The Guardian newspaper has a series called "The Resolution I Kept". The latest one is about a woman who ran away from life to live at sea.
Well, my two resolutions for 2020 were a lot less demanding and dangerous, and I managed to finish them last weekend.
Firstly, I promised to read a "Trollope a month". I'd started reading books by Anthony Trollope in the summer of 2016. Recommended by Sinead Darker, an Irish woman working in the sister company of the Japanese pharma company I worked for in London, I thought I would save him for retirement. However, in 2016, I thought I'd try one out just to see what he was like. I read The Warden and fell in love with the main character at once and had to find out more of the Barchester series. Wonderful stuff. Anyway, it wasn't so easy to get more Trollope books out of the English library as I'd read them all, so I got a couple out of the university library (including his autobiography) and from globablgreybooks.com - a website run by a very nice woman in England.
Secondly, I challenged myself to read two French books a month. And I did. Thanks to the main German library. I was smart enough to get two books out for December in the middle of November - before the stricter lockdown took hold again. One good thing about French books is that French authors know how to write short books - 270-330 pages is a good length for a French book.
Anyway...I'm in two minds as to what reading challenge to pick for 2021. Either a Dickens a month or a Russian book in translation (English or German) a month. I'm still mulling that over. Or maybe even both.
For Russian stories, I can heartily recommend Master and Margarita, and Heart of a Dog, both by Bulgakov. Three Sisters is also gripping.
ReplyDeleteI've read the first one - but ages ago. I can't remember much. I've also read some Gogol, such as The Lost Souls. And some Tolstoy - like the Death of Ivan Wotsisname. And the nasty spoilt cow called Anna Karenina, who like Emma Bovary has too much time on her hands to not get up to mischief.
ReplyDeleteI liked Solzhenitsyn: Ivan Denisovich, Gulag Archipelago, Cancer Ward. Good, gritty books.
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