Admittedly, nobody asked me to reveal my secret consummerism; but I will list every single book I buy this year on this blog. So be it.
Today I went to the Shin Maru-biru near the Tokyo station (a brand new shopping complex) to have a lunch with my friends who are just about to go off to Palau; afterwards I went to Maruzen by myself and couldn't come out empty-handed. I am too soft-minded. So here is my first list of the year:
1. Federico García Lorca, Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)
2. Tennessee Williams, In the Winter of Cities (New Directions)
3. Nick Hornby, The Complete Polysyllabic Spree (Penguin Books)
4. Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable, read by Sean Barrett (Naxos Audio Books)
For convenience's sake, I will include an audio book in the same category as a printed book. No discussions on orality, please.
Nick Horby's is quite fun and much to the point, in this case. It's his book-buying and reading diary; very honest and funny. Professional writers may have different opinions, but all I wish for the moment is to write in English as he does and to write in French as Philippe Delerme does. They are both simple, funny, slick, often clever, sympa, and mostly relevant to our daily states of mind.
Hornby is especially RIGHT in rightly distinguishing between the books he bought and read. In my case, they usually NEVER coincide.
Happy buying books, then, and happy reading.
