January 2010

I devoured Wilkie Collins back in the day. That dark, mysterious atmosphere he creates - unmatched. But I had zero clue he'd written anything with Charles Dickens. Then Le Masque reissues this collaboration and I'm immediately hooked. Two Victorian masters working together? Sign me up.

Hot Berlin summer night. Two fortysomethings meet in a bar. Both alone. Heat wave, lightning strike, knockout punch. Wild weekend follows. Then doubt creeps in. Thomas and Senta barely know each other but suddenly they're tangled up in something neither planned for.

Larry Gopnik's life implodes overnight. Wife leaves him for their smarmy friend who sweetly suggests Larry move out. His tenure at the university hangs by a thread. Everything falls apart at once and Larry can't figure out what he did wrong.

"I want to tell you about a single day in my life. The rest doesn't matter." Riviera boarding house, early 1900s. Small bourgeois world. New guest arrives - handsome, elegant, charming. What happens next changes everything for one woman.

Pure coincidence I read this right after watching Eastwood's latest film. But the timing helped me understand South Africa's recent history better. Three cops investigating brutal murders in Cape Town. The past never really disappears - it just waits.

1990. Nelson Mandela walks free after twenty-seven years. Blacks cheer, whites jeer. Four years later: first multiracial elections. Mandela becomes president. Apartheid ends. But unity? That's the real challenge.

Real country: Colombia. Imaginary city: Angosta. Built in a narrow valley, split by a river called Trouble. For years now, Angosta lives under Apartamiento - a system that divides the city into rigid castes. Sound familiar? It should.

Father and son head to remote Alaska island. Plan: spend a year in a rustic cabin. Reality: they barely know each other. Divorced dad, California kid with mom. They land on this island with big dreams and no idea what's coming.

What I love about Zweig: he wrote so much you never run out of material. Constant reprints too. This is one of his most famous texts. Famous writer receives a letter from a woman he doesn't remember. But she remembers everything about him.

Checked my 2009 reading stats - zero graphic novels. That's shameful considering how rich the medium is. Resolution for 2010: read more comics. Starting with this Korean gem. Volume 1 - Yahwari. Beautiful, understated, human.