_antitrance

The other day, while walking down Brixton’s Coldharbour Lane (a road frequently referred to as Crackharbour Lane) I happened upon a scene which not only restored my faith in humanity but also made me grin uncontrollably. Picture the scene: on the stoop of a tenement building stand three men. Perhaps in another less savoury Coldharbour Lane situation these men might be considered intimidating; however, here on the stoop they have an air of innocence about them. You see, these three men are concentrating intently on a brightly coloured Slinky cascading down the steps. The Slinky reaches the bottom and comes to a halt. One of the men picks it up reverently, places it on the top step and sets it off once more. They are utterly engrossed. I stop for a moment; I am equally transfixed with their antics as they are with the Slinky. This is one of those sublime moments where you forget about the bad things and feel that everything is alright in the world.

A list for 2009:

This is list of books I drew up, which I definitely want to read this year - as part of letusread. I keep reading lots of other stuff in between though. Distractions!

In bold, are the ones I have started reading but then stopped for whatever reason. (I tend to read many books at the same time, as you can see…)
The struck out are those I have finished. At the bottom are other, non-list books which I’ve finished reading.

A list of books I plan to read in 2009:

1. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
2. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
3. Status Anxiety - Alain de Botton
4. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
5. The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus (About a quarter of the way through this. It’s taking me ages to read because I am finding it hard to understand parts and therefore having to re-read. Plus I get too frustrated with reading it so slowly that I start / finish reading other books instead. I’ll finish one day though…)
6. The Plague - Albert Camus
7. Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
8. Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
9. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
10. The Collector - John Fowles
11. Brighton Rock - Graham Greene
12. Deep Simplicity - John Gribbin
13. Chocolat - Joanne Harris
14. Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
15. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
16. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
17. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
18. Ascent - Jed Mercurio
19. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
20. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
21. Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre
22. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
23. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
24. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
25. Old School - Tobias Wolff
26. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

Random other books (not on the list) which I have finished reading:

1. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
2. Slumberland - Paul Beatty
3. Metropole - Ferenc Karinthy
4. Fup - Jim Dodge
5. Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie
6. Pastoralia - George Saunders
7. The Moving Toyshop - Edmund Crispin
8. Why Are You Doing This? - Jason
9. Charlotte’s Web - E. B. White
10. The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie
11. After the Funeral - Agatha Christie
12. Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
13. The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster

As you can see, I am quite rubbish at reading what is actually on the list. Working in a bookshop is kinda distracting though… too many books!