Read and Dream: My Book Life: 2019

Czech Republic: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Review

Title: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Author: Milan Kundera
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Blurb: In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.

Me: The first book I've read for fun in college! It had been on my list for a while and I thought I'd finally give it a read... so glad I did. It got me out of a reading rut and was stunning and totally new but also very readable.

Hey everyone! Oh my gosh, I know it's been basically forever since I've written consistently on here, and to be honest, I did have a brief second of wondering if I should completely let this go and spend my time elsewhere. But I'm about to start a whole new chapter of reading & other things in my life, and I realized I'd be too sad to let this form of logging & thinking go. So I wanted to say: I'm back! With updates! I don't know what my schedule will look like in school, but I'm going to do all I can to keep this up.

Hey everyone! It's been a h o t second since I've written here, and can't lie- it does feel a little strange to be back. I feel like I've tried and explained my spottiness again and again, but there's really no excuses - second semester senior year & its best friend burnout hit me like a truck and everything just kind of fell through... it was a little scary - there was like a good few months where I didn't even feel motivated to read!

Title: A General Theory of Oblivion
Author: Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Translator: Daniel Hahn
Publisher: Archipelago books

Blurb: On the eve of Angolan independence an agoraphobic woman named Ludo bricks herself into her apartment for 30 years, living off vegetables and the pigeons she lures in with diamonds, burning her furniture and books to stay alive and writing her story on the apartment’s walls.

Almost as if we’re eavesdropping, the history of Angola unfolds through the stories of those she sees from her window. As the country goes through various political upheavals from colony to socialist republic to civil war to peace and capitalism, the world outside seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of someone peeing on a balcony, or a man fleeing his pursuers.

Me: Before anything else, hi! So sorry about the sudden disappearance - the last few months have been a time of a lot of change and just growth for me, and I've also been doing quite a bit of reading. I'm glad to be back!

I was completely blown away by this book. It's been a while since I've discovered such a gorgeous, thoughtful piece that also reads so easily.