Books, So Many Books
The Bedside Pile
~ Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
~ The New Odyssey by Patrick Kingsley
Physical TBR
~ The Mammoth Hunters by Jean Auel
~ Plains Of Passage by Jean Auel
~ Shelters Of Stone by Jean Auel
~ Land Of The Painted Caves by Jean Auel
~ The Business by Iain Banks
~ Matter by Iain Banks
~ As Long As We Both Shall Live by Joann Chaney
~ Incendiary by Chris Cleave
~ Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
~ Silas Marner by George Elliot
~ Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
~ Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
~ On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
~ Here I Am by Jonathan Foer
~ The Appeal by John Grisham
~ A Killer Choice by Tom Hunt
~ Cold Heart by Linda LaPlante
~ The Call Of The Wild by Jack London
~ Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
~ Brothers by Bernice Rubens
~ The Hickory Staff by Robert Scott
~ The Farm by Tom Smith
~ The Master Of Ballantre by Robert L. Stevenson
~ Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift
~ Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
~ The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Storygraph TBR
~ The Lord Of The Flies by William Golding
~ Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
~ Animal Farm by George Orwell
~ Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey
~ Sea Of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
~ Blood In My Eye by George Jackson
~ Escape Routes by Naomi Ishiguro
~ The Gospel Of The Eels by Patrik Svensson
~ The End Of Loneliness by Benedict Wells
~ Orlando by Virginia Woolf
~ Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie
~ Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie
~ Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
~ Unexpected Vanilla by Lee Hyemi
~ The Ritual by Adam Nevill
~ Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns
~ Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park
~ The Last Tale Of The Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi
~ Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.
~ Battle Royale by Koushin Takami
~ What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher
~ The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
~ American Prometheus by Kai Bird
~ Lie With Me by Philippe Besson
~ The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
~ Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
~ Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
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books I've read in 2023 so far, as of July
Den lodande människan - Patrik Svensson: loved it, could not have started my year with a better book. 5/5
Sveket - Birgitta Trotzig: became severely depressed during the three days I read this in (had to read fast for school), seriously affected my wellbeing and mental health and the way I viewed the world. when it ended it felt like waking up from a nightmare, the relief of realizing there is beauty in the world because there was none in this book. ???/5
Watership Down - Richard Adams: read swedish translation. love, just love. I found the Efrafa arc weird and misplaced in this book about rabbits though, very strange. 4/5
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad: read this after I watched Apocalypse Now because I loved the film, and I think the film made me like the book more. also the first classic I read in a while and I think thats part of why I liked the writing so much. extremely racist even though its supposed to be like, anti colonial commentary? but I suppose it was in its time. 4/5
Annihilation - Jeff Vandermeer: swedish translation. I watched the movie a few years ago and ive been wanting to read this since. and im glad I did because I did like it but idk im sensing a theme here like maybe I shouldn't have read swedish translation instead of original language in some cases. cause I liked this but maybe I wouldve liked it more in english? idk.. like 3.5-4/5 though
Circe - Madeline Miller: I really liked this one. reading this in front of the fireplace, immersing myself in another world. I loved living in the Ancient Greece and greek myths for some time, I really felt I was there. I don’t know how Miller did it but she really conveyed the feeling of immortality, I really felt I was living through centuries alongside Circe and the feelings that come with that. thats why the ending was so perfect. Odysseus was the best part tho. 4.5/5
The River Between - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: read up on the topic of FGM in Africa on the side as I was reading this. a very interesting and also gruesome, eye opening experience. what stays with me is the total darkness of the nights, really pierced through my soul. 4/5
Dear Edward - Ann Napolitano: swedish translation. my grandma gave this to me and told me to read it because she read it and wanted to hear what I thought, I never would have read it otherwise. it wasnt really my thing but I do like airplanes and airplane crashes as a plot, so that was the stuff I took away from the story, the rest kind of just went through me. but im kind of happy I read this book just for that reason because that part really affected me. also the conclusion was more touching than the rest of the book, which felt kinda detached. 2.5/5 for the book, 4.5/5 for airplane stuff (my post i make the rules)
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami: swedish translation (ive read all my Murakami books in swedish, since the original language isnt english and also because i like it). some parts I really really loved and were some of my fav elements of any murakami book. but this was not my favorite. overall I liked it, though. actually loved the experience of reading this because i always love reading murakami due to the meditative descriptions of daily chores combined with surrealism, and this one was extra long and repetitive so i loved that. also was interesting cause I looked up the cult events its inspired by so that was interesting too. this one had a bit more surreal/fantasy elements than his other stuff ive read I think? which was nice also. 4/5
If I had your face - Frances Cha: im glad I read it. a good insight into the reality of women in South Korea. not perfect but i feel this book succeeded in what it aimed to be. 3/5
Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh: swedish translation. i dont really know how to feel about it, really. honestly, I dont even know what to say. this left my head kind of empty, which... may not be a good thing.. could be a poor translation, if i read another of her books ill read in english. 2.5/5
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller: read this hoping to get more Odysseus but there wasnt a lot. Honestly not a huge fan of this book, Circe was so much better. what rlly irked me was Miller sugarcoating some aspects of these war criminals, more specifically the rapes/sex slaves — yet keeps some things in as if they were essential. More specifically, Patroclus sleeping with that girl i cant remember the name of, for god knows what reason, it was such an unpleasant read and she had to write this so much more explicitly and drawn out than any sex scene between Patroclus and Achilles? That pissed me off and genuinely I felt it was so ugly of Patroclus because that was cheating. If it was meant to be read as asssault thats worse because that woman is literally a rape victim (of Achilles) in the canon. Very distasteful to turn a rape victim into a rapist for fanfiction fantasy. Circe was Miller’s apology to women for writing this book. 3/5
Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro: swedish translation. My first Ishiguro. I found the conversations between characters unnatural and unempathetic, the latter especially when aimed at Klara. It is established that Klara has feelings to some degrees and yet is treated as someone who does not, and yet they characters are not supposed to be viewed as unlikeable? This threw me off and also put me off the whole book. But I really liked the character and perspective of Klara, she was my favorite part of this book. I thought it was kind of brilliant to be in Klara’s brain, but felt sorry for her due to her treatment. It frustrated me how much love and care she had for Josie and the others for almost no reason since they were never very kind or caring in turn to her or likable on their own. Her loyalty was almost pitiful, like that of an abused pet or child. The whole replacing Josie thing is so un-human I can’t even fathom these characters aren’t supposed to be viewed as something else than dystopically post-human! (Are they meant to be viewed as that? Unclear) Who could ever replace their child with a robot, an inherently selfish act, they can not possibly believe they would somehow be reviving Josie for anyone else’s sake than their own? Josie would not live on, she would still be dead. So it would be for themselves to play pretend, and it’s completely bizarre. I can’t believe this wasn’t even the moral dilemma. The whole ”something essential that can’t be replaced” is one discussion and it was handled quite weakly, but obviously even if Klara learns all there is about Josie, and is able to ”become” her, the same Josie will not have been born again to experience it. She would be a clone who ACTS like Josie, at most. She would have ”learnt all the rooms of her heart” but she wouldn’t be her, she would only copy. But no one cares about that, only whether Klara can become her clone or not. Including the father who is more critical about it seems to think it would be fine to clone his daughter and act like she is the same one, if it ever would work. could be the translator who sucks? Debating if i should read any more Ishiguro. 2/5
Lucy - Jamaica Kincaid: this is my second Kincaid, I love her writing. love it, gorgeous. she is straight forward, conveys so strongly, vividly. 4.5/5
The colorless Tsukuru Tazaki - Haruki Murakami: swedish translation. you know what, I think anyone complaining about this book should take an extra look at the cover. you’re reading murakami, this is what you get. that said, I do think this is one of his weaker attempts of his tried standard formula, ive seen him do better. I do feel like the prose was a little new, experimental maybe? Which was interesting. also not enough homoerotica. 3/5
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Lo vertiginosamente rápido que se me ha pasado este otro año refleja lo monótona y poco emocionante que es mi vida. Pero esto, que puede parecer un poco triste desde afuera, es algo que en realidad me gusta: no vivir «tiempos interesantes», como dice la apócrifa maldición china (los «eventos canónicos» de hoy en día), y carecer así tanto de momentos especialmente buenos como malos me produce el sosiego que mi forma de ser necesita. Sea como sea, el punto es que se han cumplido dos años desde que comencé a escribir aquí, y dos años no es precisamente poco, sobre todo si se tiene en cuenta que lo hago con frecuencia. Incluso las cosas que se disfrutan exigen algo de esfuerzo y dedicación, por lo que no puedo evitar sentirme contento por haber logrado mantener otros 365 días la constancia que me propuse.
En lo que respecta a las lecturas me siento como siempre: satisfecho e insatisfecho a la vez. Varios libros que tenía ganas de leer los he leído, pero otros muchos, ya sea por falta de tiempo o por no haberme sentido capaz (mayoritariamente esto último), no. La vida, sin embargo, —y como también escribí en la publicación del año pasado— continúa: mientras no me abandone el ánimo y la salud, las oportunidades de hacerlo estarán. Manteniendo la costumbre, los tres libros que más he disfrutado leyendo este año han sido El asilo y otros relatos de lo extraño de Robert Aickman, La naturaleza de Lucrecio y Carta de una desconocida de Stefan Zweig; los que menos, Oso de Marian Engel, Sor Monika de E. T. A. Hoffmann y La felicidad de la familia de Osamu Dazai. Aun en los casos en que la experiencia de haberlo leído haya sido lo único rescatable, no hay libro por muy malo que sea que no deje algo, por lo que guardo gratitud por cada uno de los autores.
La lista de los libros de los cuales hice un comentario es la siguiente:
· Piero Della Francesca, de Kenneth Clark
· La prueba del laberinto, de Mircea Eliade
· Fragmentarium, de Mircea Eliade
· Jesucristo, ¡vaya timo!, de Gabriel Andrade
· Ocultismo, brujería y modas culturales, de Mircea Eliade
· El juego del escondite, de Wilkie Collins
· El maestro de los cinco sauces, de Tao Yuanming
· Por qué no soy musulmán, de Ibn Warraq
· Los cuarenta y siete ronin, de Shunsui Tamenaga
· El vértigo, de Eugenia Ginzburg
· El gaucho Martín Fierro
La vuelta de Martín Fierro, de José Hernández
· Pequeños cuentos misóginos, de Patricia Highsmith
· Diarios y cuadernos 1941-1995, de Patricia Highsmith
· Suspense, de Patricia Highsmith
· El talento de Mr. Ripley, de Patricia Highsmith
· El infierno de los jemeres rojos, de Denise Affonço
· El latín en Chile, de Walter Hanisch Espíndola
· La gran hambruna en la China de Mao, de Frank Dikötter
· Águilas y jaguares, de Carlos Alfonso Ledesma y Raymundo César Martínez
· El Talmud, de César Vidal
· Regreso de la URSS, de André Gide
· Viaje a la revolución. Teoría y práctica del bolvechismo y otros ensayos, de Bertrand Russell
· Literaturas de Anáhuac y del Incario, de Miguel León-Portilla
· La matanza de Katyn, de Thomas Urban
· Beethoven contado a través de sus contemporáneos, de O. G. Sonneck (ed.)
· El evangelio de las anguilas, de Patrik Svensson
· Poemas del río Wang, de Wang Wei
· Cicerón, de Pierre Grimal
· Yo, comunista en Rusia, de Ettore Vanni
· El silencio de la luna, de Javier Martín Ríos
· El Terror bajo Lenin, Jacques Baynac
· Por qué la teoría de la evolución es verdadera, de Jerry Coyne
· Túpac Yupanqui, de José Antonio del Busto
· Poesía completa, de Joan Salvat-Papasseit
· La Biblia contada para escépticos, de Juan Eslava Galán
· La vida cotidiana durante el estalinismo, de Sheila Fitzpatrick
· La vida enmascarada del señor de Musashi, de Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
· Epigramas (volumen II), de Marcial
· El fraude de la sábana santa y las reliquias de Cristo, de Juan Eslava Galán
· Jesús no dijo eso: los errores y las falsificaciones de la Biblia, de Bart D. Ehrman
· Trece poetas del mundo azteca, de Miguel León-Portilla
· Nerón: la imagen deformada, de Pilar Fernández Uriel y Luis Palop
· La pagoda blanca. Cien poemas de la dinastía Tang, de Guillermo Dañino (ed.)
· El pensamiento arcaico, de Jesús Mosterín
· La filosofía oriental antigua, de Jesús Mosterín
· La filosofía griega prearistotélica, de Jesús Mosterín
· Aristóteles, de Jesús Mosterín
· Las redes del terror, de José María Faraldo
· La tragedia griega: una introducción, de Ruth Scodel
· Las primeras poetisas en lengua castellana, de Clara Janés (ed.)
· Una historia natural de la curiosidad, de Alberto Manguel
· Obras completas, de Epicuro
· El cuarto gris, de Eden Phillpotts
· Lina Prokófiev: una española en el gulag, de Valentina Chemberdjí
· Las maravillas del mundo antiguo, de Valerio Massimo
· Epicuro, de Carlos García Gual
· Chuang-Tzu, de Octavio Paz
· Apología del taoísmo, de Giuseppe Tucci
· El epicureísmo, de Emilio Lledó
· Las pseudociencias, ¡vaya timo!, de Mario Bunge
· Epicuro, de Walter F. Otto
· Epigramas funerarios griegos, de María Luisa del Barrio Vega (ed.)
· Cantos de amor y de ausencia, de Xu Zonghui y Enrique Gracia (eds.)
· Reflexiones contra la religión, de Mark Twain
· En el país de la mentira desconcertante, de Ante Ciliga
· Una curiosa historia del sexo, de Kate Lister
· El dragón del estanque, de S. S. van Dine
· ¡Que los dioses nos ayuden!, de Néstor F. Marqués
· Cajal: un grito por la ciencia, de José Ramón Alonso y Juan Andrés de Carlos
· La muerte de Montaigne, de Jorge Edwards
· Cuadernos (volumen I), de Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
· El instante de peligro, de Miguel Ángel Hernández
· Consolaciones. Apocolocintosis, de Séneca
· El patio, de Jorge Edwards
· Ingenuos: el engaño de las terapias alternativas, de Vicente E. Caballo e Isabel C. Salazar (dirs.)
· El whisky de los poetas, de Jorge Edwards
· Cartas desde el gulag, de Luiza Iordache Cârstea
· Filosofía para médicos, de Mario Bunge
· Velázquez. Vida, de Bartolomé Bennassar
· El misterio del pabellón rojo, de Robert van Gulik
· Tratados filosóficos y autobiográficos, de Galeno
· Ficciones filosóficas del Zhuangzi, de Romain Graziani
· Jesucristo Superstar. Ópera rock, de Marta García Sarabia
· Gulag, de Anne Applebaum
· Core: sobre enfermos, enfermedades y la búsqueda del alma de la medicina, de Andrzej Szczeklik
· Martín Rivas, de Alberto Blest Gana
· Las hermanas, de Stefan Zweig
· Catarsis: sobre el poder curativo de la naturaleza y del arte, de Andrzej Szczeklik
· El cristianismo al descubierto, de Holbach
· El sueño de la historia, de Jorge Edwards
· Tratados hipocráticos (volumen I), de Hipócrates
· Filosofía de la cirugía, de René Leriche
· Historia curiosa de la medicina, de Pedro Gargantilla
· Poesía completa, de William Shakespeare
· La lámpara roja, de Arthur Conan Doyle
· El asilo y otros relatos de lo extraño, de Robert Aickman
· Las infinitas vidas de Euclides, de Benjamin Wardhaugh
· Bajo la sombra del Vesubio, de Daisy Dunn
· Franklin Evans, el borracho, de Walt Whitman
· Caballero Jack, de Anne Lister
· La felicidad de la familia, de Osamu Dazai
· Breve historia de las batallas navales de la Antigüedad, de Víctor San Juan
· El mito bolchevique, de Alexander Berkman
· Dos años en Rusia, de Emma Goldman
· La cerilla sueca y otros cuentos, de Antón Chéjov
· Lucrecio. La miel y la absenta, de André Comte-Sponville
· Pensamiento estoico, de Eduardo Gil Bera (ed.)
· El estoicismo, de Jean Brun
· Cinismos, de Michel Onfray
· Historia de la mujer convertida en mono, de Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
· Figuras de la historia de Roma, de Theodor Mommsen
· Mi viaje a la Rusia sovietista, de Fernando de los Ríos Urruti
· Yatsuhaka-Mura, de Seishi Yokomizo
· Mi vida, de Girolamo Cardano
· Ante todo, no hagas daño, de Henry Marsh
· Asesinato en el honjin y otros relatos, de Seishi Yokomizo
· Historia de O, de Dominique Aury
· Antología de la poesía china, de Juan Ignacio Preciado Idoeta (ed.)
· Así es Rusia, de Johann Philipp
· Sor Monika, de E. T. A. Hoffmann
· El tesoro de Franchard, de Robert Louis Stevenson
· Robert Louis Stevenson, de G. K. Chesterton
· Los traficantes de naufragios, de Robert Louis Stevenson
· Bajamar, de Robert Louis Stevenson
· Vivir: ensayos personales y autobiográficos, de Robert Louis Stevenson
· Audición, de Ryū Murakami
· Conversaciones con Arrau, de Joseph Horowitz
· El monasterio encantado, de Robert van Gulik
· El pabellón de oro, de Yukio Mishima
· Breve historia de Jesús de Nazaret, de Francisco José Gómez
· Vida de una geisha, de Mineko Iwasaki
· El problema final, de Arturo Pérez-Reverte
· Cantares de Ise (anónimo)
· El fantasma del templo, de Robert van Gulik
· Tres cuentos chinos, de Robert van Gulik
· La vida sexual en la antigua China, de Robert van Gulik
· Un puñado de arena, de Takuboku
· Retrato de Shunkin, de Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
· Poesía completa, de Li Qingzhao
· La confesión de Claude, de Émile Zola
· La palabra arrestada, de Vitali Shentalinski
· Como un espectro. Miao Dao, de Joyce Carol Oates
· El médico y el enfermo, de Pedro Laín Entralgo
· La naturaleza, de Lucrecio
· ¿Fue él?, de Stefan Zweig
· Ardiente secreto, de Stefan Zweig
· El amor de Erika Ewald, de Stefan Zweig
· Los ojos del hermano eterno, de Stefan Zweig
· Mendel el de los libros, de Stefan Zweig
· Carta de una desconocida, de Stefan Zweig
· Castellio contra Calvino, de Stefan Zweig
· Magallanes, de Stefan Zweig
· Jeremías, de Stefan Zweig
· La bestia debe morir, de Nicholas Blake
· Hombre lascivo y sin linaje, de Ihara Saikaku
· El nuevo libro de Sonia, de Michael Innes
· 533 días, de Cees Nooteboom
· El ala y la cigarra, de Juan Manuel Rodríguez Tobal (trad.)
· Japón, un intento de interpretación, de Lafcadio Hearn
· Oso, de Marian Engel
· La historia de los fantasmas, de Roger Clarke
· Filosofía de la medicina, de Cristian Saborido
· Historia de la filosofía romana, de Adolfo Levi
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