№ 16 reading list | Black History Month (UK)

Libraries are my happy place. Or so I thought. Last week I was at the library with a notebook, in which I have written down some of the titles I would like to read. As you can imagine, on my way there I was like a little kid going to Disneyland. As I walked up the stairs and entered the floor of the humanities (this is the university library, it's big), I was in a state of bliss, walking between the rows of bookshelves. Browsing books, touching books. Removing books from the reading list I already had in my mind to make space for books that demanded to be on it. Putting books back on the list to perhaps remove them again. Normal library behaviour.

Then something happened, something I was not prepared for: I experienced a moment of panic. For a few seconds, as I stood by the first row of shelves of American fiction, it suddenly dawned on me how many books there were on that floor, on all those shelves: In this lifetime I would never be able to finish my to-read list, which keeps getting longer. I cannot be the only book lover who has experienced this fear. No way. There better be an afterlife, with a library that has all your unread titles just waiting for you. There better be.

№ 16 reading list:
1  Blue Nights  by Joan Didion
2  Go Tell It on the Mountain  by James Baldwin
3  Sing, Unburied, Sing  by Jesmyn Ward
4  The Human Stain  by Philip Roth
5  Stet  by Diana Athill
6  Train Dreams  by Denis Johnson
7  The Bookshop  by Penelope Fitzgerald
8  Do Not Say We Have Nothing  by Madeleine Thien
9  The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick  ed. by D. Pinckney

On Saturday - you may have seen it on Instagram already - I read Didion's memoir Blue Nights in one go. She wrote the book after the death of her daughter Quintana, who was only 39 when she died. (She wrote The Year of Magical Thinking after the death of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne.) I liked Blue Nights. It's not a sob story that makes you reach for the tissue. Didion's style isn't emotionally overloaded. She is just trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find answers to questions that cannot be answered.

October is Black History Month in the UK (February in the US). I'm showing my support with two novels on the list, by James Baldwin and Jesmyn Ward. She won The National Book Award 2017 for Sing, Unburied, Sing. It was her second win; in 2011 she won for Salvage the Bones.

Reading journal 2017: Roy, Mahfouz, Athill ...

I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy September, mainly stolen moments on the patio with books and coffee. Reading under the awning, viewing new books online, or listening to book podcasts, hours can pass without me even noticing it. As long as no one interrupts. Yesterday, two longlists for the 2018 National Book Awards were announced and I was excited about a new category, translated literature. In my notebook I had already written down two books on the list: Disoriental by the French-Iranian Négar Djavadi and Flights by the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk (her book won The Man Booker International Prize). Today they announce the longlists for poetry and non-fiction, and tomorrow for fiction. Those looking for reading ideas may want to take a look. A few words about my 'Reading journal': If I don't like a book that appeared on one of my reading lists don't let it discourage you from reading it. I have my own opinions and tastes, but I'm not interested in telling anyone what to read and not to read. As long as people are reading and books are being published, I'm content.

№ 11 reading list (6 of 9):

· The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. I wish I could tell you that I liked this novel, her first in twenty years, but I didn't even finish it, gave up around page 200. It's political, which doesn't surprise me when the author is a known activist. However, it felt as if she were trying to cast a light on every single social problem in India, as if I were encountering a new one on every page. Perhaps readers who have kept up with Roy's non-fiction and activism are better equipped with understanding what she's trying to convey in this novel. The style felt overloaded and chaotic. From what I read I cannot recommend this novel but I liked her first, The God of Small Things, which won the 1997 Man Booker Prize.

· Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz. Unfortunately, because of our move from the UK, I had to return the book to the library before I could finish it (I have about 150 pages left). Nobel Laureate Mahfouz is a wonderful storyteller and this book is the first in his Cairo trilogy. It starts in the city in 1917, where we follow the life of the Al Jawad family. The father is a tyrant who goes from one extreme to the other: at home he uses the teachings of the Koran to control and oppress his family, while at night he abandons his 'beliefs' to discover the pleasures of the city. This book isn't always a fun read and it has its share of Muslim stereotypes. It has pushed many of my buttons and taken me through the entire emotional scale, but I'm definitely going to finish the reading. And I intend to read the other two books, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street.

· The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch. I also had to return this one to the library and I hadn't read that much to be able to talk about it in detail. I will pick up another copy later and perhaps comment on it.

· Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. The prose of this epistolary novel is beautiful. To tell you more about it I think it's best to quote President Obama in a conversation with the author back in 2015:

I first picked up Gilead, one of your most wonderful books, here in Iowa. ... And I’ve told you this—one of my favorite characters in fiction is a pastor in Gilead, Iowa, named John Ames, who is gracious and courtly and a little bit confused about how to reconcile his faith with all the various travails that his family goes through. And I was just—I just fell in love with the character, fell in love with the book.

For the entire conversation, please follow this link: The New York Review of Books. I highly recommend Gilead for readers who are not always looking for a plot or action.

· Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. I have already told you about the setting of this second novel by the Israeli writer and how it came to me. If it weren't for its introspective passages, which slow things down, it would read like a typical thriller: A doctor driving home from his shift accidentally kills a man with his SUV and flees the scene. When the dead man's wife shows up at his door you know that his life is about to change drastically. I won't say more. (Translated by Sondra Silverston.)

· Instead of a Letter by Diana Athill. This was a rather disappointing memoir, mainly for its uninteresting content, not the writing itself. She spends the first hundred pages or so talking about her childhood and then she goes to Oxford. There are so many pages wasted on an engagement that ended - I failed to sympathise with it - and her sex life in her 20s, which may have shocked some readers in 1962 when the book was originally published. For modern readers, it hardly raises eyebrows. It wasn't until towards the end, in chapter 14 which starts on page 168 (of 224), that the book became interesting: when she stepped into the world of publishing. The final pages of the memoir turn into some kind of a travelogue and the writing feels slightly scattered. I have already started reading her second memoir Stet. It focuses on her life as an editor at André Deutsch (a publishing company no longer operating) and has received much praise. You will find it on my next reading list.

image by me, appeared on Instagram 04/09/2018

№ 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)

Reading journal 2017: Lessing, Athill, Borges ...

The other day I came across a fantastic word you won't find in a dictionary: readlief. It means when you finally get around to start a book you have been meaning to read for years. My reading lists have led to many readliefs. It's rewarding to cross a book off the list, more so when it's a good read. My to-read list doesn't get any shorter, though, as I'm constantly coming across books to add to it. The book lover's dilemma. Below I'm sharing some thoughts on books from my № 7 reading list, which I posted in February. I have created a new category for these kinds of blog entries that I call Reading journal (the year in the title indicates when that particular list appeared on the blog).

№ 7 reading list (6 of 9):

· Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges. This short story collection, described as original, is literary and philosophical, and not for everyone. I have never read anything like it. The first two stories didn't quite grab me but as soon I started the third one, I was hooked. That one is called 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote' (appeared in the Argentine literary journal Sur in May 1939), about a man who rewrites Don Quixote by Cervantes, line-for-line. The idea is brilliant.

· The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing. When I finished the book my first thought was: powerful. Since then I have heard other people use that same word about the book, which was Lessing's first novel, published in 1950. It starts with the murder of the main character Mary Turner and as you read on you learn about her background and what led to the tragedy, basically the disintegration of her life on a farm in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Lessing grew up there and masterfully describes the African landscape. It's been months since I finished the book and I'm still thinking about it. A good psychology study.

· The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. This one has become a classic but it's not for everyone. There were parts that I struggled with, parts that I found either repetitive or too long, and it took me quite some time to finish it. However, one cannot argue with the fact that this is an influential literary work. Its good parts have really stuck and I'm glad I finally took the plunge and turned it into a readlief.

· Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernières. I read somewhere that this was a novel with heart and that is exactly how I would describe it. The only thing that bothered me just slightly during the first 100 pages or so were the character introductions (each gets a chapter), which were unavoidable because the novel has so many. Bernières made up for them with delightful, and often comic, details, especially descriptions of life in the village (it takes place on a Greek island during WWII).

· Instead of a Book: Letters to a Friend by Diana Athill. I'm fond of reading letters but towards the end of this collection I was growing a bit weary. Athill and her friend were getting old and the later letters had too much talk about health issues, which is perfectly normal between close friends but isn't a fun read. She comments on this in the postscript and it's the reason she didn't include more letters in the book. Her work Stet is on my to-read list and I have heard nothing but praises, so perhaps you should consider starting with that one if you would like to read something by Athill.

· Local Souls by Allan Gurganus. I decided to postpone the reading. In my blog entry I wrote that I wanted to read his book Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All  before reading this one, and that is what I decided to do.

· In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris, 1900-1910 by Sue Roe. I'm not an art historian but I think this book was well researched. I found it interesting but I would have preferred more photos of the art pieces (I was constantly looking up the works in the text online to make sure I had the right ones in mind or to see the ones I didn't recognise). I enjoyed reading about Picasso, Matisse, and other artists but sometimes there were stories about people related to them that were of little importance for the narrative. Each time I came across these stories, more like snippets, I felt the book could have benefitted from another round of editing.

Have you experienced any recent readliefs?

Currently, I'm finishing the books on my № 8 reading list and will be writing two reviews, about Astrid Lindgren's war diaries, A World Gone Mad, and the novel Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

№ 7 reading list | Vanessa Bell exhibition

In an old notebook of mine there is a quote that always makes me laugh. Actress Emma Thompson was featured in NYT 's By the Book and when asked about the last book that had made her cry, she said: 'I was on holiday years ago with “Corelli’s Mandolin.” Rendered inconsolable and had to be put to bed for the afternoon' (Sunday Book Review, 23.09.2012). I adore Emma Thompson. It's time for another reading list and Bernières's book is on it, a Vintage Books edition, beautifully illustrated by Rob Ryan. There is also a novel by my favourite Icelandic author, Sigurdur Palsson, whom I often spotted at cafés in Reykjavik, always impeccably dressed, usually wearing a patterned silk scarf or a beret (he studied in France). I have already mentioned Doris Lessing and me rereading Little Women. Here is the № 7 reading list, the first of 2017 (for convenience I have numbered the lists):

1  Fictions  by Jorge Luis Borges
2  The Grass is Singing  by Doris Lessing
3  The Golden Notebook  by Doris Lessing
4  Captain Corelli's Mandolin  by Louis De Bernières
5  Instead of a Book: Letters to a Friend  by Diana Athill
6  Local Souls  by Allan Gurganus
7  Parísarhjól  by Sigurður Pálsson [Icelandic]
8  Little Women  by Louisa May Alcott
9  In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris, 1900-1910  by

Sue Roe

I almost feel guilty for not having read Athill's memoir, Instead of a Letter, but when I saw Instead of a Book on sale at Waterstones I knew it was going on my list. It contains the letters she wrote for over thirty years to the American poet Edward Field, who kept them and wanted them published. In the introduction, Athill wittily observes:

Usually when someone's letters are published the writer is dead. In this case there was a problem: Edward is six years younger than I am, but since I'm ninety-three that doesn't make him young. If he waited until I was dead he might be dead too. (p. vii)

Kudos to writers who crack you up in a bookshop! Gurganus is an author I have never read. I bought his book after listening to Michael Silverblatt's conversation with him on the Bookworm (from Nov. 2013) and ended up listening to all their conversations. I thought about keeping it on the shelf until I had read Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, but it kept pulling and on the list it went. I was delighted to find Roe's book at that library. At this point I cannot say much about it, but I do wish it had more illustrations (in my image you see Modigliani's painting Caryatid, 1911).

Vanessa Bell, Nude with Poppies, 1916

Sometimes I wish I lived closer to the London area. If I did I would hop on a train to see the Vanessa Bell exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery that opens today (a short train ride from central London). Artist Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) belonged to the bohemian Bloomsbury group and was Virginia Woolf's sister (the photo of her in my image above is taken at Charleston in 1925). The exhibition closes on the 4th of June. There is an accompanying publication, Vanessa Bell, edited by Sarah Milroy (Philip Wilson Publishers) that I would like to have. If you are a Bell fan perhaps the March 2017 collectors' edition of Harper's Bazaar UK will interest you, exclusively available at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

PS. Thanks to blogger Diana Mieczan of exPress-o for her delightful entry about my blog. She is correct, my coffee cup is almost every time set on a cloth napkin. I have been doing this for a long time and like to believe the coffee tastes better.

top image by me | photo of Vanessa Bell appears in the book Charleston: A Bloomsbury House & Garden | Amedeo Modigliani's painting appears in the book In Montmartre © Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris | Vanessa Bell art via Art UK © 1961 estate of Vanessa Bell, courtesy Henrietta Garnett, Swindon Art Gallery