Blue is Like Blue by Vinod Kumar Shukla
(Translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Sara Rai)
I have just finished reading this book and been struggling to find the suitable words to describe my experience. It is a short story collection that is quietly enthralling,deeply moving and strangely bewildering, all at the same time. The stories abandon even the slightest pretence of a plot or narrative, and are fresh and untouched in their beauty and appeal. Deceptively simple in their crafting and devoid of all embellishments, they focus on the minutiae of life, making even the most commonplace of events arresting.
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)
It is a book I find myself going back to whenever I feel stuck. Replete with the invaluable wisdom on life and writing that Rilke bequeathed on a young military cadet and budding poet Franz Xaver Kappus through a series of stirringly profound letters, this jewel of a volume has practical advice that is no less than poetry. The letters touch upon things such as why must one write and what books do to our inner lives, how does one savour solitude, the value of living with uncertainty, and the nature of advice itself.
An intimate portrait of loneliness, painted with a lot of empathy and humanity.
This is a Poem that Heals Fish by Jean-Pierre Simeón
(Illustrated by Olivier Tallec, translated from the French by Claudia Zoe Bedrick)
Picture books is what I turn to for a sense of comfort and security. There is something about reading and re-reading these wonderful stories that carry the most profound philosophies, distilled in the most unselfconscious language. These last few months I kept returning to this beautiful picture book about a little boy who worries that his pet fish may die of boredom and his mother suggests that he give the fish a poem. The boy has no idea what a poem is and so begins a story of what all a poem can be. The text is poetic and playful and the illustrations are tender, warm and vibrantly expressive.
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing
Easily one of the best works I have read recently. Part memoir, part art history, part criticism, part biography...a neat description of this book is difficult to pull off. What it does though, with great subtlety and sensitivity, is to invite a deep meditation on loneliness. Laing deftly examines the connection between loneliness and creativity through the works of four great artists — Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz and Henry Darger, drawing parallels between them and their characters, while also reflecting on her own experiences of loneliness.
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