Getting back on the saddle

After a couple of months of post-new employment convalescence I figured I should stop puttering around Tumblr and actually write something for a change. I have a horrific backlog of books to write about, at which I’ll be chipping away like and artist carving a statue with a spoon. Right now I’m reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and having all sorts of ~feelings~ about it.

One of the reasons I want to get back to blogging, however, is my desire to take stock of what I’ve been reading the past year in an attempt to make sense of my tastes and how it must’ve changed since I started blogging. I’ll also be attempting a little project in 2012, despite my obvious inability to keep up with my reading challenges. *coughAtoZChallengecough*

And speaking of things that have been occupying my time, I’d like to promote the Philippine Go Association‘s 1st GBC Open Tournament on December 10:

A little off-topic, perhaps, but I’ll be reading The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata in an attempt to bring it full circle.

Stiff by Mary Roach

In my quest to read more non-fiction this year, I went ahead and bought this book which I’ve been hearing about for a long time. As someone who gorges on police procedurals on a regular basis (let me tell you about my feelings for Idris Elba’s Luther one of these days), the subject matter is right up my alley.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers is a series of long form essays by journalist Mary Roach that tackles the adventurous (after)lives of corpses that are used for scientific research. From the long-standing and ghoulish tradition of bodysnatching for medical schools to the relatively recent educational facility called the “body farm,” Roach examines not only the mechanics of corpse-related experimentation, but also the ethical and practical implications of doing such work.