Keeping up with reading habit
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June 2020 was another beginning to adopt to new life cycle. Normally I read books on train while commute, sometimes at station café in the morning. I had at least 2 hours to delve into reading books. With corona virus, I gave up reading at café as they requested customers to stay maximum 30 minutes. Café was no longer the place for relaxation and reading books with a nice cup of coffee.
Reduced working days also lead to a need to change reading habit. Reading on the train was not bad after all, with almost no distraction. How was I used to such daily routine. After checking e-mail from office, I tried to sit down and read books at home.
It was somehow difficult to sit down and read books at home, especially fiction with nice ending. With so much was going on in the reality, not only because of the virus but the uncertain future of travel business, it was hard to escape into the world of fiction. I managed to finish few books.
This is the book that I bought right after the state of emergency was lifted and local stores reopened. This is Chaucer’s classic, an abridged version for children in modern language. The Wife of Bath’s Tale and The Friar’s Tale were brilliant.
This one was hard to get into. A classic story by Elizabeth Gaskel, portraying some families concerned with the cotton industry in Manchester, England, at the time of industrial revolution. The story was dramatic, revolving around industrial strike and a case of murder. One of the protagonist, Mary Barton, seems portrayed as fame fatal, and more she looked innocent, the story seems scary. A good story, but it was difficult to appreciate the world portrayed in this fiction, perhaps because there were more complicated and uncertain issues going on in the real world.
This is a sequel to “A Year in Provence”, an essay by Peter Mayle which was a big hit in 1990’s. He left Provence after writing “A year in Provence”, and he made a return there after spending 4 years in the United States. The book is his second impression of Provence, perhaps more deep into the local custom and industry. Although the initial excitement of cultural encounter was less obvious, this is a good book to let your mind escape to rustic countryside in Southern France. The author’s books lead me to decide the direction of my career after leaving university. It was good to come back to the basic.
The book is about a lawyer’s family and his defense for a man who was arrested because of prejudice and discrimination against black people in the United States. I chose this book because at the time of reading, there was a movement of ‘Black lives Matter’ in the USA. This is not an excellent choice to understand the real cause of the racial discrimination rooted in America, but it was better than nothing to understand a part of American history through fiction.
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