Reading List

When I arrived in London, I was just finishing Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, kindly supplied and recommended by Kate. Between Nafisi's references, Linda's suggestion (in the case of Tolstoy) and picking up some practically free books at the residence hall sale, I've been reading a lot of classics since I got here:

• War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
  
• Daisy Miller and Other Stories, Henry James
  
• Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
  
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
  
• The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
  

Now I've jumped continents and centuries and am reading Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It dovetails nicely with my Chinese class. The book relates the experiences of the author, her mother and her grandmother growing up in China through the Communist revolution and its fallout. It's interesting to reflect on how much this tumultuous history continues to very deeply and personally affect Chinese people today. Several people, while I was there this summer, mentioned how they have more freedom now, but they are still not free to say what they think. Those who made such comments clearly yearn to speak their minds, but still feel restrained.

There's another book by the same author and her husband (called Mao: The Unknown Story), which waits on my bookshelf along with a British sci-fi book The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks which Jess sent me.