reading 2010

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope 2011 will be a challenging and eventually satisfying year for all of you. In a break with tradition, this blog will continue as if there weren't a new year. There will be no talk of resolutions or changes, no hints of what's to come. I've done this in the past and nothing has ever come of it. What might happen this year is in my head and will stay there until it happens.

What's not only in my head is the new year itself whose start is, for this blog, an event of more than symbolic significance. Over the past twelve months, the two lists of books read and books acquired have grown progressively longer and started to crowd out other items on the page. It is time to summarize last year's literary adventures and clear the slate for more.

I've been good last year. I obtained, by purchase, gift or loan, 19 books. I have read, throughout the year, 21 and thus decreased my stack of unread books, which was threatening to dominate the shelf. In further relief to Billy, not all of the books I obtained are still in my possession: some have been given away, moved on or donated to the Oxfam.

I don't remember what is where, what I gave away and to whom, but I do remember the books I read. I made a list, after all. This list is repeated here with brief summaries, intended to serve as a reminder when my brain doesn't work so well anymore and to suggest material for when you get bored reading my blog.

• From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman – In an earlier post, I called this my favorite book of the year. Even if it's not as much a standout as that title makes it sound, it's still a great read. Immediate and fresh, though it's 20 years old. Political writing doesn't get much better. Plus, it's funny.
• The Alleys of Marrakesh by Peter Mayne – The author, an aspiring novelist, went to Marrakesh at the end of the second world war to write his book. He was an expatriate before the word was invented, renting rooms from the locals and living the life. While every other westerner was a colonialist, he tried to integrate. A treasure!
  
• Geographical Excursions in London by Hugh J. Gayler – The handout by a Canadian geography professor for his annual class trip to London go chronologically through the history of urban planning and design. It made me discover parts of my town I didn't know and see others with different eyes.
  
• Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen – Shortly after arriving in London, I purchased an orchid with violent pink flowers. It has now grown buds again, for the second time, in spite of my largely absent care. The people in Orchid Fever, in contrast to me, are positively (and maybe pathologically) nuts about their plants. Hilarious.
• The Kingdom by the Sea and World's End by Paul Theroux – A circumnavigation, primarily on foot, of the British Isles in a time of austerity and distant war (1982, not 2010) by the greatest contemporary travel writer, plus a small collection of short stories. World's End is a neighborhood a short walk from where I live.
  
• The Songlines and In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin – Of these two, The Songlines is by far the stronger. Chatwin reveals the culture of the Australian Aborigines, their maps drawn by song, and their oral histories. Utterly captivating. In Patagonia is just a trip by comparison.
  
• Arabia Through the Looking Glass by Jonathan Raban – As any example of well-aged travel writing, this books takes you on a journey not only through space but also through time, to place you will never be able to visit. Here it's the quaint fishing village of Dubai or the crumbling labyrinth of mud of Sana'a. Brilliant.
  
• The Best American Travel Writing 2003 – Great writing, sometimes happy, sometimes painful. The disappearance of large mammals from Africa or of the Aral Sea from the map might just make you cry.
  
• Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? by Thomas Kohnstamm – The author left a good job in Manhattan to cover the northeast of Brazil for Lonely Planet. How do you do that in seven weeks? After reading this book, you will use travel guides rather skeptically.
  
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens – Many more can quote the first line of this novel (It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...) than have read it. That's justified. Dickens is revered in the UK, but his writing lacks lightness. In this novel, almost every character returns at a later point, giving meaning to the earlier appearance and linking everything, as if the world consisted of two dozen people only.
  
• A Friend of the Earth by T. Coraghessan Boyle – The man with the impossible name writes for The New Yorker, but this dystopian vision of a world brought to its knees by climate change is not very convincing.
  
• Midnight All Day and The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi – A collection of stories and a short novel by my favorite London boy (thanks to the energetic Buddha of Suburbia). Neither is very good.
  
• Atemschaukel by Herta Müller – The novel by the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature tells of a young ethnic German from Transylvania who is sent by the Russians (who were then our Soviet friends and protectors) to a labor camp in the Ukraine. The story is dire and harrowing, but the telling is light, almost belittling. Brutality upon unspeakable brutality is heaped upon the protagonist, who just marches on, not feeling much. Maybe that's the only way of dealing with such a topic, especially if it's personally close to you, but I didn't like it too much. In contrast, I very much liked the technical aspects of the writing, especially the constant creation of (very German) compound words (the "breath swing" of the title, for example). They wouldn't stand much of a chance of surviving translation, unfortunately.
  
• The Black Swan by Nicholas Nassim Taleb – A Wall Street trader and hedge fund manager who retired to a position of academic philosophy and pure thinking. Nice if you can afford it. Even better if what you produce is worth the time (and lost income) you put into it. This book will make you see news and financial predictions in a different light. Great!
  
• Le passé simple by Driss Chraïbi – Autobiographical Moroccan coming-of-age story from the times when paternal authority was absolute. Probably important in its historical context, and full of shocking detail, but no Catcher in the Rye.
  
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka – The title grabbed my attention. The first twenty pages were hilarious. Then, over the next 300 pages, it fizzled out.
  
• Wir waren jung und unbekümmert by Laurent Fignon – The two-time Tour de France winner (and one-time eight-second loser) died last summer of cancer. This autobiography retraces his career with humor, open words and honest admissions, be it the use of recreational drugs or the refusal of industrial doping.
  
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig – This should be required reading for every graduate student. Hell, it should be required reading for everyone. Read it now!

After going through these books, taking them from the shelf to refamiliarize myself with them, I'm surprised to see that I actually don't have all that many books left unread. There are a few, and some are heavy. As it's the new year, I made a separate pile with those that I will, for various reasons, attempt to read: The Finkler Question, Les Bienveillantes, Wie der Stahl gehärtet wurde, and Der Turm. Now there's a New Year's resolution after all.