On my bedside table

George Eliot, Andrew Graham Dixon, and Marilynne Robinson

Dear Friends,

Greetings from a (finally!) sunny Scottish Saturday. Things around here have been sleepy, one day blending into the next as it seems all I have been doing is writing and baking or cooking various things. I can’t complain as these are two of the things I most enjoy, and which I am most obsessively driven to do (eat and write, that is). Still, I look forward to the new term beginning, seminars being back in session, and a bit more structure in my day-to-day life. Some exciting changes are around the corner, but in the meantime, I am in a happy (if sleepy) summer writing routine, and I am looking forward to the most exciting thing to happen this week: the farmer’s market is in town and I shall go to seek vegetables!

How are your summers going?

Today, I bring back an instalment I used to do more regularly: on my bedside table, micro-reviews of the books I have read for pleasure in the past months. By micro-reviews, I mean a paragraph or so of my thoughts and reactions to the books. (I wrote the previous sentence before writing the actual reviews which are, ahem, longer than a paragraph). I specify for pleasure as I am always reading books for work, but often do not finish them, and I suspect many of them would be uninteresting to some of you (e.g. academic titles). I suppose I could compose a round-up of my recent favorite scholarly books (on theology/religion and literature) at some point if that would be of interest to any of you?

The books I’ve read recently are: Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson, Carravaggio: a life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham Dixon. I would include The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, but, well, you all already know many of my thoughts on that delightful book. Here we go!

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Oh, wow. When I finished this book, I simply sat for a while staring out my window, letting gravity of it wash over me. It has earned an instant spot in my top ten favourite books. Words almost fail me to say how much I loved it. After staring out the window for a while, I had the urge to begin the novel all over again— an impulse which testifies to its power as a book, especially considering the book is nearly 800 pages long! But why did I love it so much? Let me try to calm myself down and try to articulate some of why the book stuck me so deeply.