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I spent a good deal of this month reading, and I'll give here a short review of some of the more noteworthy books.

Atomised by Michel Houellebecq was interesting, interesting enough to follow up with Platform. By the time I finished Platform, though, I didn't feel need to pick-up any more Houellebecq novels. I like a book that tackles sensitive issues like racism for example, with an eye to offending. The descriptions of sex are varied and numerous. Boring too for the most part, but I found myself uncomfortably aroused from time to time.

Clea by Lawrence Durrell wasn't read with much pleasure. I only read it as it was the last in a four-part series. Finished in the early 60's, apparently at the time it was considered strong enough to put Durrell's name into consideration for the Nobel prize. Though still in print, the Alexandria Quartet's reputation has suffered. Parts of it were worth the effort, and it did paint a vivid and tempting picture of war-time Alexandria.

Crabwalk by Gunter Grass is an audio-book about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff at the end of WWII. Some 9,000 Germans, almost all of them refugees, died after a Soviet U-boat torpepo attack. For many years neither the East nor the West Germans felt comfortable discussing the loss. Grass puts forward a case for honestly confronting the past, even giving a surprisingly positive account of the Nazi's Strength Through Joy programme.

Empire by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri is a difficult and tiresome read. Essentially it argues that for Capitalism to be defeated, neo-liberalism has to be allowed to follow through to its logical conclusion. National sovereignty will disolve and a world where humanity is one and equal may then emerge. Globalist, but also counterglobalist.

Reading Lolita in Teheran by Azar Nafisi gives a thorough account of life under the clerics of Iran. Five women must go to extraordinary lengths to pursue their study of English literature. I was surprised though that the vibrant film culture of Iran received no mention. In any case it's an important book.

Scenes from Clerical Life by George Eliot was, I think, the last book of Eliot's I read. Really, it's only for Eliot compleatists. I still stand by Middlemarch as the greatest English novel of the 19th century. There's a lot of strength in Dickens' work, but he doesn't approach Eliot in his depiction of real characters and situations.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang is the story of a family surving in China during the last century. The parents are rather well-placed party functionaries - exactly the sort of people Mao had in mind as targets during his cultural revolution. Chang tells a detailed and gripping story about this period and the book deserves all the praise it's received.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami Haruki is I think the only book of the bunch I'd go back and read again. I bought the book quite a while ago and it sat on my shelves unread. After finishing, I bought another Murakami title and I'm sure it won't be long before I get around to it. The novel is a work of great imagination and anyone interested in science fiction, WWII, surrealism, the occult, or Tokyo will find pleasure here.