Happy New Year! This week I realised that I completely forgot my New Year's tradition, reading Little Women into the new year. This tradition started in Scotland; I used to read a few pages or chapters into the new year while others were letting off fireworks or whatever entertains them, but this year I watched the fireworks with my son. I made up for my forgetfulness by watching Greta Gerwig's film adaptation (2019), starring Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh and Timothée Chalamet. It's great. On New Year's Day morning, I relaxed on the daybed in pyjama bottoms and kimono with coffee and the fourth volume of Virginia Woolf's diary, which starts in 1931. It's on my new reading list.
№ 29 reading list:
1 My Brilliant Friend · Elena Ferrante
2 The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume 4 1931-35
3 Mrs Dalloway · Virginia Woolf [rereading]
4 Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold · Stephen Fry
5 Wittgensteins Neffe: Eine Freundschaft · Thomas Bernhard [German]
6 Póetík í Reykjavík: Erindi 14 höfunda [Icelandic]
7 Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995 · edited by Avril
1 My Brilliant Friend · Elena Ferrante
2 The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume 4 1931-35
3 Mrs Dalloway · Virginia Woolf [rereading]
4 Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold · Stephen Fry
5 Wittgensteins Neffe: Eine Freundschaft · Thomas Bernhard [German]
6 Póetík í Reykjavík: Erindi 14 höfunda [Icelandic]
7 Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995 · edited by Avril
Horner and Anne Rowe
Translated by: 1) My Brilliant Friend: Ann Goldstein
The list has undergone many changes. Stephen Fry and the Icelandic book (14 literary essays) are the only works that were on the original one, which I meant to share last autumn. I don’t know why it took so long to put this one together, probably a mixture of being busy with my studies and restlessness. I read a few pages, even a few chapters, in a book that I wanted to have on the list only to put that same book aside a short time later. Wanting to read a book is sometimes not enough for me, the time and place have to be right.
I found many wonderful books under the Christmas tree which will appear on lists in the near future. I gave myself a few, e.g. used books that have never been read. Among these are the first two books of the Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante, the pseudonymous Italian writer. I also bought the Everyman's Library edition of The Makioka Sisters by the Japanese writer Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (№ 6). It's one of my all-time favourite books.
 |
| Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled, 1949 |
images by me | Diebenkorn art via fan page on Twitter
 |
 |
 |
