Despite this week being one of the busiest weeks at work, the fact that I'm over almost two weeks late with my rent and have had to grind out this weekend in anticipation for March's already-late wages tomorrow meant that I was forced to reflect a lot about my tenure here in Hamburg. Hindrances aside this reluctant weekend of rest has led me to read and 'study' - and reading is what I have done a lot since the turn of the year.
I've never really picked up a book of fiction to read leisurely until this year and it was spurred on by the limitation of having no computer and hence, no internet. This liberated me to seek for other, and more worthwhile, activities and one that I have wholesomely embraced is the act of reading. My landlord's living room walls are literally bookshelves from floor to ceiling which intrigued me in the long winter nights to discover something new. Since departing for Hamburg I've been reading books at an exponential rate where I find myself today even dabbling in a bit of deutsch literature (?!).
A little recap on what I've buried my head into then (in chronological order since October 2009):
- "The Architecture of Happiness" by Alain de Botton
- "The Poetics of Space" by Gaston Bachelard
- "Sketches by Boz" by Charles Dickens (still reading...)
- "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde
- "1984" by George Orwell
- "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- "Atmospheres" by Peter Zumthor
- "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell
Ironically I've read a lot of English literature during a time when I'm not even in the country and in a sense I've got a newfound affinity for London as depicted in some of these tales, whetting my appetite for my return to The Big Smoke.
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