Reading journal: Simone de Beauvoir

I am halfway through Force of Circumstance, the 3rd volume of Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography (№ 26). The idea was to finish it before sharing a new reading list. Beauvoir's life story is interesting but this volume has its flaws: Sometimes she's too concerned with setting the record straight and often it feels as if Jean-Paul Sartre is the main subject. Obviously, their lives intertwined, but I'm interested in her story, in her writing, not the content of Sartre's political articles in Les Temps Modernes or the plot of his plays. Speaking of politics. The book has plenty, sometimes to the point of being tedious or exhausting. Depending on my mood. On a positive note, Beauvoir travels all over the world and is a keen observer of people and landscapes. Those narratives, her books, and how they were received makes this volume worth reading, so far.

Bookmarks & journal notes

Books I recently bought:
✔  Philip Roth: The Biography by Blake Bailey
✔  The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

... added to my wish list:
✔  A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick by Cathy Curtis

... added to my TBR:
✔  Hannah Arendt by Samantha Rose Hill
✔  This Little Art by Kate Briggs
✔  Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape and Home by Alexander Wolff

... want to read again:
✔  The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Bookish joy:
✔  Recently the 2021 International Booker Prize longlist was announced, containing the authors and translators of 13 books published in the UK or Ireland. I have yet to read any of them but was pleased to see among them In Memory of Memory by Russian poet and writer Maria Stepanova. It was translated by Sasha Dugdale. It so happens that in a recent blog entry I featured the US cover. Later in April, they announce the shortlist and in June the winner.

Recommended podcast:
▶  The 135th Backlisted episode was superb. They featured the novel The Fish Can Sing (1957) by the Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness (1902-1998), who received the 1955 Nobel Prize. Its Icelandic title is 'Brekkukotsannáll', which literally translates 'The Annals of Brekkukot [Hill cottage]'. This time the guest on the podcast was the British novelist and poet Derek Owusu. If you happen to understand Icelandic you can listen to Laxness himself reading his novel on RÚV, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service.

image by me, appeared on Instagram 19/03/21

№ 24 reading list: rereading the classics

My autumn term is about to start and I would like to share this reading list before I get busy. A rereading of classics characterises the list. At the start of this summer, when facing restrictions due to the pandemic, I felt the urge to reread certain books, preferably on a bench in a castle garden nearby. I have finished Edna O'Brien's memoir, Country Girl, and highly recommend it. She is a wonderful storyteller. The story takes off when she leaves Ireland and writes about life in sixties London, about literature and writing. I often found it difficult to put the book down.

№ 24 reading list:

1  Country Girl · Edna O'Brien
2  Lee Krasner: A Biography · Gail Levin
3  Museum Activism  edited by Robert R. Janes and Richard Sandell
4  The Varieties of Religious Experience · William James
5  One Hundred Years of Solitude · Gabriel García Márquez *
6  Crime and Punishment · Fyodor Dostoevsky * [audiobook]
7  War and Peace · Leo Tolstoy *
8  Sense and Sensibility · Jane Austen *
9  Independent People · Halldór Kiljan Laxness *

* Rereadings.

These days War and Peace is my bedtime reading - one of my favourite novels. I don‘t understand those who complain about its length. The chapters are short and I always want to read 'just one more'. By accident, I stumbled upon an audiobook of Crime and Punishment, my first audiobook ever. I truly enjoyed it; the narrator was great. Independent People is written by Iceland‘s only Nobel Laureate. When hearing an Icelandic actor narrate it on the radio there was no turning back. Laxness had to be on the list.

Speaking of Nobel Laureates: On my birthday in July, my oldest gave me this beautiful hardcover edition of Márquez's book. A few years ago, I decided to reread his book Love in the Time of Cholera. I loved reconnecting with it but about 150 pages in my interest faded. I realised I had changed as a reader and the story no longer appealed to me. I was a bit worried the same would happen with One Hundred Years of Solitude but, fortunately, it didn‘t.

A few words about the book by William James (Henry‘s older brother). I didn‘t know anything about it until I listened to a wonderful episode on The Backlisted Podcast. Their guest was John Williams of The New York Times Book Review and they were talking about this book, which contains lectures given by James at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902. This is an interesting book, a little dry in the beginning but improves when you reach the third chapter.

I would like to thank Routledge for the museum studies textbook on the list, which deals with the notion of activism as part of museum practice. Apart from the introduction by its editors, the book contains 33 articles by more than 50 scholars in the field. Through my studies I have become aware of the editors' research; in a course on the spring term, we even read a chapter from this book.

Museum Activism, published by Routledge / Instagram

These days I‘m enjoying the annual Edinburgh International Book Festival. This year, due to the pandemic, all events are free online. What a feast for book lovers! My list of books-to-read is already longer and I'm particularly interested in Shuggie Bain, a debut by the Scottish author Douglas Stuart. It is longlisted for the Booker this year and in mid-September we will know if it makes it to the shortlist. At the beginning of the festival, the aforementioned John Williams talked to Stuart and other authors for The New York Times Book Review and this week there was another event featuring Stuart. He strikes me as a sincere writer; someone to watch in the future.