Currently Reading

Thanks to my project-loving husband, I now have a literal ‘currently reading shelf.’ He was feeling antsy, and desperate for a project for which no materials would need to be purchased. Thankfully we had 3 little wood crates left over from the shoe-storage solution he built a year ago. From them he made a lovely little shelf that perfectly tucks in the corner of the kitchen, next to where I usually sit at the table. In the shelves I have all the books I want to try and get through this year, and stacked on top are all the ones I’m actively reading.

The stack is a bit chaotic, because I have a hard time keeping it to two or three books at a time.

So right now I am reading:

Pensees, by Blaise Pascal (I don’t know how to add the accent on the second e…): I was reading this a while ago, and lost my copy, got another copy, then stopped 90 pages in, then long after, found the old copy. Now I’m finishing it up. A lot of scattered thoughts on faith, God, and reason, by one of history’s great scientists.

Al-Fitna, by Kanan Makiya: I started this one a few months ago, but kind of took a break on it. Fiction set in Iraq between 2003 and 2006, with the hanging of Saddam as a thematic center. It’s in Arabic, so it will be a slower read for me, but I like it so far.

Iraqi Society: A Psycho-sociological Analysis of What Happened and What’s Happening, by Qassem Hussein Saleh: A collection of essays about Iraqi social experience, culture, and the like. I’m over halfway through this one. It’s also in Arabic, though, so again…more of a bit-by-bit read for me.

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles: A story of a Count sequestered in a hotel in Moscow in 1922, and various goings-on therein. My mom read it and enjoyed it immensely, so I decided to give it a go.

Fighting Back: British Jewry’s Military Contribution in the Second World War, by Martin Sugarman: This book is for research. Understandably, there are a lot of books about World War 2, and a lot about the Holocaust, but comparatively few about Jewish military contributions in particular, from those who were free citizens in Europe, or from countries where there was comparatively less prejudice against Jews. This is chock-full of broad history and individual stories.

The Tragedy of the Assyrian Minority in Iraq, by R.S. Stafford: Also a research book, but an odd duck of one. It’s written by a British officer, and it was written in the 1930s not long after the Simele massacre in which many Assyrians were killed and driven out by the Iraqi Army. The thing is, there’s a mix of interesting history and information in here but it is from a decidedly British Colonialist lens, so everything has to be taken with that in mind. There is compassion here, but also condescension, so it just has to be taken as what it is: a historical document rooted in a certain time and perspective.

So looking at this list makes me feel like I need to balance this out with some more fun and fiction. Its quite a serious list, which I did not do on purpose. I have some nice SFF books on my literal ‘to-read’ shelf, so those will be prioritized when one of the above is finished.

I have The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, Shadowscale by Rachel Hartman, and Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn. And a few historical fictions and one contemporary fiction. Any of those will do to balance it out!