Summer mood has arrived...

... because I got the matching t-shirt for my summer book :)

2009 Reviewed - Unbridled Passion

I admire people who prove us wrong, by showing that the impossible can not only be thought of but also built. For many years Zaha Hadid had been drafting only, but since 1993 her powerful designs are actually built.

This year, Taschen published Zaha Hadid. Complete Works 1979-2009, a 600 page 7 kg XL tome demonstrating the progress of Hadid's work. A book showing that we can act beyond our wildest dreams.

Discovering Urbanity

One of the most influential persons of my teenage years was David Byrne*. However, what I did not know was that all those years, he had also been an urban cyclist.

David Byrne travels a lot and likes to take a folding bike with him. His musing, thoughts and discoveries from those urban bike rides all over the globe made it now between two book covers. So far, I only snuck a peek, but I reckon this book will be a perfect travel companion.



* Like I played Stop Making Sense thin and transparent. There is no other record I put on the turntables more often.

The Devil's Paintbrush

Last week, Jake Arnott's brand spanking new novel The Devil's Paintbrush arrived in the mail. I just could not resist, neglected Toño and rushed through it from cover to cover in barely a day.



A book with a title that is derived from the Maxim machine gun¹ can expected to be a bit like a Roman holiday.

Briefly summarized: Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald, a paragon of Victorian military virtue, is about to be court-martialed for pederastic activities. In Paris in March 1903, he encounters the occultist Aleister Crowley, who calls himself the Beast. Together, they embark into a memorable nightly ride through the sinful city, which ends with Macdonald doing the honourable thing.

As always with Jake Arnott, his ability to drag you into the authentic atmosphere of a time is astonishing. And yes, it is a bit sordid.

¹ The Maxim machine gun has a rate of fire of 666 rounds per minute, which makes it splosh red everywhere - hence the pet name.

With Moderate Enthusiasm

Tomorrow, I'll have to go back to the coal face. I'm not very enthusiastic about this. No, it's not just the usual end of of holiday affective disorder. I've made the mistake to read three work-related and really inspiring books:



Try to imaging to work for a company that creates products and services, which your clients are eager to use on a daily basis and which create value in their lives or for their organisation. Products, which are easy and intuitively to use. Products, which hardly fail and if they do, it doesn't matter because they are fixed in no time even by somebody who's fingers are all thumbs. Imaging that for your clients, it actually matters that your company exists.

Well, I don't think I will see this. Starting tomorrow, I will have to deal again with a organisation that is only concerned with his own interests and does not waste a single thought on how our products or processes could be improved to actually serve our clients.

I haven't worked a minute this year and I'm already dead ripe for a new job. Any ideas, where I should move to?

Added Later
Status Check for 2009: Is Your Job Safe?

Manumitted

The curse is broken. I just finished the Potter saga. Now I can live happily ever after with my deriously beloved Toño.

Slow Book

Toño and I are far from being zealots, but it is just natural for us to to adhere más o menos to the principles of Slow Food. Food just tastes better that way. However, Toño goes even a step further. He also practices Slow Book.

You can call it trivia, but we had bought the identical book* some months before we met at Katalin's swimming class for the first time. We also both had started reading Tolstoy's War and Peace in the restored original version at the same time (August 2004) , which was just before we copped off. Well, I finished this epic in prose about the insignificance of individuals somewhere over Asia on November 27, 2005 and Toño did it last night:



Toño's next book project will be "Matto regiert" by Friedrich Glauser. He can keep going there for a while. I have got Glauser's oeuvre. He happens to be my favorite Swiss writer. Maybe Toño's soon in some years as well.

* With one difference: Toño's copy has an inscription by the translator (in both Russian and German).

Michael Lives

On Sylv's request a brief review of Armistead Maupin's new book Michael Tolliver Lives, which I took on our trip to California



Was it page turner?
All books by Maupin were so far. It took me less than two weeks to read all six books of the Tales of the City series. Well, the book is quite thin and Maupin writes not that complex. It took about a couple of days to read it.

Was I laughing out loud?
No, I wasn't or I can't remember. However the characters were a lot and quite often during the many sex scenes.

Do I recommend it?
I'm not quite sure if this book was really necessary. Of course, it was nice to read what Michael is up to and how life had treated him over the last 20 years. But I think that was it. What I really like about Tales of the City are all these preposterous coincidences the characters were exposed to. I missed those. If you haven't read Tales of the City, then it's a definite No! There is no point in doing so. However, if you read them, you don't insist on preposterous coincidences and you don't mind people chuckling or doing worse while having sex you might give it a try.

Reading Snack

I know, being a country cousin and living in Switzerland shields me from quite some terrible things out there in the world. However, sometimes I leave this Garden of Eden where milk and honey flows and I have to face the world.

This morning, I almost let drop my coffee and muffin when I spotted this on Glasgow airport:



Yes, it's a book vending machine. Those things might be common at your sort of place. And you might think that this must be serendipity for somebody with an addiction to all printed matter. Nevertheless, for me, it was quite a dystopian experience.

Until the end of June, Switzerland's book shops were bound by a book price trust. That means that until the federal court broke the trust, competition via price was prohibited. Of course, we were paying far too much for the books, but we still have a wide variety of book shops were the staff actually knows what they are selling and can give competent recommendations.

But now I've seen Switerland's future. Thank you federal court. Will we soon can buy justice too like books, chips and soda at a vending machine?

Epically Classical

Mr.Mac has brought me a copy of the TV series Rome, which was a brilliant idea *patting Mr.Mac's shoulder* I like it. As chance would have it, I was reading two books about that period.

The first was Imperium by Robert Harris. Yes, it's a typical Robert Harris. I leave it with that.

Another calibre is The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian by Robin Lane Fox.



Historians might gripe about one or the other detail. However, I'm none of them and highly enjoyed the read. I'm now also updated about the importance of buggery in the various phases of the Classical World. Just in case time travel will ever make headway.

High-Flyer

So far this year, the best page-turner was Der Swissair-Prozess by Constantin Seibt.



As the title might give away, this book is written in German. I doubt that it will ever be translated to English, Russian or what else might be out there. Who else than the Swiss is interested in the hopeless attempt to demand accountability for the biggest bankruptcy in Switzerland's history and the collapse of the flying bank called Swissair. Ignorance and arrogance are just not covered by the law books.

But why do I recommend the book anyway? It's written by Constantin Seibt, the most brilliant living Swiss Journalist. Think of the verve of a teenage Julie Burchill combined with versatile mind of Cicero. Constantin Seibt is one of the few reasons to still read the Tages Anzeiger, a daily newspaper from Zurich with rather little editorial spine.

As I said, the subject is boring. However, Constantin Seibt made me read almost every paragraph twice. If there is one reason to improve your German, it's Constantin Seibt 's eloquence.