Currently Reading (4)

1. Les Misérables Volume 1 by Victor Hugo 

'The Paris of 1862 is a city which France has for its suburbs... a maelstrom in which everything is lost; & everything disappears in this whirlpool of the world as in the whirlpool of the sea.'

500 pages of fainting women, the French Revolution & Paris' failed sewage system of the 19th century... Only took two months to read. Only. It's undoubtedly a classic of our time, of course, & I'm glad I finally trawled through the French epic novel but it's going to be a while before I pick up volume 2.

2. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

'No matter how dreary & gray our homes are, we people of flesh & blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.'

Delightful. A classic, albeit in a different way. Anyway, there was a sore need for children's literature after two months of reading Hugo ;)

3. The Cider House Rules by John Irving

'What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered most to us wind up in parentheses.' 

I read John Irving's A Widow for One Year sometime in 2012 & swore of his novels forever. A Widow for One Year was an absolute nightmare with its sparse story lines, tiresome characters & unbearably long-winded writing style & I swore I would never put myself through 600 pages of something like that again except that one day whilst youtube surfing, I saw the movie trailer of The Cider House Rules & with an inward groan, decided to give it a go. No regrets at all. While there isn't much of a plot in this novel, the settings are rich & powerful, the events, visceral, & the characters are strong enough to drive the story forward. Irving's writing in The Cider House Rules is also inarguably excellent, with its plot starting slow but swelling like a wave while also tackling sensitive issues without exaggeration or hyperbole, making it believable to readers. Enjoyed it immensely.

4. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

'Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that.'

The first novel Hemingway ever wrote, & a personal favourite. In The Sun Also Rises, the cityscape of Paris & the violent throes of Spanish bull-fighting are merely embellishments to the main attractions, which are the spirited, but lonely characters & the quick dialogue exchanged between them. There's really nobody who writes witty banter & captures the restless spirit of the Lost Generation better than early Hemingway.

5. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down & Wept by Elizabeth Smart

'Under the redwood tree my grave was laid, & I beguiled my true love to lie down. The stream of our kiss put a waterway around the world, where love like a refugee sailed in the last ship. My hair made a shroud & kept the coyotes at bay while we wrote our cyphers with anatomy. The winds boomed triumph, our spines seemed overburdened, & our bones groaned like old trees, but a smile like a cobweb was fastened across the mouth of the cave of fate.' 

I love love love this book. It's an obvious re-read: the slim volume of prose-poetry is criss-crossed with lines & heavily-marked with circles, the margins filled with ink & exclamation points, simply because this book is so full of beautiful phrases that every line stands out in its own way to me.  Prose-poetry is still a relatively new field of literature to me but even as I explore more of this genre, I am constantly pulled back to this one because of its brilliance. Lovely.

6. Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald

'...as if borne on the dreamy revolution of a slow merry-go-round.'

More literature from the Jazz age. Schizophrenic, quick & grand, & nothing short of the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald.




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It's been kind of a slow 2013, reading wise. I've been savouring every chance I get to do some reading, but it's hardly ever enough.Need to set aside whole days for this! Besides work & late-night coffee/ice-cream sessions & random trips to IKEA, nothing much has been happening. Still, I can't help but feel that a full two weeks of sleep would do me some good. So far I'm holding it together, if only by God's grace!

Loads of exciting things are coming up but as far as tonight goes, I'm too tired to type them all out ;) I'll just have to update this space as the events unfold. For now, au revoir!





Other book lists from other times
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(2)
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Currently Reading (3)

 1. Paris to The Moon - Adam Gopnik

'Paris, carrying on in a time of postmodern immateriality,when everything seems about to dissolve into pixels. We love Paris not out of 'nostalgia', but because we love the look of light on things, as opposed to the look of light from things.' 

A series of almost-academic essays from a lesser-known New Yorker journalist. We've all read the odd epistolary novel on the Parisian experience by an expatriate, who is more or less in love with the idea of Paris but doesn't address it for the true city that it is. This one's different though. It took a bit of time to get through, but Gopnik's reflective novel on Parisian culture & community & politics is beautiful, & breathtaking.

2. Great House - Nicole Krauss

'There are moments when a kind of clarity comes over you, and suddenly you can see through walls to another dimension that you'd forgotten or chosen to ignore in order to continue living with the various illusions that make life, particularly life with other people, possible.' 

Known for quite a while as the wife of Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated, Eating Animals), well, at least to me, Krauss has come out as her own as a writer. The prose is almost poetic, with swelling rhythms & sweeping phrases, heavy, yet dream-like. She writes an impressive, albeit slightly-confusing novel, about an imposing desk & the puzzling array of characters connected with it. 
Other notable works: A History of Love & Man Walks Into A Room

3. Wilderness Tips - Margaret Atwood 

A collection of ten short stories. Not Atwood's best, but good enough. 

4. The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno - Ellen Bryson

Rubbish.

5. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby 

'What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholic person?'

This cult classic, written in Hornby's trademark wit and narrative voice, isn't ground-breaking, but I like it all the time. 

6. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

'Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.'

Have never been a fan of Murakami's writing. Sure, I've read the big ones: Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but I've never seen what the big deal was. And this book on marathon running - Well, I don't really relate well with anything involving physical activity. But strangely, this book was pretty enjoyable. Not a bad read, especially if you're into the sport itself. 

7. 1984 - George Orwell

'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.'

Classic utopian novel. Enough said.

Today... I just felt like writing about books I've read/been reading. Summer holidays haven't really felt like holidays at all, with full-time work, youth camp & the American trip, all following neatly behind each other. And college starts in two weeks. It's been nice though, having these snatches of time: half-hours on trains, whole days in a newly-discovered clandestine cafe, or sprawled on the bed at home, to read. 

Also, I've been banned (by anti-hoarder mom, who else?) from buying any more books till I've read all the ones in my room. We're moving again soon (surprise!), and all I want is a separate room to be modelled into my own library. With the requisite scarlet easy chair, and cosy fireplace.

Too much?



Other book lists from other times
(1)
(2)

Currently Reading (once again)

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Brilliant. I loved every second of it.

 2. Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

Almost unbearably lewd and hopelessly confusing, even though it's a re-read.

 3. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Another disturbing novel. Although the storyline and ending were disappointing, Eugenides' writing remains true to his signature style. 

 4. A House Somewhere - Various

Tales spanning across the globe.

5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

Riveting.

From eight months ago

Currently Reading.

1. A little bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare & Co.

2. Radishes with salt & butter, and chocolate rum balls (yum.)

3. Legends.

4. A classic & the Spanish war

5. A twisted and monumentally demented world.

Don't know why I keep buying books when there are piles of un-read material sitting on the floor bed and cupboard and shelves. It's like an addiction to bookfairs and the odd-two-quid-for-a 400-page-paperback-deal.

So I was the kid who stayed at home to read while everyone was out having fun.

Whatever. It was fun to me :)