Spell the Month in Books ~ January 2022

 

I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Books are the New Black who found it at One Book More. It was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles.

JANUARY

New Year, fresh start. I have decided to go with the rules this year, as far as I can, of course.

J
Mak, Geert "Jorwerd: The Death of the Village in late 20th Century" (NL: Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd) - 1996
The subtitle of this book says it all. This story about a small village in Friesland could be the story of most small villages in Europe. The changes it underwent in the first half of the 20th century, changing from farming to a commuting place, the influence of modern technology on a people that had lived off the land for centuries is universal.

A
Collins, Wilkie "Armadale" - 1866
Victorian literature at its best. The confessions on a death bed and what they lead to.

N
Zweig, Stefanie - "Nowhere in Africa" (GE: Nirgendwo in Afrika) - 1995
We are writing the year 1938 and Jewish attorney Walter Redlich manages to flee Nazi Germany in the last minute. An almost-autobiography of author Stefanie Zweig.

U
Whitehead, Colson "Underground Railroad" - 1916
The story of a slave, who tries to run away from her abusive "master" - brilliant description of everyone involved, the slaves, their helpers, ordinary people who just think it's not right to own other human beings. Written from many perspectives, it also gives us a new idea about the "underground" part of the railroad.

A
Doerr, Anthony "All the Light We Cannot See" - 2014
A different kind of war story, a story about the little people, on either side of the war, those that had not much to say about what was happening to them and who paid the highest price. The story of a German orphan boy and a blind French girl who both suffer from what happened, who were probably not even in school when the election in Germany decided about their fate and who had to pay the highest price.

R
Nafisi, Azar "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books" - 2003
A beautifully written memoir about a dark time, not just a book about different books and a class discussing them, it is a precise account of a country turning from modern times into the past, taking away the human rights of half of their population, something that happens all over this world.

Y
Schrobsdorff, Angelika "You Are Not Like Other Mothers" (GE: Du bist nicht so wie andre Mütter) - 1992
The life of a Jewish mother at the beginning of the last century.