16.08.2023 Wednesday

Today I had dinner with a friend after work. We usually see each other every 5 months or so. We were trying to organise a bike ride the other weekend, but it got cancelled because of the weather. After the dinner we walked around a bit. Movement is important for Software Developers who sit most of the day!

On the way back home I was listening to… 

“Tender is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica

This book is still disturbing to me. The pictures it draws in my mind are shocking. Though that’s also its best part. The world structure and how it kept functioning without animals is pretty questionable. If you decide to read this book, don’t ask logical questions, just accept the conditions that the story is suggesting. Try to imagine yourself in the situations that happen in the book.

“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk

With all the walking I had in the evening it wasn’t even 8k steps (how?!). So I put the headphones on, and did some stepping around the bedroom for 20 mins, while following the text in the book.

There was a wonderful passage during today’s reading:

“Whenever I find it hard to know what to do with myself, I imagine I have a zip fastener in my belly, from my neck to my groin, and that I’m slowly undoing it, from top to bottom. And then I pull my arms out of my arms, my legs out of my legs, and take my head off my head. As I extract myself from my own body, it falls off me like old clothes…”

17.08.2023 Thursday

The day when I started searching where to post all these Reading Journals.. Instead of catching up on writing them. 🤦‍♀️

It was also the day of a monthly book club meeting at the Curious Fox bookstore. Did I finish re-reading? No. I had to check Wikipedia in the morning, to remember the rest of the story, to be able to discuss it.

“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk

An interesting thing happened, most of the people liked the book, but that didn’t stop us from having an intense discussion. The book gives plenty of things to talk about.

Most of the people were highlighting that they liked the atmosphere of the book and the writing. Some read out their highlighted moments. Also, we took time to discuss astrology experience in the group and in our home countries, a bit about Blake’s poetry, prints, and destiny. He got famous only after his death.

One of the girls found a book too dark, and decided to read it in German instead, because the edition was more pleasant, and the title in the German translation was changed to “Bats singing”.

We couldn’t find a clear pattern for the capitalized words in this book, but since we read Susanna Clark’s “Piranesi” for one of the previous meetings this year, it was curious to see this literary device in use again.

A few people mentioned that they liked “Flights” (the other book from the same author) more. I didn’t know that she had another book “Empuzjon” that was published last summer. Her first novel after winning a Nobel Prize. Looks like it’s not translated to English yet (why?).

P.S.: Even after a detailed discussion of the book, I’m still determined to finish re-reading it. I like it that much! Could be because because of the narrator’s voice in the audiobook.