What are you reading? Any good?
Am a chapter or so into David Davidar's The Solitude of Emperors (supposed to be interviewing him tomorrow but only just got the copy).
I'm nearly finished Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost, also the Silverfish collection, News From Home. Am also enjoying several other books including Awang Goneng's Growing Up in Terengganu, and Sam Jordison's Annus Horribilis. Intend to post something about them next week.
Am also dipping into a number of non-fiction things including Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and Paul Auster's The Red Notebook. Warehouse sale purchases!
And talking of warehouse sales not only is the Pay Less one on this weekend, but Times is having a sale in Kajang.
I'm off to Singapore in the morning for the Writers' Festival and this blog will be in hiatus until I get back on Sunday night. Have a great weekend, and do slip a note in the comments about your current and recent reads so that you can keep each other entertained in my absence.(Photo is of a Kansas hoarding by Khayal. Seem to have mislaid the original URL ...)
15 comments:
I love paul auster! I read City of Glass last year and I have the brooklyn follies but just don't have the time to start on it yet.
I just finished Paradise Lost for class and should be reading Spencer's The Faerie Queene. It looks daunting but i hope i'll make it in time for finals!
my group of friends and I are reading Hikayat Hang Tuah right now and we're discovering things that we never knew before about Hang Tuah (what we've never been told in school). We're having fun with it especially we just finished the chapter where Hang Tuah kind of tricked Tun Teja into marrying the sultan.
Sharon,
I am supposed to review Davidar's books. Supposedly to appear alongside your interview.
I ahve one question that perhaps you could get an answer for:
Davidar use the word K-- instead of giving a proper name to the protagonist's hometown. I couldn't find any significant symbolism in it. Chances are I have missed the point, but would be nice to know the answer.
Could you, pleeeeease.
Cheers
Obiter - could it be a take on Kafka's K? Anyway I hate it when authors use letters to name towns or persons. Feel like a Dear Abby letter.
I'm reading Susan Hill's King of the Castle, or Top of the Castle, something like that. Got it at the Penguin Booksale. It's about 2 boys but quite dark.
Have fun in Singapore!
Imperial Life In The Emerald City. anyone'd get infuriated by the Americans' attitude, arrogance, ignorance. liberation my ass!
btw, Paul Greengrass of United 93 and the Bourne films is going to make the film version.
obiter dictum, the use of letters to stand in for full place names is an archaic convention, isn't it? I know Austen and several other 18th/19th century writers do that. So maybe Davidar is going for an 18th/19th century tone? I'm just guessing.
I enjoyed _The House of Blue Mangoes_ and am intrigued to note that this new book is much shorter -- that might have been my main reservation about THofBM, that it dragged a bit in the middle.
I'm just finishing up _The Gathering_, which I'm loving on the whole. I've got one or two gripes about it but the astonishing writing pretty much makes up for all of them.
-- Preeta
I'm halfway done with Bruce Chatwin's 'On the Black Hill', crawling through it, so to speak, at a snail's steady pace, but savouring every word as if it were my last delicious morsel.
what is the what - slow reading as it is very intense
at the same time - rashomon and other stories
have been stuck on these 2 book for nearly a month because been too busy: life and times of the thunderbolt kid - bill bryson and previous convictions - a.a.gill
Nicola Barker's Darkmans - which i will habis this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not to mention Borders in Gardens is open! Finally.
Now feverishly finishing Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong.
Oh... I just got back from the Pay Less Books Warehouse Sales. Bought 12 non-fiction titles -- some pretty good stuff there.
Have a good trip in Singapore and have a splendid weekend!
Hi Sharon --
In answer to your question of what I'm reading: Still a lot of crime novels. Two authors I've gotten into since moving to Hong Kong (from Penang) are Kathy Reichs and Sarah Paretsky -- both American, multi-book crime novelists.
These days, also read quite a lot of hiking guides. Does that count as real reading to you, I wonder? ;)
I actually have a title this time: Stephen Clarke's Merde Happens. No verdict yet, though.
Sharon,
Last night, I've just started Navigating the Darwin Straits by Edith Forbes. Last week I read The Thirteenth Tales by Diane Setterfield and Small Island by Andrea Levy. Both of them were unputdownable (is this word exist?), Love them both.
Well.. was just reading (or rather re-reading) TP's "Interesting Times". Am waiting to see if Animah can come to my rescue with 100 members (all of which are willing to pay BC's membership prices) so we can start a library. Until then I guess I shall have to read stuff online. :P
Or I could ask YF how to make 230K.
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