№ 11 reading list: Middle Eastern and crime fiction

Sunday morning coffee, a new reading list and Gilead by novelist Marilynne Robinson. Take my word for it, it's an excellent start of the day. July hasn't finished and already I'm presenting a new list, the second in one month. The reason is simple: there were many short books on the last one. The new list has a taste of the Middle East. For years I have wanted to read Palace Walk, the first book in the Cairo trilogy by Egyptian author and Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Another first for me is the Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. A fellow lover of literature on Instagram recommended her second novel Waking Lions (translated from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston) and gave three reasons: 1) It takes place in Beersheba (Beer-Sheva), which, according to him, is unheard of in Israeli literature. 2) It's the perfect setting for the characters, living on the margins of society. 3) The story sheds some light on racism in Israel; it revolves around Eritrean and Sudanese refugees. I was sold and luckily my library had a copy when I picked up the new novel by Arundhati Roy.

№ 11 reading list:
1  The Ministry of Utmost Happiness  by Arundhati Roy
2  Palace Walk  by Naguib Mahfouz
3  Waking Lions  by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
4  The Black Prince  by Iris Murdoch
5  Gilead  by Marilynne Robinson
6  So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighbourhood  by Patrick Modiano
7  The Redbreast  by Jo Nesbø
8  Instead of a Letter  by Diana Athill
9  Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls  by David Sedaris

I am still reading Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford that was on my last reading list but I have already finished The Redbreast by the Norwegian Jo Nesbø on the new one. At some point this third book about Detective Harry Hole (the first in the Oslo series) became a page-turner and I couldn't put it down. Crime fiction isn't exactly my go-to genre but occasionally I have read everything available by a particular crime author (mainly the Nordic authors; it all started many years ago with the Icelander Arnaldur Indridason and his Detective Erlendur). Nesbø's Harry Hole is an interesting character and I intend to see what happens in Nemesis, the next book in the series.

I have started reading Sedaris but had to stop reading it before bedtime because my son, who likes to read with me, was unable to concentrate on his book because of my laughing. This is tears-running-down-your-face laughter. I tried to stifle it but it didn't work. Sedaris is, simply put, dangerously funny and I cannot wait to pick up his Diaries. Marilynne Robinson is an author I'm revisiting; I read Home when we lived in Luxembourg. I don't understand why it has taken me so long to pick up Gilead (both books take place in the same period and town, also her work Lila). The prose of Gilead is beautiful; no wonder it brought her the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005.

I would like to finish with a quote by author Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) that I have already shared on Instagram and wanted to keep on the blog as well. Asked about her method of composition in an interview that appeared in the summer 1990 issue of The Paris Review, Murdoch replied:

Well, I think it is important to make a plan before you write the first sentence. Some people think one should write, George woke up and knew that something terrible had happened yesterday, and then see what happens. I plan the whole thing in detail before I begin. I have a general scheme and lots of notes. Every chapter is planned. Every conversation is planned. This is, of course, a primary stage, and very frightening because you've committed yourself at this point ... [Moving on to the second stage.] The deep things that the work is about declare themselves and connect. Somehow things fly together and generate other things, and characters invent other characters, as if they were all doing it themselves. (Issue 115, Summer 1990)

Summertime 2017: new books

The longest day of the year is upon us and on the west coast of Scotland we have clouds and some rain. The ideal weather for mentioning new books, don't you agree, and for inhaling the scent of the peonies on my desk. I ordered two of these titles from the local library and hope I can add them to my next reading list:

· The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton). After twenty years, finally, a new fiction from Roy! Her novel The God of Small Things, winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1997, is one of the most memorable books I have ever read.
· Theft by Finding: Diaries: Volume One by David Sedaris (Little, Brown). Quite recently he was a guest on The NYT Book Review podcast, talking about and reading from it, and there I was in the kitchen laughing out loud. He is simply hilarious.
· House of Names by Colm Tóibín (Viking). An author I still haven't read. On my to-read list is his novel Brooklyn, which I wanted to read before seeing the film (2015), starring Saoirse Ronan. Couldn't wait and am so glad I didn't. It's a beautiful film that I can watch over and over again.
· The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich (Penguin). She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015. This is the long-awaited English translation of her classic oral history of Soviet women's experiences during WWII. Published in July.
· Friend of My Youth by Amit Chaudhuri (Faber). About a man, interestingly named Amit Chaudhuri, who returns to Bombay, the city of his childhood. Published in August.