Weekend Reading List

You know, it's been more than a couple of years since I've been in Bangkok (if you know Singaporeans, you'll know how truly unusual this is), what with the city's recent anti government protests turning violent and curfew being imposed, and with things still in a state of confusion, I'd become quite nostalgic for those fun days and crazy Bangkok nights, and so when I cam across this novel Siam: The Woman Who Shot a Man by Lily Tuck, I picked it up and have been reading this pretty much non-stop. It's a simple read and I think Ms Tucker is attempting Arundhoti Roi (and not quite getting there) but it's an entertaining account of Thailand in the 1960s, though very much from an outsider perspective, which I guess is how we all experience the city. As often as we visit the city and think we 'know' it, we actually don't. The novel is also about this woman's obsession with Jim Thompson, and his mysterious disappearance into the jungle. I guess you can read this as a metaphor. I think it's unintended.
I'm also reading Colm Toibin's collection of short works Mothers and Sons, and intend to take it with me when I go to Manila during the week - I'm particularly close to my mother and I'm quite worried that the stories might be disturbing - one craves the light and escapist on trips abroad. I do, anyway.

H, in her last legs at this particular job, gave me summer's number of The Economist's Intelligent Life, and I have to say this magazine is full of stories that interest me. The cover story is a longish read on David Hockney; He's an iPad convert and makes drawings on this gadget, did you know? Another feature is on the Italian art of 'stone painting' - one of those mind-bogglingly intricate crafts that amaze me. I remember being fascinated by those paintings made into tables and consoles in a museum in Florence and thinking it would drive me crazy if I had to work on something so seemingly impossible. Yes, I'm one of those that look at modern art installations as insubstantial gimmicks requiring zero skill. I don't get it. I don't really care. Further in the book there's a feature on the style of Graham Greene, Kriston Scott Thomas's career (I love Ms Scott Thomas), book reviews, Marienbad, New Delhi etc.Go look at it, it's a good magazine, a less glitzy British version of Vanity Fair if you will.
The 1909 photo (top) is of Mark Twain reading in bed, possibly my favourite activity.