#Throwback Thursday ~ August 2012

 

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 August 2012.

Elwell Hunt, Angela "The Tale of Three Trees" - 1989

This has been one of the best books for children about religion that I have ever seen. 

Gao, Xingjian "Soul Mountain" (Chinese: 灵山, língshān) - 1989

An extraordinary book. A biography, a search for someone's soul in a world where the individual means nothing.

Grisham, John "Skipping Christmas: A Novel" - 2001

Not a thriller. It is a comedy, and quite a hilarious one.

Rutherfurd, Edward "Dublin: Foundation (The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga)" - 2004

Reaching from the fifth into the 16th century, this novel introduces us to the Ireland of the druids and the ancient Celts until the beginning of the Tudor reign.

Shute, Nevil "A Town Like Alice" (US Title: The Legacy) - 1950

A young English woman works in Malaya (now Malaysia) during World War II and becomes a prisoner of war of the Japanese.

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

Alphabet Authors ~ I is for Ingalls Wilder

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

First I thought, I wouldn't find any author with the initial I that I could use but then I remembered Laura Ingalls Wilder. I do not remember whether I read any of her books as a child. Probably not. My first recollections of Laura Ingalls and her family is from the TV series.

Ingalls Wilder, Laura "Little House Books" 1932-1971
Little House in the Big Woods (1932) (Goodreads)
Farmer Boy (1933) (Goodreads)
Little House on the Prairie (1935) (Goodreads)
On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937) (Goodreads)
By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939) (Goodreads)
The Long Winter (1940) (Goodreads)
Little Town on the Prairie (1941) (Goodreads)
These Happy Golden Years (1943) (Goodreads)
On the Way Home (1962, published posthumously) (Goodreads)
The First Four Years (1971) (Goodreads)

And then there is the book
Rylant, Cynthia "Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years" - 2002
This story was based on Laura's memoirs.

Facts about Laura Ingalls Wilder:
Born    February 7, 1867 in Wisconsin
Died    February 10, 1957 in Missouri, aged 90
Married Almanzo Wilder 1885

Her life was more or less how she describe it in her books. Her parents were pioneers who moved around and settled in South Dakota. Laura first worked as a teacher until she got married and became a farmer's wife. They had two children but only her daughter Rose survived.

If you live in the United States or go there on holidays, maybe you would like to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder House and Museum.

There is also a lovely website about her books, mainly for children.

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Pronoun

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 a Top 5 Books With a Pronoun in the Title. "Find all of your he, she, they, we or you books and then shout them from the rooftops!! Or just on your blog page." Yes, I have chosen my blog page for that, I'm getting too old for climbing rooftops. 😉 I found quite a few different ones, all great ones.

Ephron, Nora "I Remember Nothing. And Other Reflections" - 2010

Bythell, Shaun "Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops" - 2020

Trotter, Derek "Del Boy" (Family of John Sullivan) "He Who Dares" - 2015

Cristofano, David "The Girl She Used to Be" - 2009

Clinton, Hillary Rodham "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us" - 1996

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🔖Happy Reading!🔖

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Spell the Month in Books ~ March

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.

March: Science Fiction

Science Fiction is not my genre and I was wondering whether I would be able to fill even five letters. But, as you can see, I managed. Some are more dystopian than science which (which I really prefer) but I even managed to find five books that I like that fit the subject.

MARCH

M

Weir, Andy "The Martian" - 2011  

A
Stephenson, Neal "Anathem" - 2008
R
McCarthy, Cormac "The Road" - 2006 
C

Mitchell, David "Cloud Atlas" - 2004

H
Adams, Douglas "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - 1979

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Happy Reading!

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Six Degrees of Separation ~ Prophet Song

Paul Lynch
"Prophet Song" - 2023

#6Degrees of Separation:

from Prophet Song (Goodreads) to The Discovery of Slowness

#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 "Prophet Song" by Paul Lynch, an Irish author who received the Booker Prize for this novel. The last ones I read were not to my taste, so I didn't even try to get it.

But since this book is not written by a British or an American author, I have tried to find some other foreign authors who were awarded prizes either in their country or internationally. I succeeded for all but one.

If you are interested, here is a description of this novel:

"A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice, from an internationally award-winning author

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and Eilish can only watch helplessly as the world she knew disappears. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanish, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society.

How far will she go to save her family? And what – or who – is she willing to leave behind?

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together."

I start with the word Song.

Liao, Yiwu "Testimonials or: For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet's Journey Through a Chinese Prison" (CHN: Zheng-Ci) - 2000

Yiwu Liao received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2012.

García Márquez, Gabriel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (E: Cien años de soledad) - 1967

Gabriel García Márquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts".

Giordano, Paolo "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" (I: La solitudine dei numeri primi) - 2008

Paolo Giordano won the Premio Strega literary award with this, his first novel.

Simmonds, Jeremy "Number One in Heaven – The Heroes Who Died For Rock 'n' Roll" - 2006
A fantastic book about all the rock stars we loved and who left us far too early.

Mulisch, Harry "The Discovery of Heaven" (NL: De ontdekking van de hemel) - 1992
Harry Mulish received several international awards, and the NRC Handelsblad readers voted this novel the greatest Dutch book ever written.

Nadolny, Sten "The Discovery of Slowness" (GE: Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit) - 1983

Sten Nadolny received many German and Italian literature prizes, i.a. the prestigious  Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.

We always try to find a connection between the first and the last degree. I think a prophet could be very helpful in the search for slowness.

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Happy March!

 Happy March to all my Friends and Readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch

"Am Fluss"

"Along the River"

Hanka and Frank say to this picture:

"Für den kommenden Frühling haben wir uns für Hankas Kinder Aquarell entschieden."

"For the coming spring we have chosen Hanka's children's watercolor."

This picture by Hanka remindes me of my childhood. We had a little stream behind our house that would go all the way into the village and we children used to go there and take the way to our favourite places.

Read more on their website here. *

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In the middle of February, I heard someone saying on the radio "When will it finally be spring? And I thought, hey, it's only February. Shortly afterwards, we had two days of snow, the first this winter. And probably the last. I remember winters when we had snow from November until February at the least.

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And there was a less amusing event for all Germans. Elections. After the last coalition collapsed, Chancelor Olaf Scholz (Wikipedia) asked for a vote of confidence which is one of the prerequisites to have new elections.

Of course, the conservative party won and the ultra-right gained 20% of the elections, something most of us feared. Now we hope they won't form a new coalition, that would certainly be a catastrophe. Wish us luck.

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With the book club, we read a German book by Michel Bergmann, "Herr Klee und Herr Feld", unfortunately not translated into English or any other language. Yet, I hope.

My favourite book of the month was "Jane Austen at Home" by Lucy Worsley. As part of the commenmoration of Jane Austen's 250^th birthday, the Classics Club has started a #Reading Austen project. We are reading a book by her every other month and I have decided do read something Austen-related by her every month. This was a fabulous biography.

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And here is a picture from our two days of snow.

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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 March 💐

Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home"

Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017

My favourite book of the month. As part of the commemoration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday, the Classics Club has started a #Reading Austen project. We are reading a book by her every other month, last month it was "Pride & Prejudice", next month will be "Sense & Sensibility". When it fits in with my other reading "duties" (book clubs and challenges), I want to do read something Austen-related by her in between.

This was a fabulous biography. Lucy Worsley really "visited" Jane Austen at home and accompanied her on all her visits to friends and family. It was so nice to read what she and her family, especially her sister Cassandra had been up to. You hear about the relationship between them and also any other person of their lifetime. Also, the way they lived. We all know that they had money problems but it is different today, at least in our countries. Also, the things Jane did for female authors and women in general are not to be underestimated.

After reading this book, I feel I got to know Jane Austen better, almost personally. I would love to have all biographies written like this. I think I love the author even more than I did before.

There are so many quotes I could mention but I leave it at this one  about my favourite novel: "Persuasion was … set precisely in the period of peace between the months June 1814 and February 1815, when Britian's naval officers were on shore leave." It shows how her novels relate to the time she lived in.

From the back cover:

"Historian Lucy Worsley visits Jane Austen at home, exploring the author's life through the places which meant the most to her.

On the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, historian Lucy Worsley leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world.

This new telling of the story of Jane's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the places and spaces that mattered to her. It wasn't all country houses and ballrooms, but a life that was often a painful struggle. Jane famously lived a 'life without incident', but with new research and insights Lucy Worsley reveals a passionate woman who fought for her freedom. A woman who far from being a lonely spinster in fact had at least five marriage prospects, but who in the end refused to settle for anything less than Mr Darcy."

The book also contains some interesting pictures that relate to Jane Austen's life.

#Throwback Thursday ~ July 2012

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 July 2012.

Bristow, Gwen "Plantation Trilogy" (Deep Summer, The Handsome Road, This Side of Glory) - 1937-40
One of my favourite stories about the Deep South ever. If you work your way through this trilogy, you go form the first settlers in the 1700s until the early year of the last century. 

Haruf, Kent "Plainsong" - 1999
The story of a father raising his teenager sons alone in a small town. And other settlers.

Kemal, Yaşar "The Drumming-Out" (TK: Teneke) - 1987
A young administrator in a town in the Anatolian province tries to fight a big landlord who floods large portions of land to grow rice but doesn't care about the effects on the population.

Noa Bercovitch, Pascale "The Dolphin’s Boy: A Story of Courage and Friendship" (F: Oline, le dauphin du miracle) - 2000
The author was an athlete who had a terrible accident on a train and subsequently had to have her legs amputated. In her partly autobiographical book, she tells us about the Bedouin boy Abdullah who fell out of a tree at the age of five and was deaf ever since.

Pasternak, Boris "Doctor Zhivago" (RUS: Доктор Живаго) - 1957
Boris Pasternak has a great way of telling a "very simple story", as he put it himself. Not really that simple, lots of complications in the life of our hero, Jura Zhivago, a doctor and a poet. 

Shields, Carol "Jane Austen. A Life" - 2001
Carol Shields managed to write a good account of a life at a time where there were no journalists or paparazzi around to reveal every single step a famous person made. 

Westerman, Frank "The Republic of Grain" (NL: De graanrepubliek) - 1999

This book describes life in a Dutch region, in the North of the Netherlands during a tough time. The rise and fall of an area due to nature, politics, decisions made.

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

Alphabet Authors ~ H is for Hislop

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

 

There are a few great authors with the initial H: Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, or Khaled Hosseini, for example.

But one of my absolute favourite authors is Victoria Hislop, so I definitely had to choose her for this letter.

Most of this British author's books are about Greece and she seems to have depicted that country so well that they granted her honorary Greek citizenship. If that isn't a praise, I don't know what is.

Her very first book, which was also the very first book I read by her, is "The Island". She later wrote a sequel "One August Night" and a children's book about the story, "Maria's Island". But any of her other books are also great.

- "Cartes Postales from Greece" - 2016
- "The Island" - 2005
- "Maria's Island" - 2021
- "The Last Dance and Other Stories" - 2015 
- "One August Night" - 2020
- "The Return" - 2008
- "The Sunrise" - 2014 
- "Those Who Are Loved" - 2019
- "The Thread" - 2011

She has also written some non-fiction books with Duncan Goodhew, a former competitve swimmer:
"Sink or Swim: The Self-help Book for Men Who Never Read Them" - 2002 (Goodreads)
"Fix Your Life – Now!: The Six Step Plan to Help You Fix Your Life" - 2012 (Goodreads)

Facts about Victoria Hislop:
Born    1959 Bromley, Kent
As she is still alive, I hope she will write more books

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Another time

      

"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 Set in Another Time (These can be historical, futuristic, alternate universes, or even in a world where you’re not sure when it takes place you just know it’s not right now.)

This is a tough one. I love historical fiction but I have also read quite a few dystopian books that take place in another world. I don't want to repeat the same titles over and over, therefore I have chosen the last ten historical fiction novels I read. I have added the approximate times of the stories.

Alvarez, Julia "In the Time of the Butterflies" - 1994
1924-1960

Barbal i Farré, Maria "Stone in a Landslide" (Catalan: Pedra de tartera) - 1985
Beginning of the 20th century

Brooks, Geraldine "Caleb's Crossing" - 2011
1660s

Chevalier, Tracy "The Last Runaway" - 2013
Middle of the 19^th century

Follett, Ken "The Armour of Light" - 2023
997 until the 16^th century

Ibrahimi, Anilda "Red Like a Bride" (Italian: Rosso come una sposa) - 2008
Beginning of the 20^th century

Mahfouz, Naguib "Midaq Alley" (Arabic: زقاق المدق/Zuqaq El Midaq) - 1947
1940s

Mann, Heinrich "Man of Straw", or "The Patrioteer", or The Loyal Subject (German: Der Untertan) - 1914
Beginning of the 20^th century

Şafak, Elif "The Island of Missing Trees" - 2021
1970s

Vargas Llosa, Mario "The Feast of the Goat" (Spanish: La fiesta del chivo) - 2000
1960s

TBR Pile Reading Challenge 2025

One of my favourite Reading Challenges that I joined in 2016.

I don't think Evie from the Bookish Blog still carries this on, as I can't find it on her page but her words with which she started this challenge are still true: "We all have those books. We buy them, win them, they're gifted to us. Then we put them up on a bookshelf and there they stay, collecting dust, waiting for the time when we'll finally decide to pick them up."

As I mention every year, even now, after several years of participation, my TBR (To Be Read) pile is still a lot longer than it should be because I just can't resist buying any new books and going to the library though I have tried to attempt reading more old books than buying new ones (without success). But I read lately that buying books, collecting books and reading books are three completely different hobbies. And I have them all.

Here is the challenge:

1-10 A Firm Handshake

11-20 A Friendly Hug

21-30 First Kiss

31-40 Sweet Summer Fling

41-50 Could This Be Love?

50+ Married with Children

I could, of course, try to tackle the 50+ challenge but we all know that is not going to happen, instead, I tried to do at least 11-20 old books in addition to the new ones I'm buying and those I get from the library and wished to be pleasantly surprised at the end of the year. That happened, I have did reach 11-20 (A Friendly Hug) for the last three years, hopefully I can get to 41-50 (Could This Be Love?) one day.

I have read
37 books in 2016,
32 in 2017,
38 in 2018, 

23 in 2019,

25 in 2020,

39 in 2021,

15 in 2022,
13 in 2023 and
16 in 2024
of the books that had been waiting to be read for more than a year.

I hope I will manage more in 2025.

So far, I have already read two of my "old books" in 2025:

Hopmann, Sophie/Heidelore Mais "Gurkensandwich im Handschuhfach" [Cucumber Sandwich in the Glove Compartment] - 2019
Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast" - 1946

#Throwback Thursday. June 2012

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 June 2012.

Andrić, Ivo "The Bridge on the Drina" (Serbo-Croat: На Дрини Ћуприја or Na Drini Ćuprija) - 1945
This is the story of a bridge. From the day it was built in the 16th century up until a couple of hundred years later in the 20th.

Atwood, Margaret "The Handmaid's Tale" - 1985
A young lady called Offred tells us the story of Gilead, a country in the future, situated in a part of the present United States of America. 

Otto, Whitney "How to Make an American Quilt" - 1991

This story is full of wonderful women who all have a story to tell, and they tell their story to Finn who is the granddaughter of one of the quilt ladies and is about to get married.

Plenzdorf, Ulrich "The New Sufferings of Young W." (German: Die neuen Leiden des jungen W.) - 1972

Any German who visited school after 1972 will have read this book as well as Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (Die Leiden des jungen Werther). Same as the original, the "New Sufferings" spoke to the people. 

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

Alphabet Authors ~ G is for Grass

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

Now G, I could only choose on of Germany's greatest authors of all time and if you think Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, I must disappoint you. My favourite German G-author is Günter Grass.

These are his novels I read:
- "Cat and Mouse" (GE: Katz und Maus. Danziger Trilogie 2) - 1961
- "Crabwalk" (GE: Im Krebsgang) - 2002
- "Five Decades" (GE: Fünf Jahrzehnte) - 1999
- "The Tin Drum" (GE: Die Blechtrommel. Danziger Trilogie 1) - 1959

And here are some of his non-fiction books:
- "The Box: Tales From the Darkroom" (GE: Die Box. Dunkelkammergeschichten) - 2008
- "Grimm's Words. A Declaration of Love" (GE: Grimms Wörter. Eine Liebeserklärung) - 2010
- "My Century" (GE: Mein Jahrhundert) - 1999
- "Peeling the Onion" (GE: Beim Häuten der Zwiebel) - 2006

All of them fantastic reads.

Facts about Günter Grass
Born 16 October 1927 as Günter Wilhelm Graß 16 October 1927 in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk)
Died 13 April 2015 (aged 87) in Lübeck, Germany

He is mostly known for his contribution to "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" which means which means coping with the past, struggling with the goal to overcome the past. It describes the processes that since the later 20th century have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, society, and culture.

His novel "The Tin Drum" was made into a film and received the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 1979.

He received several international prizes. As well as being an honorary member of the Royal Society of Literature (in 1993), he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 for his "... frolicsome black fables [that] portray the forgotten face of history".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Books I want to reread

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 a Top 5 books I want to reread in 2025. "Are you planning to reread some favourites in 2025? Maybe that classic you read back in school. Or maybe there’s a new book coming out in a series, and you want to remind yourself what happened in the last book. Whatever it is, let’s share all of our reread plans!!"

I hardly ever plan on re-reading a special book but this year it's different. It's Jane Austen Year, she would have been 250 years old on the 16^th of December. So, the Classics Club has started a #ReadingAusten project here. We already started, and the first book was Sense & Sensibility. As I have read them several times already, there are also a few different reviews.

Austen, Jane "Emma" - 1816 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
- "Mansfield Park" - 1814 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
- "Northanger Abbey" - 1818 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 
- "Persuasion" - 1817 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
- "Pride & Prejudice" - 1813 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 

- "Sense & Sensibility" - 1811 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 

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✍Happy Reading!✍

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Takahashi, Yuta "The Chibineko Kitchen"

Takahashi, Yuta "The Chibineko Kitchen" (Japanese: ちびねこ亭の思い出ごはん 黒猫と初恋サンドイッチ/Chibinekoteino omoidegohan kuronekoto hatsukoisandoitchi) (Meals to Remember at the Chibineko Kitchen #1) - 2020

This is an interesting story. I am sure we all have wanted to have one last conversation with a deceased loved one. Now, the Chibineko Kitchen makes this possible. You go there and order a Remembrance Meal. Then, when it is served, the person in question appears and you can have one very last talk with them until the food gets cold.

Sounds desirable, right? The story is heartwarming, it might even help some of us to get over the loss of a loved one.

And there are quite a few nice Japanese recipies in the book.

From the back cover:

"Follow the bank of the Koitogawa river until you reach the beach. From there a path of white seashells will lead you to the Chibineko Kitchen. Step inside, they'll be expecting you.

These are the directions Kotoko has been given. She arrives at the tiny restaurant, perched right by the water, early in the morning. Still reeling from the sudden death of her brother, she's been promised that the food served there will bring him back to her, for one last time.

Taking a seat in the small, wood-panelled room, she waits as Kai, the restaurant's young chef, brings out steaming bowls of simmered fish, rice and miso soup. Though she hadn't ordered anything, Kai had somehow known the exact dish her brother always used to cook for her. And as she takes her first delicious bite, the gulls outside fall silent and the air grows hazy . . .

Soul-nourishing and comforting, The Chibineko Kitchen will help you remember what matters most in life."

#ThrowbackThursday. May 2012

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 May 2012.

Dickens, Charles "Great Expectations" - 1861

Dickens' way of creating suspense is incredible. I have often heard this was his greatest novel, and, even though I don't entirely agree (I love "David Copperfield"), I can very well understand that. The characters are described so vividly, their thoughts and actions, superb. 

Drinkwater, Carol "The Olive Series" - 2001-2010

Carol Drinkwater has a busy life as an actress but that did not seem enough. She married Michel, a French TV producer and together they bought an olive farm in the Provence. This is a beautiful story where the author talks about her love to her husband and their love to the olive farm, the work such an adventure encounters and the benefits. 

Gavalda, Anna "95 pounds of hope" (F: 35 kilos d’espoir) - 2002
35 kilograms or 95 pounds, that's exactly how much Gregory Dubosc weighs at the age of 13. Everything goes wrong in his little life. 

Schami, Rafik "The Calligrapher’s Secret" (GE: Das Geheimnis des Kalligraphen) - 2008

There is a lot of history of calligraphy both in the story and the annex. And that was highly interesting. The author liked to build anticipation by giving away a little beforehand.

Smiley, Jane "13 Ways of Looking at the Novel" - 2005

I didn't read this in a couple of days or even a couple of weeks, I read it in bits and pieces. I learned a lot about novels, reading novels and writing novels, the history of a novel, all sorts of interesting facts, quite fantastic.

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

Alphabet Authors ~ F is for Follett

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

It was difficult to choose some of the authors for certain letters but this one was totally clear, I thought of Ken Follett right away. However, there are Ildefonso Falcones, Charles Frazier and Marianne Fredriksson whose books I also heartily recommend.

Let's start with his most popular series, the Kingsbridge stories:

- "The Evening and the Morning" (Kingsbridge #0.5) - 2020

- "The Pillars of the Earth" (Kingsbridge #1) - 1989

- "World Without End" (Kingsbridge #2) - 2007

- "A Column of Fire" (Kingsbridge #3) - 2017

- "The Armour of Light" (Kingsbridge #4) - 2023

The first two books have been turned into mini series.

The first book in the series (The Pillars of the Earth) is a novel about building a cathedral in a small English town in the 12^th century, the other novels pick up the theme in different centuries with a story about the beginnings of the village in "The Evening and the Morning".

And then there is the Century trilogy.

- "Fall of Giants" (Century Trilogy #1) - 2010

- "Winter of the World"(Century Trilogy #2) - 2012
- "Edge of Eternity" (Century Trilogy #3) - 2014

Five interrelated families from the United States, Germany, Russia, England and Wales live through the 20^th century.

Facts about Ken Follett:
born 5 June 1949 as Kenneth Martin Follett in Cardiff, Wales
He is married to Barbara Hubbard, a British politician. They have two children.

He is mostly known for his crime novels and spy thrillers.
He has also written books under the names Bernard L. Ross, Zachary Stone, and Martin Martinsen. Thanks to CyberKitten @ Seeking a Little Truth for making me aware of this. I quite like it when authors do that, publish different genres under different names, but Ken Follett has also written a lot of his other genres under his real name.

There is a statue of him in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain.

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

The Classics Club: The Classics Spin #40

"Words and Peace" is a blog I've been following for a couple of years and I have always found some interesting new (or old) 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 16^th February 2025, 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 11^th of April 2025 to read it.

This time, I read only the one book from my old list (Classics Spin #39) ("Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby"). I do want to concentrate on a couple of books in the near future, so I have listed only ten books and repeated them. 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. Dumas, Alexandre fils "Camille: The Lady of the Camellias" (La Dame aux Camélias) - 1848
4. Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary" (Madame Bovary) - 1857
5. Turgenjew, Iwan Sergejewitsch "Fathers and Sons" (Отцы и дети/Otzy i deti) - 1862
6. Conrad, Joseph "Victory: An Island Tale" - 1915
7. Hamilton, Cicely "William - an Englishman" - 1920
8. Hesse, Hermann "Wir nehmen die Welt nur zu ernst" [We just take the world too seriously] - 1928
9. Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury" - 1929
10. Hemingway, Ernest "A Farewell to Arms" - 1929
11. Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays" (Lysistrata) - 411BC
12. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Urfaust. Faust Fragment. Faust I" (Faust) - 1772-1808
13. Dumas, Alexandre fils "Camille: The Lady of the Camellias" (La Dame aux Camélias) - 1848
14. Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary" (Madame Bovary) - 1857
15. Turgenjew, Iwan Sergejewitsch "Fathers and Sons" (Отцы и дети/Otzy i deti) - 1862
16. Conrad, Joseph "Victory: An Island Tale" - 1915
17. Hamilton, Cicely "William - an Englishman" - 1920
18. Hesse, Hermann "Wir nehmen die Welt nur zu ernst" [We just take the world too seriously] - 1928
19. Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury" - 1929
20. Hemingway, Ernest "A Farewell to Arms" - 1929

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.

So, the number has been picked and it is #4. That means for me:
Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary" (Madame Bovary) - 1857

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.

#ThrowbackThursday. April 2012 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 for the second part of April 2012.

James, Henry "The American" - 1875
1875, towards the end of the 19th century, society thinks it has become more modern. But has it really? There are still a lot of class differences.

Moyle, Franny "Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde" - 2011
Franny Moyle describes Constance Wilde's life from the beginning to the end, her youth in poverty, her ascent into society after marrying Oscar and the inevitable fall after his secret life was unveiled. How much power a woman has when it comes to the task to prevent her loved ones from disaster. 

Smucker, Barbara "Underground to Canada" - 1977
The novel tells the story of two slave girls who escape from a plantation in Mississippi, and steal toward Canada on the Underground Railroad.

Vonnegut, Kurt "Breakfast of Champions" - 1973

The author is playing with words just for the sake of it. This book is hilarious, it gives you a good laugh. But it is also very critical. I loved it.

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

Alphabet Authors ~ E is for Ephron

 

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

I had to choose between Ephron or Eliot and it was a hard decision but in the end, I had to go with Nora Ephron.

Doidge, Kristin Marguerite "Nora Ephron: A Biography" (Goodreads)

- "Heartburn" - 1983

- "I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" - 2006 (short stories)

- "I Remember Nothing. And Other Reflections" - 2010 (short stories)

- "The Most of Nora Ephron" - 2014 (short stories)

- "When Harry Met Sally ..." - 1990

Facts about Nora Ephron:

Born    May 19, 1941 New York City, U.S.

Died    June 26, 2012 New York City, U.S. (aged 71)

Nora Ephron was married three times, her second husband was the journalist Carl Bernstein who investigated the Watergate Scandal and is the co-author of "All the President's Men". She based her novel "Heartburn" on her marriage and divorce. It was later made into a film with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

The characters Harry and Sally from the film (portrayed by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan) are based on director Rob Reiner and herself. I once saw an interview with Nora Ephron where she told this story that she was on an airplane and explained precisely what she wanted to eat and how she wanted it. The flight attendant asked her whether she'd ever seen the movie When Harry Met Sally. Nora Ephron showed her sense of humour by laughing about it still years later.

The Tribeca Film Festival has awarded a Nora Ephron Prize for a female writer or filmmaker "with a distinctive voice" since 2013. 

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.