t a build up to an ending, but a gradual realisation and account of life as it happens, and those for me are some of the best stories.