19 Ramadhan, 1446
I'm looking at a reading list that my cousin John passed to me back in December. It's headed Beer, Blokes N' Books and features the titles of some 70+ novels his informal reading 'club' have tackled over the last couple of years (or possibly longer, I'm not too sure.) What I'm struck by is the sheer range of material they've engaged in, including a few meaty classics, with Middlemarch scoring particularly well. John explained to me how the ratings applied to each book were worked out, but I can't recall the process. I just know it sounded remarkably thorough for a group of blokes presumably reading just for the heck of it.
The thing is that John showed me the list almost deferentially, as if half-apologising for intruding on my territory. Yet the list puts my limited reading of the last couple of years to shame. I'd not even heard of their highest ranked tome, Kate Grenville's The Secret River, and had to google it just now. So much for my area of expertise, eh?
Ziauddin Sardar makes a big deal of The Holy Qur'an's call for humility, and rightly so. I interpret it as simply a recognition of the reality of our place in the vastness of it all. We're not up to very much, I'm afraid. But that can't be an excuse for not trying. And good on the blokes for giving it more than a go on the fiction front.
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