Angury

Has anyone heard of Stefan Zweig? I just finished reading his book The Royal Game and loved it so much that I'm about to start Beware of Pity. Can't believe I'd never heard of him until a month ago.

Do you find many differences in the British culture compared to your own? It's interesting how bizarre I find so much of the culture here in India, yet when I mention it to my family they just raise their eyebrows, because for them obviously it's all pretty normal.

I am interested in reading some of Pynchon's work, but I've always been put off because of how difficult I find his writing. Do you find his work difficult to read through? How do you get through it?

Just finished my five week Psychiatry placement in North India in the Himalayan mountains - amazing experience, incredibly eye opening. On my last day I asked the Head of Psychiatry to sign a form I needed to get completed, and he asked for £100 in return. He refused to sign the form until I had paid the money. I asked several of the junior doctors in the team to sign the form instead, and they had all been told by the Head not to sign any forms. Really illustrates the amount of subordination and corruption in India's hospitals, particularly in a profession that is supposed to be held to a certain ethical and moral standard.

Apologies for the lack of updates, I have been in India up in the Himalayan mountains undertaking a five week Psychiatry placement which has just ended. On my last day, I asked the Head of Psychiatry to sign me off, and he asked me for £100 in return.. describes the subordination and corruption in India pretty well I think. Anyway, I have just finished reading Maskerade by Terry Pratchett (fantastic book, I will write a more thorough review in a few days), and am half way through Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, a book about the wars in the Middle East, immigration, and the climate of our current political culture from the point of view of two individuals. A very relevant book I feel. I will be spending the next two weeks travelling around India, which means I will have a lot of time to read on the journeys, so I will make sure to keep this blog updated. Would love to hear how everyone else's reading has been going.

If only. Nine hour flight followed by an eight hour taxi ride. I don't mind the taxi ride as much as I get to stare out the window and observe a whole different culture. I just hate, and have always hated, long-haul flights. Oh well, it'll be over 'soon' ..

You're absolutely right, it will be an incredible experience. It's just the travelling I dread!

Mad to be Normal is to be released on 24th March.. ..I will be in India until the 22nd April.

Yeah, I don't know a lot of people who still watch Dr Who, but maybe that's just me getting old. I think there were some awful episodes in Series 8 & 9, but Capaldi's acting was always fantastic, and the episodes that were good were very good. I think if I ever met Peter Capaldi I would be terrified because to me he is Malcolm Tucker. His level of insults gave me a lot of motivation. But yes, I am a Capaldi fan - in fact, maybe I'm more of a Capaldi fan than I am a Dr Who fan - and I can't wait to see what he does next.

Om nom nom ..

I'll be sad to see Capaldi go, he was my favourite Doctor. I thought it was refreshing to see a darker side of the character, and felt at times that he became a bit too juvenile with Matt Smith (although I did like Matt as well). I think Capaldi got a good balance between the sarcasm and humour, and the deeper fears and emotions that we could all relate to. Also, Heaven Sent is one of my favourite Dr Who episodes - everything about it was fantastic. Not sure if I'll continue to watch Dr Who after Capaldi leaves, but it'll be interesting to see who takes over - it's like a national event when everyone finds out.

I am currently one-hundred pages into Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and enjoying it. I've been a fan of his for a number of years, having mainly concentrated on his short stories. I've also watched some of his speeches and interviews on Youtube and really enjoy his perspectives and insights into life. Last week I stumbled across an article about Wallace which talked about his personal life and his vices. I generally try to avoid reading too much about a writers personal story as I prefer to enjoy novels as they are i.e. in my own head rather than through the lens of a writers life story. This time though, I couldn't help myself. I was very, very surprised at what I read about Wallace - stories about his stalking behaviours, sexist remarks, aggressive tendencies etc. I know that we are all human and authors by no means live by a higher standard than the rest of us. I also know that these vices are often what make writers so good - their ability to delve into the more difficult and vile emotions that the rest of us try to forget. However, as someone who put Wallace in such high esteem (another error on my part), I can't help reading Infinite Jest with another set of eyes now. My perception of him and therefore of his writing has completely changed. It feels like a massive upheaval for my views to change so swiftly and in such a different direction. I also know that I am being unfair - I've only read one perspective on the guy, have never met him (and sadly never will) and am prepared to put up my hand and say that I am by no means perfect either. Yet in a way I feel like after reading that article, the book has already been ruined for me - which is such a pity. This has never happened to me before with other writers. For example, I love Sylvia Plath's work and part of the magic for me is understanding her own story, her experiences of health issues and the hardships she faced both as a young woman and as a writer, and how they have shaped her work. Anyway, after my rambling (which is precisely why I created this blog), I am interested in hearing other readers thoughts. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Or are you generally able to separate an authors personal life from their written works?

New trailer has just been released: http://theplaylist.net/david-tennant-elisabeth-moss-discover-mad-normal-new-trailer-20170201/

Since starting this thread I have read two of Alain's books: - How Proust can change your Life - A Week at the Airport My god is Alain a good writer. I love reading his prose. His sentences are so well crafted without coming across as pretentious. His humour from his speeches comes across really well in his writing. Add to this the fact that he writes about such interesting and yet such common, day-to-day themes, and I think he may well become one of my favourite writers. I read How Proust can change your Life after finishing In Search of Lost Time by Proust last year and gaining admiration of Proust as a writer. Alain's book on Proust gives a fascinating insight not only into Prousts life as a philosopher as well as a writer, but on the lessons that we can all learn through his epic on love, meaning and life. I'm glad that Alain has brought Proust into the limelight - despite the volume of Prousts work, I think it is something that everyone should read at some point in their lives, and I feel like Alain captures the magic of Proust perfectly while sprinkling his own magic of philosophy in the modern world. Second, I read A Week at the Airport while waiting around at an airport after a flight got delayed, and not only did it make the time pass, it also made me appreciate my surroundings. I fly quite a lot to the point that I just find it a chore more than anything else, but every so often I pause and look around and wonder about the lives of the people around me. Airports are such unique places - they are a melting point of cultures, as if the entire world has been condensed inside this tiny building. Alain takes this space of hustle and bustle which is often associated with frustration, long queues and boredom and squeezes out the underlying infrastructure that makes airports so incredible - not just the physical foundations, but also the emotional strands that make up the lives of people who pass through these buildings every day. Anyway, I could drone on about Alain for pages. My eye has recently fallen on one of his books called Status Anxiety - has anyone given it a go? We need to keep sharing the love of Alain de Botton.

Have you tried reading his short story, Symbols and Signs? It's available online here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-signs Also, I didn't want to create a new thread but was wondering whether anyone had read Pale Fire or Ada or Ardor? I am thinking of reading Ada as I bought a copy ages ago and love Nabokov's writing style. Pale Fire has also been on my TBR list for a while, but I've always been put off as I assumed it would go over my head. Would love to hear peoples thoughts on his other works.

Absolutely - I find the impact of culture on healthcare to be a particularly interesting topic. There are so many health problems that are only present in certain cultures, and the experience of ones childhood, ones surroundings and the beliefs and values that one is brought up in have a such a massive impact on the way we view our bodies and our minds - especially when they start to degenerate. I think this is highlighted quite well in the Western worlds obsession with individualism (and the subsequent social costs), science and the quest for immortality no matter what the price. Haha, I feel like I need to make my blog as condensed as possible, otherwise I'll just become overwhelmed with books that I become attracted to but never actually open. Thank you for your thoughts on Becker's Outsiders book. I will add it to my TBR list - like I said, if you need any recommendations for books on deviance within healthcare, just let me know (although you have a pretty interesting TBR list yourself). Certainly many of the books on my TBR list revolve around this topic of being an outsider, whether it is from ones society, ones family or even from ones self. Regarding The Scarlett Letter, it is definitely a book I would recommend. The novel is filled with beautiful prose, rich in imagery and metaphor. It is not a fast-paced book, and I think to enjoy it you really need to sit down and savour every sentence. While it was written some time ago and revolves around issues that now may seem irrelevant, I think the sense of anger, loss and the feeling of being unwanted is very real throughout the novel - I think it would fit nicely into what we have just been discussing about the idea of being an outsider in ones society and how one copes with such isolation. It's really quite an inspiring read, and the strength of the main character is quite uplifting. The one thing I would say about the novel is that its style of writing may become a bit of an obstacle. Personally I found it to be a refreshing break from the other styles of writing I've been reading recently, but most of the negative reviews I've read about the novel tend to focus on the 'dreariness' of the writing style - you really do have to focus on every word. Let me know what you think of it though.

Interesting TBR - I look forward to reading more of your reviews. I was wondering what you thought of Howard Becker's Outsiders: Study in the Sociology of Deviance? It is something I have been thinking of buying as I have an interest in that area, but wasn't sure how relevant it would be.

What is it that you enjoyed in Tolkien's work?

I finished reading The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu yesterday. It's a collection of short stories, many of them award-winning and mainly revolving around the integration of Chinese communities with the Western world. As an immigrant, I found these stories to be particularly poignant as they touch at the heart of what it means to lose ones identity and shed ones skin. The question of how to integrate both cultures has often been at the back of my mind, and I feel that many of the stories in this collection raise similar questions in a beautifully moving way. The stories are also what would be defined as 'sci-fi' - most are set around advanced technologies which while centuries away, are not difficult to imagine in our current society. Along with questions of immigration and identity, they also raise questions about what it means to be human, and how our emotions and our weaknesses make us who we are. If life is just an algorithm and the brain a collection of neurotransmitters and electrical signals, can we then break down thoughts and emotions into entities that can be shaped and formed according to our will? Everyone will have different answers to this question, but these stories set out to show what the world would be like if humans had such power over the atoms themselves. I only recently started reading short stories again as I have had little time to read, and I've found that if you manage to find the right story, you can be transported to another world just as easily as reading a thousand page novel. The most famous short story in this collection is The Paper Menagerie which won the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. It is a very quick read, but one that stays with you after the last page. It can be read for free below and I would highly recommend it if you have a few minutes to spare: http://io9.com/5958919/read-ken-lius-amazing-story-that-swept-the-hugo-nebula-and-world-fantasy-awards

Whatever that last episode was on Sunday night, it wasn't Sherlock. The rest of the series was fine, but I have no idea what to make of the final episode. It was overdone with the music and the plot line - it was like something out of Saw.

What the hell was that third episode about?

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I've just started my next book so I look forward to updating this blog as I go along. Yes, in the area I work in (Medicine) we are pretty much guaranteed a job in the UK, which I know is a big privilege.

That should be more than enough for now. 2017 is going to be a busy year for me, but hopefully it will be filled with lots and lots of books.

To-Read Fiction • Abe, Kobo - The Woman in the Dunes • Barbery, Muriel - The Elegance of the Hedgehog • Bukowski, Charles - Tales of Ordinary Madness • Bulgakov, Mikhail - The Master and Margarita • Byatt, A.S. - Possession • Camus, Albert - The Plague • Catton, Eleanor - The Luminaries • Christensen, Kate - The Epicure's Lament • Eliot, George - Daniel Deronda • Eliot, George - Middlemarch • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Demons • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - The Gambler and A Nasty Business • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - The Idiot • Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying • Fowles, John - The Magus • Gide, Andre - The Immoralist • Hall, Sarah - Daughters of the North • Hall, Sarah - Haweswater • Hamid, Mohsin - Exit West • Hardy, Thomas - The Return of the Native • Hesse, Herman - Journey to the East • Hesse, Herman - Narcissus and Goldmund • Hesse, Herman - The Glass Bead Game • Jelinek, Elfriede - Greed • Johnson, Denis - Train Dreams • Kavenna, Joanna - Come to the Edge • Lish, Atticus - Life is with People • Liu, Ken - The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories • Mann, Thomas - Death in Venice and Other Stories • Morrison, Toni - The Bluest Eye • Nabokov, Vladimir - Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle • Nabokov, Vladimir - Pale Fire • Nutting, Alissa - Tampa • Perry, Sarah - The Essex Serpent • Pratchett, Terry - Maskerade • Quincey, Thomas de - Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front • Sartre, Jean-Paul - The Age of Reason • Selby, Hubert Jr - The Demon •Shan, Darren - Brothers to the Death • Shan, Darren - Palace of the Damned • Singh, Khushwant - Train to Pakistan • Thackeray, William Makepeace - Vanity Fair • Thomas, Michael Ford - Suicide Notes • Wallace, David Foster - Infinite Jest • Williams, John - Stoner • Zweig, Stefan - Beware of Pity • Zweig, Stefan - The Royal Game Medicine, Psychology & Anthropology • Bateson, Gregory - Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution and Epistemology • Brewer, John D. - The Public Value of the Social Sciences: An Interpretive Essay • Cantacuzino, Marnia - The Forgiveness Project • Carel, Havi - Health, Illness and Disease: Philosophical Essays • Cooper, Rachel - Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science • Diamond, John - C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too • Gifford, Fred - Philosophy of Medicine • Kahneman, Daniel - Thinking, Fast and Slow • Kay, Adam - This is going to hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor • Kleinman, Arthur - The Illness Narratives: suffering, healing and the human condition • Kleinman, Arthur - Rethinking Psychiatry: from cultural category to personal experience • Laing, Ronald D. - Wisdom, Madness and Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927-57 • Levi-Strauss, Claude - Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture • Mishler, Elliot G. - The Discourse of Medicine: Dialectics of Medical Interviews • Ofri, Danielle - What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine • Osler, William - A Way of Life: An Address to Yale Students, Sunday Evening, April 20, 1913 • Perry, Sarah - Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide • Phillips, Adam - On Kindness • Radden, Jennifer - The Philosophy of Psychiatry: A Companion • Reynolds, Richard - On Doctoring: Stories, Poems, Essays • Selzer, Richard - Letters to a Young Doctor • Sigerist, Henry E. - Medicine and Human Welfare (Terry Lectures) • Skultans, Vieda and Cox, John - Anthropological Approaches to Psychological Medicine • Sontag, Susan - Illness as Metaphor • Storr, Anthony - The Integrity of the Personality • Svenaeus, Fredrik - The Hermeneutics of Medicine and the Phenomenology of Health: Steps Towards a Philosophy of Medical Practice • Tallis, Raymond - The Black Mirror: Looking at Life through Death • Woolf, Virginia - On Being Ill Philosophy • Alain de Botton - Status Anxiety • Aristotle - The Art of Rhetoric • Aurelius, Marcus - Meditations • Becker, Ernest - The Denial of Death • Burton, Neel - Plato: Letters to my Son • Dewey, John - How We Think • Jaspers, Karl - Philosophy of Existence • Kant, Immanuel - A Critique of Pure Reason • Kierkegaard, Soren - The Concept of Anxiety • Merton, Thomas - Thoughts in Solitude • Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli - Indian Philosophy Volume I • Russell, Bertrand - The Analysis of Mind • Tallis, Raymond - In Defence of Wonder and Other Philosophical Reflections • Wittgenstein, Ludwig - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Literature & Writing • Prose, Francine - Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them • Eagleton, Terry - How to Read Literature • Eagleton, Terry - Literary Theory: An Introduction • Huxley, Aldous - Literature and Science • Midgley, Mary - Science and Poetry • Thomas, Francis-Noel - Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose • Sontag, Susan - Against Interpretation and Other Essays Other • Atkinson, Charles Francis - Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development • Bevan, Aneurin - In Place of Fear • Debord, Guy - The Society of the Spectacle • Kalanithi, Paul - When Breath Becomes Air • Orwell, George - Down and Out in Paris and London • Rosseau, Jean-Jacques - Confessions • Sarton, May - Journal of a Solitude • Sutherland, John - Blue: A Memoir - Keeping the Peace and Falling to Pieces • Tolstoy, Leo - What is Art?

Hello everyone. This is my first ever book blog. I felt the need to create one this year as I graduate in June and will be starting my first job in August. I am going into quite a busy, hectic career but I didn’t want to lose my love of reading, so I felt that having a diary to keep me up to date of my to-read lists and a platform to write my reviews would give me motivation. As a reader, I enjoy a variety of genres, but you’ll find that my to-read list falls into three broad categories: Fiction, Medicine/Anthropology and Philosophy. My to-read list isn’t a list of every single book I want to read (which is several pages long), but just a list of books that are on my radar for the upcoming months. - Currently reading: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Books Read in 2017 January • The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (3.5/5) • Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans (4/5) • The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu (4/5) • Journal of Solitude by Mary Sarton (3/5) • The Immoralist by Andre Gide (2/5) • Philosophy and Psychiatry: A Companion by Jennifer Radden (4/5) February • Against Interpretation and Other Essays by Susan Sontag (3/5) March • Maskerade by Terry Pratchett (4/5) • Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (3/5) • The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig (3/5) April • Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig (4/5) • The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (3/5) May • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (4/5) • The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (2/5) • Anthropological Approaches to Psychological Medicine edited Vieda Skultans & John Cox (4/5) • The Gambler and A Nasty Business by Fyodor Dostoevsky (2/5) June • Status Anxiety by Alain de Bottom (3/5) • The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker (4/5) • Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (2/5) • Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann (3/5) • Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (4/5) July • A Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant (4/5) August September • This is going to hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay (4/5) • Palace of the Damned by Darren Shan (3/5) • Brothers to the Death by Darren Shan (2/5) October • Middlemarch by George Eliot (4/5) • Stoner by John Williams (4/5) November • Indian Philosophy Volume I - Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (4/5) December • The Magus - John Fowles (4/5)