Verghese, Abraham "The Covenant of Water"

Verghese, Abraham "The Covenant of Water" - 2023

A fantastic book. I always wanted to read "Cutting for Stone" but somehow never did. However, it has moved up on my wishlist and is at the top now.

"The Covenant of Water" is a wonderful story about a family over the length of most of a century. I have known quite a few priests from that area of India, Kerala, and this book is about the Catholics down there.

But that is only on the side. The most important part is the search of the family for the reason that so many of their members have drowned over the centuries. 

You can tell the author belongs to the medical profession because he reports about this quest in such detail that you can follow it so well, even if you have no medical training at all.

But we also get to learn about the society in that part of India. Part of it is like the rest of the country but since It is so large, it should be no surprise that it also has its differences.

Granted, this is a large book, over 700 pages, but I read this in no time, devoured it. I'm not surprised Oprah has picked it for her book club, she always choses great novels.

In any case, I can only recommend this.

From the back cover:

"From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning - and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl - and future matriarch, Big Ammachi - will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years."

And then there is a great remark about reading:
"When I come to the end of a book and I look up, just four days have passed. But in that time I've lived though three generations and learned more about the world and about myself than I do during a year in school Ahab, Queequeg, Ophelia, and others die on the page so that we might live better lives."

#ThrowbackThursday. July 2011 Part 1

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the third week of July 2011.

Borchert, Wolfgang "Complete Works" (GE: Das Gesamtwerk) - 1945/47
Wolfgang Borchert is one of my favourite authors. His work is one of the most important in the so called "Rubble literature" (Trümmerliteratur) of post-war Germany. 

Fitzgerald, F. Scott "The Great Gatsby" - 1925
There was a lot said about society where I often thought, great that we don't have those problems any more. But do we?

Hosseini, Khaled "A Thousand Splendid Suns" - 2007
This is only one of many Afghanistan books I read with my book club over the years. Such an important subject. We had a lot of positive comments to this novel. Good story, gripping, difficult to put down, drew you into this subject, spirit of the human heart, how people can find pleasure and joy.

Oz, Amos "A Tale of Love and Darkness" (Hebr: סיפור על אהבה וחושך) - 2002

Amos Oz, was born in Jerusalem and grew up in the early days of the new state in a very academic family from Lithuania, one of the many families who had to flee Europe at the eve of the most terrible war ever.

He tells us about the early days of the new Jewish state and how he grew up, he also reminisces on the past of Jewish culture, literature, language and, more importantly, on his mother's depression and suicide. 

This is not just the story of a young man and his family, it's a saga about the whole Jewish people from Europe to Israel. Today even more important than twenty years ago.

Petterson, Per "Out Stealing Horses" (NO: Ut og stjæle hester) - 2003
Interesting story. A man reflects on his life. The novel starts in Norway's forests and it ends there. After his wife dies, a man goes back to a place he spent a summer in his youth. He is coming to terms with so many events in his life. Death, divorce, tragedies, growing up, growing old.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ International Travel

  

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

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This week’s topic is International Travel. Meeghan says: "Whether it’s a fictional land or ours, let’s share all of those travels across countries, whether by sea, air, or land. You could even find a book where the characters jump over a border!"

I always used to like travelling, especially to foreigner countries. However, I didn't make it as far as many of the authors I read. But that makes it even more exciting. Today, I will take you from Europe (Norway, France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey) to Afghanistan, then along the border around Russia through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage, after that around the United States and then to Iran. Have a good trip! 

Bryson, Bill "Neither Here Nor There. Travels in Europe" - 1991

Elliot, Jason "An Unexpected Light. Travels in Afghanistan" - 1999

Fatland, Erika "The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage" (NO: Grensen: En reise rundt Russland gjennom Nord-Korea, Kina, Mongolia, Kasakhstan, Aserbajdsjan, Georgia, Ukraina, Hviterussland, Litauen, Polen, Latvia, Estland, Finland og Norge samt Nordøstpassasjen) - 2017

Fry, Stephen "Stephen Fry in America" - 2009

Orth, Stephan "Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World" (GE: Couchsurfing im Iran - Meine Reise hinter verschlossene Türen) - 2015

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✈🚂🚅 Happy Reading! 🚂🚅✈

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Top Ten Tuesday ~ Debut Novels

   

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

This week's topic is: Debut Novels

The choice was tough. There are so many different authors that I love and where I loved the debut novels.

Ali, Monica "Brick Lane" - 2003
Allende, Isabel "The House of the Spirits" (E: La casa de los espíritus) (The House of the Spirits #1) - 1982
Frazier, Charles "Cold Mountain" - 1997
Hosseini, Khaled "The Kite Runner" - 2003
Lessing, Doris "The Grass is Singing" - 1950
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Prince of Mist" (E: El príncipe de la niebla) - 1993
Rutherfurd, Edward "Sarum: the Novel of England" - 1987
Smith, Zadie "White Teeth" - 1999
Stockett, Kathryn "The Help" - 2009
Zusak, Markus "The Book Thief" - 2005

While some of them are not my favourites of the respective author, I still love them all.

📚 Happy Reading! 📚

🥐 Paris in July 2024 🥐

Welcome to another exciting month where we exchange reviews about books we read about Paris. Last year (2023), I posted the books I read where Paris is either the topic or at least part of the read and the books I read about France or the French language and the books I read last year for Paris in July.

I found the challenge at Lisbeth @ The Content Reader. Tamara @ Thyme for Tea has been hosting a Paris in July challenge for eleven years. Then, she hosted together with Deb @ Readerbuzz. In 2022, Emma @ Words and Peace kindly took over as the host and she continues to do so. The picture  at the top is also created by her.

I don't have a lot of energy to participate this year by reading new books about Paris, but I tried to take part through the Paris Bingo. I will try to add books etc. I have not used in any of the Paris in July years before (though it is hard and therefore cannot be entirely avoided).

PARIS in title
Rutherfurd, Edward "Paris" - 2013

FRANCE in title
Stein, Gertrude "Paris France" - 1940

BOOK set in France
Ernaux, Annie "The Years" (FR: Les années) - 2008

MOVIE set in France
Leroux, Gaston "The Phantom of the Opera" (French: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) - 1910

French FOOD
Drinkwater, Carol "The Olive Farm" - 2001

French FASHION
Guiliano, Mireille "French Women Don’t Get Fat" - 2004

French MUSIC
Francis Cabrel "La Corrida"

French FLAG
Hugo, Victor "Les Misérables" (F: Les Misérables) - 1862

French HISTORY (not just French but funny)
Shaw, Karl "Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty" - 1999

TRAVELS in France
Mayle, Peter "A Year in Provence" - 1989

PLAY set in France
Ionesco, Eugène "Rhinoceros" (French: Rhinocéros) - 1957

OTHER!
Voltaire "Candide, or Optimism" (F: Candide, ou l'Optimism) - 1757

EIFFEL TOWER
Dorling Kindersley "Eyewitness Guide Paris" and "Top 10 Paris" - 2020

CROISSANT
I haven't read a book that has a croissant on my edition but I found one that has a croissant on the Portuguese one:

Clarke, Stephen "A Year in the Merde" - 2004 - Um Ano Em França

French ART
Chevalier, Tracy "The Lady and the Unicorn" - 2003

French LANGUAGE

Némirovsky, Irène "La Proie" [The Prey] - 1938

I am looking forward to seeing many posts by other Paris enthusiasts.

🥐 Joyeux Juillet 🥐

#ThrowbackThursday. June 2011 Part 3

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the third week of June 2011.

Collins, Wilkie "The Moonstone" - 1868

This is said to be the first detective language in English, a classic epistolary novel, and this is an outstanding one. His "multi-narration" method, the way all the different characters tell their part of the story, just fascinating.

Collins, Wilkie "The Woman in White" - 1859

Wilkie Collins is telling the story in so many voices, having it told in an "I" version throughout and still giving us the best view of every scene. I also loved the story itself, the characters, they really came to life. I could just imagine the way they looked like. The description of both the characters as well as the countryside etc. was just great.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor "The Gambler" (Russian: Igrok - Игрок) - 1866

Apparently, Dostoevsky wrote this book simultaneously with "Crime and Punishment" as he was suffering from gambling compulsion.
If you like Russian authors, this author is a definite must.

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Bean Trees" - 1988

Barbara Kingsolver's first novel. Quite an interesting plot about a girl who ends up with a baby that is just left to her. But a lot of other people appear in the novel, abused women and children, illegal immigrants, people who help and people who don't.

Lamb, Wally "I know this much is true" - 1998

My first novel by this author. One of many. This is a very moving book, wonderful and awful at the same time. It's incredible how much a person can bear if they have to.

Lippi, Rosina "Homestead" - 1998

The story of the women of a small village in the Austrian mountains. The story of several generations of women trying to live their lives.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

The Classics Club: The Classics Spin #38

"Words and Peace" is a blog I've been following for a couple of years and I have always found some interesting new (or olde) books there, especially French ones.

On her page, I found the posts by "The Classics Club" asking us to create a post, this time before next Sunday 21^st July 2024, and list our choice of any twenty books that remain "to be read" on our Classics Club list. They'll then post a number from 1 through 20 and we have time until Sunday 22^nd of September 2024 to read it.

This time, I read two books from my old list (Classics Spin #37) ("Growth of the Soil" and "Rebecca"). But there are always some new books that I can add to my challenge. The books are all in chronological order.

1.    Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays" (Lysistrata) - 411BC
2.    Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Urfaust. Faust Fragment. Faust I" (Faust) - 1772-1808
3.    Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" - 1838/39
4.    Dumas, Alexandre fils "Camille: The Lady of the Camellias" (La Dame aux Camélias" - 1848
5.    Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary" (Madame Bovary/ Madame Bovary) - 1857
6.    Turgenjew, Iwan Sergejewitsch "Fathers and Sons" (Отцы и дети/Otzy i deti) - 1862
7.    Conrad, Joseph "Victory: An Island Tale" - 1915
8.    Hamilton, Cicely "William - an Englishman" - 1920
9.    Hesse, Hermann "Wir nehmen die Welt nur zu ernst" [We just take the world too seriously] - 1928
10.   Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury" - 1929
11.   Hemingway, Ernest "A Farewell to Arms" - 1929
12.   Meigs, Cornelia "Invincible Louisa" - 1933
13.   Krleža, Miroslav "On the Edge of Reason" (Na rubu pameti) - 1938
14.   Némirovsky, Irène "Les biens de ce monde" (All Our Wordly Goods) - 1941
15.   Cela, Camilo José "The Family of Pascal Duarte" (La Familia Duarte) - 1942
16.   Zweig, Stefan "Schachnovelle" (The Royal Game/Chess) - 1942
17.   Steinbeck, John "Cannery Row" - 1945
18.   Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast" - 1946
19.   Huxley, Aldous "Ape and Essence" - 1948
20.   Hemingway, Ernest "Across the River and into the Trees" - 1950

#17 was picked this time, so for me it's:
Steinbeck, John "Cannery Row" - 1945

This is a great idea for all of us who want to read more classics. Go ahead, get your own list. I can't wait to see what I get to read this time.

Here are all the books on my original Classics Club list.
And here is a list of all the books I read with the Classics Spin.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Big Cities

 

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

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This week’s topic is Books Set in a Big City. Meeghan says: "In the total opposite to the week before, we are now aiming for a big city setting. Give me all of those big city feels where a person could get lost in the foot traffic walking down the street."

Big cities always appear to be more exciting than small villages and there seems to be more going on that is interesting to write about, so there are a  lot of books that take place in cities. 

Döblin, Alfred "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (GE: Berlin Alexanderplatz) - 1929

Pamuk, Orhan "Istanbul" (TK: İstanbul - Hatıralar ve Şehir) - 2003

Rutherfurd, Edward "London - The Novel" - 1997

Rutherfurd, Edward "New York" - 2009

Rutherfurd, Edward "Paris" - 2013

I have chosen some books that have the name of the city in the title. Three of them are by the same author, Edward Rutherfurd, he is just a brilliant author to write about anything, not just cities, but he has picked some large ones. Another of my favourite authors, Orhan Pamuk, has written about the city he has lived in most of his life: Istanbul. And I could not do this list of large cities without mentioning our own capital: Berlin.

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🌆Happy Reading!🌆

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Du Maurier, Daphne "Rebecca" - 1938

Du Maurier, Daphne "Rebecca" - 1938

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Besides "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" from Anna Karenina and "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." from "A Tale of Two Cities" probably one of the best known first lines of any novel. Even people who never read the books have heard them.

I have wanted to read this novel for a long, long time. I don't know why it took me so long to start it but I am glad I finally did. What a story! Definitely one of my favourites of all time.

I remember watching the film at least forty years ago, I have never forgotten it. Sometimes you don't want to spoil a book by watching the movie, sometimes it is the other way around.

This has not disappointed me. On the contrary. I am glad I watched the film first because I might have not liked it as much. But his way it was good.

The writing of this book is just superb. Whether it's a conversation or the description of a situation or a landscape, it couldn't have been done any better.

The description of the book says it all, I don't want to add more to spoil it for those who have not read it.

Just one last question: Any ideas on the name of the narrator. My thought was Kirstin or Kristin or Christine or Kerstin or whatever variations of that name, I've seen so many of them. However, I guess there is a reason why the author decided not to give her a name, it goes well with her status in the book, with her self-confidence - or lack of it.

From the back cover:

"'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.'

So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past the beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten...her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant - the sinister Mrs. Danvers - still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of the evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley."

#ThrowbackThursday. June 2011 Part 2

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the third week of June 2011.

Grenville, Kate "The Secret River" - 2005

The story of William Thornhill, whose main crime was to be born into absolute poverty in a time where there was not way out of it, where people were forced to become criminals in order to feed their families and, when caught, sent to a foreign country, a country so remote that the voyage there was one of no return.

Guterson, David "East of the Mountains" - 1999

What does a surgeon do who suffers from terminal illness and knows what is about to happen to him?

Guterson, David "Snow Falling on Cedars" - 1994

Growing up in Germany, you hear everything about World War II, well, everything the Germans did and everywhere the Germans went and everyone who came to Germany etc. You hardly ever hear about the Pacific part of the war. 

Guterson, David "Our Lady of the Forest" - 2003

 A young girl has run away from home and settles in the woods where she claims she is visited by the Virgin Mary and ordered to build a church at that place.

Guterson, David "The Other" - 2008

The story of the prince and the pauper, two boys with completely different backgrounds.

Hesse, Hermann "Siddhartha: An Indian Poem" (German: Siddhartha) - 1922

In ancient India, Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, the highest caste, becomes an ascetic. Together with a friend he wants to find the enlightenment. 

Hesse, Hermann "Steppenwolf" (German: Der Steppenwolf) - 1927

Is it possible at all to understand someone in such a mental state if you are not in the same one (or have never been in it)? Or is it better to read it if you're not in that state?

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Small Town Vibes

 

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

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This week’s topic is Small Town Vibes. Meeghan says: "Not sure about you, but I have a fondness for books set in small villages. Doesn’t matter if it’s a crossroad town in the mid-west, or a small fishing village in Norway. If the population is so small a stranger sticks out like a sore thumb, that’s the vibe we are going for."

I grew up in a village but I seem not to have read that many books about that kind of life. It could be that I don't care much for it or because there aren't many about that. But, I found some that I really liked.

Hansen, Dörte "This House is Mine" (GE: Altes Land) - 2015

Lawson, Mary "Crow Lake" - 2002

Leky, Mariana "What You Can See From Here" (GE: Was man von hier aus sehen kann) - 2017

Lindgren, Astrid "The Six Bullerby Children" aka "The Children of Noisy Village" (SW: Barnen i Bullerbyn) - 1947

Mak, Geert "Jorwerd: The Death of the Village in late 20th Century" (NL: Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd) - 1996

Same great small town or village vibes in Germany, Canada, Germany again, Sweden and the Netherlands.

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🏡Happy Reading!🏡

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Shute, Nevil "On the Beach"

Shute, Nevil "On the Beach" - 1959

"It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us."

I like dystopian novels. They tell us about what could happen if we don't stop what we're doing. Everyone should read at least one of them. This one isn't such a long story (fewer than 300 pages) and thererfore something for everyone.

And yes, the quote I mentioned at the beginning is true. The world will exist, no matter whether the earth is still there or there are people on it. So, no worries. Nobody can destroy the WORLD. We can, however, destroy everything we loved and wish for our children to still be there when they and their kids and grandkids die.

This story makes us aware that we are all in the same boat, that we cannot get away from the evil others planned. The book is from 1959. Nevil Shute was a clairvoyant.

The book was much loved by the book club, especially the different views on the subject based on age and geographical location. It was all new information to many and much appreciated.

From the back cover:

"After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path. Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare."

Apparently, the phrase "on the beach" is a Royal Navy term that indicates retirement from service.

Six Degrees of Separation ~ From Kairos to Snow

#6Degrees of Separation:
from Kairos. to Snow

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here.

The starter book this month is "Kairos" (German: Kairos) by Jenny Erpenbeck.

The author was the first German to receive the International Booker Prize for this novel.

I hadn't read the book but since I had read another one by the same author, I decided to get it and read it.

Erpenbeck, Jenny "The End of Days" (GE: Aller Tage Abend) - 2012
How long is a child going to live, what kind of life is it going to be? Who is going to be around, who will be there to mourn them when they die. In this book, we get a feeling on how different a life can go and how different the end can be. A very interesting concept of describing how certain decisions can end a life or prolong it.

From here, I go to another book I read recently, where we learn about a whole life:

Şafak, Elif "10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World" - 2019

We follow Leila from the minute of her birth until several minutes after her death and then her friends. We learn about the way she lived, how she ended up in her situation, how her friends found themselves in their situations. We hear about Istanbul and Leila's hometown Van in Eastern Anatolia, right near the border to Iran.

Elif Şafak is a great author and this is one of my favourites by her:
Şafak, Elif "The Island of Missing Trees" - 2021
This takes place in Cyprus and we learn about the people on this divided island. As an example we have Greek Kostas and Turkish Defne. They fall in love but - as usual in such cases - their love is forbidden.
And this leads me to another book about Cyprus:

Hislop, Victoria "The Sunrise" - 2014 
Famagusta, a town in Eastern Cyprus, is not different. People live their ordinary lives. They go to work, they go home. They love their families, they love their lives. Then the invasion.
One of my favourite books by this author is "The Island" but I go with another one of her books that throws light on part of the conflict betwen the Greeks and the Turks.

Hislop, Victoria "The Thread" - 2011
While a young man visits his grandparents in Greece, they tell him the story of their life and at the same time the story of their town and country. Thessaloniki has gone through a lot of turmoil and so have its inhabitants.

The young man now lives in the United Kingdom, so I thought about a Turkish guy who lives abroad, this time in Germany. The book is, like all the others, by one of my favourite authors.

Pamuk, Orhan "Snow" (TR: Kar) - 2002   
Ka is a Turkish poet who lives in Germany but visits a town in Turkey called Kars. While he is there, they have a heavy snowfall and nobody can leave or enter the town.Anyway, while he staying in Kars, a revolution is taking place in the little city.

What does the starter book have in common with the last one? They both take place in Germany.

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This month, I loved all the books I presented. If you don't know them, I recommend them heavily.

Spell the Month in Books ~ July

Reviews from the Stacks

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

July: Stars/Sky

One of my favourite songs must be "Vincent" by Don McLean. "Starry, starry night, Paint your palette blue and gray, Look out on a summer's day, With eyes that know the darkness in my soul". And I would have loved to find more than one book with the word Star in it but, unfortunately, Laura was the only one who brought me her star. However, the others are about birds and they seem to fly to the stars, so here we go:

JULY

J

Bach, Richard "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" - 1970

I am a huge Neil Diamond fan. He is my favourite singer-songwriter ever and always will be. This book is not just a fantastic book but he wrote the music for the film they made. I am glad I can use this book this month.

U
Ahmad, Aeham "The Pianist from Syria" (aka The Pianist of Yarmouk) (GE: Und die Vögel werden singen. Ich, der Pianist aus den Trümmern) - 2017
A story about Palestinians in Syria and refugees. It's even more valid today than it was then.

L
Baumgart, Klaus "Laura's Star" (GE: Lauras Stern) - 1996

Everyone must know this book because they were read it as a child or they read it to their children. But did you know it was originally German?
Y

Angelou, Maya "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" - 1969

 

I often run out of Ys because there are so few books that start with that letter and I don't want to repeat myself every month. So, I went with a phonetic way, copying my friend Emma from Words and Peace. Thank you, Emma.
And, this is a fantastic book. Read it!

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Happy Reading!

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#ThrowbackThursday. June 2011 Part 1

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the third week of June 2011.

Ali, Monica "Brick Lane" - 2003
The story about Nazneen from a tiny village in Bangladesh who gets married off to an elderly man in London, England. From now on, she leads the life so many women lead, she lives in England but is more or less confined to the walls of her little apartment. She lives a Bengali life in Europe.

Allende, Isabel "The House of the Spirits" (E: La casa de los espíritus) (The House of the Spirits #1) - 1982
- "Daughter of Fortune" (E: Hija de la fortuna) (The House of the Spirits #2) - 1999
- "Portrait in Sepia" (E: Retrato en sepia) (The House of the Spirits #3) - 2000
This is a trilogy about a family in South America. There is a lot of information on the rich and the poor, the problems in South America. All three great books.

Coelho, Paulo "The Alchemist" (PO: O Alquimista) - 1988
A fantastic novel by a great author. He is able to use the words in a way that is just plain admirable. He is a poet, his sentences are so beautiful.
He gives us a Medieval story about mysticism and superstition, about life back then in several areas.

Frandi-Coory, Anne "Whatever Happened to Ishtar?: A Passionate Quest To Find Answers For Generations Of Defeated Mothers" - 2010
How much can a person endure, especially a little child? This heart-rendering account of Anne-Frandi Coory’s life is a proof that we can live through a lot of hardship and still turn out to be passionate and affectionate people, in this case a wonderful woman and mother of four children even though she was an abandoned and abused child herself.

Frazier, Charles "Thirteen Moons" - 2006
An amazing story about an exceptionally strong and interesting man. The main character is brought up by Cherokee in the mid-19th Century. He takes over their traditions and lives according to them, although his "white" culture does interfere, as well. However, even his Indian "fathers" don’t all follow the same path.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Erpenbeck, Jenny "Kairos"

Erpenbeck, Jenny "Kairos" (German: Kairos.) - 2021

This was the starter book for this month's Six Degrees of Separation. I haven't read the starter book very often but this was a new acclaimed book by an author I'd read and liked before, so I gave it a go.

I quite liked "The End of Days" (Aller Tage Abend) and hope this one would be just as good.

Jenny Erpenbeck was the first German author to receive the 2024 International Booker Prize.

This was an okay read but I was a little disappointed. The writing was not as fluent as expected. I think the love story should reflect the relationship between the two countries. And that was not a bad attempt. But, I didn't care for either of the protagonists, I couldn't feel sorry for them.

For those who don't know much about the former GDR or how the fall of the fall came about it probably isn't a bad book, though there are better ones that will tell you about this (The Tower/Der Turm, for instance)

All in all, I found the book, boring, tedious and tiresome. Yet another Booker prize award that I didn't like.

The title comes from an ancient Greek term for the right time.

From the back cover:

"Jenny Erpenbeck’s much anticipated new novel Kairos is a complicated love story set amidst swirling, cataclysmic events as the GDR collapses and an old world evaporates Jenny Erpenbeck (the author of Go, Went, Gone and Visitation ) is an epic storyteller and arguably the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature. Erpenbeck’s new novel Kairos - an unforgettably compelling masterpiece - tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes place against the background of the declining GDR, through the upheavals wrought by its dissolution in 1989 and then what comes after. In her unmistakable style and with enormous sweep, Erpenbeck describes the path of two lovers, as Katharina grows up and tries to come to terms with a not always ideal romance, even as a whole world with its own ideology disappears."

Wordless Wednesday ~ Phone Booths

 

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Least Favourite Colours

  

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

This week's topic is: Books with My Favorite Colour on the Cover

But, I have done my favourite colour (green) so often, that I decided to do just the opposite.

I absolutely hate orange, it's totally awful in my opinion. And brown. Brown is not a colour, brown always looks dirty. So, here is a selection of books that have mainly those colours.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "We Should All Be Feminists" - 2014
Cleave, Chris "The Other Hand" (US: Little Bee) - 2008
Emcke, Carolin "Against Hate" (GE: Gegen den Hass) - 2016
Meri, Veijo "The Manila Rope" (FIN: Manillaköysi) - 1957
Weir, Andy "The Martian" - 2011
Dickens, Charles "The Old Curiosity Shop" - 1840
Falcones, Ildefonso "The Barefoot Queen" (E: La Reina Descalza) - 2013
Kidd, Sue Monk "The Invention of Wings" - 2014
Schami, Rafik "The Calligrapher’s Secret" (GE: Das Geheimnis des Kalligraphen) - 2008 
Shaw, Karl "Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty" - 1999

This doesn't mean I dislike the books. Some of them are fantastic. "The Barefoot Queen" and "The Calligrapher's Secret" belong to my all time favourites.

If you still would like to see my Green books, here is a list:
Top 5 Tuesday ~ Green Books
Top Ten Tuesday ~ Green Books (this one also has books with the word green in the title or the author's name)
Top Ten Tuesday ~ Top Ten Purple, Yellow, and/or Green Book Covers
Don't you think they look so much nicer? 😉

📚 Happy Reading! 📚

Happy July!

  Happy July to all my friends and readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Franka Koebsch
"Sommerwiese mit Mohnblüten"
"Summer Meadow with Poppies"

Frank says to this picture:
"Poppy watercolours are a delight at any time of year. In September, most of the poppy flowers have already faded, but here and there you can still find poppy flowers on the edges of fields or in meadows."

"Mohnaquarelle begeistern zu jeder Jahreszeit. Im September sind die meisten Mohnblüten bereits verblüht, aber hier und da findet in Randlagen noch Mohnblüten an den Feldrändern oder auf den Wiesen."

Read more on their website here. *

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June was an awful month for many, we had heavy rainfalls in Germany and a lot of areas were flooded. Not ours, but we know quite a few people who had to experience damages to their houses. In the meantime, it has become far too hot for my liking. And no, I am not one of those people who complain about the cold in winter and the heat in summer. I always say, in winter, I can dress accordingly, put on more clothes and I'm fine. In summer, that does not help.

I hope the last of the climate change deniers has woken up in the meantime but I doubt it.
 
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 My favourite book last month was "10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World" by Elif Şafak. It was a sad subject but great writing.

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We had a family celebration down in Southern Germany and they served one of my favourite side dishes: Spätzle (Wikipedia).

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The old German word for July is Heuert or Heumond. 

They used to start mowing the hay this month. Another word is Honigmond, which simply translated into honeymoon as a lot of weddings would take place in summer and people then went for a honeymoon. But the meaning of the "hay moon" is a lot older, of course.

 

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* You can also have a look under my labels Artist: Frank Koebsch and Artist: Hanka Koebsch where you can find all my posts about the two artists. 

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😎 I wish you all a Happy July! 😎