Alphabet Authors ~ R is for Ruiz Zafón

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 might not do it exactly as he does but I will try to get to all the letters of the alphabet over time.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón was a wonderful author. From the moment that I read his book "The Shadow of the Wind", the first of his Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, I was hooked. I read all of his novels, whether they were written for young adults or adults, they were all fantastic. And I'm not even a big fan of fantasy or anything like that. But his stories were just fascinating. He left us far too early.

- "The Shadow of the Wind" (E: La sombra del viento - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #1) - 2001
- "The Angel's Game" (E: El juego del ángel - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #2) - 2008

- "The Prisoner of Heaven" (E: El prisionero del cielo - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #3) - 2011
- "The Labyrinth of the Spirits" (E: El laberinto de los espíritus - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #4) - 2016
- "The City of Mist" (E: La Ciudad de Vapor - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #5) - 2020

- "Gaudí in Manhattan" (E: La Mujer de Vapor) - Gaudí in Manhattan - 2009
- "Marina" (E: Marina) - 1999
- "The Midnight Palace" (El Palacio de la Medianoche) - 1994
- "The Prince of Mist" (E: El príncipe de la niebla) - 1993
- "Watcher in the Shadows" (E: Las luces de Septiembre) - 1995

Facts about Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Born    25 September 1964 Barcelona, Spain

Died    19 June 2020 (aged 55) Los Angeles, California, United States

He received many prizes, i.a. the French Best Foreign Book Prize, the Canadian Prix de Associations des Libraires du Québec, the British Nielsen Award as well as the Ottakar's Award, the Spanish Protagonistas Award.

If he had lived longer, he might have even received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

His works have been translated into more than 50 different languages.
Because there are so many fans of his Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, we can now find plenty of maps of the important story landmarks for any fan who wanted to follow in the footsteps of the book's protagonist, Daniel Sempere. They even offer tours through Barcelona.

Here is Carlos Ruiz Zafóns homepage.

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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 ~ Books with the Word History in the Title

"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 the Word [Insert Word Here] in the Title (We can choose a word and find ten books with that word in the title.)

For me, there was no big question which word to choose because I read a lot of books about that topic: History.

Ackroyd, Peter "The History of England, Vol. 2 Tudors" - 2012 (my favourite period)

Bryson, Bill "A Short History of Nearly Everything" - 2003

Carey, Peter "True History of the Kelly Gang" - 2001

Clinton, Hillary Rodham "Living History" - 2003 
Hawking, Stephen "A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes" - 1988
Hirst, John "The Shortest History of Europe" - 2009 

Lewycka, Marina "Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" - 2005
O'Farrell, John "An Utterly Impartial History of Britain or 2,000 Years of Upper Calls Idiots in Charge" - 2007
Rhoides, Emmanuel (Emmanuel Roidis) "The Curious History of Pope Joan" (GR: Πάπισσα Ιωάννα/Papissa Ioanna) - 1866

Tartt, Donna "The Secret History" - 1992

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Africa

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 Books set in Africa, Australia and New Zealand. I found ten books for Africa already and could have done the same for the two other continents/countries. So, I decided to restrict myself to one continent, the largest one, and hope to do Australia and New Zealand another time. Same as in the last weeks, I have tried to choose some books from smaller countries about which one doesn't find books so easily. So, here is my list.

Achebe, Chinua "Things Fall Apart" - 1958
Nigeria

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

Bâ, Mariama "So Long a Letter" (F: Une si longue lettre) - 1979
Senegal

Dangarembga, Tsitsi "Nervous Conditions" - 1988
Zimbabwe

Ilibagiza, Immaculée "Left to Tell" - 2006

Rwanda

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🌍 Happy Reading! 🌍

📚 📚 📚

Mak, Geert "The Dream of Europe"

Mak, Geert "The Dream of Europe. Travels in a Troubled Continent" (Dutch: Grote verwachtingen. In Europa 1999-2019) - 2019

This book was a present by my son for Christmas. While I usually try to read Dutch books in Dutch, this was an English edition. In the end, I was not unhappy about that because now I can pass it on to my sons. They both speak Dutch but wouldn't read such a large book in that language.

I have read a few book by this fantastic journalist and author. All of them having to do with the changes of our continent in modern times. Totally interesting and very well examined and described.

He wrote this book six years ago and he predicted many events that are true today. That shows how well he observes. This can be seen as a follow-up to "In Europe. Travels through the Twentieth Century". A very-well deserved and very well executed follow-up. His observations about the first twenty years of our century are shocking and frightening. We should listen what he has to say about the future.

And here are some important quotes (from many):

"I wrote Enraged Citizens to show how it ought to be. The Capital (Die Hauptstadt)  is what it actually is." Robert Menasse

"But let all those idiots gather together in politics without sufficient resistance of any kind and you get a dictatorship of idiocy". Jacques de Kadt, Dutch essayist, in 1936

"He [one of the Republican candidates in 2015] lacked even the most basic respect for facts, institutions and democratic principles. To him, political opponents were enemies, a compromise was not a dignified agreement but a capitulation …" Doesn’t that apply to all of them???

From the back cover:

'Mak is the history teacher everyone should have had' Financial Times

How did the great European dream turn sour? And where do we go from here? From the author of the internationally acclaimed In Europe, a stunning history of our present,examining the first two decades of this most fragile and fraught new millennium. The great European project was built out of a common desire for peace, prosperity and freedom; a wish for a united Europe striving towards a common goal. The EU was to set an an arena for close cooperation, tackling crucial shared concerns from climate change to organized crime, promoting open borders and social security. But the first two turbulent decades of this century have been times of rapid and profound change. From the shores of Lampedusa to Putin's Moscow, the continent threatens to tear itself apart. What's happened to Europe's optimism and euphoria? How has it given way to nostalgia, frustration and fear, the fragile European dream in danger of turning into a nightmare?

In The Dream of Europe, Geert Mak, one of Europe's best-loved commentators, charts the seismic events that have shaped people's lives over the past twenty years. Mak's monumental book In Europe defined the continent on the verge of a new millennium. The Dream of Europe brings us up to the present day, through the rocky expansion of the EU, the aftermath of 9/11 and terrorist attacks across Europe, the 2008 financial crash and the euro crisis, the tragedy of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, the rise of right-wing populism and Brexit.

Like no other, Mak blends history, politics and culture with the stories and experiences of the many Europeans he meets on his travels. He brings this continent to life, and asks what role does Europe play now, and how might we face our challenges together, in the spirit of solidarity and connection.

'A powerful, humane and serious mind' Guardian

'Mak is a truly cosmopolitan chronicler' Independent"

Christie, Agatha "The Mousetrap"

Christie, Agatha "The Mousetrap" - 1952

My husband and I are big Agatha Christie fans. I haven't read all of her books but we must have watched every screen adaptation under the sky. The only story not known to us is "The Mousetrap" and I wasn't even aware that there is a book you can buy. So, when the Read the Year Club decided we would read 1952 this time, I stumbled upon this story. I was really happy because I don't think we'll get to London that quickly and who knows whether it is possible to watch the play then.

Anyway, the story is just typical for Agatha Christie. Lots of suspects, everyone could be the murderer. And it is all so puzzling, confusing. Just like any other Agatha Christie story.

So, if you have the chance to visit the play, go ahead. And if not, read the play. I'm not a big fan of reading plays but this one was really easy to read. And entertaining.

From the back cover:

"The play 'The Mousetrap' revolves around a couple who set up a guesthouse for the first time and find that their visitors are not what they seem - that every visitor seems to have some connection to the couple, expected or unexpected. This is not made known until much later when a ski-happy policeman Trotter arrives on the scene, and starts connecting the Monkswell manor (the house) to a violent death scene in Paddington a few hours ago, where a notebook was left behind at the crime scene with the words 'Monkswell Manor' written on it. Trotter then gets everyone hyped up over this murderer's identity. This play is good because it showed that everyone could be a suspect, and that element of scariness cannot be missed in this very exciting play, a play that delves back into the histories of its characters. Suspense abounds as the murderer's identity is slowly revealed. A great book - not to be missed."

Find all my Read The Year books here.

#ThrowbackThursday. March 2013

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 post more than one Throwback every week. These are my reviews from March 2013.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor "Crime and Punishment" (RUS: Преступление и наказание) - 1866

The author manages to bring in so many different topics. It is a classic crime novel but it is also a historical novel, and it is also a psychological and philosophical work.

Hislop, Victoria "The Return" - 2008
A young woman discovers not only the terrible history of the Spanish Civil War but also her own. Along with her, the reader is forced to learn more about this awful part of history.

McCullers, Carson "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" - 1940
A book worth reading. "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". What is it hunting? And why?
A wonderful book that makes you think a lot about the world and whether it has changed in the last hundred years.

O’Brian, Patrick "Master & Commander" - 1969
A lot of action going on in the story and a lot of information about the Napoleonic wars and how life was for the "heroes of the sea". I loved the characters, especially friendship between the two main men. 

Peet, Bill "The Whingdingdilly" - 1982
Scamp is a farm dog who is bored with who he is. Every other animal seems to have a better and more exciting live than he does. He asks a witch to change him into another animal. He only doesn't tell her which one ...

LeSieg, Theo (=Dr. Seuss) "Wacky Wednesday" - 1974
My children loved activity books when they were little, something to do, something to look for. And silly rhymes. Well, Dr. Seuss often gave them both.

Alphabet Authors ~ P is for Pamuk

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 might not do it exactly as he does but I will try to get to all the letters of the alphabet over time.

Orhan Pamuk belongs to my favourite authors. And here are all the books I read by him. Well, those are also all the books that have been translated into either English or German. I don't think I will ever learn Turkish well enough in order to be able to read a book in that language.

- "My Father's Suitcase" (TR: Babamın Bavulu) - 2007

- "The Black Book" (TR: Kara Kitap) - 1990
- "Cevdet Bey and His Sons" (TR: Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları) - 1982

- "The Innocence of Objects" (TR: Şeylerin Masumiyeti) - 2012
- "Istanbul" (TK: İstanbul - Hatıralar ve Şehir) - 2003
- "The Museum of Innocence" (TR: Masumiyet Müzesi) - 2008
- "My Name is Red - 1998 * 

- "The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist" (TR: Saf ve Düşünceli Romancı) - 2011
- "The New Life" (TR: Yeni Hyat) - 1994

- "Nights of Plague" (TR: Veba Geceleri) - 2021
- "The Red-Haired Woman" (TR: Kırmızı Saçlı Kadın) - 2016
- "Silent House" (TR: Sessiz Ev) - 1983
- "Snow" (TR: Kar) - 2002   
- "A Strangeness in my Mind" (TR: Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık) - 2014

- "To Look Out the Window/Pieces from the View: Life, Streets, Literature" (TR: Manzaradan Parçalar: Hayat, Sokaklar, Edebiyat/Der Blick aus meinem Fenster. Betrachtungen) - 2008
- "The White Castle" (TR: Beyaz Kale) - 1985

Facts about Orhan Pamuk:
Born    7 June 1952 Istanbul, Turkey
He has received several prizes, i.a. the French Légion d'honneur Officier, the International Dublin Award, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis), and many more.

He was the first Turkish author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
He was also awarded several doctorates, honoris causa, i.a. in Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburg as well as in Yale and other. 
After issuing a statement about the Armenian genocide and mass killings of Kurds, he was charged for publicly insulting the Republic. After eight world-renowned authors supported him, the charges were dropped.

He has one daughter (Rüya which means dream) with his first wife.

Quotes:

"My job is not to explain Turks to Europeans and Europeans to Turks, but to write good books."

"You know, there are people who love their fatherland by torturing. I love my country by criticizing my state."

Orhan Pamuk "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

Orhan Pamuk received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2005.

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

You will find more information on his homepage.

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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 ~ Asia

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 Books set in Asia. Same as in the last weeks, I have tried to choose some books from smaller countries about which one doesn't find books so easily. So, here is my list.

Aitmatov, Chinghiz "Jamila" (Russian: Джамиля - Jamilia) - 1958

Kyrgyzstan

Xueqin, Cao (Cáo Xuěqín) "Dream of the Red Chamber" (Chinese: 红楼梦/Hung lou meng/aka The Story of the Stone) - ca. 1717-1763 (18th century)
China

Hirata, Andrea "The Rainbow Troops" (Indonesian: Lasykar Pelangi) - 2005
Indonesia

Lee, Min Jin "Pachinko" - 2017
Korea, Japan

Murasaki, Lady Shikibu "The Tale of Genji" (Japanese: 源氏物語 Genji Monogatari) - early 11th century
Japan

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🌏 Happy Reading! 🌏

📚 📚 📚

Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders"

Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders" - 2001

My goodness, what a story! I have read several books about the plague before or novels that had the plague in their book. But this one was one just about the book. Well, up until the last couple of pages where another book was more or less forced into just one chapter.

Still, I loved this book about a village that struggled during the plague, that hat the idea to shut themselves off from the rest of the world in order not to bring this horrible disease to others. The village existed, the people in the book were based on real people from that time. But it was still a novel.

Apparently, this was Geraldine Brooks' first book. I think she learned not to add such a quick end but I still loved it very much. The author is such a great writer. And I think the Covid-19 pandemic brought the story even closer to us.

From the back cover:

"Spring 1666: when the Great Plague reaches the quiet Derbyshire village of Eyam, the villagers make an extraordinary decision. They elect to isolate themselves in a fateful quarantine. So begins the Year of Wonders, seen through eighteen-year-old Anna Frith’s eyes as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. Based on a true story, this novel explores love and learning, fear and fanaticism, and the struggles of seventeenth-century science and religion to interpret the world at the cusp of the modern era."

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine"

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine" - 2023

I have been a fan of Victoria Hislop since I read her first book "The Island". I have only been to Greece once, and not even to the mainland but to Crete. But through this author, I have come to love the country and this one is one of her best.

The heroine of the book, Helena, has a Scottish father and a Greek mother. And her family does the best thing one can do to a bi-cultural child, they send her to her grandparents for the holidays so that she becomes a fully bilingual child.

The story is so exciting, not just from the language or the Greek point of view, there is so much going on and we can follow Greek history recent and ancient in this one novel. Fantastic.

I don't know which one is my favourite, "The Island" or this one but it certainly is one of the two. Such a beautiful story.

From the back cover:

"'Her love for Greece shines through and transports readers to a brilliantly drawn world' Independent

'Family turmoil, unanswered questions, romance and betrayal, all served up against the backdrop of Greece and its enchanting history' Daily Express

An unputdownable read with a family's dark history giving a unique glimpse into Greece's troubled past. Athens sparkles in Victoria Hislop's imagination. Concealed beneath the dust sheets in the Athens apartment she has inherited from her grandparents, Helena McCloud discovers a hidden hoard of rare antiquities, amassed during a dark period in Greek history when the city and its people were gripped by a brutal military dictatorship. Helena's fascination for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent on a dig on an Aegean island, tells her that she must return these precious artefacts to their rightful place. Only then will she be able to allay the darkness of the past and find the true meaning of home - for cultural treasures and for herself."

#ThrowbackThursday. February 2013

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 post more than one Throwback every week. These are my reviews from February 2013.

Ansay, A. Manette "Vinegar Hill" - 1995

It is always amazing to see how much a person can endure. And how long they can watch to see how their loved ones, their children, can go through hard times.

Barnes, Valerie "A Foreign Affair. A Passionate Life in Four Languages" - 2004

Valerie Barnes tells us about her life as an ex-pat, the life of someone who juggles several languages at the same time, lets us look behind the scenes of an international organization, gives us a glimpse into an unhappy marriage to a philanderer, shows us all her international travels around the world, just a wonderful account of an interesting life.

Coerr, Eleanor "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" - 1977

A sad story about a Japanese girl who was born in Hiroshima and was still a baby when the atom bomb was dropped on her home town. 

Estes, Eleanor "The Hundred Dresses" - 1944

A beautiful children's book that teaches children about bullying, about poverty, about friendship and acceptance.

Hagena, Katharina "The Taste of Apple Seeds" (German: Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen) - 2008

A beautiful story about three generations of women. A quiet read that you can enjoy slowly.

Tucker, Helen "The Sound of Summer Voices" - 1969

What do you think when you are eleven years old and find out that your aunt is your mother and your mother never existed? 

Alphabet Authors ~ O is for Oates

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 might not do it exactly as he does but I will try to get to all the letters of the alphabet over time.

This was an easy letter for me. I have read so many books by this author, she is definitely one of my favourites. Joyce Carol Oates. And I say it again and again, give here the Nobel Prize for Literature.:

- "A Book of American Martyrs" - 2017
- "A Widow's Story" - 2011 (a memoir)
- "Big Mouth & Ugly Girl" - 2003
- "Black Girl/White Girl" - 2006
- "Blonde" - 2000
- "Carthage" - 2014
- "Dear Husband, stories" - 2009 (short stories)
- "The Falls" - 2004
- "The Gravedigger's Daughter" - 2007
- "Jack of Spades. A Tale of Suspense" - 2015
- "Little Bird of Heaven" - 2009
- "The Man Without a Shadow" - 2016   
- "Middle Age" - 2001
- "Mudwoman" - 2012
- "The Sacrifice" - 2015
- "Sexy" - 2015
- "We Were the Mulvaneys" - 1996

Facts about Joyce Carol Oates:
Born    16 June 1938 in Lockport, New York, USA

Husbands: Raymond J. Smith (married 1961; died 2008)

                Charles G. Gross (married 2009; died 2019)

She used to teach at Princeton University, received several honorary doctor awards and many literature awards for her writings, i.a. the O. Henry Award, the National Book Award, the National Humanities Medal, the Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement and the Jerusalem Prize. And five times she was one of the finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

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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 ~ Europe

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 Books set in Europe. Same as last week, I have tried to choose some books from smaller countries about which one doesn't find books so easily. So, here is my list.

Andrić, Ivo "The Bridge on the Drina" (SRB/HR: На Дрини Ћуприја oder Na Drini Ćuprija) - 1945
Bosnia-Herzegovina (and Serbia)

Kadaré, Ismail "The Fall of the Stone City" (aka Chronicle in Stone) (AL: Darka e Gabuar) - 1971
Albania

Moggach, Deborah "Tulip Fever" - 1999
The Netherlands

Müller, Herta "The Appointment" (GE: Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet) - 1997
Romania

Şafak, Elif "The Island of Missing Trees" - 2021
Cyprus

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🌍 Happy Reading! 🌍

📚 📚 📚

Campbell, Jen "Weird Things Customers say in Bookshops"

Campbell, Jen "Weird Things Customers say in Bookshops" - 2012 

What is weird? I can think of weird-funny, weird-strange, weird-stupid, weird-crazy, weird-peculiar, ...

There are 182 synonyms and antonyms to the word weird in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (I did not count them, it says so on their website: They divide it into weird as in bizarre, eerie, magical, unusual.

Well, this book has remarks by customers that fit them all. There is the joke at the back of the cover: "Do you have this children's book I've heard about? It's supposed to be very good. It's callled 'Lionel Richie and the Wardrobe'."

But there are lots more, many of the really stupid. It starts with the customer who read a book in the sixties that made them laugh. They don't remember the title, only that it was green.

And other customers who know nothing about the book they are looking for but expect the bookseller to find it. Or the customer who doesn't want to start with the first book in the series and then complains that they can't understand the fourth or fifth …

And then there are the people who come with their children and think they have every right to misbehave, destroy books or parts of the equipment. Honestly, I don't know how the sellers keep their calm.

Honestly, I could go on and on. But I leave it at this: Read the book!

From the back cover:

"A John Cleese Twitter question ('What is your pet peeve?'), first sparked the 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' blog, which grew over three years into one bookseller's collection of ridiculous conversations on the shop floor.

From 'Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?' to the hunt for a paperback which could forecast the next year's weather; and from 'I've forgotten my glasses, please read me the first chapter' to 'Excuse me... is this book edible?', here is a book for heroic booksellers and booklovers everywhere.

This full-length collection illustrated by the Brothers McLeod also includes top 'Weird Things' from bookshops around the world."

The 1952 Club

This book challenge takes place twice a year and concentrates on one year and one year only. I call it "Read the Year Club". This time, 1952 was picked. For more information, see Simon @ Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings (here is Karen's invite and here is Simon's). If you are looking for inspiration, there are a few books from that year that I read already:

Beckett, Samuel "Waiting for Godot" (F: En attendant Godot) - 1952

Hemingway, Ernest "The Old Man and the Sea" - 1952
Steinbeck, John "East of Eden" - 1952

Waltari, Mika "The Dark Angel" (SF: Johannes Angelos) - 1952
White, E.B. "Charlotte's Web" - 1952

I also found some other ideas (Karen has more on her page):

Boulle, Pierre "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" (Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï)

Buck, Pearl S. "The Hidden Flower"
Christie, Agatha "The Mousetrap"
Day, Dorothy "The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist"

Du Maurier, Daphne "The Birds"

Remarque, Erich Maria "Spark of Life" (Der Funke Leben)

Tutuola, Amos "The Palm-Wine Drinkard"

This challenge takes place from 21 to 27 April 2025.

I have picked a story I was always interested in:
Christie, Agatha "The Mousetrap" - 1952

Capote, Truman "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - 1958

Capote, Truman "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - 1958

We read this in our international online book club in March 2025.

I saw the film many, many years ago. I always wanted to read the book, but somehow I never got around to it. Of course, too many books, too little time. Now we have read it in our international online book club.

It really is an excellent book, but unfortunately much too short.

The description of the characters, especially Holly Golightly and the nameless narrator, is excellent. You can feel the relationship between the people, the problems that people had back then. Would the book be written like this today, would the characters still live like this today? Certainly not, but that makes the story even more interesting.

Comments by other readers:

I think the book was interesting and well written, but it was not a great discussion-book. We had much to say about the stereotypical set of characters and her relationship types. But not that much else. I found it very sad anyway.

From the back cover:

"It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's. And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irresponsibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction."

#ThrowbackThursday. January 2013

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 post more than one Throwback every week. These are my reviews from January 2013.

Bradbury, Ray "Fahrenheit 451" - 1953
This novel was written in the fifties, in the United States, at the height of the McCarthy era, when the fear of the communists during the Cold War was leading to almost witch-huntlike attacks on citizens.

Faulks, Sebastian "Birdsong. A Novel of Love and War" - 1993

The author has successfully tried to describe something unsurpassable, something so astonishingly unimaginable. Today wars are fought differently. But if you read this novel, you will see that the tragedies of losing friends and loved ones in a war cannot be changed, it will remain the same, no matter how they get killed.

Hill, Richard "We Europeans" - 1992
A very interesting book about the different nations of  Europe, their likes and dislikes, their similarities and their differences. 

Mo, Yan "Red Sorghum. A Novel of China" (Chinese: 红高粱家族 Hóng gāoliang jiāzú) - 1987
The story takes place during the second Sino-Japanese war between 1937 and 1945, so approximately the same time the whole world was at war. The narrator tells the story of his ancestors during that time.

Xu, Ruiyan "The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai" - 2010
Quite a different book about China, it's actually a story that could take place anywhere in the world. After an accident, a man loses part of his brain and can only speak the language he grew up with but does not reign that of his wife and child.

Yerby, Frank "Speak now" - 1969
A love story between a white woman and a black musician in Paris.

Yerby, Frank "Griffin's Way" - 1962
A good novel about the story of the Ku Klux Klan in the Southern part of the United States after the Civil War.

Alphabet Authors ~ N is for Naipaul

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 might not do it exactly as he does but I will try to get to all the letters of the alphabet over time.

There are letters where you have a huge choice of authors and then there are others where you don't find even one. Well, there is at least one great author that begins with N, even though I have only read three of his books. But they were all fantastic and he totally deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature. V.S. Naipaul. And here are his books:

- "In a Free State" - 1971
- "A Bend in the River" - 1979
- "Half A Life" - 2001
- "A House for Mr. Biswas" - 1961

Facts about V.S. Naipaul:
Born    17 August 1932 in Trinidad and Tobago
Died    11 August 2018 in London, United Kingdom
He won several literature prizes, i.a. the Nobel Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, the Booker Prize. 

He was awarded the Trinity Cross, Trinidad and Tobago's highest national honour and received a knighthood in Britain.

V.S. Naipaul received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories".

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 ~ America

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 Books set in America. I have read a lot of books from the USA and Canada. But America is so much larger, so I thought I take a look at South America and some of the countries that hardly ever get mentioned. So, here is my list.

Alvarez, Julia "In the Time of the Butterflies" - 1994
Dominican Republic

Azevedo, Francisco "Once Upon a Time in Rio" (PO: O Arroz de Palma) - 2008
Brazil

Betancourt, Íngrid "Even Silence Has an End" (F: Même le silence a une fin) - 2010
Colombia

McLeod, Cynthia "The Cost of Sugar" (NL: Hoe duur was de suiker?) - 1987
Suriname

Osorio, Elsa "My Name is Light" (E: A veinte años, Luz) - 1998
Argentina

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🌎 Happy Reading! 🌎

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Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary"

Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary" (French: Madame Bovary) - 1857

For the Classics Spin #40, we received #4 and this was my novel.

I have a love-hate relationship with French books. I love the French language. I absolutely love the books by Albert Camus, there are a few others I don't exactly dislike but, in general, they are not for me.

I had hoped that this one would be for me like my beloved English classics by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, the Brontës, etc. etc. But it was not to be.

What did I dislike about the novel? Not the story itself, it was quite interesting to follow the story of Emma, a young girl who marries a doctor but finds her life beside him completely boring so looks for excitement in other men. Or maybe it was the story. It was as boring as the life of the protagonist. So, maybe that's exactly what he was trying to show. Then he succeded. But not with me.

From the back cover:

"Madame Bovary is the debut novel of French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. When the novel was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert's acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published in two volumes. A seminal work of literary realism, the novel is now considered Flaubert's masterpiece, and one of the most influential literary works in history."

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.

Six Degrees of Separation ~ Knife

Salman Rushdie
"Knife" - 2023

#6Degrees of Separation: 
from Knife (Goodreads) to Murder in Amsterdam

#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 "Knife" by Salman Rushdie. This is one of the books I would love to read but haven't gotten so far, because it's not available in paperback, yet. But I know about the book and it is therefore a little easier to find a  link to further novels.

And this is the description of this novel:

"From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him

On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again."

I will concentrate on books with murder in the title and in the book, some of them are non-fiction, others fiction. And not all of them end with a dead person.

I start with one of the best crime stories ever written.

Christie, Agatha "Murder on the Orient Express" (Hercule Poirot #10) - 1934
We all know the brilliant author and if we haven't read the book, we will have seen one of the numerous films they made about it. It's all about revenge, and I think in this case, we can all understand the killers.

Johnson, Maureen; Cooper, Jay "Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village" - 2021
If, like me, you like to watch the British crime series "Midsomer Murders", the title jumps right into your eyes.

Osman, Richard "The Thursday Murder Club" - 2020

Even though I'm not much into murder mystery, I just love Richard Osman's wit. 

No matter what kind of book you like to read to entertain yourself (for me, they have to be funny), this is the one. Enjoy.

Poe, Edgar Allan "The Murders in the Rue Morgue and other stories" - 1841
Dark, gruesome, abysmal, that's what I read somewhere about the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. This was not my kind of book but it fitted into the scheme.

Scott, Mary; West, Joyce "The Mangrove Murder" (Inspector Wright #3) - 1964
The people in this story are just as charming as everyone in Mary Scott's other books, well, except for the killer, of course. But other than that, we read about people who live in New Zealand at a time when life was still very different from today.

Buruma, Ian "Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance" (NL: Dood van en gezonde roker) - 2006

Murder in Amsterdam. Not any murder. The murder of a director, a public figure. Why? He made a movie not everyone agreed with. He made a movie about the Muslim faith.

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There is quite a good connection between the first and the last degree. In both cases, a maniac tries to assassinate another human being because of their religion and political engagement. In the last book, he is even successful.

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Spell the Month in Books ~ April 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.

April: Animals on the Cover or in the Title

I'm not the biggest nature fan. Or animal lover. But there are always books that fit this description, so here we go:

APRIL

A

Brown, Marc "Arthur's Nose" - 1976
Arthur, the Aardvark

P
Davis, Lee "P.B. Bear" - 1990s
Pyjama Bear, the Bear, who helps children read
R
Bythell, Shaun "Remainders of the Day: More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown" - 2022
Captain, Shaun Bythell's book shop cat
I
Numeroff, Laura "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" - 1985

... he'll ask for a glass of milk

L
Moore, Christopher "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff" - 2002

This book has to have a lamb on the cover.

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Happy Reading!

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