Monday, May 05, 2008

 

Re: Reading

Back in cold rainy Swansea... but I managed to play frisbee on the beach again. It wasn't too windy and the sky was interesting. My friend Adele has a soft frisbee that rolls up into a cylinder and makes a strange gloopy noise when it's caught, like a flying jellyfish. Frisbee is a minor hobby of mine, reading is a major one. For some reason I don't seem to be getting quite the same kick out of reading as I used to. Probably a sign of age. When I was in my early twenties I was genuinely besotted by every new discovery: the act of reading seemed active rather than passive.

I still enjoy books but I rarely love them in the same way. Maybe I'm consuming too many. I average between 20 and 30 every year. I've recently been disappointed with many authors recommended to me. Jonathan Carroll wasn't as good as I'd hoped, nor was Richard Matheson. It has been more than two years since a book made me jump up, ruffling my hair (as Nabokov would have it). As for the next hair ruffler: it might well be Blaise Cendrars' Moravagine. Mind you, I've just had my hair cut very short and there's not much to ruffle.


Comments:
Hmmmm, I recognised the feeling of books not quite giving me what they had given me in the past so here I am, recommending some I devoured, just in case you get desperate.

Feel free to ignore them :) specially since it could be that we have incredibly different taste in books.

Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
Triage - Scott Anderson
Danziger's Travels (or Danziger's Adventures) - Nick Danziger
Small Wars Permitting - Christina Lamb
 
Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]