Weir, Andy "Project Hail Mary"

Weir, Andy "Project Hail Mary" - 2021

I learned with this book that there is such a thing as hard science fiction. *) I am not a sci-fi fan but I do like this kind of description. And it is true, this one definitely falls under that category. All his descriptions are logical. The author even manages to describe physical explanations in a way that I understand it. Physics was not my favourite subject at school and I have not expanded the knowledge I gained there, so I learned a lot from this book.

But even if you're not into those explanations at all, you can just enjoy the story as it is.

And enjoy I did it. 

I had loved The Martian and therefore bought this novel a while ago. But with my large TBR pile, it took me a while to tackle this. I had talked to my son about The Martian and given my copy to him. He liked it and then mentioned that he would like this one for his upcoming birthday. Since I already had it, I told him not to worry, I'd read this one and then he would get my copy.

I am glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed the excursion, the attempt to save the Earth. But this book is also full of humour and compassion. 

I can't tell too much about the content because it would involve too many spoilers but ask me, if you have any questions.

*) Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. (Wikipedia)

Book Description:

"Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?"

Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois"

Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois" - 2021

This is such a beautiful book. Don't let yourself get scared by the 800+ pages, they are totally worth it. Barack Obama has it on his reading list. It's an Oprah book and it has been chosen by various other reading lists/awards. Definitely a good recommendation on all accounts.

W.E.B. Du Bois, the guy in the tile, was an American sociologist, writer, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist who lived from 1868 to 1963 and was the first African American to earn a doctorate at Harvard University. This book mentions him a lot. I have read his book "The Souls of Black Folk" which is a very thorough study of black culture in the United States. This novel adds to that subject.

The story circles around Ailey Pearl Garfield, a black girl born in 1973, and all her ancestors, going back to the first known ones in the 1740s. She has both black and Native American ancestors and there is a lot about their history. She has to struggle through all the problems many women but especially black women have to overcome. She is a strong woman but many obstacles are thrown in her way. And we learn how her ancestors, especially the women managed.

The only criticism I have has nothing to do with the story or the book. There is a family tree at the beginning but it is sometimes quite confusing. Either a diagram or some numbers as to who belongs to whom would have been helpful. The way it is presented, there is too much searching involved if you want to know more. If you are still reading it, there is a diagram on Wikipedia.

But other than that, book was just fantastic, epic.

From the back cover:

"A magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called 'Double Consciousness,' a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.

Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.

To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself."

Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2026

I have taken part in this reading challenge since 2013. The moment I saw that post, I know this was the most interesting challenge for me. I signed up for the highest of the four levels "Mor-book-ly Obese" which meant eight or more chunksters (books over 450 pages) of which three must be 750 pages or more.

I have carried on with that challenge without setting goals, I love big books and I will always read some. And I am more than willing to tell my friends about them.

If you are interested in the challenge, check out this link. They discontinued their challenge in 2015.
You can still find suggestions by page number, in case you can't find any chunksters yourself. 😉

Or you can check out my lists from the previous years (below), maybe you are interested in a couple of them.

I read in
2013: 38 chunky books, 13 of them chunksters
2014: 37 chunky books, 15 of them chunksters
2015: 26 chunky books, 8 of which chunksters
2016: 28 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2017: 35 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2018: 29 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2019: 20 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2020: 18 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2021: 24 chunky books, 10 of which chunksters
2022: 11 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2023: 12 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2024: 16 chunky books, 4 of which chunksters
2025: 17 chunky books, 4 of which chunksters

I will be posting the books I have read here:
(I add the German title, if available, for my German friends)
[I add my own translation of a foreign book title if it's not available in English.]

Baldursdóttir, Kristín Marja "Die Eismalerin" (Karitas án titils/Karitas untitled) - 2004 - 463 pages
Godfrey, Jennie "The List of Suspicious Things" (Unser Buch der seltsamen Dinge) - 2024
Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois" (Die Liebeslieder von W.E.B. Du Bois) - 2021 - 816 pages

I read 3 chunky books in 2026 of which 0 are considered a chunkster.

If you want to do this challenge or just check at the end of the year what category you are, here is the list:

    The Chubby Chunkster - this option is for the readers who want to dabble in large tomes, but really doesn't want to commit to much more than that. FOUR Chunksters is all you need to finish this challenge.
    The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months.
    Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX Chunksters from the following categories: 2 books which are between 450 - 550 pages in length; 2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; 2 books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length (for ideas, please refer to the book suggestions page for some books which fit into these categories).
    Mor-book-ly Obese - This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to EIGHT or more Chunksters of which three tomes MUST be 750 pages or more. You know you want to.....go on and give in to your cravings. 

Looks like I've always been "more book-ly obese". 😂

Dickens, Charles "Martin Chuzzlewit"

Dickens, Charles "Martin Chuzzlewit. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" - 1843-44 

I'm a huge fan of Charles Dickens and am glad I read this novel. But I wouldn't recommend it if you haven't read anything else by him. For me, this was one of his worst novels.

Too many characters, even though he was able to include many interesting names. This also meant that some things got lost, such as the main love story, which is what everything supposedly revolves around. But it's barely portrayed. We hardly see the couple together. Otherwise, too much confusion, chaos, one catastrophe after another.

I read somewhere that this is Dickens' most underrated book. I wouldn't say that; I think it landed exactly where it belongs, somewhere at the very bottom of all his fantastic books.

I recommend "David Copperfield" for starters.

From the back cover:

"Old Martin Chuzzlewit believes that greed is so endemic in his family that he disinherits his grandson and hinders his courtship of Mary Graham. As the intricacies of he plot develop the story passes from sunny comedy to the grimmest depths of criminal psychology. Domestic tyranny is tellingly depicted through the household of Mr Pecksniff and public villainy - leading to blackmail and  murder - revealed in the activities of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company...

A brilliant satire on selfishness and hypocrisy revolving around a stubborn young protagonist. Martin Chuzzlewit is also one of Dickens's comic masterpieces. Peopled with a cast of characters - including Mrs. Gamp, Poll Sweedlepipe, Montague Tigg and Chevy Slyme - unequalled elsewhere in his novels."

Spell the Month in Books ~ September 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.

September: Something to savor – longer books (define as you will) OR ones that have been on your TBR for a long time

I have just been doing a Top Ten Tuesday list: High Page Count. And since I've been participating in a reading challenge called Chunky Books, I thought this might be easier than some months. However, when I did that first challenge, I didn't have to observe the letters those books started with. Unfortunately, I didn't find all books with more than a thousand pages, especially since I needed two "E"s. But at least my shortest book here are 688 pages.

SEPTEMBER

S

Seth, Vikram "A Suitable Boy" - 1993 - 1.488 pages

This story is settled in India in the fifties. Although the main focus is on the family that is looking for "a suitable boy" (to marry) for one of their daughters, the novel centres on four families with different backgrounds, both Hindus and Muslims.

E

Follett, Ken "The Evening and the Morning" - 2020 - 928 pages

Kingsbrigde 0.5. This should be your starter book. The small place called "Dreng's Ferry" is going to become a very important town called Kingsbridge and you can see over the years how England and the world grows, how lives change from one century to the next. 

This one is especially interesting since it takes place about a thousand years before us. A whole millennium. We can see how much has changed - and how much hasn't. Impressive.

P

Follett, Ken "The Pillars of the Earth" - 1989 - 1.076 pages
The building of a cathedral in 12^th century England. There is so much in this book, the history of The Anarchy, the murder of Thomas Becket, the development of architecture from Roman to Gothic, the influence of the church, life of ordinary people as well as nobility during that time-period. Follett manages to describe all this as if it had happened yesterday and he was among these people. The stories or different people are interweaving during the decades, so you get to see "good old friends" (and sometimes not so good ones) again and again.

T

Tellkamp, Uwe "Der Turm. Geschichte aus einem versunkenen Land" (The Tower) - 2008 - 1.024 pages

Uwe Tellkamp describes life in East Germany in the 1980s. I grew up in the Western part of the country and - as most of us - didn't have any contacts to the East. 

The length of the book enabled the author to go into so many details of so many different characters. 

E

George, Margaret "Elizabeth I" - 2011 - 688 pages
Historical Fiction. The story of Elizabeth I. 680 pages of it. Told by herself and her cousin Lettice, the granddaughter of her mother's sister. So we can see various sides of the Queen's life.

M

Hugo, Victor "Les Misérables" - 1862 - 1,480 pages
What a story. "Les Misérables" - those who are miserable. And miserable they are indeed. Someone steals a bread because children are hungry and has to pay for it for the rest of his life! Someone else doesn't do anything wrong, at least not at today's standards and is punished, as well. Only because she is poor.

B

Dostoevsky, Fyodor "The Brothers Karamazov" (RUS: Братья Карамазовы) - 1879-80 - 1,249 pages

The book is packed full with philosophical and religious questions, questions about human existence. The three brothers Karamazov all represent a different side, all have different answers. Then there is a fourth, illegitimate brother who is a servant in the father's house.

We discover the Russian society through these different men and their miseries. The story is spellbinding and stays with us for a long long time.

E

Steinbeck, John "East of Eden" - 1952 - 601 pages

Steinbeck talks about problems as old as mankind, he retells the story of Cain and Abel, only here they are called Caleb and Aaron (the father is still Adam, though), and they live in his native California.
An excellent report about growing up, growing in different directions, about good and evil, young and old, a very moving story, so many lives that you fear and hope with.

R

Rutherfurd, Edward "Russka. The Novel of Russia" - 1991 - 1,042 pages
The book describes the lives of four different families and their descendants, beginning in the year 180 and ending almost 2 millennia later in 1992 and thereby telling us the story of this great and vast land that has influenced world history for so long but also was influenced by it. The families include various ethnic, they belong to the serfs and the nobility, so you can have a good look into all kinds of lives. As we get to know the characters, we can get a better understanding about Russian history and politics, going from Genghis Khan over Ivan the Terrible to Peter and Catherine, both the Great, until Lenin and Stalin during the revolution in the 20th century. 

* * *

Happy Reading!

📚 📚 📚

Top Ten Tuesday ~ High Page Count

"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 a High Page Count (Share those doorstop books!))

Good thing that I do the chunky book challenge, so I could find my longest books quickly. Maybe some of you have a different page count (especially if I read the German translation of a foreign book), depending on the edition. But these books all have more than 1,000 pages.

Tolstoy, Leo "War and Peace" (RUS: Война и мир = Woina i mir) - 1868/69 - 2,099 pages

Rutherfurd, Edward "Sarum: the Novel of England" - 1987 - 1,376 pages

Mak, Geert "In Europe. Travels Through the Twentieth Century" (NL: In Europa: Reizen door de twintigste eeuw) - 2004 - 1,351 pages

Dostoevsky, Fyodor "The Brothers Karamazov" (RUS: Братья Карамазовы) - 1879-80 - 1,249 pages

Follett, Ken "World Without End" - 2007 - 1,237 pages

Undset, Sigrid "Kristin Lavransdatter" (NO: Kristin Lavransdatter) - 1920-22 - 1,168 pages

Mann, Thomas "The Magic Mountain" (GE: Der Zauberberg) - 1924 - 1,120 pages

Dickens, Charles "Bleak House" - 1852/53 - 1,088 pages

Schami, Rafik "The Dark Side of Love" (GE: Die dunkle Seite der Liebe) - 2004 - 1,043 pages

Clarke, Susanna "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" - 2004 - 1,024 pages

I don't think I need to mention that I love large books. The bigger the better!!!

📚 Happy Reading 📚

Osman, Richard "We Solve Murders"

Osman, Richard "We Solve Murders" - 2024

I absolutely loved Richard Osman's first books because I do love him as a person and also got to love him as an author, So, I was quite happy, when my son gave me this for Christmas.

If this was a movie, this would be an action thriller rather than a murder mystery. I love watching murder mysteries (though I don't read them much) but I really don't like action movies. Far too loud for me.

I must say, this was almost the same with this book. I heard people complain about his first books that there were too many characters and that you did confused. Well, if you got confused with the first lot, this one will certainly not do for you. It took me quite a while to even understand who was who and what they were up to. My book has 464 pages and I think I got into the story at around page 200. Far too late and I would have given up if it weren't for the author.

There is some humour in this book but not the humour I am used to from Richard Osman. Such a pity.

From the back cover:

"Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?"

Weir, Alison "Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife"

Weir, Alison "Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife" (Six Tudor Queens #6) - 2021

The sixth wife of Henry VIII. And the sixth book in the Tudor Queens series by Alison Weir.

I think I knew far too little about Katharine Parr. She was Henry's last wife. She survived him. She had two husbands before him. She married again when he died only to die herself in childbed. That's about all I knew.

Of course, this is a novel based on the life of the queens. However, there is a lot in it that is history and where we can learn about that time in England.

We see through the eyes of Katharine Parr that women were just a commodity, and not worth a lot for that. At her first marriage, she doesn't even know the husband. Then she has to look for another one because otherwise a woman has no means to live. When she falls in love with Thomas Seymour, she has to marry the king who also wants her. What a life!

In any case, Alison Weir has brought the Tudor queens to life in a way no history book could ever have done. For that, I thank her profoundly.

From the back cover:

"Two husbands dead; a life marred by sadness. And now Katharine is in love for the first time in her life.

The eye of an ageing and dangerous king falls upon her. She cannot refuse him. She must stifle her feelings and never betray that she wanted another.

And now she is the sixth wife. Her queenship is a holy mission yet, fearfully, she dreams of the tragic parade of women who went before her. She cherishes the secret beliefs that could send her to the fire. And still the King loves and trusts her.

Now her enemies are closing in. She must fight for her very life.

KATHARINE PARR – the last of Henry’s queens.

Alison Weir recounts the extraordinary story of a woman forced into a perilous situation and rising heroically to the challenge. Katharine is a delightful woman, a warm and kindly heroine – and yet she will be betrayed by those she loves and trusts most.

Too late, the truth will dawn on her."

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.

Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2025

I have taken part in this reading challenge since 2013. The moment I saw that post, I know this was the most interesting challenge for me. I signed up for the highest of the four levels "Mor-book-ly Obese" which meant eight or more chunksters (books over 450 pages) of which three must be 750 pages or more.

I have carried on with that challenge without setting goals, I love big books and I will always read some. And I am more than willing to tell my friends about them.

If you are interested in the challenge, check out this link. They discontinued their challenge in 2015.
You can still find suggestions by page number, in case you can't find any chunksters yourself. 😉

Or you can check out my lists from the previous years (below), maybe you are interested in a couple of them.

I read in
2013: 38 chunky books, 13 of them chunksters
2014: 37 chunky books, 15 of them chunksters
2015: 26 chunky books, 8 of which chunksters
2016: 28 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2017: 35 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2018: 29 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2019: 20 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2020: 18 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2021: 24 chunky books, 10 of which chunksters
2022: 11 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2023: 12 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2024: 16 chunky books, 4 of which chunksters

I will be posting the books I have read here:
(I add the German title, if available, for my German friends)
[I add my own translation of a foreign book title if it's not available in English.]

Austen, Jane "Sense & Sensibility" - 1811 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) - 462 pages
Abel, Susanne "Stay Away from Gretchen. Eine unmögliche Liebe" [Stay Away from Gretchen] - 2021 - 544 pages
Backman, Fredrik "Britt-Marie war hier" (Britt-Marie var här/Britt-Marie was here) - 2014 - 509 pages
Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017 - 496 pages
Weir, Alison "Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife" (Six Tudor Queens #6) - 2021 - 560 pages
Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary" (Madame Bovary/Madame Bovary) - 1857 - 576 pages
Austen, Jane "Pride & Prejudice" - 1813 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) - 512 pages
Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine" - 2023 - 528 pages
Mak, Geert "The Dream of Europe. Travels in a Troubled Continent" (Grote verwachtingen. In Europa 1999-2019/Große Erwartungen: auf den Spuren des europäischen Traums) - 2019 - 548 pages
Pauly, Gisa "Fräulein Wunder. Sylt-Saga" [Miss Wunder/Wonder] - 2022 - 478 pages
Cornwell, Bernard "The Last Kingdom" (The Saxon Stories #1) (Das letzte Königreich) - 2004 - 477 pages
Austen, Jane "Mansfield Park" (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) - 1814 - 560 pages
Osman, Richard "We Solve Murders" (Wir finden Mörder) - 2024 - 464 pages
Dickens, Charles "Martin Chuzzlewit. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" (Leben und Abenteuer des Martin Chuszlewit) - 1843-44 - 971 pages
Köhlmeier, Michael "Abendland" [Occident] - 2007 - 773 pages
Monferat, Benjamin (Stephan Rother) "Welt in Flammen" [World in Flames] - 2014 - 784 pages
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Urfaust. Faust: Erster und zweiter Teil" (Faust I + II)) - 1772-1808 - 1,022 pages

I read 17 chunky books in 2025 of which 4 are considered a chunkster.

If you want to do this challenge or just check at the end of the year what category you are, here is the list:

    The Chubby Chunkster - this option is for the readers who want to dabble in large tomes, but really doesn't want to commit to much more than that. FOUR Chunksters is all you need to finish this challenge.
    The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months.
    Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX Chunksters from the following categories: 2 books which are between 450 - 550 pages in length; 2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; 2 books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length (for ideas, please refer to the book suggestions page for some books which fit into these categories).
    Mor-book-ly Obese - This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to EIGHT or more Chunksters of which three tomes MUST be 750 pages or more. You know you want to.....go on and give in to your cravings. 

Looks like I've always been "more book-ly obese". 😂

Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby"

Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" - 1838/39

For the Classics Spin #39, we received #3 and this was my novel.

I have read most of the books by Charles Dickens by now but there are still a few left. So, I was happy that this number got drawn. So, here was the chance to devour one more of his fabulous books.

And fabulous it was. It had everything a Dickens novel needs: villains and virtues, rogues and good people, a helicopter mother from the Georgian era, just a caleidoscope of people from his time with lots of intrigues. Not to forget the great names he gives his characters: The Cheerybles, The Crummles, Sir Mulberry Hawk, Newman Noggs, Peg Sliderskew, Wackford Squeers, one of them funnier than the last.

Of course, this is a novel against social injustice. And while we might think that is better today, some things never change.

Obviously, a lot happens in the story, much of it is already given in the synopsis, so I wouldn't want to add to that in order not to spoil it for the first-time readers. Therefore, I finish with a quote from Oscar Wilde (in "The Importance of Being Earnest"): "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means".

From the back cover:

"When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his father's death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics, such as Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys; the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr. and Mrs. Crummles and their daughter, the 'infant phenomenon'. Like many of Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, revealing his comic genius at its most unerring."

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.

Follett, Ken "The Armour of Light"

Follett, Ken "The Armour of Light" - 2023

"The grand master of gripping fiction is back. International No.1 bestseller Ken Follett returns to Kingsbridge with an epic tale of revolution and a cast of unforgettable characters."

Yes, he is a grand master indeed. After having written four books about Kingsbridge, their cathedral and the inhabitants, rich and poor from 997 until the 16th century, here is the follow-up for the Industrial Revolution.

With the story of  Kingsbridge, we also learn the story of England and the United Kingdom. Anytime we read about history and how people lived, we must be thankful to live today. Even though we also have political problems, we as "the little people" have a lot more rights than people ever had. And we owe this to people like those described here.

I hope the story of Kingsbridge will continue into modern times. Then we could just go on with the century trilogy.

In any case, this is THE series for lovers of historical fiction.

I missed a list of all the characters before and during the book. And, like I said before, I would have enjoyed a timeline of what happened at the time. Yes, I have the internet and plenty of other books where I can look this up but I find having it in the actual book I'm reading is actually very helpful.

From the back cover:

"Revolution is in the air

1792. A tyrannical government is determined to make England a mighty commercial empire. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his rise to power, and with dissent rife, France’s neighbours are on high alert.

Kingsbridge is on the edge

Unprecedented industrial change sweeps the land, making the lives of the workers in Kingbridge’s prosperous cloth mills a misery. Rampant modernization and dangerous new machinery are rendering jobs obsolete and tearing families apart.

Tyranny is on the horizon

Now, as international conflict nears, a story of a small group of Kingsbridge people - including spinner Sal Clitheroe, weaver David Shoveller and Kit, Sal’s inventive and headstrong son - will come to define the struggle of a generation as they seek enlightenment and fight for a future free from oppression. . .

Taking the reader straight into the heart of history with the fifth novel in the ground-breaking Kingsbridge series, The Armour of Light is master storyteller Ken Follett’s most ambitious novel to date."

Garfield, Simon "To the Letter: A Curious History of Correspondence - A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing"

Garfield, Simon "To the Letter: A Curious History of Correspondence - A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing" - 2013

I read a book by Simon Garfield a couple of years ago: "On the Map. Why the World Looks the Way it Does".

I really loved it. And since I love letters just as much as I love maps, I just had to get this one.

It is an interesting book about the development of letters, how they came into existence in the first place, how they changed over the centuries, what they mean today in a world of e-mails and phone messages.

I used to be a keen letter writer and was really looking forward to this book. And though it is a good survey into the habit of letter writing and contained some nice anecdotes, I found it a little boring at times. I don't mind jumping around in a story but this was all a little too haphazardly.

That might have been one of the reasons why I didn't read this in one go, I just couldn't get my head around his structure.

Also, he mentions a lot of authors and books in his work, a table of contents would have been nice.

I still like writing letters.

A nice quote:

"Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday."

He also mentions a letter subscripion where you receive an actual letter by one of your favourite authors twice a month. It still exists and you can find all about it here at "The Rumpus". I couldn't find out whether they also send something abroad but there are quite a few US readers here, so maybe something for them.

From the back cover:

"To the Letter tells the story of our remarkable journey through the mail. From Roman wood chips discovered near Hadrian's Wall to the wonders and terrors of email, Simon Garfield explores how we have written to each other over the centuries and what our letters reveal about our lives.

Along the way he delves into the great correspondences of our time, from Cicero and Petrarch to Jane Austen and Ted Hughes (and John Keats, Virginia Woolf, Jack Kerouac, Anaïs Nin and Charles Schulz), and traces the very particular advice offered by bestselling letter-writing manuals. He uncovers a host of engaging stories, including the tricky history of the opening greeting, the ideal ingredients for invisible ink, and the sad saga of the dead letter office. As the book unfolds, so does the story of a moving wartime correspondence that shows how letters can change the course of life.

To the Letter is a wonderful celebration of letters in every form, and a passionate rallying cry to keep writing."

Yates, Richard "Revolutionary Road"

Yates, Richard "Revolutionary Road" - 1961

For the Classics Spin #36, we received #20 and this was my novel.

A story about a young American couple in the 1950s. They go through the typical problems many young couples have, not enough money, too little time for each other because the children need a lot of it, just the usual couple, you would think. However, they are both pretty selfish and therefore can't deal with the usual problems.

All in all, I found this quite a depressing story, nothing too exciting, just listening to a bunch of selfless people fighting each other. I doubt I will read another book by the author.

From the back cover:

"In the hopeful 1950s, Frank and April Wheeler appear to be a model American couple: bright, beautiful, talented, with two young children and a starter home in the suburbs. Perhaps they married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is now about to crumble. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves."

Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2024

 

I have taken part in this reading challenge since 2013. The moment I saw that post, I know this was the most interesting challenge for me. I signed up for the highest of the four levels "Mor-book-ly Obese" which meant eight or more chunksters (books over 450 pages) of which three must be 750 pages or more.

I have carried on with that challenge without setting goals, I love big books and I will always read some. And I am more than willing to tell my friends about them.

If you are interested in the challenge, check out this link. They discontinued their challenge in 2015.
You can still find suggestions by page number, in case you can't find any chunksters yourself. 😉

Or you can check out my lists from the previous years (below), maybe you are interested in a couple of them.

I read in
2013: 38 chunky books, 13 of them chunksters
2014: 37 chunky books, 15 of them chunksters
2015: 26 chunky books, 8 of which chunksters
2016: 28 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2017: 35 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2018: 29 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2019: 20 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2020: 18 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2021: 24 chunky books, 10 of which chunksters
2022: 11 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2023: 12 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters

I will be posting the books I have read here:
(I add the German title, if available, for my German friends)
[I add my own translation of a foreign book title if it's not available in English.]

Kingsolver, Barbara "Demon Copperhead" (Demon Copperhead) - 2022 - 560 pages
Yates, Richard "Revolutionary Road" (Zeiten des Aufruhrs) - 1961 - 463 pages
Harris, Robert "Fatherland" (Vaterland) - 1992 - 560 pages
Hyde, Catherine Ryan "When I found you" (Als ich dich fand) - 2009 - 512 pages
Towles, Amor "A Gentleman in Moscow" (Ein Gentleman in Moskau) - 2016 - 462 pages
Melandri, Francesca "Alle, außer mir" (Sangue giusto) [Right Blood or Everyone but me] - 2017 - 608 pages
Verghese, Abraham "The Covenant of Water" (Die Träumenden von Madras) - 2023 - 796 pages
Garfield, Simon "To the Letter: A Curious History of Correspondence - A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing" (Briefe! Ein Buch über die Liebe in Worten, wundersame Postwege und den Mann, der sich selbst verschickte) - 2013 - 464 pages
Stedman, M L "The Light Between Oceans" (Das Licht zwischen den Meeren) - 2012 - 464 pages
Falcones, Ildefonso "Die Tränen der Welt" (El pintor de almas/The painter of souls) - 2019 - 704 pages
Evaristo, Bernhardine "Girl, Woman, Other" (Mädchen, Frau, etc.) - 2019 - 453 pages
Ivey, Eowyn "To The Bright Edge of the World" (Das Leuchten am Rand der Welt) - 2016 - 496 pages 
Follett, Ken "The Armour of Light" (Die Waffen des Lichts) - 2023 - 751 pages
Kishon, Ephraim (english) "Next year everything will be different" - Im neuen Jahr wird alles anders - 1982 - 511 pages
Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" (Nicholas Nickleby) - 1838/39 - 974 pages
Oates, Joyce Carol "Blonde" (Blond) - 2000 - 1,100 pages

I read 16 chunky books in 2024 of which 4 are considered a chunkster.

If you want to do this challenge or just check at the end of the year what category you are, here is the list:

    The Chubby Chunkster - this option is for the readers who want to dabble in large tomes, but really doesn't want to commit to much more than that. FOUR Chunksters is all you need to finish this challenge.
    The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months.
    Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX Chunksters from the following categories: 2 books which are between 450 - 550 pages in length; 2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; 2 books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length (for ideas, please refer to the book suggestions page for some books which fit into these categories).
    Mor-book-ly Obese - This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to EIGHT or more Chunksters of which three tomes MUST be 750 pages or more. You know you want to.....go on and give in to your cravings. 

Looks like I've always been "more book-ly obese". 😂

Dickens, Charles "Barnaby Rudge"

Dickens, Charles "Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty" - 1841

I'm a huge Charles Dickens fan. I have never read a book by him that wasn't fascinating. This was so great, as well.

I didn't know that this was another historical novel (next to "A Tale of Two Cities").

What I loved about this book was just what I normally love about Dickens. His description of the little man, the life of people at the time he writes about. How did they live? What were their problem? Why did they revolt in this case?

We get a good view about the lives and the problems of the people in the 18th century even though it wasn't the time Dickens lived in.

I can see why this is the least read of his books though it doesn't really deserve it. The topic might not seem as interesting to readers or maybe they are missing a really feel-good romance. No matter the reason, this is a great book and if you are a fan of classic literature, you should consider reading at least one of Dickens' books. And if you don't want to carry on then, it is your loss.

I would love to read this with a book club since there is so much to talk about. But I don't want to give spoilers on my blog, so I will not go into details.

From the back cover:

"Dickens's first historical novel is set against the infamous 'No Popery' riots that were instigated by Lord George Gordon in 1780, and terrorised London for days. Prejudice, intolerance, misplaced religious and nationalistic fervour, together with the villains who would exploit these for political ends, are Dickens's targets. His vivid account of the riots at the heart of the novel is interwoven with the mysterious tale of a long unsolved murder, and a romance that combines forbidden love, passion, treachery and heroism.

A typically rich cast of comic characters, from the snivelling Miss Miggs and the posturing Simon Tappertit to the half-witted Barnaby Rudge of the title, ensures high entertainment."

Rutherfurd, Edward "New York"

Rutherfurd, Edward "New York" - 2009

I am sad. Because this is the last book I got to read by Edward Rutherfurd. At least for the time being. I hope he will write more. And hope there is. On his official website (here) he has a category with interesting facts about the towns and countries he has written about so far and there are a few facts about Egypt. So maybe he is working on a new one about Egypt. Would be a nice theme. If you don't have any other ideas, Mr. Rutherfurd, there are a few subjects that would certainly go down well: Vikings, Romans, Ottomans, Germany/Prussia/Goths, South America, Japan, Arabia, Palestine/Israel … I could read books by you on any of the subjects. Or any subject of your choosing. Just write another book. Thank you!

New York is the melting pot of the world. People come from everywhere but at the beginning mainly from the Netherlands and England, then other nations follow, Italians, Germans, slaves from Africa, refugees from all areas, so that in the end you can't even guess that a completely different people lived here before the Europeans made it their second home. But also the Native Americans appear.

In 1664, the city is still called New Amsterdam and we get to know some of the first European inhabitants, the van Dyck family from the Netherlands, quickly joined by the Masters from England. And it is these two families that the book takes as examples for the New Yorkers. Other characters follow slowly, the slave Quash, the O'Donnells and the Kellers, the Whites and the Carusos, the Adlers and the Cohens and all their descendants. There is a family for every ethnic background of the Big Apple. We follow history through these characters but also get to meet the famous people of the centuries, starting with George Washington. From the beginnings of the city, when it was still a small settlement that belonged to the colonial province New Netherland, and hence to the Dutch Republic, through the years of an English colony, the War of Independence and all the other subsequent wars that had an impact on the city, their raise to an important trade center as well as their various crashes. And we see the devastation on September 11th as well as the aftermath.

Nobody can put history better into very readable novels as Edward Rutherfurd. But should you know of other great books like this, please let me know.

And here's a great quote that could be in any book:
"He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself."

From the back cover:

"New York: a city where dreams are born.

And now, the story of the world's most vibrant and exciting city is chronicled in a novel as unforgettable as the city itself, as international bestseller Edward Rutherfurd tells the epic story of the Master family.From the city's birth over three hundred years ago to the tragedy and the heroism of 9/11, Rutherfurd's gripping story takes us on a journey encompassing the War of Independence and the Civil War, the gangs of New York and the Ellis Island immigrants. From the glittering wealth of Fifth Avenue society, to the devastation of the Wall Street Crash and the ghettos of the Lower East Side, it is a story as ambitious and dramatic as the city which inspired it.

But NEW YORK is not just the story of a city. It's also the very human story of a family - their lives and loves, their triumphs and their failures - and so a spellbinding and moving story of the modern world."

And another one:

"New York is a sweeping, four-century tale set in the most exciting city on earth. Magnificently researched with the help of leading New York historians, this novel follows the fortunes of the Van Dyck and Master families, and the descendants of Quash the African slave, from the early days of Manhattan's Indian settlements and Dutch New Amsterdam, through the English takeover, the War of Independence, when New York was the British headquarters, and the nineteenth century, when New Yorkers created the canals and railroads that opened up the American West.

Along the way we meet the Kellers, German shopkeepers who produce a famous photographer, and the O'Donnell family, who emerge from the gangs of New York, rise through Tammany Hall and marry into the English aristocracy. We discover how the city almost left the Union at the start of the Civil War, and experienced the terrible Draft Riots 1863 and the Great Blizzard of 1888. At the start of the twentieth century, the Carusos immigrate through Ellis Island, witness the great Crash of 1929, and help construct the Empire State Building. The Adlers of Brooklyn experience anti-semitism between the two World Wars, and the Masters, as bankers and lawyers, seek their fortunes through the greed of the eighties and nineties, and come through a life-changing crisis in the tragedy of 9/11.

Larger-than-life historical characters fill the background: Stuyvesant, the Dutchman, Lord Cornbury the transvestite English Governor, George Washington, Ben Franklin who tried to keep America British, Lincoln who made one of his greatest speeches in the city, the titanic JP Morgan, Tammany Hall's Fernando Wood and Boss Tweed, legendary socialites like Mrs. Astor, and memorable modern city figures like La Guardia, Robert Moses, and Mayor Koch."

Find a link to all my reviews on his other novels here.

Keefe, Patrick Radden "Say Nothing"

Keefe, Patrick Radden "Say Nothing. A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" - 2018

My son, who did an exchange semester in Belfast, recommended this book to me. We have come to love Ireland very much, both the North and the South. It is a troubled country but the people are ever so nice.

This was a tough read. Not because of the writing, the writing was perfect. The research seems to be impeccable, the understanding for everyone involved very empathic.

It was both tough as well as brilliant. The author managed to show all the terror of "The Troubles" (with a capital T) from all sides. I always had a problem with the description of this civil war as mere troubles. No, it was a real war that has never really led to a good peace agreement.

Patrick Radden Keefe starts with the description of the abduction and subsequent disappearance of a widowed mother of ten children. Then he introduces two sisters and their joining of the IRA with all its implications.

Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize Winner of Literature in 1995 wrote a Poem about the Troubles: "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing." This is what the IRA members told each other in case they were caught.

One can think about the IRA whatever one wants but, as in most cases, they were not the cause of the conflict. The author highlights this wonderfully in his book. It is not good what they did but neither is the cause of the conflict. And, it is often regarded as a religious conflict because it was Protestants against Catholics. But if you really look at it, it was the Irish against their occupants. As so often, religion is just a protective shield to hide the real causes.

If you want to know more about this, I highly recommend reading the book.

I doubt this country will ever be at peace as long as part of it is occupied by others.

Book Description:

"Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress - with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders."