Snow and books, a good combination (The Book List)

I have another two books to tick off the list this week, on account of the snow we had over the weekend - there's nothing better to do in bad weather than curl up with a hot drink and a book.

Apart from going sledging and building snowmen. Which I also did.

 

 

I do like taking pictures of the snow.

But anyway. Onto more literary pursuits..

First up is the Diary of a Madman and Other Stories, by Nikolai Gogol. It's a collection of short stories, which I picked up at a carboot sale purely because the title sounded intriguing and short stories are always less of a commitment than a full-length novel. 

I'm not quite sure whether I liked these stories or not. They were certainly easy to read, but I didn't really get much sense of feeling or atmosphere from the author; that said, I liked the madness of most of the stories. Quite absurd and ridiculous, even while being mundane at the same time. I probably wouldn't read anything else of Gogol's though.

A Hungarian Quartet. Another carboot sale find I think, purchased purely because it featured Hungarian writers. I'm half-Hungarian and I'm always interested in the culture of my roots. I did attempt to learn Hungarian once but that fell by the wayside a long time ago, on account of the complex (to me) grammatical structures.

Anyway. Tangent! I liked this collection of stories more than Gogol's. Variously, there were interesting premises, engaging and atmospheric writing, emotions bubbling below the surface, and haunting and evocative imagery. Maybe I should take up learning the language again, so I can try read the stories in their original language...


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This is my first week back at work, so I'm trying to re-adjust my life to having less leisure time on my hands. I aim to continue blogging, though it will most likely be less frequently - I still aim to post 2 or 3 times a week though.