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Started reading **The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire** by Chloe Hooper. This is a non-fiction book from Australia which is about finding the person who lit some of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires that killed many people.
STILL READING
**Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo:** Enjoying the book, but at the same time my soul hurts with every character’s pain and misfortune…
Finished:
* Bambini di Praga 1947, by Bohumil Hrabal
I like Hrabal’s playful style and sense of humor; this one is hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing for a good portion of the book.
* Hebrejky. Biblické matky, démonky, královny i milenky, by Jan Fingerland
A sort of an (incomplete) encyclopaedia of women in the Bible that compares the text to later artistic adaptations, religious but also feminist or psychoanalyst interpretations, while discussing historical context.
Still reading:
* Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, by Avi Shlaim
Very good so far, as a summary of existing sources (from Israeli archives, Arabic publications and others). Starts with Balfour Declaration and goes into topics such as relations with Syria or Jordan in the first half.
Currently stalled:
* Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, by Lao Tzu, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.P. Seaton
* The Case for Sanctions Against Israel, by Audrea Lim (Editor)
* The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank, Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor)
FINISHED:
**The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño**I think it goes without saying that Bolaño was a very *very* competent writer; in fact, his writing is so effortless it’s hard not lose track of time in it. From the technical point, I cannot fault him one iota. But content wise, I was once again left underwhelmed. I suppose, it’s not too bad if you read it as a straightforward Bildungsroman, but Bolaño seemed to have purposefully planted all those promising seeds that simply failed to germinate: political upheaval – only superficially touched upon; cross-literary discussions were reduced to simple name dropping… The only subject (aside from characters’ relationships) that didn’t run dry was sex, which, again, to give Bolaño credit, was, for the most part, far too earnestly written to be lewd; however, what at first was amusing, soon became a distracting filler. I did learn, however, that Marquis de Sade apparently also wrote plays, so there’s that.
**Relight My Fire, by C.K. McDonnell**Book 4 in a *Stranger Times* series and the first one that actually made me full on belly laugh. A hilarious start, fabulous new character, amusing element to an otherwise overdone subject, and Banecroft cosplaying *One Foot in a Grave*, of course. A good comfort read if you’re into “weirdy bollocks”.
Speaking of “weirdy bollocks”… **The Third Policeman, by Flann O’Brien**To borrow an observation from one of its characters, this was “nearly an insoluble pancake, a conundrum of inscrutable potentialities, a snorter.”, oh, and I must not forget bicycles.
Often compared to * Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland *, the book sent me down the rabbit hole searching for anything I could find about the author, who, as it happens, was an absolute riot. If you don’t believe me, check out article 19 on his Wiki’s list of references. Even at the end, he couldn’t help but be the jester – “In 1966 Brian was undergoing X-ray treatment for throat cancer. He was saved from the agony of dying from throat cancer by having a major heart attack. He died in that early morning of 1 April (April fool’s day, his final joke).”
**Catch the Rabbit, by Lana Bastašić**This book surprised me. From the acerbic tone of its narrator, to the way in which author’s writing intertwined beauty with a sense of malignancy, it really got under my skin. >!The overall story is pretty simple but it is told in this carousel of episodic vignettes that creates an illusion of complexity and, just when you start to feel that its effect is perhaps a tad overblown and will miss its mark, it finds its true target and floors you with its poignancy.!< A striking book.
P.S. In this week’s edition of literary coincidences, according to Wiki, *Catch the Rabbit* “draws its inspiration from *Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland*”, not unlike Flann O’Brien’s *The Third Policeman* and, since in my little world all roads seem to lead to Joyce, I believe it also pays homage to *Finnegans Wake* in that where its last sentence breaks off there starts the novel’s first sentence, creating a story that could be told over and over again – *The Third Policeman* also ends on a recurrent note. Finally, there is a strong possibility that the last book James Joyce read before he died was another absurdist novel called *At Swim-Two-Birds*, written by none other than Flann O’Brien and published a couple of months before *Finnegans Wake*.
STARTED:
**The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding**
**Believe in People, by Karel Čapek**
Currently reading
• Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser
• Murtagh, by Christopher Paolini
**!invite Stephen R. Lawhead**. He might be open for some questions, since the series I’m reading reading is set to become a TV series
Just finished **Pendragon**, Book 4 of **The Pendragon Cycle, by Stephen R. Lawhead.**…the author’s reimagining of King Arthur and Merlin. There are 6 books in the series. Book 1 was released almost 50 years ago and has never been out of print.