Reading updates in January

One year ago, I just had finished a lot of light reading to get through the dark Icelandic winter, especially chicklit seemed to be on my mood, among others The Nanny Diaries, the very awful Sex and the City and the surprisingly good Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
Now, because of exams and a tighter schedule evolving around courses and their preparation and also rugby, not so many books have been checked off.

I had to read the insightful but somewhat dense Imagined Community by Benedict Anderson for one of my courses, which I recommend to anyone interested in nationalisms and how they were born, give that you can stand through detailed Indonesian examples.

Then, after reading the last pages of A Passage to India by Forster that I started mid-december and did not get a chance to continue because of exams, I speeded through L'étranger by Albert Camus in one of my very boring courses to end it the night afterwards.
I absolutely loved Forster. I do not know how many times I picked up my pencil and marked sentences that were simply beautiful and very strong and universal. I am glad that I finally read one of his works and am really looking forward to pick up A Room with a View and Maurice.

Speaking of this French name, I have recently read The Amazing Maurice and his educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett for Marg's Pratchett challenge. More about this in a review, that I hopefully will not forget to write soonish...

And now, I am currently reading In the Walled Gardens by Anahita Firouz, a story on pre-revolutionary Iran, a setting I am particularly fond of.

Constantly changing places is inherent to my life. Books have always been steady friends which I could bump into wherever I was all over the world.
Stumbling upon Kaminer's German stories of "Die Reise nach Trulala" in Reykjavík's city library is as moving as meeting the Icelandic sagas in Boston's Borders.
To see a book again, that I've read thousands of kilometers away makes me smile "Hey I know you.." and shake hands by thumbing through it for a while.