In paper ...

The previous entry was about listening to the incredible "My Name is Red".

This is about real, paper book...

This is even more incredible "The Kuzari" by Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi....
More to come...

Tomorrow I start on 3 day solitary canoeing on my mystical Lupawa River in North Poland...
:-)

"Painting is the silence of thought and a music of sight"

I still did not become warmer after freezing effect of 12 months of hard work on my blogging....
Yet I read. And this reading gives me peace and deep thought. "My name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk.

How deep are stories about the best illustrators and miniaturists that excelled to the highest levele only when turned blind ... When you paint while being blind - it's like Allah himself would paint...

The book of course, has much more in it...

Keep listening while biking and jogging in the Pomerania....

"Lift not the painted veil which those who live call Life"

I was about not to write any more reviews before going off to my place of summer holidays... But when I finished yesterday "The Painted Veil" (W. Somerset Maugham) I just could not resist a temptation to share with you my admiration and complete enchantment to the book...

This 1925 year novel is a masterpiece of prose, of author ability to paint scenes with words...
but there is something deeper - the plot that gave rise to the 3 movies (1934, 1957, 2006) was quite shocking to me today on a deep personal level...

And please don't ask me with what side of the triangle I  sympathize the most ...
The only thing is that Maugham has an unusual ability to tell the most important truths of life without an jota of preaching or moralizing....

Perhaps , a longer review will come...

Backlog of reviews. III

Well, seems I have no chance before vacation to write almost ANY review. The hardship of all my recent business trips, very long stay in Paris, super-short in Vienna and so much work, makes me dumb on my own blog...

So just to tell you — my backlog piles up (because I still read (or rather: listen to) like crazy) — I recently added to it:

„Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe” by Bill Bryson.

„Always On” by Brian Chen — the great book about social and business ramifications of iPhone revolution.

„The Estate” by Isaac Beshevis Singer — enchanting story about life in Jewish-Polish communities in Warsaw at the end of XIX century,

„The Painted Veil" by W. Somerset Maugham — the book that was used to make the movie under the same title — truly great prose...

Cheers :-)
Mirek