Posts tagged read hard

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell  That the cover of the trade paperback edition of David Mitchell’s 2010 novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, is the spitting image of that of Hendrik Doeff’s nineteenth-century memoir, Recollections of Japan, is no small coincidence. Both covers, characterized by traditional Japanese art-inspired illustrations, depict the arrival of a large Western ship on Japanese shores. And rightly so, as both books tell of the experiences — fictional in one, real in the other — of an Occident living and working in Japan. For all intents and purposes, the title character of Mitchell’s book is the literary doppelganger of Doeff. As was Doeff, the imagined de Zoet is employed in the Dutch East Indies Company trading post in Japan during the latter part of the Edo period. But the similarities don’t end there: the books’ correspondence also extends to the reality of the accounts laid out within their covers and around their protagonists. While Doeff’s book, a record of his personal observations and experiences during his stint in a foreign land, bears essential truth, Mitchell’s is a work of historical fiction — but it’s one that could very nearly pass for a parallel nonfiction novel, a rarity which possesses as great a verisimilitude as only an uncommonly talented writer like Mitchell could achieve.  Mitchell is the diametric opposite of a one-trick pony in the world of contemporary literature. He is a highly original novelist whose books are never populated with blatant literary archetypes and never borne along on worn-out plots. His four previous novels, most notably the Booker-shortlisted postmodern circus called Cloud Atlas, attest to his creativity and dexterity. So, too, does Thousand Autumns, even as it’s his most conventional work yet. As opposed to Cloud Atlas, which skips erratically through time, and his debut, Ghostwritten, which takes place across the globe, Thousand Autumns is concerned with a single main setting: Japan, the Land of a Thousand Autumns, at the turn of the nineteenth century. It’s 1799, and Dutchman Jacob de Zoet is one of only a few foreigners allowed entry into feudal Japan. He works as a clerk for the  trading post in Dejima, a man-made island off the coast of Nagasaki where European traders and their servants maintain temporary residence. Here clashes between Western and Eastern cultures and displays of power and greed both from within and without Jacob’s company are not uncommon. Like copper and mercury, ulterior motives are a prime commodity. But not to the eponymous lead character, who is remarkably pious and morally upright in doing his pecuniary tasks and in dealing with his kinsmen and their narrow-eyed hosts. Ordered by Japanese law to surrender all Christian artifacts in his possession, he daringly hides his Psalter, a life-saving (literally, as it stopped a bullet from reaching his grandfather’s heart) family heirloom. Asked to tamper with an official document in favor of his chief, who bribes him with a significant job promotion, he heeds his conscience and disobeys only to be cast out and trampled on up the corporate ladder. Overwhelmed by his deepening affections towards a facially disfigured yet still beautiful Japanese midwife named Aibagawa Orito, Jacob recalls that interracial romances are prohibited and commands himself to hold back. And hold back he does, but not for long.  It’s this element of forbidden love that forms the centerpiece of this otherwise tiresome tale of sailors and shoguns. Although Jacob thinks “Miss Aibagawa is as untouchable… as a woman in a picture… spied through a keyhole in a cottage happened upon once in a lifetime” and desperately tries to convince himself that “It is dear Anna whom I love… and I whom Anna loves” since his neighbor Anna, after all, is the reason he is working as a bookkeeper thousands of miles away from her, so that he may accumulate enough wealth to persuade her father to give him her hand in marriage, Jacob eventually caves in to his emotions and decides to pursue the untouchable. But he no sooner declares his sentiments to Miss Aibagawa than she mysteriously drops out of sight. Through a surprisingly thrilling second act in which Jacob, oddly but not inexplicably, all but dissipates from the narrative and is outshone by Ogawa Uzaemon, an intrepid Japanese interpreter who is also enamored of Miss Aibagawa, it is revealed that the young woman was abducted at the behest of Lord Abbot Enomoto, a powerful and menacing old man hiding under a veneer of religious benevolence. A more discouraging revelation is the place where she was spirited away, a nunnery where women are fooled into being impregnated by Enomoto’s band of monks. A rescue operation set out by Jacob and Ogawa is soon underway. Consequently, hopes are either renewed or shattered, trusts are either nurtured or betrayed, and battles are either won or lost. The world, ever-changing, keeps spinning. Mitchell does an excellent job of delineating a secluded environment and its inhabitants caught in a churning machinery of progress and depravity. On top of numerous well-researched accuracies, which he makes a point of camouflaging and re-camouflaging (or as one character puts it, “I must… hide that I am hiding it.”), his descriptions of setting and character perched at the precipice of change border on cinematographic majesty. And like brief musical interludes, terse one-sentence paragraphs that shade into lines of poetry (“Out in the street, dogs run past, barking murderously.” “A fat fly traces a lazy oval through light and shadow.”) are scattered within the novel. These instances of poetic white noise, apart from being reminders of the author’s reputation as a stylist of a high order, are indications of significant things to come in the life of his protagonist and the rest of his huge cast of characters, such as the death of an ally at the hands of another and the re-birth of a beleaguered empire.  Thousand Autumns, Mitchell’s own Recollections of Japan, is centered on an old-fashioned love story. It is an almost fairy-tale complete with villainous men of authority, women in mortal peril, and a cunning little monkey named William Pitt. It is also a decidedly protracted haiku that celebrates the triumph and beauty of this world, which, as Mitchell ventriloquizes to an enlightened character near the end of the novel, “contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.”  [cross-posted on readhard]

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
by David Mitchell 

That the cover of the trade paperback edition of David Mitchell’s 2010 novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, is the spitting image of that of Hendrik Doeff’s nineteenth-century memoir, Recollections of Japan, is no small coincidence. Both covers, characterized by traditional Japanese art-inspired illustrations, depict the arrival of a large Western ship on Japanese shores. And rightly so, as both books tell of the experiences — fictional in one, real in the other — of an Occident living and working in Japan. For all intents and purposes, the title character of Mitchell’s book is the literary doppelganger of Doeff. As was Doeff, the imagined de Zoet is employed in the Dutch East Indies Company trading post in Japan during the latter part of the Edo period. But the similarities don’t end there: the books’ correspondence also extends to the reality of the accounts laid out within their covers and around their protagonists. While Doeff’s book, a record of his personal observations and experiences during his stint in a foreign land, bears essential truth, Mitchell’s is a work of historical fiction — but it’s one that could very nearly pass for a parallel nonfiction novel, a rarity which possesses as great a verisimilitude as only an uncommonly talented writer like Mitchell could achieve. 

Mitchell is the diametric opposite of a one-trick pony in the world of contemporary literature. He is a highly original novelist whose books are never populated with blatant literary archetypes and never borne along on worn-out plots. His four previous novels, most notably the Booker-shortlisted postmodern circus called Cloud Atlas, attest to his creativity and dexterity. So, too, does Thousand Autumns, even as it’s his most conventional work yet. As opposed to Cloud Atlas, which skips erratically through time, and his debut, Ghostwritten, which takes place across the globe, Thousand Autumns is concerned with a single main setting: Japan, the Land of a Thousand Autumns, at the turn of the nineteenth century.

It’s 1799, and Dutchman Jacob de Zoet is one of only a few foreigners allowed entry into feudal Japan. He works as a clerk for the  trading post in Dejima, a man-made island off the coast of Nagasaki where European traders and their servants maintain temporary residence. Here clashes between Western and Eastern cultures and displays of power and greed both from within and without Jacob’s company are not uncommon. Like copper and mercury, ulterior motives are a prime commodity. But not to the eponymous lead character, who is remarkably pious and morally upright in doing his pecuniary tasks and in dealing with his kinsmen and their narrow-eyed hosts. Ordered by Japanese law to surrender all Christian artifacts in his possession, he daringly hides his Psalter, a life-saving (literally, as it stopped a bullet from reaching his grandfather’s heart) family heirloom. Asked to tamper with an official document in favor of his chief, who bribes him with a significant job promotion, he heeds his conscience and disobeys only to be cast out and trampled on up the corporate ladder. Overwhelmed by his deepening affections towards a facially disfigured yet still beautiful Japanese midwife named Aibagawa Orito, Jacob recalls that interracial romances are prohibited and commands himself to hold back. And hold back he does, but not for long. 

It’s this element of forbidden love that forms the centerpiece of this otherwise tiresome tale of sailors and shoguns. Although Jacob thinks “Miss Aibagawa is as untouchable… as a woman in a picture… spied through a keyhole in a cottage happened upon once in a lifetime” and desperately tries to convince himself that “It is dear Anna whom I love… and I whom Anna loves” since his neighbor Anna, after all, is the reason he is working as a bookkeeper thousands of miles away from her, so that he may accumulate enough wealth to persuade her father to give him her hand in marriage, Jacob eventually caves in to his emotions and decides to pursue the untouchable. But he no sooner declares his sentiments to Miss Aibagawa than she mysteriously drops out of sight. Through a surprisingly thrilling second act in which Jacob, oddly but not inexplicably, all but dissipates from the narrative and is outshone by Ogawa Uzaemon, an intrepid Japanese interpreter who is also enamored of Miss Aibagawa, it is revealed that the young woman was abducted at the behest of Lord Abbot Enomoto, a powerful and menacing old man hiding under a veneer of religious benevolence. A more discouraging revelation is the place where she was spirited away, a nunnery where women are fooled into being impregnated by Enomoto’s band of monks. A rescue operation set out by Jacob and Ogawa is soon underway. Consequently, hopes are either renewed or shattered, trusts are either nurtured or betrayed, and battles are either won or lost. The world, ever-changing, keeps spinning.

Mitchell does an excellent job of delineating a secluded environment and its inhabitants caught in a churning machinery of progress and depravity. On top of numerous well-researched accuracies, which he makes a point of camouflaging and re-camouflaging (or as one character puts it, “I must… hide that I am hiding it.”), his descriptions of setting and character perched at the precipice of change border on cinematographic majesty. And like brief musical interludes, terse one-sentence paragraphs that shade into lines of poetry (“Out in the street, dogs run past, barking murderously.” “A fat fly traces a lazy oval through light and shadow.”) are scattered within the novel. These instances of poetic white noise, apart from being reminders of the author’s reputation as a stylist of a high order, are indications of significant things to come in the life of his protagonist and the rest of his huge cast of characters, such as the death of an ally at the hands of another and the re-birth of a beleaguered empire. 

Thousand Autumns, Mitchell’s own Recollections of Japan, is centered on an old-fashioned love story. It is an almost fairy-tale complete with villainous men of authority, women in mortal peril, and a cunning little monkey named William Pitt. It is also a decidedly protracted haiku that celebrates the triumph and beauty of this world, which, as Mitchell ventriloquizes to an enlightened character near the end of the novel, “contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.” 

[cross-posted on readhard]

readhard

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell is a rare example of a contemporary novel that, upon learning of its existence and its apparent excellence from various media outlets or through word-of-mouth, I’d be absolutely willing to shell out good money (or a couple gift certificates, as it were) for. I’d set out to have it as soon as possible. I’d keep my eyes peeled for any sign of its availability in local shops. I’d grab a copy the moment I see one… or put off buying it until the first day of the month-long markdown of a popular bookstore chain. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell is Read Hard! Book Club’s selection for the most part of August, and you’d do well to join us and join in the fun: Not for the first time, we apologize for the delay in announcement. We knew full well that the slated end of our A Clockwork Orange discussion was a couple of days ago. We should have announced the theme and the candidates for our next round by then, but something came up while Zet, Carina, and I, having picked a new theme, were in the process of choosing which titles to put up for voting. That something was this, the Man Booker Prize 2010 Longlist. We perused the impressive list and, after much cajoling involving a positive review by the Dave Eggers and a sort of report on the relative accessibility of the longlisted books, we decided to suspend voting by Read Hard! members and we instead unanimously voted for David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (click for synopsis and author bio) to be the fifth Read Hard! Book Club selection.  We hope you don’t mind our taking matters into our own hands, so to speak. After hearing a lot of good things about Mitchell’s latest novel, we’ve grown confident that it will make for a great read and that you’ll end up thanking us for recommending it. Hah! So, please grab a copy of the book, available in both hardcover and trade paperback editions, and join us as we spend the first three weeks of August—that’s from Sunday, August 1, to Saturday, August 21—reading and discussing The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  [reblogged from readhard]

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell is a rare example of a contemporary novel that, upon learning of its existence and its apparent excellence from various media outlets or through word-of-mouth, I’d be absolutely willing to shell out good money (or a couple gift certificates, as it were) for. I’d set out to have it as soon as possible. I’d keep my eyes peeled for any sign of its availability in local shops. I’d grab a copy the moment I see one… or put off buying it until the first day of the month-long markdown of a popular bookstore chain.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell is Read Hard! Book Club’s selection for the most part of August, and you’d do well to join us and join in the fun:

Not for the first time, we apologize for the delay in announcement. We knew full well that the slated end of our A Clockwork Orange discussion was a couple of days ago. We should have announced the theme and the candidates for our next round by then, but something came up while Zet, Carina, and I, having picked a new theme, were in the process of choosing which titles to put up for voting. That something was this, the Man Booker Prize 2010 Longlist.

We perused the impressive list and, after much cajoling involving a positive review by the Dave Eggers and a sort of report on the relative accessibility of the longlisted books, we decided to suspend voting by Read Hard! members and we instead unanimously voted for David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (click for synopsis and author bio) to be the fifth Read Hard! Book Club selection. 

We hope you don’t mind our taking matters into our own hands, so to speak. After hearing a lot of good things about Mitchell’s latest novel, we’ve grown confident that it will make for a great read and that you’ll end up thanking us for recommending it. Hah! So, please grab a copy of the book, available in both hardcover and trade paperback editions, and join us as we spend the first three weeks of August—that’s from Sunday, August 1, to Saturday, August 21—reading and discussing The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. 

[reblogged from readhard]

readhard

We just wrapped up a round of bookfaces, quotes, thoughts, and reviews on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby at Read Hard!, and now we’re moving on to another classic. This time we’re taking a stab at a modern one made into a celebrated film by none other than Stanley Kubrick. It’s not Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey nor is it Stephen King’s The Shining. It’s Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, which beat out Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Lois Lowry’s The Giver as Read Hard! members’ choice of dystopian novel to be pulled off the shelves for our little online discussion. This puts the number of my currently-reading books to a formidable five: Personal Days by Ed Park. Take a look at the Amazon page of Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End and you’ll see this as one of the books that most people who bought Ferris’s wonderful novel also bought. I can see why. It’s funny, it’s smart, and it’s about people like me. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. I’ve been reading this for so long that the phrase, “currently reading,” may not be applicable anymore. It’s basically Percy Jackson minus Percy Jackson plus a lot of weird Egyptians. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Today is the 19th of July, so I’ll be re-reading Chapter 19 tonight. The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. The only book I’m always currently reading. Besides The Catcher in the Rye, of course. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I’ve had my minimalist copy for months. I accidentally purchased it at 80% off during a big sale in a big bookstore late last year. It wasn’t supposed to be discounted, but I bought it together with armloads of books on bargain and the poor cashier mistook it for one of them. Lucky me, I guess. And speaking of so-unbelievably-priced-off-they’re-as-good-as-free books, here’s round two of my Powerbooks Power Sale book loot bullet points: The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett. Yes, this is indeed one half of the two-books-in-one The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van that I bought during round one. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. Well, duh. Prelude by Katherine Mansfield. Virgina Woolf on Mansfield: “I was jealous of her writing—the only writing I have been jealous of.” Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I’m inclined to buy physical copies of novels which are readily available in the public domain only if I like their covers. Bite me. Clark Gifford’s Body by Kenneth Fearing. My first ever New York Review Books Classics novel. Morte D’Urban by J.F. Powers. My second New York Review Books Classics novel. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. Don has promised to give me his copy, the same edition as this one, and I’ve also found a smaller, older edition a couple of weeks before, but I still ended up buying this. Sue me. Love-Lies-Bleeding by Don DeLillo. I am not a huge fan of Mr. DeLillo, remember? The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens. This novel’s cover looks Kafkaesque, but pleasingly so. And the book’s a Man Booker Prize winner. Sounds important. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. Another TIME 100 novel, but it’s one I am almost certain I won’t read anyway on account of its daunting length and yawn-inspiring title. Attention. Deficit. Disorder. by Brad Listi. Yes. Where was I? Citizen Vince by Jess Walter. My second copy of probably the only piece of crime fiction that I greatly enjoyed. I intend to give it away. Any takers?

We just wrapped up a round of bookfaces, quotes, thoughts, and reviews on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby at Read Hard!, and now we’re moving on to another classic. This time we’re taking a stab at a modern one made into a celebrated film by none other than Stanley Kubrick. It’s not Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey nor is it Stephen King’s The Shining. It’s Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, which beat out Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Lois Lowry’s The Giver as Read Hard! members’ choice of dystopian novel to be pulled off the shelves for our little online discussion. This puts the number of my currently-reading books to a formidable five:

  • Personal Days by Ed Park. Take a look at the Amazon page of Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End and you’ll see this as one of the books that most people who bought Ferris’s wonderful novel also bought. I can see why. It’s funny, it’s smart, and it’s about people like me.
  • The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. I’ve been reading this for so long that the phrase, “currently reading,” may not be applicable anymore. It’s basically Percy Jackson minus Percy Jackson plus a lot of weird Egyptians.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Today is the 19th of July, so I’ll be re-reading Chapter 19 tonight.
  • The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. The only book I’m always currently reading. Besides The Catcher in the Rye, of course.
  • A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I’ve had my minimalist copy for months. I accidentally purchased it at 80% off during a big sale in a big bookstore late last year. It wasn’t supposed to be discounted, but I bought it together with armloads of books on bargain and the poor cashier mistook it for one of them. Lucky me, I guess.

And speaking of so-unbelievably-priced-off-they’re-as-good-as-free books, here’s round two of my Powerbooks Power Sale book loot bullet points:

  • The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett. Yes, this is indeed one half of the two-books-in-one The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van that I bought during round one.
  • Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. Well, duh.
  • Prelude by Katherine Mansfield. Virgina Woolf on Mansfield: “I was jealous of her writing—the only writing I have been jealous of.”
  • Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I’m inclined to buy physical copies of novels which are readily available in the public domain only if I like their covers. Bite me.
  • Clark Gifford’s Body by Kenneth Fearing. My first ever New York Review Books Classics novel.
  • Morte D’Urban by J.F. Powers. My second New York Review Books Classics novel.
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. Don has promised to give me his copy, the same edition as this one, and I’ve also found a smaller, older edition a couple of weeks before, but I still ended up buying this. Sue me.
  • Love-Lies-Bleeding by Don DeLillo. I am not a huge fan of Mr. DeLillo, remember?
  • The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens. This novel’s cover looks Kafkaesque, but pleasingly so. And the book’s a Man Booker Prize winner. Sounds important.
  • A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. Another TIME 100 novel, but it’s one I am almost certain I won’t read anyway on account of its daunting length and yawn-inspiring title.
  • Attention. Deficit. Disorder. by Brad Listi. Yes. Where was I?
  • Citizen Vince by Jess Walter. My second copy of probably the only piece of crime fiction that I greatly enjoyed. I intend to give it away. Any takers?

readhard

We’re currently reading (and posting lovely pictures of ourselves with our copies of) The Great Gatsby for Read Hard. Care to join us?  My copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby features a detail of The Evening, a painting by Delphin Enjolras, on its front cover. (I know that because the book says so on the back.) The book is one of the “budget editions” from the Penguin Popular Classics series of “the greatest works of literature.”  When Penguin declared the books in the series as “budget editions,” they weren’t kidding. I bought The Great Gatsby for only P99 (roughly $2). And when Penguin referred to the books in the series as “the greatest works of literature,” they also weren’t kidding. Aside from The Great Gatsby, among the many novels released in the Penguin Popular Classics line are Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Fryodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, all of which I have graciously bought (each costs only P99, remember?) but have not yet read. I’m starting with The Great Gatsby.

We’re currently reading (and posting lovely pictures of ourselves with our copies of) The Great Gatsby for Read Hard. Care to join us? 

My copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby features a detail of The Evening, a painting by Delphin Enjolras, on its front cover. (I know that because the book says so on the back.) The book is one of the “budget editions” from the Penguin Popular Classics series of “the greatest works of literature.” 

When Penguin declared the books in the series as “budget editions,” they weren’t kidding. I bought The Great Gatsby for only P99 (roughly $2). And when Penguin referred to the books in the series as “the greatest works of literature,” they also weren’t kidding. Aside from The Great Gatsby, among the many novels released in the Penguin Popular Classics line are Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Fryodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, all of which I have graciously bought (each costs only P99, remember?) but have not yet read. I’m starting with The Great Gatsby.

readhard

Then we came to the end of the first half of the year, which could only mean one thing: the start of the second half of the year, naturally, which in turn could mean, among other prospects, more books. Of course.  Within the period from Friday, January 1, 2010 to Wednesday, June 30, 2010, I was able to read two books that ended up being two of my all-time favorites (Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came To The End and Don DeLillo’s White Noise), as well as re-read two books that had long been two of my all-time favorites (J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Ian McEwan’s Atonement). While it certainly had its share of so-called misreadings (Larry Doyle’s I Love You, Beth Cooper and Chad Kultgen’s The Average American Male), the past half-year was in the main a very pleasant and wonderful 181 days of reading.  On that cheerful note I, who shall no doubt spend the remaining 184 days of the year engaging in the same act of near-solipsism, who within the last two days finished reading another two brilliant books (Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), am set to kick off the next half-year with another two books, classic ones, no less.  Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill A Mockingbird, which I first read and instantly loved more than five years ago, is on its 50th year of publication (it was published on July 11, 1960). And in solitary celebration of the novel’s enduring and surpassing excellence, I re-read the first chapter not two hours ago and decided I’d be doing the same for the succeeding chapters this entire month, one chapter for every day of July, seeing as the number of chapters in the novel conveniently matches the number of days in the month it was published.  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, on the other hand, is the latest selection, the first for this month, of Read Hard!, the Tumblr book club of which I was recently promoted as co-moderator. (Yay! I was told there’d be pizza.) I’ve had a copy of the book since time immemorial, and I suppose that my being somewhat impelled to crack it open would finally save it from literally collecting dust in that corner of my flat I told you about before, the same spot that is currently home to more books that I’m hoping to read in the next six months.  Then we came to the end of this mid-year post. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe this is the part where I resort to apostrophe, address the second half of the year, and say with just a hint of menace, “Bring it on.”

Then we came to the end of the first half of the year, which could only mean one thing: the start of the second half of the year, naturally, which in turn could mean, among other prospects, more books. Of course. 

Within the period from Friday, January 1, 2010 to Wednesday, June 30, 2010, I was able to read two books that ended up being two of my all-time favorites (Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came To The End and Don DeLillo’s White Noise), as well as re-read two books that had long been two of my all-time favorites (J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Ian McEwan’s Atonement). While it certainly had its share of so-called misreadings (Larry Doyle’s I Love You, Beth Cooper and Chad Kultgen’s The Average American Male), the past half-year was in the main a very pleasant and wonderful 181 days of reading. 

On that cheerful note I, who shall no doubt spend the remaining 184 days of the year engaging in the same act of near-solipsism, who within the last two days finished reading another two brilliant books (Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), am set to kick off the next half-year with another two books, classic ones, no less. 

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill A Mockingbird, which I first read and instantly loved more than five years ago, is on its 50th year of publication (it was published on July 11, 1960). And in solitary celebration of the novel’s enduring and surpassing excellence, I re-read the first chapter not two hours ago and decided I’d be doing the same for the succeeding chapters this entire month, one chapter for every day of July, seeing as the number of chapters in the novel conveniently matches the number of days in the month it was published. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, on the other hand, is the latest selection, the first for this month, of Read Hard!, the Tumblr book club of which I was recently promoted as co-moderator. (Yay! I was told there’d be pizza.) I’ve had a copy of the book since time immemorial, and I suppose that my being somewhat impelled to crack it open would finally save it from literally collecting dust in that corner of my flat I told you about before, the same spot that is currently home to more books that I’m hoping to read in the next six months. 

Then we came to the end of this mid-year post. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe this is the part where I resort to apostrophe, address the second half of the year, and say with just a hint of menace, “Bring it on.”