Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke

My favourite Clarke so far. Compelling story, and characters. Thought provoking. Whenever you go out at night and see the sky, do you think about what's there? The cosmos is so vast and complex. It's beyond our comprehension. This book is about an alien invasion. But the aliens are not evil or hostile. They come with a purpose. A purpose they don't understand themselves. At the end Clarke reveals the mystery. The revelation is fulfilling I guess but left me with so many questions, wondering how life would be if the ending was real. 🤔 There are 2 or 3 instances in which I got shocked by Clarke's prodigious imagination. Descriptions of the fictitious 21st century society which resemble our reality of the 21st century. And the book was written 70 years ago. 🤔 That's it. Read the book.

The Collected Toppi. Volume Three: South America by Sergio Toppi

5 stories in this volume. Not sure why it's called South America as only 1 of the 5 stories takes place in South America. The other 4 take place in Mexico or thereabouts. Regardless, all the stories are great. A mixture of folklore, myths, traditions and superb art.

Toulouse-Lautrec by Matthias Arnold

When I was in my teens, I read a biography of Toulouse-Lautrec. I don't remember it having illustrations but I don't think I cared. T-L had such and interesting and intense life. I loved the book and I still remember it. Now I got this beautiful book with samples of his work 🙂 A summary of the life and work of Toulouse-Lautrec. Beautiful art.

Invincible by Stanisław Lem

 Short but thought-provoking. Philosophical, powerful story telling. Discusses automatons and inanimate evolution: this last idea blew my mind. It means, more or less, evolution of mechanical devices/ of self-organising metal systems. (Pseudo) Brains, non sentient mechanical things. The alien in this novel is one of my favourites not because of what it does but because of what it is. Halfway through the book there is a mindblowing conversation between the commander of spaceship The Invincible and a scientist in which the latter explains his theory about the origin of the alien they find on planet Regis III. This was the big revelation of the book to me and there is not much more in terms of twist, climax or another epic revelation until the end. But it didn't matter because the story was so good I couldn't stop reading. Another interesting point to me was the main character's reflection about the need to defeat and conquer. He couldn't understand why they had to fight the aliens and not leave them alone.