What I read: Jan & Feb 2019

Back home.

I’ve started to keep a small note of things I’ve read over the past few months and I thought it might be interesting to publish it here as the format I use (a really long note in Simplenote) can get a little unwieldy.

So here are some things I read in January and February. I’ll mainly keep it to books and longer bits of writing (that I’ve enjoyed in the latter case). I’m a subscriber to the New Yorker magazine so that will turn up quite a lot (and I was going through quite a big backlog in Feb!).

January 2019

Books

  • Play it again by Alan Rusbridger — good read, lots of interesting musing on the theme of learning later in life. Found the Guardian stuff a little less interesting. Too much name dropping and self importance at times.
  • There are more beautiful things than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker — some absolute cracking poems in here, but uneven.
  • asymmetry by Lisa Halliday — deeply frustrating. Pretty well written novel, albeit forced in places but the whole schtick around the “surprise” at the end and the “groundbreaking” modernist structure left me absolutely baffled and feeling stupid.
  • The little virtues by Natalia Ginzburg — brilliant, thoughtful, lots of messages that I am quoting in life all the time. A keeper. My vocation and The little virtues are essays for the ages.

Articles

February 2019

Books

  • The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon — I think that if I’d read this when I was 18 it would be one of my favourite novels. These days I like my emotions a little more intimate. But a lot of fun and some really moving parts amongst the grandiose. Lots of great new words in there too.

Articles