#ThrowbackThursday. November 2015

I've been doing ThrowbackThursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. So, I listed more than one Throwback book every week. Now, I have reached the ones I posted ten years ago and will probalby just post one every month. These are my reviews from November 2015.

Fowler, Christopher "Hell Train" - 2011

The story is interesting, even though I wouldn't normally pick one of these. The characters, four people who happen to meet in a train, are well described, each and every one of them comes alive well. I did like the folk tales people were telling each other about the train, stories they had heard as children and lived with all their lives.

Gaskell, Elizabeth "North and South" - 1854/55

In this novel, we hear the story of Margaret Hale whose father leaves the ministry because he has doubts about his belief. They move from the South of England to a place in the North, from a village to a town, a lot of things change for Margaret Hale.

Top Twelve Tuesday ~ Modern Classics

"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 Modern Books You Think Will Be Classics In The Future
A modern classic, then, would have to be a book written after World War I, and probably after World War II.

I could have listed a hundred since there are so many great books that I believe will be classics in the future. But here are twelve. 

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "Half of a Yellow Sun" - 2006

Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book" - 2008
Chevalier, Tracy "Remarkable Creatures" - 2009

Ghosh, Amitav "The Glass Palace" - 2000 

Haig, Matt "The Midnight Library" - 2020

Lamb, Wally "The Hour I First Believed" - 2008

Morrison, Toni "A Mercy" - 2008   

Oates, Joyce Carol "The Man Without a Shadow" - 2016

Pamuk, Orhan "The Museum of Innocence" (TR: Masumiyet Müzesi) - 2008

Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Shadow of the Wind" (E: La sombra del viento - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #1) - 2001

Towles, Amor "A Gentleman in Moscow" - 2016

Zusak, Markus "The Book Thief" - 2005

Some of these authors have written earlier books where I am even more convinced that they will become classics, but I have tried to stick to books written in this century.

📚 Happy Reading 📚

Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury"

Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury" - 1929

For the Classics Spin #42, we received #17 and this was my novel. When I revealed this to the other bloggers, I got a lot of comments that people did not like the book at all. But I was determined to like it. After all, I loved "Light in August" by the same author.

However, this is not comparable to the first of his books that I read. I think I agree with most of the other readers.

But let's get to the book.

In one of the reviews (see here), I read "I appreciated the writer's skill a lot more than I enjoyed reading the novel." I think that hits the nail on its head. Another one compared it with "Look Homeward, Angel" which I could also agree on. Another Southern US writer whom you might only want to follow, if you are a Southerner yourself.

I'm sure you guessed it, this wasn't my favourite book of the year. But I appreciated having read it.

They mention "Ulysses" in the description. As you can see, I read that and said at the time "this is the most difficult book I have ever read". It still belongs on that list but I understood that better than this one. I also said "the longer I distance myself from this novel, the more it makes sense and the bigger an impact does it have on me." I doubt this will ever happen here but one can always hope.

I did understand the actions in the book but really didn't like a single character and couldn't follow any of their decisions.

It is also says in the description that "... in the next two sections ... the novel begins to reveal itself."

Nope, not really, it was still as confusing as before. If you're not a huge fan of stream of consciousness books, I wouldn't recommend it.

From the back cover:

"Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929, The Sound and the Fury has been considered one of the key novels of this century. Although it is difficult, in the same way that Ulysses is difficult, it is rewarding. Few readers can fail to become absorbed in this imaginative creation of the degenerate und disintegrating Compson family.

Faulkner does not use characters as pawns in a plot: he is interested in minds and emotions, in the interaction of characters and the way incidents and events affect individuals and their relationships. This is done by dividing the novel into four sections: the first is 'told by an idiot' - Benjy, for whom time does not exist. It is in the next two sections, when the reader hears the tale told by Benjy's two brothers, that the novel begins to reveal itself.

In essence this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?' It is a novel about intense and passionate family relationships wherein there is no love, only self-centredness.

The cover shows a detail from 'The Scarecrow' by Andrew Wyeth in the National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington."

William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel."

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

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. October 2015

I've been doing ThrowbackThursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. So, I listed more than one Throwback book every week. Now, I have reached the ones I posted ten years ago and will probalby just post one every month. These are my reviews from October 2015.

Scott, Mary "One of the Family" - 1958 (see also New Zealand novels)

Another lovely book by Mary Scott. I read somewhere that it was one of her most successful ones. 

As in most books by Mary Scott (to whom I dedicated her own blog entry, see above), there are a lot of wonderful people living in the backblocks and they all help each other, the good ones win in the end.

Talshir, Anat "If I Forget Thee" (Hebr.: Im Eshkahekh) - 2010

A beautiful story about a love that overcomes all obstacles, even though a lot of problems do occur anyway. This book also tells the story of Israel, of the Jewish and Palestinian inhabitants of this country's difficult history and this was really personal.

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Books Outside My Comfort Zone

"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 Outside My Comfort Zone

It is already outside my comfort zone to post about books I didn't care for that much. But since I have to list books that I wouldn't necessarily pick up - and these are mostly book club books - I don't like most of these titles. The books I care for least are chick lit, then fantasy and sci-fi.

Abe, Kōbō (安部 公房) "Inter Ice Age 4" (J: 第四間氷期/Dai yon kan pyouki) - 1959
Ballantyne, Tony "Dream London" - 2013
Groff, Lauren "Matrix" - 2021
Ihimaera, Witi "The Whale Rider" - 1987
Kafka, Franz "The Metamorphosis" (GE: Die Verwandlung) - 1912
Kimmel, Haven "A Girl Named Zippy" - 2000
Martinson, Harry "Aniara" (SW: Aniara) - 1956
McKinley, Tamara "Lands Beyond the Sea" - 2007
Moyes, Jojo "Me Before You" - 2012
Sefton, Maggie "Knit One, Kill Two" - 2005

📚 Happy Reading 📚

Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road"

Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road" - 2024

A friend had read this book and lent it to me. It sounded quite interesting, stories about Ireland often are. But, this story really could have taken place almost everywhere. There are people like that in every village. I grew up in a Catholic village in the sixties and seventies, and life there was almost like that. Actually, there are still people around who act similar. However, these characters didn't come across very likely and likeable.

So, an easy read for anyone who is looking for that. Since I usually don't, I didn't enjoy this book that much. Not my thing.

From the back cover:

"It's 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley - the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.

Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey - one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy."

Book Quotes

"Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading." Italo Calvino in "Why Read the Classics?" 

Somehow, he is correct, of course, though it is a first reading for me.

"Of all the worlds created by man, the world of books is the most powerful." Heinrich Heine

I could not agree more.

"The library in summer is the most wonderful thing because there you get books on any subject and read them each for only as long as they hold your interest, abandoning any that don’t, halfway or a quarter of the way through if you like, and store up all that knowledge in the happy corners of your mind for your own self and not to show off how much you know or spit it back at your teacher on a test paper." Polly Horvath

I thought these were the words of a student or school child, for after that the library is always the most wonderful thing. But it looks like this is a children's author.

Find more book quotes here.

Deresiewicz, William "A Jane Austen Education"

Deresiewicz, William "A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter" - 2011

I have read quite a few books about Jane Austen as part of the #Reading Austen project this year. And this one will be quite on top of my favourites of the year and of the books I read for the project - besides all of Jane Austen's books, of course.

What I really liked was the author linking his life to all of Jane Austen's books. It starts when he is 26 and reads his first one: Emma and ends with Sense & Sensibility when he finally meets his wife, after having told himself all the time that he would never marry.

He also didn't want to read Jane Austen, thought it would just be something like a chick lit with no content whatsoever. But he had to read the first one for a class and then found that Jane Austen has a lot to tell and to teach us.

How he develops from a conceited, big-headed young student into a decent human being, that is the background to this book. Something we can all learn from.

From the back cover:

"Before Jane Austen, William Deresiewicz was a very different young man. A sullen and arrogant graduate student, he never thought Austen would have anything to offer him. Then he read Emma — and everything changed.

In this unique and lyrical book, Deresiewicz weaves the misadventures of Austen’s characters with his own youthful follies, demonstrating the power of the great novelist’s teachings — and how, for Austen, growing up and making mistakes are one and the same. Honest, erudite, and deeply moving, A Jane Austen Education is the story of one man’s discovery of the world outside himself."

Spell the Month in Books ~ November 2025

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.

November:  Nostalgia - No further explanation given, so what is meant by that title?

I have just tried to find books that remind me of something nice, so I hope that is alright.

November

N

Simmonds, Jeremy "Number One in Heaven – The Heroes Who Died For Rock 'n' Roll" - 2006

This book doesn't just remind me of some wonderful singers that had to leave us far too early. No, the author was a member of an online book club, my very first ventures into the internet where I met some wonderful people.

O

Jason, David "Only Fools and Stories: From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost" - 2017

I didn't grow up with this series because we didn't live in England back then. But I have come to love it so much. And it stands for all the television series we used to watch in the Eighties and before.

V

Goldmann, Klaus; Wermusch, Günter "Vineta. The Rediscovery of a Sunken City" (GE: Vineta. Die Wiederentdeckung einer versunkenen Stadt) - 1999

A salute to all the people who came before us who perished, maybe not like this city that sank in the Baltic Sea but in many other ways.

E

Deary, Terry "Horrible Histories. England" - 1993ff.   

Not just in honour of a country I loved to live in but also a lovely memory of my sons' childhood.

M
Angelou, Maya "Mom & Me & Mom" - 2013
Easy to guess, right? In loving memory of my mum who left us ten years ago.

B

Dorling Kindersley "Brussels. Bruges, Ghent & Antwerp" - 2000
Still my favourite city of all. Here I met my husband and we share many happy memories from many visits afterwards. Also, today, our youngest son lives there.

E

Hamann, Brigitte "The Reluctant Empress" (GE: Elisabeth, Kaiserin wider Willen) - 1981

You know those films they repeat every year at Christmas, possibly even every day from the first of advent until Boxing Day? Well, in Germany this is "Sissi", a trilogy of the life or Empress Elisabeth of Austria. 

R

Obama, Barack & Springsteen, Bruce "Renegades: Born in the USA" - 2015 (Goodreads)

For all those who wish the times back of Barack Obama as president. (Must write a review of that book).

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Happy Reading!

📚 📚 📚

Six Degrees of Separation ~ We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Jackson, Shirley 
"We Have Always Lived in the Castle" - 1962

#6Degrees of Separation:

from We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Goodreads) to Carry On, Jeeves

#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 "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson. As usual, I haven't read the starter book. But I have read another book by her, "The Lottery". One of the scariest books I have ever read.

This is the description of the novel:

"Shirley Jackson's beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family's dark secret.

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate."

This was a nice title to find connections through words. I like that because it usually gives us a lot of different topics rather than all the same books. And I often get books I don't use so often otherwise. So we start with: The White Castle

Pamuk, Orhan "The White Castle" (TR: Beyaz Kale) - 1985
The author transports us back into the Venice and Istanbul/Constantinople of the 17th century. His tale is about two men who are as different and yet as similar as possible to each other who come from the two different parts of the world. We learn about the differences between the Orient and the Occident.

Aicher-Scholl, Inge "The White Rose" (GE: Die weiße Rose) - 1952

Inge Scholl was the sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl and is writing this book about her siblings and the Munich resistance group.

If there are any books that everyone should read, the story of the White Rose is definitely one of them. It shows that even in deepest Nazi Germany there were people who resisted, who paid for it with their lives, but who should be a great role model for all of us.

Eco, Umberto "The Name of the Rose" (I: Il Nome de la Rosa) - 1980 
A murder mystery. A monastery in the 14th century. One death occurs after the other, some of them seem very suspect, but for most of them it is very clear that another person caused the death. In other words, there is a mass murderer at large. Two visiting monks start to investigate and find a lot of links, some of them correct, others definitely false.

Osorio, Elsa "My Name is Light" (E: A veinte años, Luz) - 1998
A highly interesting novel about something that didn’t happen that long ago, yet is not so widely published. Of course, everyone knows there were a lot of problems in Argentina but I have not read a novel where it was described this well.

Obama, Michelle "The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times" - 2022

Such a wonderful woman, such a strong personality. We need more women like her who tell us how they lead their successful lives without pointing a finger, without letting the book be a "self-help book".

It's a huge privilege to be let into the thoughts of Michelle Obama, she shares so much that can be helpful to all of us. We can always learn from each other but especially from successful people.

Wodehouse, P.G."The World of Jeeves" (Jeeves #2-4: The Inimitable Jeeves #2, Carry On, Jeeves #3, Very Good, Jeeves! #4) - 1923/1925/1930

I had a lot of fun reading this over several months, the two helped me through some awful Corona months.

There isn't much more to say about these books other than how wonderful they are. I mentioned before that they aren't just funny but that the language is superb.

* * *

I couldn't find a connection between the first and the last one. The first was written by an American, the last by a Brit, the first one by a woman, the last by a man, the first is scary, the last funny. But both covers are quite monochrome. So, that's my conclusion and I stand by it. 😉 

📚📚📚

Happy November!

 Happy November to all my Friends and Readers
New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Frank Koebsch
"The Old Svaneke Lighthouse - Bornholm"
"Svaneke Gamle Fyr - Bornholm"

Frank says to this picture:
"Das Dänemark Aquarell präsentiert den Leuchtturm in einer typischen Landschaft an der Ostsee im ausklingenden Herbst."
"The Denmark watercolor presents the lighthouse in a typical landscape on the Baltic Sea in the late autumn." 

It's always lovely to see a picture with a lighthouse. I love lighthouses. You can see this in my list:
Top Ten Tuesday ~ Lighthouses

When we took our boat tour last month, they had a cute little decoration with a lighthouse there, I just had to take a picture and hope you like it as much as I do.

Read more on their website here. *

* * *

And October was again a special month. I celebrated my 15 year blogiversary on the 5^th of the month. For a wedding that would be crystal.

My very first post on October, 5, 2010 was:
Which Austen Heroine are you? I found out that I am Elinor Dashwood. While I always thought I might be Anne Eliot, I can see how Elinor came about. 
If you are interested, who you are supposed to be, there is a link on my page. Let me know, if you've done the test.

* * * 

For our Jane Austen read (see #Reading Austen project) this month, I found a book about Janes Austen's time. And it was a very interesting and detailed book about all the little things we don't know anything about:
Adkins, Roy & Lesley "Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England: How our ancestors lived two centuries ago" (aka "Jane Austen's England) - 2013

* * *

And here we have another German expression that fits everywhere but since the colder time of the year is beginning, we might wear slippers sometimes and that's what made me think of this word:

Pantoffelheld

The German word "Pantoffel" means slipper, "Held" is a hero, so a slipper hero. But we are talking about something very different from a hero. It's a man who allows himself to be controlled by his wife and who has no say at home. Of course, in former time that was really bad, nowadays older people often use it for modern men who "help" at home. And that's just ridiculous, it's his home as well as hers, why should she carry all the burden especially sind most women work for their money today, as well.

Anyway, the English expression would be hen-pecked. Do you know of similar expressions in other languages?

* * *

* 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. 

🎃 I wish you all a very Happy November! 🎃

Quotes on being Woke

I came across some quotes about being woke lately. And since I am a proud "Wokonian", I just had to put them all together. In most cases, I have no idea who said them first, so if you are or know the originator, please, let me know.

* * *

Originating from African American English, "woke" was first used to mean being aware, informed, and conscious of social injustices and racial inequality.

I found that woke is a professional word for enlightened, multiculturally sensitive. aware, conscious, evolved, inclusive, politically correct. leftist, liberal, progressive. And the opposite would be "slept" or "fell asleep". So, what's wrong with it?

Some people use the word "woke" as if it's supposed to be an insult.
But mostly, they use it because they can't spell "empathetic", "educated", or "enlightened".

Woke = well-informed, up-to-date and alert to injustice in soiciety, especially racism.

Woke = aware, knowledgeable about your community and the world, with the willingness to access and critique systems of oppression.

Proud to be woke - It sure beats being willfully ignorant and racist.

If woke is the opposite of fascist, I am superwoke.

Wokery: a term hi-jacked by the far right to demonise the following values and characteristics, amongst others:

•     Compassion for and empathy with others.
•     Love of truth/facts and hatred of lies/gaslighting and manipulation.
•     Support for social, economic and climate justice.
•     Support for human rights.
•     Anti-corruption/nepotism/cronyism.
•     Respect for and compliance with the rule of law.
•     Upholding democracy and the democratic process.

In other words, people who give a sh*t for more than themselves and who want society to work for the good of all and to leave the world a better place.
(found here on West Country Voices).

10 Symptoms of Woke Mind Virus:
1. You read books, and don't burn them.
2. You embrace science.
3. You are willing to change your mind when new information becomes available.
4. You understand that most issues aren't black and white.
5. You belive in true equality for all people.
6. You like to share.
7. You embrace cooperation.
8. You respect others' rights.
9. You believe culture and arts has value.
10. You care for the planet and all of its life.

If you know more, please, feel free to share. If you disagree, please, think again!

✊☮😴☮✊

Adkins, Roy & Lesley "Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England"

Adkins, Roy & Lesley "Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England: How our ancestors lived two centuries ago" (aka "Jane Austen's England) - 2013

Part of my #Reading Austen project is to read a book by the author in the uneven months and a book about the author and/or her books in the even ones. This is my October read.

And it was a very interesting and detailed book. We get several maps right at the beginning where we cannot just see where Jane Austen lived during her lifetime but also some other contemporary characters with a similar background. Something that always adds to the explanations in any book, fiction or non-fiction.

But it's not only that. They explain how the pounds, shillings and pennies were divided, how the weights and measurements were calculated, all those nitty-gritty bits that are in the books of that time but not explained because the readers would have known what it was. The same as what it meant when someone had £10,000 pounds a year. 

They tell us everything about weddings at the time, about the aristocracy and who was who, education was as much talked about as what was going on in home and kitchen. The fashion of the time (of which we read a lot in Jane's books) is described, the religion, work and hobbies, crimes, illnesses, just everything that was important to the people of the 19th century.

So, if you want to know more about Jane's life, this is the book for you.

From the back cover:

"Jane Austen, arguably the greatest novelist of the English language, lived from 1775 to 1817. Her fiction focuses on the gentry and aristocracy, and her heroines are young women looking for love. Yet the comfortable, tranquil country that she brilliantly devised is a complete contrast to the England in which she actually lived. For twenty-nine of Jane Austen's forty-one years, the country was embroiled in war.

Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England explores the real England of that time. Roy and Lesley Adkins vividly portray fascinating aspects of the daily lives of ordinary people, from forced marriages and the sale of wives in marketplaces to boys and girls working down mines or as chimney sweeps, this book eavesdrops on the daily chore of fetching water, the horror of ghosts and witches, Saint Monday, bull baiting, sedan chairs, highwaymen, the stench of corpses swinging on roadside gibbets and the horrors of surgery without anaesthetics.

Giving a voice to these forgotten people and revealing how they worked, played and struggled to survive, Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England is an authoritative and gripping account that is sometimes humorous, often shocking, but always entertaining."

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Books based on a true story

 

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.

Unfortunately, Meeghan has not posted anything for a while. If anyone knows what has happened to her, please, let me know.

And here is a list of all the topics for the rest of the year.

* * *

This week’s topic is Books based on a true story.

I always try to find some not so well known books and hope I detected some that most of you don't know, yet. And I found three translations. But in any case, they are all worth discovering.

Brooks, Geraldine "Caleb’s Crossing" - 2011

Droste-Hülshoff, Annette von "The Jew's Beech" (GE: Die Judenbuche) - 1842 

Green, Hannah (Joanne Greenberg) "I Never Promised you a Rose Garden" - 1964

Levi, Primo "If Not Now, When?" (I: Se non ora, quando) - 1982

Noa Bercovitch, Pascale "The Dolphin’s Boy: A Story of Courage and Friendship" (F: Oline, le dauphin du miracle) - 2000

* * *

📖 Happy Reading! 📖

📚 📚 📚

Andrew, Sally "Recipes for Love & Murder"

Andrew, Sally "Recipes for Love & Murder. A Tannie Maria Mystery" - 2015

I don't really read many crime stories but we love watching them. Hubby found this gem on TV, a newspaper columnist in South Africa who loves to cook and shares all her recipes in order to help people. Her recipes sound so great and there is even a cookbook. Unfortunately, it's only availabe in South Africa and they don't ship abroad. If one of my readers lives there or has connections, please, let me know. I'd love that book.

Anyway, Tannie Maria is a very active woman who can stand up for herself. And she has to prove that as her town is chased by an evil killer. Together with her two (female) colleagues, she hunts the hunter.

A lovely gripping murder mystery.

On page 250, there is an important comment for which I am very grateful. "… most doctors … don't even bother to test for lactose allergy. The truth is many people can't digest lactose properly and in some this develops into a severy allergy. It may worsen with age, ..." There is more but I think this is enough to show of the severity of lactose intolerance. I suffer from it heavily and often peole just laugh about it. I always say, if you ever had Gastroenteritis, imagine you get that every time you only have food with a little lactose. You would avoid it like the plague. Unfortunately, many restaurants and especially cafés don't cater for that at all. I am always happy if they at least offer vegan food, that is alright for me.

From the back cover:

"Meet Tannie Maria: A woman who likes to cook a lot and write a little. Tannie Maria writes recipes for a column in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette.

One Sunday morning, as Maria savours the breeze through the kitchen window whilst making apricot jam, she hears the screech and bump that announces the arrival of her good friend and editor Harriet. What Maria doesn't realise is that Harriet is about to deliver the first ingredient in two new recipes (recipes for love and murder) and a whole basketful of challenges.

A delicious blend of intrigue, milk tart and friendship, join Tannie Maria in her first investigation. Consider your appetite whetted for a whole new series of mysteries ..."

Book Quotes

"To hear the classics as a distant echo…" Italo Calvino in "Why Read the Classics?"

That's a good allegory. As if the past resonates within us.

"A book in your hand can be a real lifeline - when the sea of life is too rough, you cling to stories and let them bring you to safety." (Ein Buch in der Hand kann ein echter Rettungsanker sein - wenn die See des Lebens zu rau ist, klammert man sich an Geschichten und lässt sich von ihnen in Sicherheit bringen.) Jasmin Schreiber in "Marianengraben" [Mariana Trench]

This book deals with death and how we deal with it - or not. The quote is one of the best to show us how books can help us get through the difficult parts of life.

"One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by." Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle 

Aren't we lucky to live in an age where we don't have that problem?

Find more book quotes here.

Hemingway, Ernest "In Our Time"

Hemingway, Ernest "In Our Time" - 1925

I chose this book because the year 1925 was given for our Read the Year challenge. A whole century ago. I had read a few books from that year already, so the choice was not exactly limited but there wasn't a single book on my wishlist that would fit the challenge. So, I went for an author that I like and that I wanted to read more from.

Had I chosen it if I'd been aware that this is a collection of short stories? Probably not. Granted, they were linked with each other, somehow. But it still wasn't enough to really grip me.

However, this was his first publication and we can see a lot of topics that will come up in his later work. Having read some of those helped.

So, not my favourite of his books.

Book Description:

"A strikingly original collection of short stories and accompanying vignettes that marked Ernest Hemingway’s American debut.

When In Our Time was first published in 1925, it was widely praised for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and earned Hemingway a place among the most promising American writers of that period. In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories 'Indian Camp' and 'The Three Day Blow', and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway a lean, tough prose, enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic. His writing suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of vision.

Now recognized as one of the most important short story collections of twentieth-century literature, In Our Time provides key insights into Hemingway’s later works."

Ernest Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in 'The Old Man and the Sea' and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style".

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

Find all my Read The Year books here.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Labyrinth

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Travel Inspiration

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.

Unfortunately, Meeghan has not posted anything for a while. If anyone knows what has happened to her, please, let me know.

And here is a list of all the topics for the rest of the year.

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This week’s topic is Travel Inspiration.

I have read a lot of travel books since I love travelling. You can find them all here. For this challenge, I have used some unusual ways of travelling to some unusual destinations. I know I will never be able to do a trip like that anymore but I always love reading about them and I hope it gives someone an idea where to go next.

So, with these books, we travel to several parts of South America, to Oceania, Pakistan, Egypt, India, Kenya, Middle East, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Travel, Zimbabwe and India, Italy, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania and through various centuries.

Kehlmann, Daniel "Measuring the World" (GE: Die Vermessung der Welt) - 2005 

Milton, Giles "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" - 1999

Mortenson, Greg "Three Cups of Tea" (with David Oliver Relin) - 2006

Newsham, Brad "Take me with you" - 2000

Trojanow, Ilijya "The Collector of Worlds" (GE: Der Weltensammler) - 2006 

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📖 Happy Reading! 📖

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Hammond, Richard "As You Do"

Hammond, Richard "As You Do: Adventures With Evil, Oliver And The Vice President Of Botswana" - 2008

I have always loved Top Gear and espcially Richard Hammond, "The Hamster" (see his book On the Edge). The adventures the guys had in their show, they were always hilarious albeit very scary.

Here, Richard Hammond has written about his race to the North Pole with a dog-driven sled against his friends in a car - with a lot of preparation beforehand (Polar Special, also known as the Polar Challenge). And about his trip through Africa in a car that he bought right there and kept later on because he had named it (Ollie) and you cannot sell a car with a name. LOL.

And there are other stories in the book, how he rescued some friends who were stuck in their house in the flood in Gloucestershire. And how he met Eviel Knievel, a guy I never was interested in and am even less after reading about him, even though he was one of the author's heroes.

In any case, this was a very interesting book with lots of funny scenes, almost like watching Top Gear. And it was an easy yet still worthy book to read.

From the back cover:

"The wry, honest and often hilarious chronicles of a very brave and clever TV presenter, Arctic Explorer and general drawer of the Short Straw. 

As one third of the BBC's Top Gear team, Richard Hammond's year since his near-fatal accident has been full of stunts and drama. From a race to the North Pole (with skis and dog-sled) to a journey through Botswana in a car named Oliver, and a seventeen-mile run through floods to his Gloucestershire home, in order to get to his daughter's birthday party, the year has been eventful, to say the least . . .

With his boundless optimism in the face of certain failure, Richard Hammond has become one of our funniest writers about a life (and a job) which constantly present a challenge."

#ThrowbackThursday. September 2015

I've been doing ThrowbackThursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. So, I listed more than one Throwback book every week. Now, I have reached the ones I posted ten years ago and will probalby just post one every month. These are my reviews from September 2015. 

Hislop, Victoria "The Sunrise" - 2014 

A story about Famagusta, a town in Eastern Cyprus, that goes deep and shows how stupid any war is. People live their ordinary lives. They go to work, they go home. They love their families, they love their lives. Then the invasion. 

Lawson, Mary "Road Ends" - 2013

I like the author for her realistic description of the characters and their actions. 

An interesting story, not just about young Megan who leaves Canada for England but also and especially about the family she leaves behind, her father, brother, but mostly her mother. A story about mental illness in a time where that was such a taboo, people wouldn't acknowledge it anywhere.

Levithan, David "Every Day" - 2012

An interesting book. Not especially my genre. But an interesting concept about a "being" who is somebody different every day. Well written, certainly deserves to be a best-seller, especially for the "young adults" it has been written for because it poses so many questions that every teenager goes through. Who am I?

McCarthy, Pete "The Road to McCarthy: Around the World in Search of Ireland" - 2002

The author of "McCarthy's Bar" gives us another tale of his travels, this time from Ireland to Morocco, New York, the Caribbeans, Tasmania. A hilarious book by a funny writer who left us all too early.

Titchmarsh, Alan "Trowel and Error" - 2002
The presenter of "Ground Force" and "Gardener's World" writes about his life. He writes the way he talks, he is the same nice guy from next door as he is in his programmes. And listening to his story, you understand why that is the case.

Wilde, Oscar "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - 1890

I think that there is a lot about Oscar Wilde in Dorian Gray. The novel certainly raises many questions and gives everyone a lot to think about. How shallow are we really? How vain? And what would we swap for eternal beauty?