Well we are four months into 2013 a quick update of my books read page tells me I ve read 48 books with three on the go I should be at 51 in next couple of days hopefully of the books I ve read this year ,45 have been translations .I ve struggle as ever to keep up reviewing I tend to prefer reading to blogging and this year as ever a few books won’t get reviewed ,I try my best but time to blog is much short than it was the last couple of year .So far the highlights of the year have been
Train to Budapest by Dacia Maraini ,I need to know why she was mentioned a lot as a potential Nobel winner and this multi stranded story showed me why .A hidden gem more of you should be trying .
Suicide by Edouard Leve a touching and thought provoking book about a man looking back on a friends suicide ,Leve himself committed suicide just days after handing this book in .Review coming soon
Other highlights outside books
Elementary is my current favourite tv show I follow so little tv these days I have managed to watch all of this modern retelling of Sherlock Holmes with a female Watson and set in New York .
Well I’ve sign up for spotify this means I tend to spend more time listening to old favourites and records I don’t own,than new stuff these days .Our HMV shut earlier this month leaving us in Chesterfield without a record shop hence move to spotify .But the return of Bowie and the new Album Next day has been played many times on my Ipod ,Ipad and Iphone .My favourite track is the title track a classic piece of cut up lyrics by Bowie
The future
Well this is hard one I feel like I ve been treading water for a long time doing as much as I can with in my time frame to blog ,but still struck by the fact I could be doing more ,18 months ago I felt much more forward facing and just at mo ,I feel like I getting like a hamster stuck on a hamster wheel .I have the big project behind the blog now but moving forward on that is a bit early when I hit five hundred books I will be making major changes on the blog as I need to organise it to fit what I have in mind ,but outside blogging .I feel I should be doing more I still do twitter every thurs ,but one feels there is a whole world more out there I could be doing to promote world lit and also getting it to the ordinary man on the street hence a return to more pop culture references in my reviews ,I could spend hours taking a book apart comparing to all other books by the writer or region of writing with 300 plus books read and reviewed on this blog plus maybe another 700plus books read pre blogging it would be possible but I don’t want to be drawn down this path it isn’t what I intend for the image of the blog I want my reviews to be informative on the book and light with pop culture comparisons how else am I going get more people to read the books I so love !!!! by making them seem like precious stones or a rare painting to only be brought out on special days no thats not the way we need to be thinking how to make translations appeal to the widest audience not the small band that read them already ,because on the whole they know the books I read as well as me ! No I want be as my dear friend Rob calls it a book evangelist for translation so this is where I need to ask you my friends out there what more can I do ? how can we break the wall #
Winstonsdad's Blog 