Books-&-Reading

Trying to get a lot more structured with reading - 25 books in total spread across 5 categories - Christian Classics, Literary Classics, Popular Fiction, Modern Christian Writing and Productivity, Personal Development & Non-fiction. Completed: Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer The Pioneer Detectives -Konstantin Kakaes The Best American Essays 2014 - JJ Sullivan (ed) The Land of Steady Habits - Ted Thompson Sexual Detox - Tim Challies NW - Zadie Smith Crafting the Personal Essay - Dinty W Moore What’s so Amazing About Grace - Phillip Yancey How To Be Alone - Jonathan Franzen The Best American Essays 2013 - Cheryl Strayed (ed) The Seven Good Years - Etgar Keret Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez - Richard Rodriguez The Children Act - Ian McEwan The Things They Carried- Tim O’Brien Something to Answer For - P.H. Newby

…Neither saint nor Tzadik nor prophet standing at the gate; he’s just another sinner who has somewhat sharper awareness and uses slightly more precise language to describe inconceivable reality of our world. He doesn’t invent a single feeling or thought – all of them existed long before him… He’s here, at our side, buried up to his neck in mud and filth. The Seven Good Years: A Memoir, Etgar Keret

In his seminal essay Why I Blog, Andrew Sullivan reflects on the subject of blogging; it’s similarity to - and shared etymology with - a ship’s log, its rise in step with the proliferation of the web technologies which have made it possible, and the unique niche it fills in the online space. Its overarching and enduring quality, he surmises, is due in part to two things; the informal, almost instantaneous nature of blogging as a reaction to news and events, and the intense, if sometimes unforgiving, interaction between blogger and reader that blogs enable. The conclusions he reaches are from considering a specific form of a blog, the sort that lies at the intersection of personal reflection and journalism, much like his (now retired blog) Daily Dish. Overall the numbers are mind boggling. Back in 2005, Technorati estimated that a blog was born every second, with 14.2m blogs being tracked by them back then (For some context, Tumblr which didn’t exist back in 2005 was home to 261 million blogs as of the 1st of November this year). The vast majority of this blogosphere is made up of blogs that are far less serious in nature and content than the ones Sullivan’s comments concern primarily, however his conclusions apply, perhaps more-so in this personal, less formal space. ...

In the opening chapter of his autobiography, Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez explores his introduction to the English language, and the strain his commitment to mastering it places on his relationship with his parents. Being Mexican immigrants to America in the 1970’s, their primary language of intimacy and engagement is Spanish, their efforts in English being halting and deeply accented, even though his mother is an excellent speller of words. The emotion most stirred in those early days - when he as the up and coming scholarship boy gets to be out and about with them - is one of embarrassment and perhaps frustration at their limitations. For him, as with most people looking to escape the limitations of a certain kind of background, aspiration is a keen motivator, one that drives him to seek to immerse himself in knowledge and books, and take up the manners, airs and graces of the class and culture he looks up to. ...

I have been (re) reading Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace, the central idea of which is that the church has gone the way of the world in dealing with people who are different; with judgement and disdain rather than grace. For a book from 1997, it does not by any means feel dated, somehow remaining current not least for the issues it tackles; issued which defined the late Nineties but still continue to define our current epoch than anything else - homosexuality and the moral failings of people in leadership, temporal and spiritual. ...

A few of the more interesting pieces I stumbled on on the web during March… Enjoy On Spock- Gukira: Leonard Nimoy died, and amidst the outpouring of grief and the eulogies, I found I related most with this piece by Gukira who said it better than I ever could I do not have a single Spock moment—an image or narrative that stays with me. Unlike those who know how to write about TV and movies, I cannot recall a single episode, at least not by name. When I was younger, when I first encountered Spock in Nairobi, in reruns from the 80s, I encountered him as gesture: as the arched eyebrow, as the grip that caused others to faint, as the Vulcan mind meld. ...

Firmly mired in the middle of my February read, Ted Thompson’s debut novel The Land of Steady Habits, no thanks to a gruelling schedule at work with criminal deadlines, although I did manage to complete a profile of Selma star David Oyelowo for the church newsletter I occasionally write in. What intrigued me about that in the first place was how open he has been about his faith through out his career from theatre to Hollywood. Fascinating read, if I say so myself. Other than that most of my February reading was web based longform, a few of the more interesting ones being highlighted below: ...

In addition to completing Moon Walking with Einstein, The Pioneer Detectives and significantly denting my copy of The Best American Essays 2014, my 2015 reading has consisted of loads of longform, which I am curating via Pocket. Below are a few of the more interesting pieces that caught my eye this month: 1. Learning to Drive - Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker): What we learn when we learn to drive? … Driving a car more like walking on a sidewalk, [is] full of recognitions and hand waving and early avoidance, tamping down the sudden shocks that the combustion engine is heir to… ...

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth - Warsan Shire The Outsider - Albert Camus Merry Christmas, Alex Cross - James Patterson The Map of Love - Ahdaf Soueif Finally Free: Fighting For Purity with the Power of Grace - Heath Lambert The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How To Change - Charles Duhigg On Writing - Steven King Love At First Click - Laurie Davis The Fault in Our Stars - John Green Everyday is for the thief- Teju Cole On Beauty - Zadie Smith Don’t Tell Mum I work on the Oil Rigs - Paul Carter The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai Frank Sinatra Has A Cold: And Other Essays - Gay Talese Another Man’s War - Barnaby Phillips A Delicate Truth - John le Carré

Between Albert Camus’The Outsider and Ahdaf Soueif’s The Map of Love, my 2014 reading has gotten off to a solid, if unspectacular start, both these books seeming to occupy opposite extremes of the emotional engagement continuum. In The Outsider, two excellent summaries of which can be found here and here, Albert Camus’ protagonist, Meursault, is defined by his (lack of) emotional reaction to the death of his mother; My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know - he says, and the subsequent problems that causes for him when he ends up getting sucked into a conflict that was never his to begin with, but which ends in murder. ...