Lots of Reading, Little Blogging

During the beginning of the Financial Crisis I spent virtually all of my reading time focusing on current events and reading articles and research papers online. I now feel I have a much more solid background on what is going on and am focusing on reading books again and while I still keep up with everything that comes in through my RSS feeds things have definitely slowed down since the beginning of the crisis. I do have several unfinished blog posts that I will post in the days ahead and will update more regularly again once I get caught up on some reading that I had to delay in favor of reading online and blogging.

I recently finished George Soros' The New Paradigm for Financial Markets which was interesting as an insight into Soros' thinking (more about that in a later post) but did not really give me any new insight into the economic troubles. After that I decided it was time to make my way through all the China books that have been sitting on my shelf, starting with the Chinese Economy, both The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth and Rural China Takes Off were excellent reads that I recommend highly, Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China, a collection of research studies on reform was less interesting.

Next up were less academic accounts of China, China Inc. and China Road, the former of which was annoying and not very deep while the latter was beautiful and insightful. I was reading them both at the same time (one on audio, the other on paper) and it really made me realize how many 'popular books' try much too hard to seem important and be liked by the reader and thereby simply become exaggerated and boring. Rob Gifford, author of China Road, never tries to force you to appreciate his work but instead gives a wonderfully natural and fun to read account of his journey along Route 312. Now I'm reading The Cambridge Illustrated History of China and next up is Chinese Civilization to be followed by 3 books on Chinese Foreign Policy.

On the fiction side I recently read A Passage to India by E.M. Forster which I loved and which made me want to go back to India again. I was horrified and saddened by the recent attacks in Mumbai having spent three days there in January, relaxing from a hectic Journey through Northern India, but I would not hesitate to go back as early as a few weeks from now. One of my favorite blog posts about the events was this heartfelt post about how terror will never succeed and how our way of life will continue (found via A Fistful of Euros).

After enjoying A Passage to India this much I am now reading A Room with a View, after reading about it in a wonderful travel article on Florence in the NYTimes that references it heavily.

Finally, I want to say how much I've come to love Audiobooks - yes, they are slower than just reading the book myself but they allow me to 'read' while I'm driving to work or working out at the gym and therefore save a lot of time. I don't think I would have as much time to read fiction without them.