We finally have the first truly glorious weekend in the UK: the temperature is above 20 celsius degrees and the Sun is shining all day long. Accordingly, I went for a good 5,5k run around Summertown in the morning.
I've finally finished The Shepherd's Life yesterday. Excellent book. I have to make a small amendment to my previous post on the book: Rebanks does not argue straight out for a more conservative life and to sticking to old ways. He himself chose to combine his farming life with work done for UNESCO, and he tells several stories about how his grandfather, his father, other shepherds, and he himself had to adopt new methods and approaches to keep farming sustainable and going. Excellent book all in all.
The next two books that I will read will be Sidney Giffard's Japan Among the Powers 1890-1990, and Angela Kiss's How to be an Alien in England. Giffard's book seemed to be a good choice, as I have read now 5-6 basic books on the history, economy, and politics of Japan, as well as 15-20 of the key literary pieces. Giffard used to work in Japan in a political function, and he is a Brit, which makes the book doubly interesting for me.
Kiss's is book is nothing heavy or serious. I've already skimmed through the first few chapters on the bus. It is funny, in an interesting way. It is somewhere between humour that is becoming increasingly frowned upon and American stand up comedy. She does rely on many bad national stereotypes, and makes many jokes based on overgeneralization which are not necessarily lucky. But at some points she seems to be aware of what she is doing and making fun of making fun of people in this way. All in all, a relaxing and witty reading, even if one doesn't actually learn much about how to be an alien in England. Shusaku Endo's book Foreign Studies is probably a more accurate representation of the issues one deal with :)
No comments:
Post a Comment