Reading has been a habit of mine since I was young. I have maintained it since then.

I try to reserve the last part of the day, often late at night, for reading. This past year was no exception. I tend to read both fiction and non-fiction. Usually, I alternate between both – a pattern I have found both useful and practical. I find fiction to be a welcome break from my daily tasks, but I also need my staple of non-fiction, which ranges from autobiographies to biographies to memoirs. What follows is a section of both local and foreign titles.

I happened to discover the fictional works of Iraqi writer Hassan Blasim at a bookshop earlier this year, and at first glance, I took an instant liking to his writings to the extent that I bought two of his publications.

The Madmen of Freedom Square is a collection of fictional short stories that presents an uncompromising examination of Western involvement in Iraq and a haunting critique of displacement and the postwar refugee experience. The Iraqi Christ is another brilliant work of fiction by Blasim. It tells the story of a soldier who can predict his future, and who finds himself blackmailed by an insurgent into the ultimate act of terror. In another story, from this collection of short stories, an Iraqi shopkeeper falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which sits the corpse of a soldier, and a djinni.

I was introduced to the works of the late V.S. Naipaul by a friend of mine who is an avid reader of post-colonial literature. A Nobel laureate in literature and a writer from the Caribbean, Naipaul was a master of fiction. He drew on his experience in Britain, having left his home country, Trinidad, while still a young man. His experience at Oxford University and then as a writer in the UK is fascinating.

Perhaps his best-known work of fiction is his novel ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’. It is the story of Mohun Biswas, like Naipaul, an Indo-Trinidadian who marries into the influential Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it. Biswas eventually manages to reach his goal of owning his own house. This novel, which offers profound insight into the lives of migrants, draws heavily on the author’s father’s experiences, as he is also a writer. ‘The Mimic Men’ is another novel masterfully written by V.S. Naipaul, and it too draws on the author’s experience as a migrant and on the postcolonial world. The plot centers on Ralph Singh, an Indo-Caribbean politician in exile in London, as he attempts to write his political memoirs.

Haruka Murakami is another great novelist, best known for his novel ‘Norwegian Wood’, which brought him global fame in the world of literature. I have recently read a non-fiction book of his that I found truly insightful. In his memoir, ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’, Murakami recounts his four-decade experience of running, a habit he has maintained and nurtured over the years. Much of the book describes his training for the New York City Marathon. Murakami says that “Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.”

In a year dominated by the war in Gaza, I found Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape, by Raja Shehadeh, truly insightful about the plight of Palestinians and their quest for freedom. We follow Shehadeh on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. At first, the walks are pleasant, but as the olive trees are chopped down to make way for the settlements, the author’s experience becomes intense, as the land he once roamed freely turns into disputed territory.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy is a classic work of literature. It tells the story of a high-court judge in 19th-century Russia who is terminally ill and eventually dies. It is an introspective, emotional novel that grapples with death and faith. Tolstoy wrote this novel shortly after his religious conversion.

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man. His business conglomerate ranges from X, formerly Twitter, to Tesla, the electric car maker, to space exploration. Elon Musk is the story of this man, who, for a brief stint served, controversially, in the Donald Trump White House, told by Walter Isaacson. It is a fascinating story of a young man who, from humble origins, became the world’s wealthiest man. Isaacson trailed Musk for a couple of years, and in this publication, he unmasks Musk’s ruthless, at times maniacal determination.

Team of Rivals – The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a fascinating biography of US President Abraham Lincoln by Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. It portrays this former US President as a politician who managed to perfectly reconcile the controversial, at times conflicting personalities of three men, who had previously run against him in the 1860 election and who, from political rivals, became his biggest political contributors. Lincoln and his team went on to abolish slavery in the US and won the American Civil War.

Source Code is Bill Gates’ latest publication. He writes about his childhood and the early years of Microsoft. In this memoir, the first of a three-part series, is candid about his own flaws, beginning with an intensely competitive nature. He is spare in his portrayal of the slight, highpitched young man whose insecurity and sense of being uncool fuelled an unrelenting ambition.

Noti is the latest publication by my dear friend Mario Cutajar, the former Head of the Civil Service between 2013 and 2022, and presently Chairman of Heritage Malta. Mario writes about his long years of experience in public administration, the highs and lows of public life, about Valletta, his birthplace, about the people he worked with within the civil service, and the politicians he worked with. Noti is a page turner. I highly recommend this memoir.

Former Prime Minister and Labour leader Alfred Sant is one of Malta’s foremost novelists and playwrights. A few weeks ago, I re-read L-Ewwel Weraq tal-Bajtar, one of Dr Sant’s first works of fiction. It is an excellent autobiographical novel, first published in 1968, re-released in 2018, exploring Maltese identity and traditional mentality. Alfred went on to write some of the best works of fiction and non-fiction ever to be penned by a Maltese writer. His latest autobiography, Confessions of a European Maltese – The Middle Years, follows on from his first publication in this series, Confessions of a European Maltese – The Early Years. In ‘The Middle Years’, Alfred describes the significant transformations in Malta’s economic, educational, and political spheres.

I look forward to reading more interesting publications, from both Malta and abroad, in the new year. Definitely I will be more adventurous in the choice of books and I want to read more works of emerging authors hailing from distant corners of the world.

It is also a mission of mine to start reading in different languages apart from the staple Maltese, English and Italian. I can read short stories or poems in French, Spanish or Arabic but so far I did not yet master these languages well enough to read a whole book without stopping each time to check what this and that word means.

But then again practice makes perfect, and I am definately in for a good measure of language practice in these three languages which I absolutely adore. I am sure it will be worth the effort – translations are good but they are never perfect aren’t they?

I wish you, dear readers, and your loved ones, a healthy and peaceful 2026.

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