Currently Reading

« Words that travel with me »

[] = A Re-read
▪️ = A Favourite

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Currently Reading

– The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

– The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien | HarperCollins Deluxe

– Bedtime Stories (Everyman’s Library Pocket Classics) by Diana Secker Tesdell | Everyman’s Library

– 🎵Atomic Habits by James Clear | Audible

– Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow | Kindle

– 🎵Bible in One Year, Jan-Feb (New International Version), Read by David Suchet (Unabridged) | Hodder & Stoughton (2016), Audible

– A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor (Hatchards Exclusive Limited Edition) | John Murray (2021), Hardback, £10.99, ISBN: 978-1529393545 (First published in 1957).

– Letters from an Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson | WH Allen (2019), Hardback, 272pp, £14.99, ISBN: 978-0753553787

– The Iliad of Homer by Homer. Translation by Richmond Lattimore | Chicago University Press (2011), Paperback, XXpp £12, ISBN: 978-0226470498 (First published in 1951).

Read in 2022

The Iiad by Homer. Translated by Richmond Lattimore
★★★★

Portrait of a Murderer: A Christmas Crime Story
★★★

– The Iliad of Homer by Homer. Translation by Richmond Lattimore. Chicago University Press (2011), Paperback, 272pp, £12, ISBN: 978-0226470498 (First published in 1951).

– Portrait of a Murderer: A Christmas Crime Story | British Library Crime Classics (2017), Paperback, 288pp, £8.99, ISBN: 978-0712356862 (First published in 1933).

Read in 2021

– The Outsider by Albert Camus, trans. by Sandra Smith | Penguin Modern Classics (2013), Paperback, 110pp

– Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism (2017) by Yanis Varoufakis — Review

– Pandemic 1918: The Story of the Deadliest Influenza in History by Catherine Arnold | Kindle

– The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman | Kindle

– A Butler’s Guide to Table’s Manners

– A Classical Education: The Stuff You Wish You’d Been Taught in School by Caroline Taggart | Kindle

Read in 2020

– The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes | Kindle
– 🎵Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson | Audible▪️
– Charles Darwin’s on the Origin of Species by Sabina Radeva
– The Letters of John F. Kennedy by John F. Kennedy

Read in 2019

– A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens▪️
– The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan | Penguin Classics
– [The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway]▪️
– Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
– 🎵Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill | Audible▪️
– Classical Literature by Richard Jenkyns | Kindle

Read in 2018

– Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, Kindle

Read in 2017

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
A Must Read
★★★★★

– Contact by Carl Sagan — Review
– 🎵Fear – Our Ultimate Challenge by Ranulph Fiennes | Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. (2016), Audible, 336pp — Review
– Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) by Roald Dahl | Puffin Books (2016), Paperback, 208pp — Review
– Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) by Jules Verne | Penguin Classics (2017), Hardback, 528pp — Review▪️

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books.” — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Professor, what exactly is a pearl?’ ‘… for poets, it is a tear shed by the ocean. For Orientals, it is a crystallized dewdrop; for ladies, it is an oblong-shaped jewel, with a hyaline lustre, made of mother-of-pearl … for the chemist, it is a mixture of phosphate and carbonate of lime with a small quantity of gelatine; and lastly, for the naturalist, it is merely a defective secretion from the organ which produces mother-of- pearl in certain bivalves.”—Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

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Read in 2016

“Don’t you know how to take squares of numbers near 50? If it’s near 50, say 3 below (47), then the answer is 3 below 25 – like 47 squared is 2200, and how much is left over is the square of what’s residual. For instance, it’s 3 less and the square of that is 9, so you get 2209 from 47 squared.”— The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

“But then I remembered that the London sewage system provides Londoners with oft-recycled drinking water without even the safeguard of its being boiled on Kenton’s gas stove.” — Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

– The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman | Penguin Books Ltd (2001), Paperback, 288pp — Review
– Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know by Sir Ranulph Fiennes | Hodder & Stoughton (2009), 416pp — Review
– Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli

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Read in 2015

“Gentlemen: Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books.” — 84, Charing Cross Road

“When Ingrid Bergman, who knows five languages, was asked which she preferred, she replied: English for acting, Italian for romance, French for diplomacy, German for philosophy . . . and Swedish for secrecy, because so few people know it.” — How to Learn a Foreign Language

“Therefore, put forth the best mental effort of which you are capable; work as hard as you can (if learning is work rather than pleasure); do your very best to succeed; and do not, when I have put all the necessary means at your disposal, allow it to be said that you have failed to do your part.” — De Officiis

– Poems That Make Grown Men Cry by Anthony and Ben Holden | Simon & Schuster (2014), Hardback, 224pp — Review
– My Brief History by Stephen Hawking | Bantam Press (2013), Hardback, 114pp — Review
– 1215: The Year of Magna Carta by Danny Danziger & John Gillingham | Hodder & Stoughton (2003), Hardback, 336pp
– De Officiis (Loeb Classical Library No. 30) by Marcus Tullius Cicero | Loeb Classical Library (1938). Hardback, 448pp — Review
– A Virginia Gentleman’s Library: As Proposed by Thomas Jefferson to Robert Skipwith in 1771 and Now Assembled in the Brush-Everard House (1771) | Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Pamphlet, 15pp — Review
– How to Learn a Foreign Language by Paul Pimsleur | Heinle & Heinle Publishers (1980), Hardback, 113pp — Review
– 84, Charing Cross Road (Slightly Foxed Editions No 32) by Helene Hanff | Slightly Foxed (2015), Hardback, 240pp ▪️— Review

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Read in 2014

– Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling | Bloomsbury (1997), Hardback, 223pp
– The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel | Fourth Estate (2014), Hardback, 256pp
– Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The Complete 1922 “Oxford” Text (2 Volumes) by T. E. Lawrence | Castle Hill Press /J & N Wilson (2014), Paperback, 898pp
– A Sort of Life (Slightly Foxed Editions, No. 11) by Graham Greene | Slightly Foxed (2010), Hardback, 224pp
– Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard by Sara Wheeler | Random House (2002), Hardback, 384pp
– The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard | The Folio Society (2012), Hardback,▪️

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Read earlier

Books, plays, comics, etc. that have been read between 1993-2009. This is not a complete list. In no particular order

2010 –
– A Journey by Tony Blair | Hutchinson (2010), Hardback, 624pp
– Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson | Folio Society (1948) Illustration by Mervyn Peake
– The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón – trans. by Lucia Graves
– [The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway] ▪️— Review
– [The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón – trans. by Lucia Graves]
– Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson ▪️— Review

2009 –
– Life of Pi by Yann Martel
– The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells |
– Dracula by Bram Stocker |
– The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón |

2005 –
– The Last Days of Socrates by Plato
– A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway |▪️
– [The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway] |▪️

2004 –
– The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
– To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
– The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
– [The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway]▪️
– The Odyssey by Homer
– Calvin and Hobbes comics

2000-2002 – 
– The Music of Chance by Paul Auster
– Barndommens Gade by Tove Ditlevsen (Danish)
– Nick Adams short stories by Ernest Hemingway
– The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway▪️
– Odysseen af Homer (Danish)

1993-1998 – 
– Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare (UK SAT’s exams)
– Garfield comics (English and Danish)
– And numerous others which have eluded my memory