reading habit
Editor’s note
Thank you to everyone who’s written in about the Reading Habit, and the books you’ve been reading and enjoying. Conversations with fellow readers always enriches me, and I want to do more of it. Please email me the best book you’ve read this year, and why you loved it. I will be happy to feature some of them and/or talk to you more about them.
A list of good literary reads
- The great John le Carré passed away late last year, but people’s recollections of meeting him—all impactful, lovely memories—continue to pour in. In CrimeReads, author Kate Weinberg writes about meeting her hero and vowing not to bring up her own unfinished novel. When it inevitably came up, his advice to her: “You need to remember this. The cat sat on the mat. That’s not a story. But the cat sat on a dog’s mat. Now that’s a story.”
- Alexander Chee writes in Medium about the show The Durrells in Corfu, an adaptation of Gerald Durrell’s beloved memoir-trilogy, and how it made him think of the trope of the “male bumbler”, a character quite common in literature of a certain genre and era. The “mumbler” is innocent, in his own eyes and in others’, and not quite self-aware as he holds more power than he knows, and is astounded when things and people around him are affected by it. Chee writes about this and the show in general with clarity and beauty, like he always does.
- Offering a small piece of bookish history, History Today talks about book piracy in 18th century France, a necessity considering the laws of the time. “Here we are back with the publishers, plotting strategies to outwit the Parisian oligarchs and the institutions of state. For these Neuchâtel publishers were pirates, seeking to insinuate their books into the market in defiance of the laws governing the trade.”
- To celebrate Anton Chekhov’s birthday last Friday, LitHub did us all a service and put together 10 photos of a young Chekhov looking extra fine. Something to tide us over until the weekend.
- For the word-nerds among us who all own a copy of Lost in Translation or one of its many variations, here are fourteen more untranslatable words from languages around the world to add to your collection, along with links to their etymological origins. This is one to bookmark for repeated readings.
- ‘Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line’ by Deepa Anappara has been nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe Award, in the Best Novel category. The awards, which honour the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television, always round-up the best and latest in the genre, and you can see their full 2020 nominations list here.
Quick fixes, aka a few varied recommendations
What I’m reading: I think I’m enormously late to the party, but I began listening to 'The Gene: An Intimate History' by Siddhartha Mukherjee on audio this week, and the luminous prose and extraordinary presentation of information is feeling quite life-changing at the moment. He amalgamates the science with personal history fascinatingly, making this a wholly unique experience.
A childhood fave: 'Mister Monday' by Garth Nix, and his Keys to the Kingdom series as a whole, was a right novelty for 12-year-old me. With super high stakes, inter-dimensional magic, and antagonists named after the seven days of the week, this series lit in me a spark for SFF that refuses to go out.
Book-adjacent rec of the week: SparkNotes, the website that’s famously helped students understand classic literature for over two decades, has the most wonderful Twitter account that arguably ends up teaching you more than your classes ever will. Want to best understand Lizzie and Darcy’s relationship? Or maybe Victor Frankenstein’s life in a nutshell? How about Prometheus’ fate, in case it was too hard to keep track of the specifics? SparkNotes has got you.
Underrated author of the week: Sherlock Holmes is almost always on my mind. Who is not on my mind as much is his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, EW Hornung, who created gentleman-thief A.J. Raffles and his sidekick, Bunny Manders. The characters and the stories, which are quite ingenious in themselves, were inspired by AND served as opposites/counterparts to the canon of Holmes and Watson. While they didn’t end up gaining the popularity the latter has garnered over time, they’re still entirely entertaining and manage to hold their own.
Bookish adaptation to watch out for: I had been looking for something gripping to binge, perhaps of the horror-mystery variety, and 'The Outsider', available on Disney+ Hotstar, did not let me down. Based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King, it is suspenseful and terrifying and gives you some real solid protagonists to root for. TW: violence and gore.
Note: Reading Habit is curated by our books editor Anushree Kaushal. Want to send along recommendations, feedback or just say hi? Email her at kaushalanushree@gmail.com
