WHAT ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW?
Hunger by Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun. A book I recently read on the siege of Leningrad during World War II mentioned this book containing among the most powerful descriptions of the stages of hunger. The novel, written in 1890, stuck in my head and I decided to pick it up on a recent online order.
WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING, and WHAT DID YOU THINK OF IT?
This weekend, I completed Biografi: A Traveler’s Tale by Lloyd Jones. It documents Jones’ travels through Albania in 1991 in search of the man reputed to be the body double for Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. Only after the book was published in 1993 did Jones reveal the body double he found and traveled with in the story was fictional. Biografi remains a very interesting look into life in Albania following the collapse of communism and the made-up biography of the body double perhaps serves as the ultimate biografi, the files compiled on virtually every Albanian citizen, often containing as many, if not more, falsehoods than truth. Still, knowing the character at the center of the story was made up, I wondered about virtually every other character and conversation in the book.
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL READ NEXT?
Either Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard or Ferenc Karinthy’s Metropole, both of which I have at home and are on recent Bibliolust lists.
WILL YOU READ ANY HOLIDAY-THEMED BOOKS SOON?
Extremely unlikely unless a new and worthwhile Festivus book is released. To date, though, I have not been impressed with the Festivus titles.
Books are like imprisoned souls until some one takes them down from a shelf and reads them.
Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
