Recommended Reading

The Last Samurai – Helen DeWitt

This novel follows the relationship of a prodigy mother and son, and the challenges of trying to raise and educate a child who can read Odysseus in it’s original Greek by age four, sat in his pushchair as the pair ride the London Underground. His mother Sibylla tries to fill the endless well of her sons enquiring mind while typing up back copies of Carpworld to pay the rent, and addresses the lack of male role models in his life by having him repeatedly watch Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. The constant distractions of her son and Sibylla’s own thoughts provide a myriad of tangents that build the world around them, even though it’s a world where the two are somewhat marooned by their own intellects.

However at the ripe old age of eight Ludo takes the story’s ending into his own hands. Bringing his intimidatingly encyclopaedic knowledge of the world to bear, and possibly having seen Seven Samurai a few too many times, he sets out to find a better solution to the problem of his lack of a father figure. If he needs to have one, there are several people he’d like to audition that might prove worthy of the task…

The Return of the Prodigal Son – Henri Nouwen

Over many years of his life, the author finds himself drawn to different characters in Rembrandt’s depiction of this famous Biblical parable. This short account records his striving and struggle to see himself in each of them as time goes on and his life changes. This is a deeply introspective and unashamedly spiritual response to a painting that seems to call to him in a way I think many people will understand.

The Life of Beatrix Potter – Margaret Lane

Miss Potter is perhaps an obvious hero for an illustrator, but what fascinates me most about this woman is not her drawing, but everything else. In many ways her artistic talent was not the end goal of her life, merely the vehicle to other things. Unlike the sweet and bubbly Beatrix we are sometimes presented with, it turns out that her wish to draw adorable rabbits played second fiddle to a heartfelt desire to illustrate a scientific tome on the reproduction of fungi (she made several important scientific discoveries in the field!), to buy up lots of land in the Lake District from under the noses of developers, breed ancient sheep, and become the archetypal Cranky Old Lady who scolded local kids that tried to swing on her gate. In a time when the fortunes of women were much more constrained than they are now, rarely did Beatrix Potter do a thing just because she was supposed to, and I admire her greatly for that.

Reamde – Neal Stephenson

This epic tome was recommended to me by my fellow Egg, Chris.  I actually wanted to borrow a different book, to which his response was “Oh that one’s good… but this one’s better” and I drove home with this brick of a thing in my passenger seat. It begins with a ridiculously in-depth explanation of how a guy named Richard created a topographically and linguistically accurate online game. Then some Russians arrive at his niece’s house, angry at having been hacked through the game by a virus called REAMDE, and the story kicks into high gear.

Suddenly there are spies, hackers, accidental arson, inconveniently timed crushes, Welsh terrorists, camper vans, ingenuity under pressure, multiple illegal border crossings, failed rescues in boats, and a mountain lion. Every time I thought that surely the current plan-in-motion would finally resolve the story, I’d check and realise gleefully just how much book there still was left to go. Endlessly convoluted, and definitely not a project for someone without a lot of time on their hands, this has to be the most entertaining thing I’ve read in a long while.