Update on Reading Deliberately

The fact that we always interpret literary works to some extent in the light of our concerns—indeed that in one sense of our own concerns we are incapable of doing anything else, might be one reason why certain works of literature seem to retain their value across the centuries. Think about it for a second, [...]

[274] Strong Poison – Dorothy L. Sayers

” Curious, everybody is so remarkably helpful about this case. They cheerfully answer questions which one has no right to ask and burst into explanations in the most unnecessary manner. None of them seem to have anything to conceal. It’s quite astonishing. ” [10; 120] Writer Philip Boyes has been fatally poisoned. The onset of [...]

[273] Cannery Row – John Steinbeck

” Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots . . . ” [Prologue] Set in the [...]

Reading and Multitasking

Do you – or are you even able – to do other things while you read? Do you knit, hold a conversation, keep an eye on the TV? Anything? It depends. I prefer to read in a quiet environment, free of noise, distraction, and interruptions. That is why I rather wake up two hours earlier [...]

Homeward Bound; Reading Updates

A week in Hong Kong has quickly slipped by; it was comforting (and emotional) to see my father recovering so well from a stroke he suffered three months ago. It’s out of my expectation that in his company at home I have read so profusely, propelling ahead of my mental reading schedule. Brightness Falls, Persuasion, [...]

[272] The Man From Beijing – Henning Mankell

” But she was convinced: this couldn’t be the handiwork of a lunatic. It was too well organized, too cold-blooded, to have been carried out by anyone but a totally calm and cool killer. Possibly, she noted in the margin, one should ask if the man had been in the place before. It was pitch [...]

Reading Break

Do you take breaks while reading a book? Or read it straight through? (And, by breaks, I don’t mean sleeping, eating and going to work; I mean putting it aside for a time while you read something else.) Readers might deduce from my review posts that I have followed a linear rhythm in reading. Usually [...]

[271] Persuasion – Jane Austen

” She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older—the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning. ” [4; 29] ” Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled [...]

Dorothy Sayers, British Mysteries

Dorothy Sayers, originally uploaded by moleskineboy. Hong Kongers might not be the most voracious readers (I’m not speaking about tabloids and comic books). The bookstores of the former British colony, however, have no shortage of UK editions and titles. A quick scour at PageOne, a bookstore chain based out of Kuala Lumpur, afforded a sack [...]

“Almost Up To” Books

Where do you keep the books on the top of the tbr pile? Not the bunk of the mountain, but just the tip of the peak – the ‘almost up to’ books? Moleskine Boy wants to express his deepest gratitude to Musing Mondays for reminding him of that staggering tower of books he had recently [...]