Recently
Half of April was travel, which was great. Travel means airports, planes, books, and photography. I’m a huge fan of all of those.
Reading
Books
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Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever.
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Children of Gebelawi is one of the most famous books written by Naguib Mahfouz, and is the one that almost got him killed. The book is a fictionalization of the Quran – i.e., retelling the stories of the Old and New Testaments in a storyline that takes place in an Egyptian neighbourhood. That is a pretty blasphemous thing to do I guess.
The book is a classic, and that is the reason I bothered to read it, and it wasn’t bad, but I think its quality is surpassed by its reputation.
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The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.
I watched the movie before I read the book. The movie was great. If I spent the time to write a top 10 movies list it would probably be there. These are my favourite roles for Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and maybe even Brad Pitt.
The book was well-written and didn’t waste time or have a lot of filler.
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Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression.
This essay was written by Charb, or Stéphane Charbonnier, a journalist and cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo who was killed in the terrorist attack on January 7, 2015, only days after finalizing the draft of the essay.
It is very well-written, and more nuanced and thoughtful than you think. I highly recommend it.