Reading

The Secret Life of Pronouns, etc…

My Dad sent me an interesting article from New Scientist magazine recently called “The Secret Life of Pronouns”. It’s based on a book of the same name by James W. Pennebaker. Now the article was fascinating (I’ll get to it…
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“C” by Tom McCarthy

Well, that was a bit different. Don’t come to this book expecting plot, character development or anything like that. The main character, Serge, is like a conduit for signals from the radio that his father is experimenting with when he’s…
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“Half Blood Blues” by Esi Edugyan

This book has it all: a compelling story, a great setting (black jazz musicians in Nazi Germany and occupied Paris), lyrical prose that perfectly captures the voice of the bass-player narrator, Baltimore-born Sid Griffiths, while also weaving in elements of…
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“The Flanders Road” by Claude Simon

Not an easy read, this. The style is experimental, with prose that mimics the way we think rather than the way we’d normally tell a story. So there’s a lot of jumping around from memory to memory by association rather…
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Lists

I love lists. So many books, so many thoughts and ideas condensed into a single, well-ordered list. I came across a good one over the summer, listing the top 105 works of 20th century Arabic literature. Wanted to link to…
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