March / April Readings

Here's a short list of what I have read during March/April.

• Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games - Found it an easy to read & well paced. Looking forward to the next two books.

• Teju Cole - Open City - Like Teju's style of writing. The story is around the reflections of an African man in New York. Its rally quite well done, I love the description of Maher's 9th Symphony, how he describes New York & her people.

• Rachel Held Evans - Evolving in Monkey town (reviewed in a separate post)

• Amin Maalouf - Disordered world - just started this - and a key point the author makes is - how both [the Arab world & the west] have both reached the limits of what they could achieve as separate civilisations ... what I resented most about the Arab world was its lack of moral conscience, and what I resented most about the west was its propensity to turn its moral conscience into an instrument of domination".

Reading - 2012

Each year, I decide that I'm going to spend more time reading especially this year, since it's National Year of Reading, and my aim this year is to read over 50 books. In January so far, I've read -

O - A Presidential Novel - Anonymous

A little obvious who its about, but was a shame the book didn't reveal more. If you are interested in US politics then rather than reading this book take a few months and work your way through The West Wing. 

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

A historical novel, set during the 60s, about the hired help  - these are my type of novels - historical fiction. 

The Sorrows of an American - Siri Hustvedt

The core of this novel is a letter discovered after the death of the narrator's mother, and the quest to find out their identity.

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

Franzen's book is well written, but at the same time, I found very little to like about any of the main characters.

Bruar's Rest - Jes Smith

Didn't really remember too much about this one, it's a story of a women, who is searching for her husband who was missing in action during WWI.

The World Game: The Story of How Football Went Global - Les Murray

Les Murray's love for football is so wonderfully put across in this book. Murray writes about the history of the game, the great teams, his favourite players, and the history of the game in Australia. It rekindled my love of Football. 

Separate kingdoms : stories   Valerie Laken

A series of short stories about human relationships in the US and Russia, the few that stood out was one about a women with a disability, a couple flying to Russia to adopt a child, and a story told from two perspectives, which was quite interesting to read - do you read one at a time, or try and read them in tandem.