Hard to be a God, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Many years ago, when I used to read a lot of science fiction, I read a book by Arkady and Boris Strugastky, Prisoners of Power. I don't remember any of it, except that I liked it. Recently, I came upon a reference to Hard to be a God in Masha Gessen's excellent The Future is History, and ordered it.
It's a very good book, a metaphor of the rise of totalitarian dictatorships and a reflection on the frustrating powerlessness of informed individuals to affect the course of the events unfolding before their eyes, which is always relevant, today as in times past.
Written as a swashbuckling tale, with more blood and gore than even Game of Thrones, it makes for an exciting read. And it manages to deliver what any good sci-fi book should - thought provoking about important issues relevant to our world, because any sci-fi book is really about our own world. The talks between the protagonist Rumata - a very engaging character - and the healer (proto-scientist) Budach and the rebel Arata are particularly moving. I highly recommend this book, and it made me want to read more by the Strugatsky brothers.

Uma Mulher Desnecessária, de Rabih Alameddine

I loved this book, because it's such a love letter to books and literature and the way they can redeem one's life, giving it meaning and purpose. The main character is extremely humane and believable, the evocation of Beirut, a city torn by war and modern development, is moving and real, as are the people described, particularly the three neighbours. The nostalgic tone reminded me of Mathias Enard's Boussole, another powerful and touching hymn to literature.

And I was glad for so many references to Fernando Pessoa and a few to Saramago.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century, by Yuval Noah Harari

I cannot recommend enough Harari's books, I definitely think they should be mandatory reading in high school in any civilised country. You cannot find more insightful, sensible and lucid information about the problems our species faces today. I would like to quote so many of the book's sentences that I end up not quoting - you just have to read it, it's SO worth it. The author is certainly one of the greatest minds writing at the moment. Please read it.

Os Despojos do Dia, de Kazuo Ishiguro

I haven't read many books by Ishiguro - just A Pale View of the Hills and Never Let me Go - but liked them immensely, especially the second. His writing is extremely beautiful, in a peculiarly restrained way that makes it so much stronger. And this is another perfect example of his masterly writing (I read it in Portuguese, but I found the translation very good, one can hear the English original in some way). I watched the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson many years ago, and it's an excellent adaptation, but of course the book is much more nuanced and complete. It's a sad and nostalgic story, about what could have been and the alienation of class and job sense of duty, beautiful, and that leaves us wondering about the fleetness of life.

The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood

Another good dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood, not as good as the Maddadam trilogy or The Handmaid's Tale, but still very clever and with a sardonic humour. It's funny, with a sardonic humour, and it reminds us of a sci-fi B-movie from the 1950s or an episode of Black Mirror. The writing is excellent, even if sometimes it looks like the author is having too much fun lingering on the pulp details - but Margaret Atwood is too elegant to step over the borders of good taste. All in all, a very interesting book.

The Future is History - How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gessen

An extremely interesting book, both thought provoking and chillingly frightening. I usually like Masha Gessen's column in the New Yorker, and the book's subject always fascinated me - how, after the fall of Communist Soviet Union, Russia evolved back to the same kind of non-democratic regime it had before; besides, the analysis of the drift to authoritarianism, intolerance and democratic deficit is extremely relevant now, when we are witnessing it not only in former dictatorships but in the heart of the Western world.

The book is well structured and researched, following the lives of four young people born in the 1980s and three older intellectuals. Their lives and development are depicted along the context of the changing political and social atmosphere; the turbulent 1990s and the rise of Putin until the present undemocratic, nationalist and chauvinistic regime are chillingly clear. It's a depressing read in a way, also a kind of very timely warning. I could do with less references to psychoanalysis, which is a somewhat outdated theory, but it's a minor shortcome.

It's terribly sad to watch how countries that have been authoritarian for the most part of their existence and where for a time a window of democratic hope opened revert to authoritarianism - like Russia, Brazil, Turkey, even Hungary or Poland - but even worse is to witness the same tendency, through a rise in populism, nationalism, xenophobia and intolerance, in countries that have been democratic for a long time - like the US, Britain, France, Israel, even Sweden. It looks like madness has taken possession of the Western world, as it forgets the values that gave us the longest and most prosperous period of peace in our long History.

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

There are two great things in this book: the extremely insightful and lucid portrait of racism in the US and the very interesting and informative depiction of the present state of life and aspirations for learned middle class people in an African country (in this case Nigeria) seen through the eyes of one of them. Fortunately, these compensate the book's shortcomings - the lameness of the romantic plot, a sometimes too morally righteous undertone and its length (it should be at least 200 pages shorter, and I admit that if it went on for another 100 pages I would downgrade it from 4 to 3 stars).

Chimamande Ngozi Adichie's writing is elegant and fluid, so the book is an easy read. So, even if it's too long, I still think it's worth reading, though not nearly as good as Half of a Yellow Sun, the only other of her books I read.

Five Quarts - A Personal and Natural History of Blood, by Bill Hayes

Another very interesting and most enjoyable book by Bill Hayes. I love the way he writes about medical subjects, extremely clear and knowledgeable - and I should know, since I'm a doctor myself - and how he intertwines his personal experiences and feelings in his narratives. His writing is elegant, witty and endearing, and the book is full of interesting anecdotes and valuable information, not only on the history of our relation with blood across the centuries but also present day important issues, like the still recent AIDS history and what blood, its perils and values, mean to us (I would like him to have also approached the Jehovah's Witnesses' particular attitude towards blood!). All in all, a very good book, and I recommend it, as his other books.

My Lives, by Edmund White

I always enjoyed reading autobiographical literature, like memoirs, correspondence, etc; it gives one a most vivid sense not only of the author's personality and ideas but also of his time and contemporaries, someone a History nerd like me finds always fascinating. I hadn't read much by Edmund White - I liked Skinned Alive, but found A Boy's Own Story somewhat dull - but recently I was reminded of him when I read Everyone is Watching, where he is one of the characters, then there was an article about him in the new York Times, where he was praised by several writers I admire, like Garth Greenwell, Edouard Louis and Pajtim Statovci, so I ordered My Lives to give it a try.

I was not disappointed - it's a very interesting book, extremely well written, organised not chronologically but by themes, describing the life and development of an intelligent man through most interesting times. The chapters about his parents, his shrinks and Europe are five star writing; I don't share his admiration for Genet, who I always considered an overrated writer and a disagreeable character, and I found his opinions on women somewhat silly, even if I liked the candour with which he states them. As for his sex life, when at a certain point he writes: "I can imagine some of my friends reading this and muttering, 'TMI - Too Much Information', or 'Are we to be spared nothing? Must we have every detail about these tiresome senile shenanigans?'", I thought: "this is exactly what I'm feeling!". But then the simple fact that he wrote this in such an ironic self deprecating way reconciled me with the narrative, even if sometimes so detailed and graphic that bordered on boring. But I also found it refreshing to see someone writing about subjects usually considered too scabrous to be approached by "serious" writers in such a candid way, and never distasteful. White speaks about gay sex, gender issues or prostitution in a most common-sensical way, never bothering with the political correctness and puritanism that haunt these issues in the present time, so dishearteningly dominated by Byzantine discourses of identity theories and such. Just for that, he deserves my praise.

Hired - Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain, by James Bloodworth

This is a very important and timely book, a journalistic piece in the respectable tradition of Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London or Ben Judah's This is London. The author goes undercover working in a few of the typical jobs on the rise - at an Amazon warehouse, an insurance company call centre and as a Uber driver. I was not surprised; my daughter worked for a while as a Uber driver, and I was always most suspicious of these very cheap services - if it is that cheap, someone is bearing the costs, because obviously the businesses must make profit, and who bears the cost is of course the worker. These companies make lots of money by cleverly circumventing work and tax laws, taking advantage of most people's wish to get cheap services by shamelessly exploring their workers. We don't think about it, and use them for the said cheap services, but the fact is they're eroding all worker's rights that were so painfully conquered along decades of struggle, and we should realise that by accepting it we're actually paving the way for our own rights - that we enjoy as "regular" workers - to be the next ones taken away. It's a chilling account, excellent food for thought.

L'Angoisse du Roi Salomon, de Romain Gary (Émile Ajar)

Another wonderful book by Romain Gary, written under his pseudonym Émile Ajar. It's funny how his writing style is similar to La Vie Devant Soi and different from Les Cerfs-Volants, the true mark of a heteronym, like our Fernando Pessoa, who was able to create several writing personas with very different styles.

But writing genius apart, this book is a jewel in its own right, moving, sensitive and intelligent. I don't want to describe it, just recommend it - you must read it. It kind of restores your faith in humanity.

Homo Deus, a Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari

It took me some time before deciding to read this book, after having liked Sapiens so much, I was somewhat afraid of being disappointed. But I wasn't - Homo Deus is perfectly on a par in what quality is concerned with its predecessor. Once more, Harari deals with the history and evolution of mankind, religion, science and technology, what it means to be human, and the challenges ahead of us in a most knowledgeable and insightful way, and the most objective, considering the limitations of our current minds and present knowledge, whose limits he manages to make us understand so cleverly. And the writing is always so clear and elegant, exactly like a book about science should be so it can reach a wide lay audience.

I felt sometimes skeptical about the time frames suggested in the book, I doubt things will move so fast, based on my personal experience, I know scientific and technological developments take more time than the hype makes us think: for instance, when I started working in Nephrology, more than 25 years ago, xenotransplantation and artificial wearable kidneys seemed just around the corner - well, they obviously weren't, even if treatments are much better now, they still are basically the same, and xenotransplantation and bionic kidneys seem just around the corner... still. I do believe we'll get there eventually, but it will take probably longer than he suggests.

Also, I think he disregards the importance that old religions and ways of living still have in most of the world. His possible futures apply mostly to the western world, but I think the West will still have to contend with the millions of non-Western people in interactions that will surely influence its own development and the way its technology will change its life. I certainly agree with him on how ancient religions are obsolete and unable to deal with modern challenges, but there are still lots of people under their influence and they will perforce influence the pace of Western development. Still, I believe his views to be mostly correct, especially if one takes the "satellite view" looking at history. In the near future, I envisage as more probable a kind of future (in the West, at least) as depicted in the excellent dystopian trilogy of novels by Margaret Atwood Oryx and Krake.

But then, the author repeatedly states that his provocative predictions are not prophecies, and that things can develop in a totally unexpected way. But making us to look at the history of man and to consider the challenges that present technology poses in such a clear and insightful way is invaluable to make us understand ourselves and consider our future.

I think these two books by Yuval Harari - Sapiens and Homo Deus - should be mandatory reading in high school, by the 10th grade. The teaching of History, Biology and Philosophy would surely be much improved.

En Man som Heter Ove, av Fredrik Backman

This is a lovely book. I read it mostly to practice my Swedish, and I'm glad I'm did. It fulfilled its purpose - even if there were many words I didn't know the meaning of, I managed to understand the context and read it fluently enough. The story is really moving, the main character very endearing and very Swedish - I was actually happy to be able to read it in Swedish, the cadence of the language agrees so much with the dry humour of the narrative. And it's a nice depiction of a multicultural and civilised country, with its flaws but also with all that makes it one of the most civilised places of our time. Even if dealing with a suicidal and depressed character, it ends up as an optimistic celebration of life.

Biology against the machine

How does one cope when one feels like one has no real goal in life? I'm sure that must be rather common when one reaches middle age, especially if one has no significant other, the children are raised and work has become just another routine. There comes a time when one keeps listening in one's mind to John Mellencamp's words: "life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone", or Sufjan Stevens' "there is only a shadow of me, in a matter of speaking I'm dead".

But then one keeps on living. Because there are friends to talk to, books to read, movies to watch. I remember a passage in Erico Veríssimo's O Tempo e o Vento, when some old woman dies and her friend says something like "poor thing, she will never know like the Toutinegra do Moinho (a very popular novel serialized at the beginning of the 20th century) will end!". (By the way, a disclosure - A Toutinegra do Moinho was my grandmother's favorite book).

So I guess it all comes down to biology. We're animals, living beings product of millions of years of evolution, destined for survival. It's in our DNA, the pressure for survival. That's why, in spite of all the existential and philosophical anguish and whatever, we still hold on to life.

Simone de Beauvoir said it beautifully in La Force des Choses:

Oui, le moment est arrivé de dire: jamais plus! Ce n’est pas moi qui me détache de mes anciens bonheurs, ce sont eux qui se détachent de moi: les chemins de montagne se refusent à mes pieds. Jamais plus j ene m’écroulerai, grisée de fatigue, dans l’odeur du foin; jamais plus je ne glisserai solitaire sur les neiges des matins. Jamais plus un homme. Maintenant, autant que mon corps mon imagination en a pris son parti. Malgré tout, c’est étrange de n’être plus un corps; il y a des moments où cette bizarrerie, par son caractère définitif, me glace le sang. Ce qui me navre, bien plus que ces privations, c’est de ne plus rencontrer en moi de désirs neufs: ils se flétrissent avant de maître dans ce temps raréfié qui est désormais le mien. Jadis les jours glissaient sans hâte, j’allais plus vite qu’eux, mês projets m’emportaient. Maintenant, les heures trop courtes me mènent à bride abattue vers ma tombe. J’évite de penser: dans dix ans, dans un an. Les souvenirs s’exténuent, les mythes s’écaillent, les projets avortent dans l’oeuf: je suis là et les choses sont là. Si ce silence doit durer, qu’il semble long, mon bref avenir!

Yes, the biological pressure is paramount, we are after all just animals product of the time honoured evolutionary process, meant to live. And then, there is always the perfect poem by Dorothy Parker, more insightful than most philosophical treaties.

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Le Temps Retrouvé, par Marcel Proust

I lack the talent to write a roper critic of this book - considering the ensemble of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu. I'll just say that since the first time I read it, in my early 20s, and every time I reread it - a few times by now - as soon as I reach the end I feel an urge to start reading it all over again. But then I prefer to wait a few years, and the pleasure of rediscovery is all the greatest. This was the first time I read it in French, a challenge I'm happy I took, for the original language is much more beautiful than the Portuguese translation I have. This is definitely the book I would take to that hypothetical deserted island. And who knows, maybe next time I'll be able to write better about it.

In the Shadow of the Sword - The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World, by Tom Hoilland

This is an extremely interesting book, about a most fascinating time. As usual, Tom Holland writes about history as an adventure novel, which makes it a very pleasant read, even if sometimes he uses too much the passive sentences, but that's his style. Sometimes he seems to assume too much, but the matter of the book seems very well researched, and his depiction of the development of Islam from the turbulent struggles between Byzantium and Persia, Judaism and Christianity, is very interesting, insightful and thought provoking. I found extremely interesting his depiction of the origins of Islam, and so very likely. And I think it's very praiseworthy for someone to write History is such a readable and pleasant way, in the tradition of Gibbon. Knowing History is the best way to understand the development of our society, and if it's not always comfortable, it's always most useful.

Less, by Andrew Sean Greer

I loved this book. Can't remember why I put it on my to read list a few months ago, probably because a review caught my attention, and by the time I ordered it I noticed it had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The writing is elegant, witty and joyful, the main character is extremely believable and loveable, the plot clever, ironic and healthily self-deprecating in the way it depicts, criticizes but also loves the modern literary milieu / establishment. All that, and lots of intelligent and witty reflections about reaching middle-age and what it means to be accomplished - something I particularly related to, being the adequate age - and about love and happiness. At a certain point, the character asks himself one of the most important questions about love - is it the good dear thing? or is it the lightning bolt? I think the story gives us his answer, and I absolutely agree with it.

I'm glad there are such good books being written, and think I will check other Andrew Sean Greer's books.

Beach Rats, by Eliza Hittman

This is a beautiful movie, that conveys its message - mostly about longing, coming of age and the wish to belong even when one does not know what to (and isn't that one of the main features of adolescence?) - in an extremely visual, almost voyeuristic, way. And simultaneously very emotional, once more in a mostly visual, wordless, way, by creating atmospheres with the camera eye. Isn't this what cinema is all about after all? It somehow reminded me of the art of silent movies, when they knew how to tell a story without any speech.

The performances are outstanding, especially the main character, the girlfriend and the mother. I was really impressed, it's a magnificent piece of cinema art.

Before My Feet Touch the Ground, a documentary by Daphni Leef

I just watched this documentary by the Israeli activist and filmmaker Daphni Leef, and I found it very interesting and great food for thought.
It’s a very accomplished documentary, in the way it depicts very vividly the 2011 protests in Israel against the housing prices, how they grew, and the emotional and political development of Daphni, one of its main organizers. She was at the session, and I was very positively impressed by her intelligence and articulate ideas, and how much she grew intellectually since those early days of notoriety. I congratulate her for that, and for the courage it took to expose her doubts, humanity and privacy so poignantly and honestly.

But then there are the questions raised by those street movements that took place in those years, what did they mean, what is the aftermath, now that 7 years have gone by?

I will not discuss here the movements of the Arab spring; even if they happened at the same time and maybe the momentum was related, in Egypt, Syria or Libya, they were true revolutions crushed by totalitarian regimes and military coups or civil war, they are wonderfully and painfully chronicled in books like The City Always Wins, Guapa or The Queue – and certainly in others I haven’t read – and they belong to a different category from the street movements that took place in Western and democratic countries like Israel, Spain or the US, and I think it would be unfair and wrong to group them together.

So I’ll focus on these movements – the Occupy movements in Spain and the US and the protests in Israel. And I’ll say that the question that I wish to ask basically is: what did they accomplish? What are the results, 7 years later? And the answer I give myself is pretty dire. In Spain, they had the appalling government of Rajoy until last week. We had Brexit, and Trump was elected as president in the US. I don’t know about the rents in Israel, but my friends there keep complaining about the cost of living in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu is still Prime Minister and that annoying Regev woman is minister of Culture, so I guess things probably didn’t change for the best.

So, what’s left? A sense of huge disappointment. So maybe we should look critically at those events to try to learn from them. Was it the right way to fight? In my opinion, supported by the aftermath, definitely not. Looking back, I see a lot of well intentioned and very naïve people, dreaming of the ‘60s protest movements, manifesting against what they call “the system”, that they feel it fails them – and it does, in many ways – and getting inebriated by their capacity to be visible, wishing to change the world because they feel it’s supposed to be changed – which I agree to. But, after all the marches, feelings of communion, partying to the sounds of Redemption Song or People Have the Power, what happened? They had their minutes – or weeks – of fame, and then people just got tired, changed the channel and everything went back to the same – or worse. “The system” didn’t even need to be violent, it just reaped the fruits of boredom and inertia. And things did not only change but actually worsened – vd Netanyahu, Trump, Rajoy, Brexit.

So my point is – this is not the way to make things better. How much flawed “the system” may be – and it is, in many ways, dominated by greedy and wealthy people and corporations – the way to change and make things better in Western democracies – and, however imperfect they may be, they’re still the best way of government we’ve achieved – is not by chanting and screaming, but by participating in politics in an educated and informed way, moving “the system” according to our ideas, putting aside petty disagreements and inflated egos, and creating honest and reliable political parties with honest and progressive ideas. I believe the way forward is to perfect “the system”, with trials and errors like the “geringonça” we’re experiencing in Portugal at the moment, that is working, and I hope they will try now in Spain. Less folklore and more efficacy. More education and responsibility and less demagogy.

La Nuit sera calme, par Romain Gary

It's always interesting how one comes across a book or an author. In the case of Romain Gary, I was curious about him after reading very flattering references in Pumpkinflowers, by Matti Friedman - he mentioned particularly Les Cerfs-Volants, so this was the first Romain Gary book I read, and I was hooked. He's a wonderful writer, and his book La Vie Devant Soi, written under the pseudonym Émile Ajar, is one of the books that moved me the most in the last few years.

La Nuit sera calme is a kind of a long interview, des entretiens, as they say in French, and in it Romain Gary comes across as an extremely intelligent, interesting and sensible man of the 20th century, from a time and place when French culture was still at its best. It shows how sound political thinking and honest morals are timeless, and it somehow gives us some hope - as long as there are intelligent and committed people there is still some hope...

La vraie valeur n’a jamais rien à craindre de ces mises à l’épreuve par le sarcasme et la parodie, par le défi et par l’acide, et toute personnalité politique qui a de la stature et de l’authenticité sort indemne de ces agressions. La vraie morale n’a rien à redouter de la pornographie – pas plus que les hommes politiques, qui ne sont pas des faux-monnayeurs, de Charlie Hebdo, du Canard enchaîné, de Daumier ou de Jean Yanne. Bien au contraire: s’ils sont vrais, cette mise à l’épreuve par l’acide leur est toujours favorable. La dignité n’est pas quelque chose qui interdit l’irrespect: elle a au contraire besoin de cet acide pour révéler son authenticité.

L’O.N.U. a été dévorée par le cancer nationaliste. Le nationalisme, surtout quand il est jeune, frais et pimpant, c’est d’abord le droit de disposer sans appel d’un peuple – par tyrannie intérieure – au nom du droit des peuples à disposer d’eux-mêmes. C’est le droit de couper les mains ou le clitoris des filles, de lapider les femmes adulteres, de fusiller, d’exterminer, de torturer, au nom du droit du peuple à disposer de lui-même. Tu peux faire tuer un million d’hommes à l’intérieur des frontières de ton pays et siéger aux Nations Unies à la Commission des Droits de l’homme, monter à la tribune de l’Assemblée générale et prononcer un discours sur la liberte, l’égalité et la fraternité et te faire acclamer, parce que les affaires intérieures d’un État, c’est sacré.

Sur le plan de la réalité seule, l’homme, enfin, c’est indiscernable, parce que toutes les notions de fraternité, de démocratie, de liberte, sont des valeurs de convention, on n eles reçoit pas de la nature, ce sont des décisions, des choix, des proclamations d’imaginaire auxquelles solvente on sacrifie sa vie pour leur donner vie.
Ces rapports “chien sans maître” avec Dieu ou avec l’absence de Dieu, que Dieu soit ressentit comme une préférence ou comme un manque, sont toujours des rapports avec un collier et une laisse qui me sont totalement étrangers.

Frankenstein in Baghdad, by Ahmed Saadawi

I was really impressed by this book. It's a wonderfully written tale, between the fantastic / surrealistic and the factual depiction of a war torn city, where the surreal of the imagination blends smoothly with the surreal of life under those conditions, creating an atmosphere simultaneously dreamlike and starkly real. Adding to that masterly storytelling a touch of dark humour, the author creates a true masterpiece.

The human capacity to live under extreme circumstances always fascinates me, and it is extremely vivid in this book. I'm also always interested in reading about the present events and realities of the Middle Eastern turmoils, told by people who experience them, instead of the black-and-white pictures the news convey us. So, this book is one of several about this subject that I've greatly appreciated in the last year: Guapa, The City Always Wins, The Queue.

A beautiful, moving and disturbing book, I highly recommend it.

Mémoires de La Rochefoucauld

I first became acquainted with the duke de La Rochefoucauld through the books of Alexandre Dumas - La Guerre des Femmes and the Trois Mousquetaires series. These books, that I read in childhood, left me an indelible taste for everything regarding the Fronde and its troubles - later I read the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, du cardinal de Retz, and there were still lots of references to that troubled period in Saint-Simon. So I guess it was just a matter of time until I read La Rochefoucauld. And I'm glad I did - the language is extremely elegant - and how I love that archaic French! - and the narrative reads like a Dumas novel - actually, it was from this book that Dumas took the idea for the diamonds jewels in Les Trois Mousquetaires. Never boring, it is extremely interesting in the way it shows how politics was done in those days, the Nobility privileges and what they considered their God-given rights, and all the petty intrigues that determined such important and fateful events as a Civil war. It sounds simultaneously familiar and remotely romantic.

I wonder what will be the next book I'll read about the Grand Siècle?

The Sparsholt Affair, by Alan Hollinghurst

Years ago, I loved The Line of Beauty, and then read Alan Hollinghurst's previous books and liked them extremely, especially The Swimming Pool Library and The Folding Star. Later, The Stranger's Child was a disappointment, and now I was curious about his latest book, The Sparsholt Affair.

I was glad it is a much better book than The Stranger's Child, but it still felt like a somehow failed book. It reminded me of Virginia Woolf's The Years - a good read, a clever period piece, elegantly written, but somewhat weak, falling short of the author's capacity, failing to achieve that sense of "yes, this is it" that a truly great book does, it leaves us with the feeling that its point was not quite made.

But it's still a good book, so I guess I'll wait for Hollinghurst's next work and read it.

A nice holiday in Portugal, Spain and Paris

I usually consider a holiday to be truly fulfilling when I leave my familiar surroundings, travel some place I've never been to, discover new sights (and, if I'm lucky, new people). But sometimes it feels just as good to revisit familiar places, especially in good company - the joy of seeing and experiencing again can be just as good as the pleasure of seeing anew. And that's what I did this time, the occasion was a visit from a dear Aussie friend - - someone who showed me his country in two fantastic and unforgettable roadtrips (and whose acquaintance is one of the many reasons I'll always be grateful to Facebook), and to whom I looked forward to share some of my Europe with.

So I started by playing the tourist in Lisbon, something I rarely do, numbed by the familiarity of driving through it every day. But it is really a beautiful city, especially under the clear spring light - the red roofs, the cobblestone streets, the lively squares with café terraces, the Baixa, Chiado, Belém, etc. And of course the tasty food and wine. I felt happy walking around my city, showing famous sights like Jerónimos, the Belém tower, the castle hill, the belvedere in Graça, the Gulbenkian museum, the modern architecture at the Expo 98 site - they have become very (sometimes too) touristic, but there are good reasons for that. I dislike the tacky shops that are taking over the Baixa and the crowds in Belém, but it's still a remarkable city, and I was proud of it.

The weather was beautiful, and then I showed him the Cascais line, Guincho, Azenhas-do-Mar and the Capuchos convent in Sintra; another day was spent visiting Cabo Espichel, Sesimbra and the Arrábida, where we had a great fish lunch at Portinho.

My friend is a great admirer of Islamic architecture (and a keen fan of Game of Thrones) so then we went on a roadtrip to Andalusia. We stopped in Évora, Monsaraz and the Alqueva, gloriously beautiful in spring, and stayed at Seville, where we visited the town and the Alcazar, the shooting place of Dorne in Game of Thrones. Ate a lot of calamares and oxtail, and enjoyed the lively sevillian street life.

From Seville we went to Granada, one of my favourite Spanish cities. The Albaicin, the walk by the Darro, the Alhambra at sunset, everything was as beautiful as I remembered it from my visit exactly 10 years ago. I hadn't visited the Realejo, the old Jewish quarter, before, and it was a joy to walk up its narrow and winding stairs.

After Granada, Cordoba. The city is beautiful, and the Great Mosque one of the most amazing buildings I ever saw, with its forest of columns and its unique bending of styles - Roman columns supporting Islamic arches and then Gothic reliefs. And we got a treat of a contest of Flamenco dances by young people at the Plaza de las Tendillas, lots of fun.

Near Cordoba, we visited the castle of Almodóvar del Rio, Highgarden in Game of Thrones, a restored castle overlooking a beautiful Spanish landscape.

Then back to Portugal, driving by beautiful olive groves and vineyards. A visit to Sintra, the amazing National Palace (probably my favourite Portuguese palace) and the Quinta da Regaleira, an early 20th century folly with lovely gardens and the romantic well.

To end the holidays, nothing could be better than a few days in Paris, in a glorious spring weather. We stayed at he Marais, one of my favourite Parisian neighbourhoods, and walked miles and miles - along the Rive Gauche (Saint-Germain-des-Prés, etc), the Champs-Elysées, the Île Saint-Louis. I love Paris, and never get tired of it.

We visited the Musée Picasso, that had fascinated me some 20 years ago. It has been extensively renovated since, and I missed many of his '20s paintings and the Las Niñas studies that I had so much admired then, but I guess they haven't enough space to show their whole collection, and there was a very good exhibition about the Guernica.

Paris, Granada, Cordoba, Seville. Lisbon... and good company. Can one ask for something better?

Sleep Demons, an Insomniac Memoir, by Bill Hayes

Another very good book by Bill Hayes. I particularly love how he weaves his memoirs along with the depictions of sleep disturbances. And how moving and engaging his memoirs of the AIDS epidemic are. As is the narrative of his coming to terms with his sexuality and his life. And his writing is extremely elegant and intelligent. I highly recommend his books.

Albertine Disparue, par Marcel Proust

I enjoy so much rereading Proust, he's the best writer EVER. So insightful and clever, in the most beautiful and elegant prose. Albertine is the perfect embodiment of an object of desire and longing, and the author's depiction of mourning is just perfect. And then there are all the other perfect scenes, from the article in the Figaro to the gossip and considerations about the society weddings and homosexual husbands.

Proust is definitely the author whose books I would take to that desert island.

Rubicon, by Tom Holland

I always loved History, and always had a particularly soft spot for Ancient History - first through a fascination with archaeology, then the Greek myths, then the exciting perversity of the TV series I, Claudius, and so on. Later I read Suetonius, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Edward Gibbon, and I still love to get my hands on a good book about Roman history; fortunately there are still people writing them. I enjoyed Tom Holland's Dynasty, so I now read this one, and it's also very good. Holland writes History like a novelist, sometimes like a thriller writer, and his books are a pleasure to read. What fiction drama could be more fetching than the turbulent last century of the Roman Republic? It would take a really imaginative mind to invent such characters and plot. From the Gracchi to Augustus, it's hard to imagine a more remarkable set of people, like Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Clodius, Antony, Cleopatra. Some people can say this somewhat romanticised and fictionalised way of writing history is not serious enough, but I disagree - history writing is always a kind of fiction since it assumes a lot and weaves a more or less plausible explanation for the events, so as long as the facts are right (according to what we know for the moment, of course, which may change), it's perfectly legitimate to imagine what those people felt, and it's definitely a very engaging way to capture our interest and make us wonder about human nature and aspirations, not that different from our own whenever the epoch.

So I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes History in general and Roman history in particular.

Everyone is Watching, by Megan Bradbury

A lovely book about New York City, focused on its history through an artistic vantage point. Very well written, it has a certain dreamy character. And it makes one want to see the art works the author talks about, like the beautiful photos by Robert Mapplethorpe or Thomas Eakins.It's also about how cities change, the nostalgia for a lost past, and the bittersweet effects of gentryfication. A very good debut novel.

La Grande Illusion, de Jean Renoir

This is a wonderful movie - beautifully directed and acted, a strong story about war and changing times, solidarity and humanity in hard times. It's amazingly modern for the time when it was made (1937) - the use of different languages (something unthinkable in Hollywood until recently), the portrayal of Germans as men as humane as the French. All in all, a great French movie, on a par with others such as Jeux Interdits, Le Salaire de la Peur or Les Diaboliques.

2084, La Fin du Monde, par Boualem Sansal

A very good book; a novel set in a dystopian world ruled by radical Islam. It cleverly depicts the dangers of religion and theocracy, as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale also did using radical Evangelical Christianism, and the corruption, hypocrisy and moral decadence so characteristic of any totalitarian regime. The writing is excellent, in a beautiful and elegant French.

La religion fait peut-être aimer Dieu mais rien n'est plus fort qu'elle pour faire détester l'homme et haïr l'humanité.

Depressingly true words.

The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis

A very interesting book, worth reading by its content if not by its writing, which is overall fairly poor. But the story is fascinating - it depicts the lives and work of the two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, whose collaboration produced the fundamental work about human bias in decision making, proving that we are not that rational in our choices after all and that our mistakes are actually systematic and so mostly predictable - and unavoidable? It's a knowledge relevant to all fields of work, including Medicine, and explains many of our mistakes in work and life - politics included. So, even if the writing is not that good (but an easy reading nonetheless), it's still worth reading.

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin

A great book by Ursula K. Le Guin, from whom I had loved the first three books of the Earthsea series and the wonderful The Dispossessed, read many years ago. The recent death of the author made me wish to read more from her, and I'm happy I did - this book is intelligent, imaginative and beautiful.