When you get your child a Kindle, she turns quiet and spends 4 hours straight on it, that you have 4 quiet hours for yourself to read too! That's what happened at our home the first summer weekend. As you can see from the list below, I've had a productive month of reading.
"Primeval and other times" by Olga Tokarczuk kicked off this month. She was my choice for OBOC - Poland. The concept itself is not new. Primeval tells the history of Poland from 1914 to contemporary times from a microcosmic view of a small village called Primeval, its inhabitants both living, non-living and the super natural. But the execution was very refreshing! The chapters were each very short and was written from the point of view of one character but time was flowing and horrific and unimaginable events were happening in the background and every character including the flora and fauna are all affected by the events. This does not mean the book was entirely dark, although some chapters were very hard for me to read. But there is still so much beauty in everyday life - whether you are grinding coffee, milking the cow, planting bushes, or collecting mushrooms in the wild. God on the other hand seems to have become bored with mankind and has abandoned him and viceversa.
The non-fiction choice of this month was "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA" by Brenda Maddox. Numerous books have already been written about the discovery of the Double Helical structure of the DNA. But most of the narrative have been around the three men - Watson, Crick and Wilkins with Rosalind's role being minimized to having contributed a X-ray evidence. In reality we now know that Rosalind Franklin's role was much more than that and she herself was only a couple of steps away from the grand discovery herself. That the science world and especially the Noble Committee has not been fair to women is widely known. Even today it is not easy for women to succeed in what is perceived as a man's world. So one can only imagine what Franklin must've faced in the 1950's. With a superlative scientific brain, a stream of publications that would do any scientist proud, with path breaking work in crystallography with coal, DNA and Viruses it is just unbelievable that Franklin is not widely known. Maddox's biography is a very engaging read and sheds light on some of the reasons why the dark lady has been kept in the dark. A must-read book!
Now onto the dystopian world. I wrapped up "Station Eleven" by Emily St.John Mandel and it is a great book, no doubt! Part mystery, part post-apocalyptic novel, part ode to Shakespeare and the theater, it tells the story of humanity (or at least whatever survives of it) after a "Georgian flu" pandemic wipes out most of the world as we know it. With no more cars, planes, Internet, Television, Medicine and Nation States the world is a tough place to live in and people band together in small communities and eke out a living. The Traveling Symphony visits some of these towns and performs Shakespeare alluding to the fact that the bard himself was a product of the black plague. The book and the writer have so much promise. If you've not read "The Road" by Cormac Mcarthy you will give much more praise to Emily Mandel. Unfortunately I read both these books in parallel and while "The Road" scared and scarred me, "Station Eleven" left me a bit unmoved as the survivors of Station seemed to be doing OK and were very civilized for having lived through such a disaster.
I also read "Angelmaker" by Nick Harkaway (incidentally the son of the illustrious LeCarre). A thoroughly enjoyable book with a very interesting premise. Steampunk to the core. A bit wordy and long, but still able to hold your attention.
Overall a wonderful month of reading (mainly) women and I am now ready for June and looking forward to summer!
"Primeval and other times" by Olga Tokarczuk kicked off this month. She was my choice for OBOC - Poland. The concept itself is not new. Primeval tells the history of Poland from 1914 to contemporary times from a microcosmic view of a small village called Primeval, its inhabitants both living, non-living and the super natural. But the execution was very refreshing! The chapters were each very short and was written from the point of view of one character but time was flowing and horrific and unimaginable events were happening in the background and every character including the flora and fauna are all affected by the events. This does not mean the book was entirely dark, although some chapters were very hard for me to read. But there is still so much beauty in everyday life - whether you are grinding coffee, milking the cow, planting bushes, or collecting mushrooms in the wild. God on the other hand seems to have become bored with mankind and has abandoned him and viceversa.
The non-fiction choice of this month was "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA" by Brenda Maddox. Numerous books have already been written about the discovery of the Double Helical structure of the DNA. But most of the narrative have been around the three men - Watson, Crick and Wilkins with Rosalind's role being minimized to having contributed a X-ray evidence. In reality we now know that Rosalind Franklin's role was much more than that and she herself was only a couple of steps away from the grand discovery herself. That the science world and especially the Noble Committee has not been fair to women is widely known. Even today it is not easy for women to succeed in what is perceived as a man's world. So one can only imagine what Franklin must've faced in the 1950's. With a superlative scientific brain, a stream of publications that would do any scientist proud, with path breaking work in crystallography with coal, DNA and Viruses it is just unbelievable that Franklin is not widely known. Maddox's biography is a very engaging read and sheds light on some of the reasons why the dark lady has been kept in the dark. A must-read book!
Now onto the dystopian world. I wrapped up "Station Eleven" by Emily St.John Mandel and it is a great book, no doubt! Part mystery, part post-apocalyptic novel, part ode to Shakespeare and the theater, it tells the story of humanity (or at least whatever survives of it) after a "Georgian flu" pandemic wipes out most of the world as we know it. With no more cars, planes, Internet, Television, Medicine and Nation States the world is a tough place to live in and people band together in small communities and eke out a living. The Traveling Symphony visits some of these towns and performs Shakespeare alluding to the fact that the bard himself was a product of the black plague. The book and the writer have so much promise. If you've not read "The Road" by Cormac Mcarthy you will give much more praise to Emily Mandel. Unfortunately I read both these books in parallel and while "The Road" scared and scarred me, "Station Eleven" left me a bit unmoved as the survivors of Station seemed to be doing OK and were very civilized for having lived through such a disaster.
I also read "Angelmaker" by Nick Harkaway (incidentally the son of the illustrious LeCarre). A thoroughly enjoyable book with a very interesting premise. Steampunk to the core. A bit wordy and long, but still able to hold your attention.
Overall a wonderful month of reading (mainly) women and I am now ready for June and looking forward to summer!
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