Reading has been sporadic since I got to Shanghai. Have stalled almost completely on Proust, but haven’t been totally idle. Finished Twenty Minutes in Manhatten, which appraoches urban design and history with the lovely conceit of a 20 minute walk to work from the author’s apartment. Also started and finished More Work for Mother since my last journal. It’s an elegantly done history, lovely writing style, covers its ground without breaking a sweat, not prone to airy theorising, Cohen keeps her commentary close to the sources. Am deep into Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the early 20th Century and enjoying it. Not quite written in an encyclopedic style, but something close to it, without the alphabetic headings. Lu lets everything be loosely tied by everyday life and uses the freedom to explore all corners of experience without worrying too much about making grand statements, and the book is all the better for it.

Chinese reading has been haphazard. Went to nearby bookshop and brought a four volume set of Lin Huiyin’s 林徽因 works and Yu Hua’s 余华 Chronicle of a blood merchant 许三观卖血记 which I have been reading during down-times at my desk in the teacher’s office.