The Emily Blog

I really thought I’d be writing more about food than books here, but it’s turned out the other way around so far. While I certainly HAVE experienced quite a bit of good food over the last month, I haven’t gotten good photos (curse the crap camera!), and who wants to write about food without pictures? So that will have to wait, since the non-crap camera I’m eyeing is not very compatible with my current salary.

In terms of books, though – here’s the scoop. On January first I started Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco, my first book for the Lost in Translation Reading Challenge. It’s the kind of epic story I really like, spanning the history of Martinique from the beginnings of the sugar plantations through the abolition of slavery and into the present. Slow going, to be sure, but good. Frans mentioned that he tackled the book in the original French/Creole at one point in his life; I’m extremely glad I have the English translation.

In between doses of Chamoiseau, I’ve been reading New Sudden Fiction, a delightful (and I’m not using that word lightly) collection of short-short stories, as well as The Vintage Book of Indian Writing, 1947-1997, which I think I mentioned earlier. Both are awesome.

I wish there was more than just a week left before school starts up again. One more semester, though, and then in May I’ll be free. Forever.

Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada (yes, I should have known that). Why does it matter what he’s reading? Because Yann Martel is sending him a book every two weeks – a book meant to “expand stillness” – and Martel is posting the letter accompanying each book at the website www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca. Today’s book, Book #45, is Borges’s Fictions. I haven’t read it. In fact, I’ve only read eight of the books he’s sent so far. It’s interesting, though, to go through the letters and see why Martel is recommending these books – what value he sees in them, and the variety of authors and styles he’s sending. If I didn’t have so much lined up to read already, I’d go out and find copies of quite a few of these books right now.

• The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
• The Rise and Fall of Languages by R.M.W. Dixon
• Where You Once Belonged by Kent Haruf
• The Vintage Book of Indian Writing: 1947-1997 ed. by Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West
• The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul

We’ll see how much I actually get through. I also need to keep working on some school projects.