I only started reading consistently again very recently. Hoping to do a lot more in the next year - which might well be easier since my sister bought me a Kobo Aura for Christmas. It's class. I mean, I love physical books - but you can store so many on such a small device, it's easy to find free copies of a lot of books, and you can read with one hand! The minimalist in me is in love.

Currently I'm reading All Quiet on the Western Front on the Kobo. I'm not even sure why , it just seemed like a short, well-known read to put away. I think, though, that we're way over-exposed to depictions of WWI, so it's not exactly as shocking as it may have been in the past.

Reading over the last while:

Dubliners by James Joyce. I have an irrational hatred of Joyce, though I did rather enjoy seeing something of the old Dublin spirit. It makes me wonder about Irish literature in general; I suppose I haven't actually read much, but sometimes I feel like the Irishness is pumped up to the max.

Stráinséirí (Strangers) by Colmán Ó Raghallaigh. I had to buy this when I found it in a second hand shop because it was actually written by a man from my town! He's a well-known Irish author, but this is the first time I've read any of his work. It's fairly short and fairly simple, a story about two schoolgirls, one of whom is a traveller (i.e. Irish gypsy), and some problems that arise in the community as a result of their friendship.

HHhH by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor. First book I read on the Kobo, and I absolutely zoomed through it. It was nice to read something relatively new after mostly reading older books for some time. A sort of meta-historical-novel about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, with a lot of little tangents about the author writing the book itself. Maybe a bit much for some tastes, but I did enjoy it.

Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse, translated by Geoffrey Dunlop. A book that a friend of mine loves and I found a second hand copy with a mysterious inscription, so now it is precious to me. My first exposure to Hesse. I'm not really sure about novels set in a different point of time - you always feel like they just don't quite ring true - but it was interesting, the question of which of two conflicting natures to follow.

Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. Can't remember who translated this. I actually really liked it. Something about the ridiculous French high society is always appealing, even sadistically.