Finished:

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. To use Joyce’s own words, he is “a priest of the eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life.” Also, I was bloody chuffed to stumble upon what looked like an inspiration for Alfred Bester’s “The stars my destination” quatrain; whatever invisible homunculus gives me my inner voice did little somersaults inside.

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire, by Akala. This was such a terrific book that I plan to re-read it this week in the hope that I retain at least some of the factual information.

Madam Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. Been on my TBR list for a long time. Even if the main characters and their paths and motivations were completely different, I couldn’t help but compare it to Tess of the D'Urbervilles in its snowballing deterioration of personal circumstances and the final outcome. Not sure which I prefer. On the one hand, I really enjoyed Flaubert’s no-frills language, but then Hardy’s mysticism really made his writing stand out and words jump off the page. I found both of the female protagonists terribly frustrating, however Emma probably felt a bit more credible, whilst Tess was, in my eyes, far more sympathetic.

I also listened to:

Queen of the Desert: A Biography of the Female Lawrence of Arabia, Gertrude Bell, by Mason Fergus. Made a mistake and got a really short biography. Still, I was blown away by the story; so much so, I got 2 more books – one written by Gertrude herself and her full biography.

The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton. This was one of the first books that I read in English, when I was learning the language. It was interesting to see how accurate my recollection of it was.

Der Seelenbrecher (The Soul Breaker), by Sebastian Fitzek. Didn’t quite live up to my expectations set up by the introduction, and I found the whole “whodunit” explanation at the end a tad infantilising. That being said, the production was excellent and I binged the whole thing in the space of one evening.

Continuing:

The World of Andrei Sakharov, by Gennady E. Gorelik

Started:

2666, by Roberto Bolaño. Highly recommended by a friend as part of our reading challenge.