My holiday break has started and these days I carry with me an agreeable stack of books. Not far though, we are in a Coronavirus lockdown in Austria. Some were on my last reading list and I‘m still reading them, others are new ones that will appear on my next two lists. On Monday I received Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate by author, critic and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn. I meant to put it under the tree this year, as a Christmas present to myself, but I started reading it during a coffee break and couldn‘t put it down. It's short and contains three essays, an interesting mix of biographical writing, history and literary criticism, in essence about the writers Erich Auerbach, François Fénelon and W. G. Sebald. If you like books about books this one might appeal to you.
Another book in my stack is an essay collection by Vivian Gornick, Approaching Eye Level. It's my first by her; not the last. It goes down well with coffee and biscotti, as I predicted in my last blog entry.
Another book in my stack is an essay collection by Vivian Gornick, Approaching Eye Level. It's my first by her; not the last. It goes down well with coffee and biscotti, as I predicted in my last blog entry.
In the Reading journal entries I have talked about books from a specific reading list but some time ago I felt the need to make changes, to make the journal more random and current. I also needed a category to archive my literary bookmarks. I mentioned once that it was never the idea to comment on all the books on my reading lists. I’m a picky reader and am seldom disappointed with the books on my lists. Sometimes when I truly enjoy a book, all I want to say is I loved this book and nothing else. That, however, hardly calls for a blog entry, using Instagram or Twitter is better.
Bookmarks & journal notes
Books I recently bought:
✔ Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon
✔ The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald
... added to my wish list:
✔ The Krull House by Georges Simenon
... prioritised on my TBR:
✔ fiction: Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides by Aeschylus
✔ non-fiction: Trieste by Jan Morris
Bookish joy:
✔ The moment when Margaret Busby, chair of the 2020 Booker Prize judges, announced Shuggie Bain had won and its author Douglas Stuart gave an emotional acceptance speech. When Stuart won I literally screamed out loud for joy, even though I still hadn't read his debut novel. I was rooting for him but was afraid that a white male author wouldn't win.
Podcasts I can recommend:
▶ Back to Shuggie Bain: Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator, recently talked to its author Douglas Stuart on their podcast, The Book Club.
▶ And here Leith talks to Natalie Haynes about women in the Greek myths.
▶ In conversation with Eleanor Wachtel of Writers & Company, Martin Amis talks about literary life, loves and losses. A very honest and sincere Amis.
▶ I rejoiced when I saw that Stig Abell, the former editor of the TLS, has a new podcast called Stig Abell's Guide to Reading. (The TLS podcast is not the same without him.) The new podcast accompanies his recently published book Things I Learned on the 6.28: A Guide to Daily Reading. These two episodes are my favourites so far: Modern Literary Fiction with Kit de Waal and English Classics with Sam Leith, the aforementioned editor.
✔ Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon
✔ The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald
... added to my wish list:
✔ The Krull House by Georges Simenon
... prioritised on my TBR:
✔ fiction: Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides by Aeschylus
✔ non-fiction: Trieste by Jan Morris
Bookish joy:
✔ The moment when Margaret Busby, chair of the 2020 Booker Prize judges, announced Shuggie Bain had won and its author Douglas Stuart gave an emotional acceptance speech. When Stuart won I literally screamed out loud for joy, even though I still hadn't read his debut novel. I was rooting for him but was afraid that a white male author wouldn't win.
Podcasts I can recommend:
▶ Back to Shuggie Bain: Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator, recently talked to its author Douglas Stuart on their podcast, The Book Club.
▶ And here Leith talks to Natalie Haynes about women in the Greek myths.
▶ In conversation with Eleanor Wachtel of Writers & Company, Martin Amis talks about literary life, loves and losses. A very honest and sincere Amis.
▶ I rejoiced when I saw that Stig Abell, the former editor of the TLS, has a new podcast called Stig Abell's Guide to Reading. (The TLS podcast is not the same without him.) The new podcast accompanies his recently published book Things I Learned on the 6.28: A Guide to Daily Reading. These two episodes are my favourites so far: Modern Literary Fiction with Kit de Waal and English Classics with Sam Leith, the aforementioned editor.
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