Off topic: some recent reading

Some recent reading:

1. The Portable MFA: published by the New York Writers' Workshop, this covers novels, short stories, non-fiction and poetry. Both interesting and useful for someone who hopes to eventually find the time to write a book;

2. Flawless: the story of the world's largest diamond robbery. A real life crime story. Fascinating;

3. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: Toby Wilkinson's history of Egypt under the Pharaohs was a fascinating read - plenty of detail and a writing style that conveyed a feeling for this period of history. Subsequent visits to the ancient Egypt sections of the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art were more interesting as a result of reading this book. This one sparked a yearning to visit Egypt again;

4. The Age of Wonder: Richard Holmes' look at some of the scientific discoveries during the second half of the eighteenth century. In some respects, the book reads like a series of interlinked mid-length biographies starting with Joseph Banks and including other leading scientific figures such as William and Caroline Hershel and Humphrey Davy as well as some of the noteworthy scientific discoveries of the time. The emphasis is very much on the cultural or social impact rather than the science. A wonderful read;

5. Ulysses: James Joyce's novel is regarded my many as the greatest English language novel of the twentieth century. Having read (and enjoyed) Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I was expecting to enjoy Ulysses as well. I didn't. I found the writing to be dense, impenetrable and, at times, incomprehensible. Above all, it was boring. I can't see myself reading anything else by Joyce after this.

Off topic: recent readings

In the past, I've posted reviews of books that were vaguely finance related and, more recently, some non-finance related books (here here and here).  Going forward, I intend to keep a (loose) record of most of the stuff I am reading (other than work related materials which take up quite a bit of time).  The most recent things read:

• Paper, Scissors, Stone: this is a volume of poetry by Kit Fan which won the HKU International Poetry prize for 2010.  While poetry is something I blow hot and cold about (I really struggled with the Wasteland, and that was just the bits that were written in English), I did find some of the language quite mesmerising
• The Sense of an Ending: Julian Barnes won the Man Booker prize for 2011 for this story about a man looking back on his life, specifically his relationships with a small group of friends and one former girlfriend in particular.  I hope when I reach the age of his protagonist, I will have better things to do with my remaining time.  I was surprised at how short the book was
• The Birth of Plenty: William Bernstein's explanation for why some countries become and stay wealthy and others do not.  A more detailed review is here
• The Hunger Games Trilogy:  Suzzane Collins very successful post-apocalyptic novels for young adults.  The first book was the best of the three
• Bad Science: Ben Goldacre's denunciation of people who peddle rubbish dressed up as good science.  Review is here

I've also made a start on Ulysses - quite frankly, it's very heavy going and hard to follow.  This one is probably going to take a few months to get through in small doses.