Keeping track of my reading in 2024 was both fun and helped me read more consciously – so it only makes sense to continue in 2025…
My goals for this year include carrying on reading comics in French, carry on exploring ancient classics (next on the list in that regard is The Iliad) and also to keep pushing myself to read outside of my comfort zone.
Werbung wegen Markennennung. Considered advertising due to naming of brands.
Voyage in the Dark, by Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys’s third novel deals with similar themes to her other three novels from the beginning of her career, Quartet, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie and Good Morning, Midnight. Indeed – all four of these novels belong together as part of a quartet. This time, Rhys’s heroine, Anna, is only 18 years old but already exploited by the cardboard-cutout men that surround her and vulnerable. The glimpses back to Anna’s childhood in the Caribbean are like splashes of colour in her new English life and almost certainly draw on Rhys’s own childhood experiences in Dominica.
These flashbacks reach their highpoint at the end of the novel when memories of wild music and whirling dances take hold of Anna’s mind as she lies extremely ill and in pain.
I have a biography of Rhys sitting on my to-read pile. It might also be worthwhile rereading ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, which I read years ago, but this time with a better grasp of who the author was.
Der dritte Roman von Jean Rhys.
Caroline Baldwin Sammelband III, André Taymans
Bestehend aus den Episoden Wiedersehen in Kathmandu, Unheilsame Therapie, Grenzgänger und Der König des Nordens, dieser Sammelband ist sehr kurzweilig.
Taymans ligne claire Stil ist ziemlich stilisiert, aber funktioniert perfekt, um die Geschichten in der normalen Welt zu ankern (und nicht in einer düsteren ‘Krimi-Welt’).
The third collected volume of Caroline Baldwin comics. As far as I can tell, they have never been translated into English.
Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A fun post apocalyptic adventure in which a robot valet goes looking for purpose (ideally in the form of a new position as gentleman’s valet) after having inexplicably murdered his master. Lots of nods to classic sci-fi such as Asimov’s laws of robotics and turns of phrase highly reminiscent of Douglas Adams. Tchaikovsky manages to balance humour well with the more serious elements of the plot – although part of me was wondering how a less humorous version of the story might have felt…. something a little more like ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy.
Overall an entertaining read for fans of robots and/or post apocalyptic settings.
Eine unterhaltsame Geschichte über einen robotischen Diener, der aus unerklärlichen Gründen seinen Herrn ermordet und auf die Suche nach einer neuen Einstellung geht. Für Fans von Robotern und/oder postapokalyptischen Settings.