First-half reading
Reading in the first half of this year has been spotty at best. What with crazy work in the 1st quarter of the year, triathlon training throughout and having an increasingly packed social life, its been hard to find time and energy to read, process and write posts about books. I'm just going to list out the books that I remember reading, some of which I'm still in the process of reading but I think if I don't jot down my thoughts now, they'll fall out of my brain forever...
First half reading was a fair mix of fiction and non-fiction stuff, with a bias towards non-fiction stuff.
Fiction
1. Salmon Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence. I've tried to read his stuff before in JC but I found his writing pretentious and gave up on him. This time round, I gave him a 2nd chance because this was a semblance of historical fiction, based loosely on events in the Mughal empire. I finished the book and thought it was alright, some of the imagery he conjures is lovely and the plot wasn't too bad. Don't think I'll be running out to buy the rest of his books just yet or ever?
2. Ramesh Menon's modern rendering of The Mahabharata. S gave this to me as my farewell present but I only got round to finishing it early this year. It was amazing though. I was absolutely hooked on this book, reading abit every morning before work and at night, before bedtime. This book came in two massive volumes and I couldn't lug them around even if I wanted to. So much drama and at the same time, so much wisdom. Very interesting insight into Indian mythology as well.
Non-fiction
Unsurprisingly, some of these books were tri / cycling / swimming books. I can't really remember the names / authors of these books right now but one had to do with long distance cycling and the other on swimming. Of the two, I'm definitely learning more from the swimming book. The long distance cycling book just crystallised concepts for me but the swimming book has been quite a mental gymnastics exercise as its quite technical and uses alot of physics terminology. Still playing around with the concepts in the pool and ploughing through the book slowly.
I also read two biographies:
1. One was by Lance Armstrong called Its not about the bike: My journey back to life, which is about his battle with cancer and how he came back to win the Tour De France. This was an amazing book about a very mentally and physically strong man. His determination was amazing and very inspiring.
2. The other was Barack Obama's Dreams from my father, which I liked so much that I bought "I" a copy for her birthday. My motivation for buying this book was because I really hadn't been following the elections and wanted to find out more about him and I thought it was quite well written and informative. There was balance and yet the emotions still came through.
And one graphic novel, being Guy Delisle's Shenzhen: A travelogue from China. The author worked in Shenzehn as an animator for a few months and the comic contains his observations, which are pretty interesting. Especially since he had also worked in Pyongyang before that for two months.
Aside from the above, I'm still in the midst of reading:
!. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons. Its quite readable, just that there are alot of pages to go through and to think this is the abridged version. I suppose I will finish this during my next holiday.
2. Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster (i.e. his journey through China). Well I only just started reading this on the flight home and I'm actually enjoying it more than The Great Railway Bazaar. His observations here are more cutting and interesting, as this train ride took place in the 1980s, when China was just emerging from Mao's shadow.
3. Gods, Graves and Scholars: The story of Archaelogy by C.W. Ceram. More than halfway through this and resisted bringing it back because I was sure I would finish the other half in one sitting on the airplane and run out of reading material for the rest of the trip, which would be a disaster really. Of the three books that I'm currently reading, I'd say this is the one I'm enjoying the most. Its written in my preferred format and that is each chapter could be a standalone article and are well written. Basically, it talks about famous archealogists, famous excavations and/or finds. At parts, its quite technical but otherwise pretty easy reading.
Suspect I should have just brought the last book back to Singapore to read really, seeing that I'm never short of reading material in this country. Managed to pay a visit to Books Actually (first time in three tries) and grabbed three books there and then managed to score about 10 books from M's attic last night. All this means is that I probably now have enough reading material to last me till next year at the rate I'm going!
First half reading was a fair mix of fiction and non-fiction stuff, with a bias towards non-fiction stuff.
Fiction
1. Salmon Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence. I've tried to read his stuff before in JC but I found his writing pretentious and gave up on him. This time round, I gave him a 2nd chance because this was a semblance of historical fiction, based loosely on events in the Mughal empire. I finished the book and thought it was alright, some of the imagery he conjures is lovely and the plot wasn't too bad. Don't think I'll be running out to buy the rest of his books just yet or ever?
2. Ramesh Menon's modern rendering of The Mahabharata. S gave this to me as my farewell present but I only got round to finishing it early this year. It was amazing though. I was absolutely hooked on this book, reading abit every morning before work and at night, before bedtime. This book came in two massive volumes and I couldn't lug them around even if I wanted to. So much drama and at the same time, so much wisdom. Very interesting insight into Indian mythology as well.
Non-fiction
Unsurprisingly, some of these books were tri / cycling / swimming books. I can't really remember the names / authors of these books right now but one had to do with long distance cycling and the other on swimming. Of the two, I'm definitely learning more from the swimming book. The long distance cycling book just crystallised concepts for me but the swimming book has been quite a mental gymnastics exercise as its quite technical and uses alot of physics terminology. Still playing around with the concepts in the pool and ploughing through the book slowly.
I also read two biographies:
1. One was by Lance Armstrong called Its not about the bike: My journey back to life, which is about his battle with cancer and how he came back to win the Tour De France. This was an amazing book about a very mentally and physically strong man. His determination was amazing and very inspiring.
2. The other was Barack Obama's Dreams from my father, which I liked so much that I bought "I" a copy for her birthday. My motivation for buying this book was because I really hadn't been following the elections and wanted to find out more about him and I thought it was quite well written and informative. There was balance and yet the emotions still came through.
And one graphic novel, being Guy Delisle's Shenzhen: A travelogue from China. The author worked in Shenzehn as an animator for a few months and the comic contains his observations, which are pretty interesting. Especially since he had also worked in Pyongyang before that for two months.
Aside from the above, I'm still in the midst of reading:
!. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons. Its quite readable, just that there are alot of pages to go through and to think this is the abridged version. I suppose I will finish this during my next holiday.
2. Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster (i.e. his journey through China). Well I only just started reading this on the flight home and I'm actually enjoying it more than The Great Railway Bazaar. His observations here are more cutting and interesting, as this train ride took place in the 1980s, when China was just emerging from Mao's shadow.
3. Gods, Graves and Scholars: The story of Archaelogy by C.W. Ceram. More than halfway through this and resisted bringing it back because I was sure I would finish the other half in one sitting on the airplane and run out of reading material for the rest of the trip, which would be a disaster really. Of the three books that I'm currently reading, I'd say this is the one I'm enjoying the most. Its written in my preferred format and that is each chapter could be a standalone article and are well written. Basically, it talks about famous archealogists, famous excavations and/or finds. At parts, its quite technical but otherwise pretty easy reading.
Suspect I should have just brought the last book back to Singapore to read really, seeing that I'm never short of reading material in this country. Managed to pay a visit to Books Actually (first time in three tries) and grabbed three books there and then managed to score about 10 books from M's attic last night. All this means is that I probably now have enough reading material to last me till next year at the rate I'm going!