books
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Wide Sargasso Sea
I would possibly never have read Wide Sargasso Sea if it wasn’t for Diana Athill. In her memoirs, she speaks about Jean Rhys with such clarity and emotion that I could not help but be intrigued. The idea of a person so inept at life – addicted to alcohol, ho..
How to Read More Books
Statistically, the questions I hear most often are: “Oh my god, are you unwell?” when I haven’t applied any make-up and “How do you manage to read so much?” when I’ve finished another book and feel the whole world should know. The latter question is often as..
A Slow Read: Richard Mabey’s The Cabaret of Plants
Among the things I promised to do in 2016 was reading longer books, as an antidote to my impatience and my growing inability to concentrate. I haven’t been doing too badly: in addition to quite a few other books, I recently finished The Silk Roads by Peter F..
Better Than Star Wars: Saga vol 1
I am not a huge graphic novel/comic book reader – I do get through enough of them to prove that I’m not one of those elitist snobs who disregard comics on principle, but not much more. This means reading mostly Alan Moore* and of course Neil Gaiman’s Sandman..
Love In a Cold Climate and Other Light Reads
I owe one of my lovely commenters a list for light reading and here’s my attempt to pay that debt. I considered calling the post Comfort Reads, but I find these to be very personal and not always recommendable – although quite a few titles below also work as..
Woman of the Month: Diana Athill
I know Diana Athill – or I know OF Diana Athill, to be more precise – because I’m a regular reader of The Guardian. In 2009, they published an essay by Athill, who was already over 90 at the time, about why she decided to move into an old people’s home. I re..
The Future of Tolerance
It was 1998 and I was on my way to Lübeck, upon the invitation of Germany’s young social democrats – to witness the general elections and eventually, Gerhard Schröder’s defeat of Helmut Kohl. As both I and the Estonian social democrats were poor, I arrived w..
7 French Things That Made Me
I had in mind to post a rant about French style last Friday, but my sister’s piano arrived and intervened. Not surprisingly, I no longer feel like sharing my silly annoyances with the French lifestyle industry. I didn’t feel like writing anything at all, to ..
A Very Short Introduction to Being Well Informed
One thing that happens when you blog (almost) every day is that you notice your thought patterns more than you otherwise would – writing things down kind of makes them difficult to ignore. So what have I learned about myself, in addition to the fact that I’v..
American Women
It’s a constant, noble aspiration of mine to read more widely, not just English-speaking, white, middle class authors. Unfortunately, it’s not going well. Partly because I can only read in Estonian and English – my German, Russian and Danish are no longer go..