Readers’ Bloc 2009, capitalist edition (updated)
Reader: Jaime Augusto Zobel, chair, Ayala Corporation
Jaime’s Top 8 10
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. “For those who skipped the science courses at school and just want a great general introduction to the big themes. What makes it worth reading is Bryson’s wry wit and relaxed intelligence. He adds interesting quips and anecdotes that make even facts you already know gain new meaning. Lively, entertaining and always intelligent.”
Child 44 and the Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith. “Stalinist Russia depicted with great authenticity. I read Child 44 last year but included it again here as it goes well with his follow up, The Secret Speech. Follows the travails of a war hero working with the State Security Force.
“In the second novel he works as a detective investigating suicides. The strength of the two books is their gift for depicting Cold War Russia and its culture of distrust with such seeming accuracy. Their weaknesses are their increasingly “cinematic†structures. In the end the action unfolds more like a screenplay than a traditional novel. Entertaining reading nonetheless.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin. “An excellent biography. His interesting life is the basis of many of his themes as a writer. His politics were always a bit questionable but his novels speak for all Latin America, and not just for his own country, Colombia. When reflecting on his childhood, his parents and the environment he grew up in, you can see the traces of Macondo, the fictional town in One Hundred Years of Solitude and its idiosyncratic population.
“I recently visited his hometown, Aracataca, on my own by motorcycle. I was quite shocked at its present state of desolation and decided not to stop for a walk as planned. One can just imagine what it was like fifty years ago.”
The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. “Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are at it again (for those of you who read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). One of the more unusual duos in literature and she, a diminutive, punky and slightly autistic investigator who is as comfortable solving Fermat’s mathematical puzzles as she is physically debilitating men twice her size and weight. She remains one of the more interesting heroines in modern literature. I am on to “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest”.”
Lustrum by Robert Harris. “A historical novel, set in Rome in the first century, that follows the political path of leadership of Cicero, the great Roman Consul and orator, as seen through the eyes of his assistant, Tiro. This is the second book of a trilogy that started with “Imperiumâ€. Part thriller and part historical fiction where he traces the fight for power in ancient Rome. The cast of characters is familiar—Caesar, Pompey, Crassus—but it mirrors, in uncanny ways, the politics of today.
“If you were a fan of I Claudius by Robert Graves, you will like this. Wonderful writing by a British novelist with a long line of excellent books. He has a wonderful grasp of politics and power and he often surprises with insights. A favorite of mine in this novel: “A man pursuing a political career must have the most extraordinary reserves of self-discipline, a quality that the naive often mistake for hypocrisy”.”
The Rings of Saturn by W G Sebald. “I may have mentioned this book, or another by Sebald, in the past. I tend to float in and out of his books every so often so I lose track of when I read them. In a way, my reading style with Sebald reflects his own wanderings and musings. Few people seem to have heard of or read Sebald but his isolated reflections on life and a variety of philosophical topics are quite extraordinary. In The Rings of Saturn he returns to England through the county of Suffolk.
“His digressions are hard to describe but his melancholy and sensitive insights show the workings of a gifted, if eclectic, mind. It is like taking a long walk, in a dream, with an eccentric but brilliant professor. You close each chapter having released feelings inside yourself that you may have forgotten existed.”
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill. “Soul searching by a Wall Street analyst as his marriage breaks up leads to his walking an unusual path in his life. His newly unstructured digressions around the city crisscross, interestingly, with cricket (the sport), Trinidadian nationals and underground activities.
“Intelligent, meandering and profound, it reflects the soul searching that hits many at certain points in their lives. Here it is counterpointed with the sense of loss in New York after 9/11. It ends on a positive note as the protagonist regains his bearings. It has been favorably compared to Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in tone and apparently read by President Obama during his holiday break.”
Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell. “A former surgeon, living in a remote island in Sweden, surrounded by ice and snow, receives an unexpected visit. Sad, lonely but ultimately uplifting; it is also a reflection on the isolation and individualism of Swedish society and a meditation on aging and death.
“I know this must sound terribly depressing but Mankell is a master at depicting the isolation that sometimes pervades societies in the northern hemisphere, where weather and climate conspire to work hand in hand with societal structures to create detachment, both physical and emotional. However, his prose is wonderful and he has an understanding of human nature that is always enlightening.”
Reappraisals by Tony Judt. “The book contains a series of essays, written over twelve years (1994 to 2006) by a fiercely intelligent British professor. They cover a range of topics from the relevance of Pope Paul II to the Modern World, to whether Israel became a better nation after winning the Six Day War so effectively in 1967. They cover two dominant ideas: the responsibility of intellectuals in the modern world, and more significantly, our difficulty in learning from history.
“His writing is deeply illuminating and made me revisit both conventional wisdom, in the case of important historical events, and my perceptions of key world events. His essays were previously published in the New Republic, the New York Review of Books and Foreign Affairs. He is always provocative, erudite and fascinating. I could not recommend it more to anyone interested in recent world history.”
The Blue Afternoon by William Boyd “I am not sure if I have mentioned this book in the past but just wanted to complete the ten requested. Written by a respected British author and set, unusually, in Manila at the turn of the twentieth century. The Philippines is under American occupation and the novel gives us an interesting glimpse of the city, its social mores, and its physical structure with an emphasis on the practice of medicine and the lives of Americans in the period.
“There is murder and mystery so the book is quite engaging and it is an unusual look at Manila during the transition from its Spanish Colonial history to the American one. Interesting side story on a flying machine that was invented by a Filipino and could have been the first of its kind in the world, had not events overtaken its launch. I am not sure if it has a basis in fact. Not a perfect novel but relevant to anyone who is interested in seeing our country through a different lens.”
Why there are no economics and business books on his list: “I just didn’t read any this year, but I devoured the news. However there are four or five that have merit that remain unread in my Kindle. In moments of crisis it takes about a year for the “analysis” to sink in as most do not have time for reflection. You just get flukes like “The Lords of Finance”, which won the FT Goldman Prize, because it was written in advance, from historical perspective, and was published in time.”
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Books that probably would’ve been on my list if I’d read them before my deadline.
December 7th, 2009 at 21:07
I always wanted to be like him… up to now. heehee