2013

This blog is becoming more of an annual feature. I should record more thoughts and convert more drafts to posts. Probably that could be one of the new year resolutions.

Anyway, time to take stock.Read fewer books - and most of them were library issues. The  good thing about living here in S, and earlier in M was the proximity to libraries. What happens then is I spend a lot of time browsing for the kid and myself. And keep making resolutions to read more. Issue a few books and read some of them. Even this is better to discover new authors, to stumble upon oft heard names and just to browse. So here is the list of books I read.

1. Goodbye to Berlin (Novel/ SS) by Christopher Isherwood (June) - deadtree
2. Too Much Happiness (SS) by Alice Munro (Jun) - deadtree
3. Mr Norris Changes Trains (Novel) by Christopher Isherwood (Jul) - deadtree
4. Life and Times of Michael K (Novel) by J M Coetzee (Jul) - deadtree ***** wonderful read
5. Of Mice and Men (N) by John Steinbeck (Jul) - deadtree
6. Arne - a sketch of Norwegian Country Life by Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson (Nov) - deadtree. ***** (Lovely book, lyrical, poetic, uncomplicated, minimalist. )
7. Dear Life, Short stories by Alice Munro (Dec) - deadtree ***** Lovely read.

I am also reading the Hunger Angel by Herta Muller, and essays by Kundera and Atwood, but I never finish essay books, reading them like a fruit - the juicy, fleshy parts first and then finishing off the fruit is more of a chore, and most often I don't.

The Hunger Angel - Liking it. In some ways, it has a haunting feel of something I have already read. Probably the land of green plums followed similar themes. This used to happen a lot in Marquez fiction - the deja vu feeling.

For 2014, I wish to do something different. Amongst others, I wish to read some of the following:
- War and Peace
- Shakespeare- one play
- Wallace - a collection
- Ulysses?
- Science fiction
- Nabokov
- some European (Swedish +
- a book from China
- Biography of Wallace

Its good to have a wishlist, a board to look at when feeling lost. Hope to follow some of what I write here, and hope to write more often.

Here's to a great 2014, and reading more.