In Istanbul where an April spring has turned to winter, with temperatures below zero but toasty warn compared to the sight of my savings and pension etc. I picked the wrong year to become interested in my finances, it was far more freeing to have none. I recently re-read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s […]
Self-indulgence
Indulging in some proper trash, a fantasy novel by Sarah Maas. Somewhat embarrassingly explicit in places, but a fine read that rattles along for what doesn’t feel like nearly 2000 pages. It’s no Bleak House to be sure, though I wonder what Dickens would have made of today’s fantasy writing. Would he have been intrigued […]
Quiet Sunday
It was a working Sunday, though to be honest I worked only from the afternoon onwards, but at least finished one of the things I needed to do this weekend. Lunch was phatooray from Icchra, a classic desi meal which I used to have with my mother back in the day when she went to […]
Miss Wisk
I’m reading Bleak House these days, feeling that my Dickens knowledge is lacking. I can’t say I’m loving it, but I can respect it and it is certainly very funny. I was surprised to come across Miss Wisk the feminist, and learned of JS Mill’s extreme disapproval of how she’s presented in the book. I […]
Change of career
Amidst a whirl of social engagements (of which I dropped the final one of exhaustion), one was a rather ceremonial visit from a relative to thank me for helping his son with his application essays. There is a roaring business in education consultancies these days, people taking lakhs to get children into universities abroad by […]
Money
The book that made the the greatest impression on me in the last few months was Amis’s Money. A remarkable piece of work, though I hated reading it and took several breaks, and I plan to reread it quite soon. Will I ever read any of his other books? I doubt it, but this was […]
Return to work
It was the quietest winter I’ve had in a while, I think, in terms of taking time off and not having work to do. On the weekend the GF and went for a very pleasant walk in the Belgrad forest. The first part of it, which was on an established trail, we passed about a […]
Pachinko
Read The Pachinko Parlour, which had been lingering for a couple of days despite being short enough to read in an hour. Quite good, though I preferred the other book recently recommended to me, about the laundries. This one had a pair of very good grandparents, Korean-Japanese, and some of the least appetising food I’ve […]
Facing west
Profoundly unimpressed by Tan Twan Eng’s The gift of rain. I read his second and more famous novel shortly before going to Malaysia and didn’t care for it but remember almost nothing of it, while this one, his first, is excruciating. It’s very much a first novel, for one: he’s lovingly put everything he wanted […]
Inglorious tumble
It was a hot day and I went along what is known as the Granite Way, thinking it would be more sheltered than the open moors. It probably was, but still a slight misjudgement as it’s a pukka cycle path, so the surface was glaring when the sun was very hot. Still, a very nice […]