By my bedside this week.
My usual reading habit is to digest a single novel at a time. However, most of my latest acquisitions haven't been novels. So in addition to (as diversion from?) my academic work, I'm dipping into four books on the go.
Also, I finished Aldous Huxley's Brave New World last night. By coincidence, I discovered that one of the pieces in the Hitchens collection is a foreword he wrote... to an edition of that very book!
I like this new mode of reading. I enjoy essays immensely - as long as they have at least a mild literary bent. Economic and philosophical essays intrigue me also, but they require so much more effort; 'lucid and clear' being a dictum seldom heeded. They need to be studied, not read in bed. Admittedly, any good essay should be examined as well as read, but it's nice to enjoy a first (or subsequent) reading, isn't it?
There's some superb literature in the forementioned books. All come highly recommended! If I was to pick a favourite so far, it would be the Fitzgerald collection, but I haven't read a majority of any of the books. Byron's poetry is masterful, but it requires dedication to read through just a single canto; really, you lose by taking a canto in stages. I owe Hitchens and Russell (of all people!) the honour of a more attentive read. Some of Hitchens' short tales recall a more detached Hunter S. Thompson. Witty and inspired! (To be fair, wit is nine-tenths inspiration.)
Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty & War - Journeys and Essays
Lord Byron, Selected Poetry of Lord Byron
Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Also, I finished Aldous Huxley's Brave New World last night. By coincidence, I discovered that one of the pieces in the Hitchens collection is a foreword he wrote... to an edition of that very book!
I like this new mode of reading. I enjoy essays immensely - as long as they have at least a mild literary bent. Economic and philosophical essays intrigue me also, but they require so much more effort; 'lucid and clear' being a dictum seldom heeded. They need to be studied, not read in bed. Admittedly, any good essay should be examined as well as read, but it's nice to enjoy a first (or subsequent) reading, isn't it?
There's some superb literature in the forementioned books. All come highly recommended! If I was to pick a favourite so far, it would be the Fitzgerald collection, but I haven't read a majority of any of the books. Byron's poetry is masterful, but it requires dedication to read through just a single canto; really, you lose by taking a canto in stages. I owe Hitchens and Russell (of all people!) the honour of a more attentive read. Some of Hitchens' short tales recall a more detached Hunter S. Thompson. Witty and inspired! (To be fair, wit is nine-tenths inspiration.)
posted by Martin at
12:10 a.m.
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2 of my readers composed a witty reply
2 Comments:
You might try, if you like essays and shorts, David Foster Wallace. I'm reading his "Consider the Lobster", which title essay is available online in PDF.
By
dpineapple, at Wed Dec 28, 10:27:00 p.m.
Cheers! I'll make sure to take a look next week - a few of my own essays to finish first. :)
By
Martin, at Sun Jan 01, 04:34:00 p.m.
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