#ThrowbackThursday. April/May 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 post more than one Throwback every week. These are my reviews from April and May 2015. 

Brown, Daniel James "The Boys in the Boat. Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Golad at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" - 2013

Funnily enough, this has just been turned into a movie. I'm looking forward to it. The story is based on real life.

The world in 1936. The Nazis are "hosting" the Olympic Games. Hitler wants to show the world how brilliant his country is. One of his hopes was the rowing competition, especially the Men's eights. "His" crew only made Bronze. Eight US boys from the lowest classes made it into a rowing team that until before had only been composed of rich students from elite universities. 

Deary, Terry "Horrible Histories" - 1993ff.   

The subtitles of most of these books are "History with the nasty bits left in!" Boys, especially boys, love a bit of gruesomeness. And the language is just right for kids.

Eco, Umberto "The Name of the Rose" (Italian: Il nome della rosa) - 1980

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.

Munro, Alice "Runaway" - 2004

A brilliant collection of very interesting short stories that grip you from the first page.

Shteyngart, Gary "Absurdistan" - 2006

Certainly a funny book. Quite weird actually. A novel about sex, drugs and rock'n roll but in today's times. However, in a country that still lives in the sixties.

Yousafzai, Malala; Lamb, Christina "I am Malala. The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban" - 2013

Everybody talks about freedom all the time. Freedom of education, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. And here is a young girl who has always spoken out for freedom, who has been fighting for education her whole life, disregarding any threats she received.