Read recently:

Self, by Yann Martell
A bit of a disappointment, I must say. I expected to love it, because I loved Life of Pi. But I didn't. It never really grabbed me and so took me a long time to read. The idea of gender change was, well... different. But I didn't see what it did for the story. It seemed superfluous to me.
The multi-lingual thing was similarly original but didn't really do much for me either, mainly because most of the time the text appeared to be the same, just in two different languages.
It's not a bad book per sé; it's just one I expected more from.





Een goede man slaat soms zijn vrouw, by Joris Luyendijk.
Very good and informative book about everyday life in Egypt, mainly among Egyptian students. Luyendijk allowed himself to get involved into the lives of his subjects as much as he could, and writes about them with humour, honest curiousity and sometimes endearingly naive. Makes you wonder how people from Western Europe and the Middle East can ever really learn to understand each other, though.






Reading right now:

Maus, vertelling van een overlevende, by Art Spiegelman.
Good stuff. Art tells us about the story of his father and the way he survived the war as a Jew in Europe.
The comic strip format works well and is never in bad taste. The drawing style is simple and stark. It's not funny, nor is it meant to be.
Could be a very good way to tell (older) children about the war and the way it helped shape most of Europe.





All of them ringbooks, as I see now. After this one, I have no ringbooks left for a while, so I can read whatever I choose, which is nice too!