Rumours of war

Well...this is a book blog, not a political news bulletin, but I know what Charly Salonius-Pasternak said, he said something of significance and some people tried to say, it's nothing, or he is exaggerating. But for a year now, most clever Finns have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I hope it won't. The thing I had to say about Jansson's book from 1940's Vi ville inte dö (eng. We didn't want to die) was that Finland has many lessons to learn from history, but like with mankind usually, the lessons are not taken, and History has a tendency to repeat itself, and somehow still, it is we, people, who repeat it. I have a lot of examples in regards of this situation but as I said this is not a political blog. It's a sad thing having a clear sense of the world and education that makes one think on things from a broader point of view and yet having no power to change things. Today I was thinking, has a writer ever changed the world by a novel? Prayer is more effective than stories, and if there is anything that one can do, that is just it: PRAY.

I'm hoping to read Dostoevsky The house of the dead in January because I happen to have the book and it's the January read for Tristan and The Classics. 

My Christmas reading list is:

Study for obedience, Sarah Bernstein. So far, I'm not liking it nor am I hating it, she captures me with her words BUT the book is strangely written, a bit like McCarthy style and I don't like it, however it's too short to D.N.F. (Did not finish) and I'm perplexed by our time, that we've come to a point when novels are less than 200 pages and font 14, are we really too lazy to read? Once I'm done with Bernstein's richly awarded novel I'll return to English classics and God willing, read in this order:

1. 1984 

2. The Scarlet Letter 

3. Emma

These are still on my list for 2023, and like always, biting more than I can chew I'm thinking should I read Maggie O'Farrell's The Distance Between Us after Emma. Wouldn't it be cool to wrap up the year with a book by the same author that I finished off last year with? - Well, I'm a geek therefore I think so. I'm suddenly inspired to read Austen's Emma, I wonder what all could I learn from it, but I anticipate that reading it will be like my other experiences with Austen, down in the trenches, wading through crap until the good part. 

I also took with me from the library Kotaro Isaka's Bullet Train written in 1988, now published by Vintage Penguin, and I just wonder, if generally a person born in the late 1980's is considered vintage now, even more... I wonder if I'll have time to read it, after all, I have two whole days of semester during Christmas :) 

I'll challenge myself and let you all know how it goes, book by book. 

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