07:00 – A serving of Ox-Tales: Air (Profile Books) with breakfast, and the story next in line from the collection was The Desert Torso by Kamila Shamsie. The story revolves around a courier’s transporting of an ancient and valuable stone torso across the desert. Reflective and pious The Desert Torso turned out to be a nice little story, with a very thoughtful ending. Enjoyed it thoroughly!
08:00 – I spoke about the latest Alex Burrett short story offering from Fifty-Two Stories, The Burners, in my Book Bites post yesterday, and I couldn’t hold back any longer (even though I’m backlogged with three previous Fifty-Two Stories offerings), because the story held too much promise for me. Sadly not as shocking or as gruesome as I’d envisaged it was going to be, The Burners still turned out to be a great story. It somehow reminded me of that old classic computer game Populous (you’ll probably know when you read it).
18:00 – Read through another chunk of city-lit Paris (Oxygen Books), a chapter which comes under the theme of ‘Sex in the City’. Not as coarse as its title suggests, there’s a nice selection of literary extracts in this chapter, ranging from Proust’s Mr Swann fumbling around in the back of a carriage with a high class prostitute, to declarations from The Bluffer’s Guide to Paris informing the reader in no uncertain terms, that the Parisian ‘red light’ district isn’t what it used to be. Highlights have got to a brief extract from Hans Christian Anderson in which he claims when visiting a brothel at 62 that he left ‘not having sinned physically’ (I believe you Hans 
), and a twelfth-century account of a love affair which would definitely have feminists up in arms today – i.e. “In handing her over to me…[…]…what else was he doing but giving me complete freedom to realize my desires, and providing me with an opportunity…[…]…to bend her to my will by threats and blows if persuasion failed?” Nice guy!
22:00 – Still progressing through The China Bird by Bryony Doran (Hookline Books). Up to Chapter 15 now and still enjoying it. Flashbacks are beginning to creep into the narrative now which can often complicate things, but Doran’s managing to keep everything tightly controlled. Still loving the beautifully poetic nuggets I’m uncovering in Doran’s writing.
Rest of the evening? It should be more of The China Bird, but another Shusaku Endo short is calling to me. Can I resist the calling? We’ll see.
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