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.
MAY
May is such a short word. Unfortunately, this might be the last book that starts with a "Y" for this year which means I might have to repeat it in July. We'll see.
M
Gorky, Maxim (Максима Горького) "Mother" (RUS: Мать/Matj) - 1906/07
We learn how hard life is in a village in Russia at the turn into the 20th century and how difficult it is for the ordinary man to feed his family. They had nothing, not even hope that under this government anything would ever get better for them.
The book is mainly about the revolutionists, the underground résistance and why they fought their tsars. We can all imagine but this puts it on paper for all to follow. It's also about the love of her mother to her son and how far she would go in supporting and defending him.
A
Şafak, Elif "Araf" (aka The Saint of Incipient Insanities) - 2004
A story about foreigners living in the United States. Three roommates from Turkey, Morocco and Spain in Boston, one has a Mexican-American, another an American girlfriend. All of them have to fit into the society they are in, they struggle in their own different ways.
Y
Scott, Mary "Yes, Darling" - 1967
Mary Scott's stories were written in the fifties/sixties and times have changed. Or at least I hope so. Because Margaret, the heroine of our story, lets herself being bullied all her life. First by her father, then her husband and in the end by her husband's daughter and nieces. I think this might actually be a good book to discuss feminism and how it shouldn't be.
I think, this time I concentrated more on the life of women in various situations. All quite interesting and definitely a good way to compare our life to those of women in different countries and times.
Well that was easy! ;D
ReplyDeleteDefinitely, Lark. Probably the easiest of the months. But it was fun nonetheless.
DeleteEasy month indeed. I heard the name of Elif Shakraf for the first time the other day. And now it pops up again. Someone thought that his book 'The island of missing trees' was one of the best reads this year. Must try him.
ReplyDeleteI have known Elif Shafak for quite a while now, I think her name came up within our book club where we had several Turkish members over the years. I loved all of her books but haven't read "The Island of Missing Trees". It's her last one, I heard.
DeleteI think you will enjoy her books, Lisbeth.
I don't know any of these books! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI think that's the beauty of this challenge, Davida, to get to know other books and maybe even other authors. I absolutely love it.
DeleteA friend in Australia introduced me to Mary Scott's books, which I enjoyed very much. I don't remember this one well but I see I gave it a 4/5. I will have to find it and refresh my memory. I don't know the other two!
ReplyDeleteOh great, Constance. I know most of them are out of print and I constantly look for some of the original books (I have all of them in a German translation) but just to have a couple is great, I absolutely love her books.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as I said to Davida ^^, it's always great to find new authors. And other readers.