Reading

  What can one say about Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Truman Capote’s miniature opus? The novella, despite its slender spine, has an awesome weight to it, carrying the great mass of reverence that has been heaped upon it since its first publication in 1958. And while the film adaptation does tend to soak up the bulk of this acclaim the judgement of time is still clear: here lies one of America’s finest novel(la)s. So, what’s the deal? Breakfast at Tiffany’s is the tale — told through the first-person eyes of mononymous narrator Fred — of Holly Golightly, a young, beautiful and… Continue Reading →

  Towards the end of 2016, while exploring different books for Leiden’s Book Club reading list, it quickly became apparent to me that a true Leiden reading list should reflect the literary taste of our contributors. And so, At Leiden’s Christmas party, speaking to other contributors about their favourite books, browsing our editor’s bookshelves in between conversations to gather courage for the next (as any introvert would, of course): that is how The Fountainhead came to be on our Book Club reading list; a novel much loved by fellow contributor, Miriam Walsh. I had not previously heard of Ayn Rand… Continue Reading →

  Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, has been on my ‘classics to-read list’ for quite some time. It is a bildungsroman that depicts the psychological, emotional and moral growth of the narrator and protagonist, Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip. Be warned, this is a classic on the more voluminous side – and much more so than this writer expected (that is, I nearly missed the deadline for turning in this review). As an adolescent, I had read Oliver Twist and thoroughly enjoyed it for its satirical humour. I had expected to experience a similar enjoyment with Great Expectations; yet, I find… Continue Reading →