"they journeyed without Bible prophets burning bushes without signs on earth without signs from the heavens with the terrible consciousness that life is momentous" Joseph Brodsky
Reading Virginia Woolf in the Rain
Days go badly, and if too many of them go badly, they roll into tough weeks. And I find myself obstructed from the act of living, from being able to do the things I enjoy, and sometimes even need. And how does a day go badly? In ways more than one, I suppose, but it... Continue Reading →
The Little Tug
With a lot of hiccups and pauses, I am trying to read literature from 100 years ago. I pick up a page or two and life, usually in the form of a notification or a chore or a thoughtless distraction, gets in the way. My mind is like a room full of scattered belongings strewn... Continue Reading →
That’s Not How This Works
SF and I are buddy-reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and all I want to say is — what on God’s good green earth is happening in this book? I picked it up because I was so enthralled by his writing in Of Love and Other Demons, and SF picked it... Continue Reading →
Dreamer
There's this collection of short stories by Raymond Carver that I read from time to time. It's a small book, the cover is teal and red, and it is light in the way library books were light when you pulled them out from the oldest shelves. It is yellowed that way too and smells like... Continue Reading →
Book List 2017
I had a very knotty relationship with books this year. I suspect it had something to do with the ways in which I was struggling with identity and belonging. I have tried to blog about it, but words are insufficient at the moment. So, for now, here is a list of the books I read... Continue Reading →
Carry You Home
David Meyer can hear the murmur of his injured heart when he goes running. It takes him a couple of days to realise that his ears are ringing. Yes, he does have a heart condition, but not one that is so severe that its voices jump out of his chest and make themselves comfortable in... Continue Reading →
You Don’t Bring Me Flowers
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever finish reading ‘Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in all the Confusion?’  because it seems as though I have been reading this book for so many months now and life is passing me by, others are speeding through all the fantastic books in the world, and all I... Continue Reading →
More than Words
Somehow I get the feeling that this year, I must spend a lot of my time reading poetry. And I must do it with physical copies of books. In English, of course, and if I can manage it, in Urdu as well. However, my reading is very slow this year. I've just finished the third... Continue Reading →
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