Essential Reading: April 2013

Posted by bennardfajardo on April 5, 2013 · 7 Comments 

March was an awesome reading month for me. Mostly because I was itching to try Russian authors for quite some time now and also because all of the books that I finished on March were rated with 4 stars or above. Here are the books that I read (or finished reading) last month:

• Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (5/5)
  
• Tales of Belkin by Alexander Pushkin (4/5)
• The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin (4/5)
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (4/5)
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (4/5)
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (5/5)
• My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides (5/5)

As for my April reads, I will have to deviate from my usual decision to stick to a theme. For this month, I’ll just read books that I want to read without the pressure of choosing a theme. And here are my picks:

• Ghostwritten by David Mitchell – I have read two books by Mitchell already, Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and I have found both books astounding. There’s no reason to not read another one.
  
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera – One of the books that has a possibility to be chosen as our book club’s July read. It’s high time that I brush up on this existential novel by Kundera.
• Hunger by Knut Hamsun – One of the books that have been read and recommended by two of my friends in the book club. Plus the stamp of approval of Paul Auster by way of introducing the book in my edition doesn’t hurt one bit.
• The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides – I have read and loved Eugenides’ Middlesex and getting acquainted with the author’s first work is a no brainer.
• Object Lessons: The Art of the Short Story by The Paris Review – This anthology in which 2o contemporary short story writers such as Lydia Davis, Lorrie Moore and Dave Eggers introduce 2o of their favorite stories from writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Donald Barthelme and Raymond Carver that appeared in the Paris Review. The temptation to read this as soon as possible is too great to pass off this book to another, later month.

I just know that April is going to be awesome.

Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Books, David Mitchell, Essential Reading, Ghostwritten, Hunger, Jeffrey Eugenides, Knut Hamsun, Milan Kundera, Object Lessons: The Art of the Short Story, The Paris Review, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Virgin Suicides