YOU WATCH AND YOU DESPAIR. OR YOU DESPAIR AND YOU WATCH.

What I've read and re-read this year (disclaimer: might have forgotten about some. Also: for the Swedish list, go here):

Margaret Atwood - Moral disorder

Margaret Drabble - The waterfall

Miranda July - No one belongs here more than you.

Sylvia Plath - The bell jar

Lorrie Moore - Who will run the frog hospital?

Alice Munro - Too much happiness

Ali Smith - The accidental

Sue Miller - The senator's wife

A.M. Homes - The safety of objects

A.M. Homes - Music for torching

Truman Capote - Summer crossing

Etgar Keret - The nimrod flip-out

Alison Lurie - Foreign affairs

Melissa Bank - The girl's guide to hunting and fishing

Gabriel Josipovici - Contre-Jour

Kazuo Ishiguro - Nocturnes

Jennifer Egan - A visit from the goon squad

Imre Kertész - Detective story

Michael Cunningham - The hours

Shirley Jackson - We have always lived in the castle

John Fowles - The magus

John Fowles - The collector

Anita Brookner - Look at me

Lydia Davis - The collected stories of Lydia Davis

Lewis Carroll - Alice's adventures in Wonderland

Patti Smith - Just kids

Françoise Sagan - Bonjour tristesse

Françoise Sagan - A certain smile

Doris Lessing - The diaries of Jane Somers

Doris Lessing - Ben, in the world

Finished reading The diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing. Then I went to Tenerife, came back to Sweden yesterday.

HOW TO BECOME A WRITER

Three things:

1) Read Bonjour tristesse and A certain smile by Françoise Sagan. In Bonjour tristesse, Cécile realises that "procrastination can rule our lives, yet not provide us with any arguments in its defence". So true. Instead of working on my essay for the course I'm taking (The Holocaust in European History and Historography) I'm doing, well, anything else, really. I've always been extremely interested in the Holocaust, and have read a crazy amount of books on the subject, but honestly, right now I feel like Kate Winslet in Extras when she says: "I don't think we really need another film about the Holocaust, do we, it's like, how many have there been? You know, we get it, it was grim, move on."

2) Currently reading The diary of a good neighbour by Doris Lessing. From The diaries of Jane Somers. It's quite good, and obviously it would be.

3) Just a link to one of my favourite short stories: How to become a writer by Lorrie Moore. I really recommend The collected stories by Lorrie Moore, as they are all so ridiculously good. So happy I could find How to become a writer on the internet.