That was the month that was May 2018

Books read –

1. Scenes from a childhood by Jon Fosse
2. The Blind spot by Javier Cercas
3. The moon and the bonfire by Cesare Pavese
4. Money to Burn by Ricardo Piglia
5. This too shall pass by Milena Busquets
6. Alma Mahler by Sasho Dimoski
7. Document 1 by François Blais

I have chosen The Blind spot. I find the more I have read over the years the more books and essays about books especially collections like this one lead me further down the path of discovering writers but also think about books in different ways. Hear the point Cercas makes about blind spots in books made me think of many books afterward from the English patient to Belladonna and there blind spots. Maybe I am like Ahab hunting that book to end all books my endless battle with lit in translation is like the cruise to take on Moby dick.

Non-book discovery-

Well not a really non-book discovery this month, but more non-book as in not reading but Imagine the Uk show that is broadcast a few times a had a new episode and it was about the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. Well in the UK I think it is still on Iplayer (Also the double episode with Philip Roth is available at mo as well) I am a Pamuk fan but what really caught me was his notebooks he showed of paintings and writing. I was struck I used to do small watercolors in my youth, not anything that artistic but something I enjoyed so I decided I would start a notebook of memories of my mum using words and pictures as I try to remember my mum and also create something at the same time.

Next month

I am nearly done with a clever Japanese crime novel and then have the two latest Istros books and also  a Taiwanese collection to read and mostly start feeling less numb and down.