Reading Journal: Tues 30th June 2009

Last night – Yay finally turned the last page on Athol Fugard’s Tsotsi [forethoughts] last night. But I’m ‘yaying’ not because I couldn’t wait to finish it (far from it, it was quite the literary journey), but rather I was getting frustrated at my taking so long. Done and dusted I’ll posted my ‘afterthoughts’ as [...]

Reading Journal: Mon 29th June 2009

07:00 – Start of a new week but not a new book. I got snagged up with something important at the end of last night, so I never did get a chance to finish Tsotsi [forethoughts]. I’ve drowned my sorrows about that this morning by reading a couple more shorts from the Mary-Ann Constantine collection [...]

Forethoughts: Tsotsi by Athol Fugard

After finishing an unscheduled but hugely enjoyable read of [Song For Night] by Chris Abani, I return to my ‘organised’ reading pile to find my literary feet still firmly planted on African soil, with a virtual move southwards to the townships of Johannesburg and the intriguing tale of Tsotsi, a gang leader for whom violence and theft are a common everyday occupation.

Reading Journal: Sat 27th June 2009

Last night – Got around to reading that 1907 New York Times article on de Maupassant that I was talking about earlier in the day, the one that centred around Edouard de Maynial’s 1906 biography La vie et l’oeuvre de Guy de Maupassant [downloadable pdf available HERE]. Aside from a couple of paragraphs being virtually [...]

Reading Journal: Fri 26th June 2009

08:00 – With the breaking news of Michael Jackson’s death, I didn’t do any reading toward the end of last night. So that set me up with a mission this morning – to read Isaac Babel’s Guy de Maupassant (there’s an online version of it HERE). Just finished it and first thoughts? Wow this Russian [...]

Reading Journal: Wed 24th June 2009

07:00 – A Tolstoyan start to the day with a read through of Alyosha the Pot (can be read for free at Fifty-Two Stories). A great story, albeit short, but ohh so sad. Not a clever move starting off the day with such a depressing story perhaps, even if I did enjoy it. On a [...]

Daily Bookshot: Tsotsi Time!

Introducing the next title in my never-decreasing book pile, and my literary focus moves from West Africa right down to the south.