Tokarczuk, Olga "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" - 2009

Tokarczuk, Olga "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" (Polish: Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych) - 2009

I have read one book by Olga Tokarczuk (Primeval and Other Times) when she received her Nobel Prize for Literature. And I wanted to read more by her since then. A bookclub member lent me one now and I read it in more or less one go, it is so exciting. Janina Duszejko is such an interesting character. And the story is starting so quietly, you don't even notice at the beginning that it is a crime story which are not my favourites.

Even though she is the protagonist of the novel, you don't see her as such at the beginning. Janina is a middle-aged, slightly weird woman living in the middle of nowhere in the mountains at the Polish-Czech border where she looks after the summer houses of some rich people. She works with astrology and translates poems by William Blake. She loves animals and she is a conservationist. A remarquable woman.

Where this story leads to, I don't know. But I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in great literature.

From the back cover:

"One of Poland's most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights."

And why the German translation is called "Der Gesang der Fledermäuse" (The Song of the Bats) is still a mystery to me.

Olka Tokarczuk received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018 "for her narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".

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

Sendker, Jan-Philipp "Dragon Games"

Sendker, Jan-Philipp "Dragon Games" aka "The Language of Solitude" (The Rising Dragon #2) (German: Drachenspiele) - 2009

If you liked "Whispering Shadows", you already know Paul and his family and will want to know how their story goes on. If you like books about China, expats, crime stories, you will love this series which already has a third book (The Far Side of the Night).

This is an interesting book about the life not just of foreigners in China but also about the lives of people both in urban and rural China. Paul and Christine visit her ancestor's village after receiving some disturbing news. Here they find the clash between the people in the village and the greed of a large company, the corruption of politicians. Yes, we all know those plots but Jan-Philipp Sendker has a great talent to describe it.

Like in all his other books, the author is able to tell both the story as well as describing the background. He has a wonderful way with words, you can tell he is a journalist.

I could well imagine that one day someone will make a film out of this.

I am definitely looking forward to reading his next books which will probably be the sequels to his Burma story, "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" (German: Das Herzenhören).

From the back cover:

"Paul Leibovitz is 53, living in Hong Kong, deeply in love with the city, its culture, and most of all, Christine. When a fortune teller predicts the death of someone she loves, however, the pair are once again thrust into the murky criminal world of Hong Kong and forced to fight for their lives. We learn the details of Christine's dark family history which is mired in the horrors and iniquities of Mao's cultural revolution and now her brother and his family who are living in rural China are victims of a very modern ecological scandal that is every bit as terrifying as past atrocities."

These are the books in the Rising Dragon (China) trilogy:
"Whispering Shadows" (German: Das Flüstern der Schatten) (The Rising Dragon #1) - 2007
"Dragon Games" aka "The Language of Solitude" (German: Drachenspiele) (The Rising Dragon #2) - 2009
"The Far Side of the Night" (German: Am anderen Ende der Nacht) (The Rising Dragon #3) - 2016

Andersson, Per J. "From the Swede who took the train and saw the world with different eyes"

Andersson, Per J. "From the Swede who took the train and saw the world with different eyes" (aka: Take the train: on the track through history, present and future) (Swedish: Ta tåget: på spåret genom historien, samtiden och framtiden) - 2019

This is one of the books where I found an English title (even two English titles in this case) but no picture of the cover. So, I hope it has been translated. If not, sorry, let's hope it will get a translation. Because it is a good book. It's not what I expected. It thought this was a description of his travels. And it is, in a way. But it was more a description of his time in the train in order to get to the places rather than about the places itself.

It starts by the author travelling by train with his parents as a little child. It includes a description of his grandparents who worked for the train company in Sweden. Then he goes on how he travelled as a teenager by interrail and later with his children when they reached that age. He visits Italy and Germany, India and Nepal, the USA, takes the Orient Express. And mainly, he advocates travels by train in order to save the world.

I used to take the train a lot when I was younger. From fifth grade onwards, I took the train to get to my secondary school, at the beginning it was even a steam train which always amazes most of my American friends. Then, I used it to get to work. I also participated in the Interrail community, I went to Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden, Finland) with it, Great memories. And all in all, a very well written book.

The author also mentioned quite a few films that include train rides:
The Arrival of a Train (French: L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat), 1896
The General, 1926
The Lady Vanishes, 1938
Tåg 56, 1943
Brief Encounter, 1945
Strangers on a Train, 1951 (Hitchcock)
North by Northwest, 1959 (Hitchcock)
From Russia with Love, 1963 (James Bond)
The Train, 1964
Closely watched trains (Czech: Ostře sledované vlaky), 1966
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, 1974
Runaway Train, 1985
The Darjeeling Limited, 2007

Then there are books that mention train rides:
Greene, Graham "Stamboul Train" - 1932
Christie, Agatha "Murder on the Orient Express" - 1934 (the story was also turned into several wonderful films, my favourite Hercule Poirot is, of course, David Suchet, but the greatest landscapes can be seen in the recent one by Sir Kenneth Branagh)
Guthrie, Woody "This Land is My Land" - 1943
Theroux, Paul "The Great Railway Bazaar" - 1975
MacLean, Alistair "Death Train" - 1989
Diski, Jenny "Stranger on a Train - Daydreaming and Smoking Around America" - 2002
Nair, Anita "Ladies Coupé" - 2001
Liksom, Rosa "Compartment No. 6" (Finnish: Hytti nro 6) - 2012

I am sure we can all find other books where trains play an important role. I can think of a few, some of them I've read, others are on my wishlist, others I just came across.

Christie, Agatha "4:50 from Paddington" - 1957
- "The Mystery of the Blue Train" - 1928
Dickens, Charles "Dombey and Son" - 1848
Fowler, Christopher "Hell Train" - 2011
Hawkins, Paula "The Girl on the Train" - 2015
Hay, Ashley "The Railwayman's Wife" - 2013
Highsmith, Patricia "Strangers on a Train" - 1950
MacNeill, Alastair "Alistair MacLean's Death Train" - 1989
Mercier, Pascal "Night Train to Lisbon" (German: Nachtzug nach Lissabon) - 2004
Nesbit, E "The Railway Children" - 1906
Pasternak, Boris "Doctor Zhivago" (Russian: Доктор Живаго = Doktor Živago) - 1957
Rowling, J.K. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone" (US: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) - 1997
Stoker, Bram "Dracula" - 1897
Tolstoy, Leo (Толстой, Лев Николаевич) "Anna Karenina" (Russian: Анна Каренина = Anna Karenina) - 1877
Verne, Jules "Around the World in Eighty Days" (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) - 1873

He also has a good website (in Swedish): Bloggarvagabond

And this is the German cover:

From the back cover: (Description here.)

"All Aboard! How You Learn to Stop Worrying About Climate Change and Love to Travel by Train
Per J. Andersson

A powerful reflection on the importance of train travel and a mesmerizing love letter to trains

In times of climate change and shifting global powers, traveling by train can offer not only a green alternative but also fascinating way of exploring the distance between two places and the people you meet on the way…

In this book Per J Andersson makes us his travel companions on enthralling train rides throughout the world. We embark on classic train journeys through the gruff North of England and on Indian railroads, on exhausting long-haul train rides through America and even on a trip on the infamous Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul.

While we watch the world roll past us through the windows, Andersson tells us all about what we see and about everything else hidden from our view: from stories and meanings behind train stations to the multi-layered history of train travel itself, its value in different times and places, how humans experience and use trains and what impact the railway will have in the future. As trains represent participation, social responsibility and environmental awareness, everyone who believes in a future for the railway also believes in the value of caring for future generations.

Per J. Andersson has written an exciting and informative book that will make every train ride an astonishing experience."

Powers, Richard "The Overstory"

Powers, Richard "The Overstory" - 2018

After a bad choice last year ("Less" by Andrew Sean Greer), the Pulitzer Prize committee has redeemed themselves.

And what a book this was! Richard Powers put so much into this novel about environmentalists, you get to know every single character pretty well and can follow their reasons for their protests. I would have understood them anyway but I think also those people who usually don't care much about the environment or the fight about it, will understand why some people fight for it, even if they have to take up illegal measures.

We meet many different kind of people, successful scientists as well as those who can't find their place in society. We get to see their wishes and hopes, their aims and their aspirations.

This book makes you think, think about the trees and what becomes of them, think about the people who live with theses trees, think of those who destroy them. We have to think about the future of our planet and that includes taking care of animals, plants and trees, we cannot let them disappear, that would be the end of all of us.

A very passionate story.

My favourite quote:
"… when you cut down a tree, what you make from it should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down."

I have never read a book by Richard Powers before but I think I will go and read more of his novels. A very interesting author.

The story reminds me of books by Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favourite American authors.

From the back cover:

"An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers - each summoned in different ways by trees - are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest.

In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours - vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity’s self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us? 'Listen. There’s something you need to hear.'"

Richard Powers received the Pulitzer Prize for "The Overstory" in 2019.

Atwood, Margaret "Oryx and Crake"

Atwood, Margaret "Oryx and Crake" (MaddAddam # 1) - 2003

I always like reading dystopian novels. It makes you think about what might happen if we carry on living the way we live now and makes us more aware of what we should or shouldn't be changing. It usually exaggerates the problems we have today but that's the point, it makes us more aware of it.

This story is about a genetic engineering world where the plan to destroy humanity through "medication" is almost successful. The "Children of Crake" who are supposed to replace humans are more like children, they remind me of the Eloi in "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells. Just as innocent, just as naïve.

I hope I won't be around to see the world change that much but if we carry on like that, I might. In the meantime, let as many people read these kinds of books and hopefully see that we need to try to save this planet as long as it's still possible.

From the back cover:

"With the same stunning blend of prophecy and social satire she brought to her classic The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood gives us a keenly prescient novel about the future of humanity and its present. 

Humanity here equals Snowman, and in Snowman's recollections Atwood re-creates a time much like our own, when a boy named Jimmy loved an elusive, damaged girl called Oryx and a sardonic genius called Crake. But now Snowman is alone, and as we learn why we also learn about a world that could become ours one day."

Margaret Atwood was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "Oryx and Crake" in 2003.

Margaret Atwood received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2017.

Atwood, Margaret "The Handmaid's Tale"

Atwood, Margaret "The Handmaid's Tale" - 1985

I read this book a couple of years ago, it is one of my favourites. (Find my review from back then here.) Since it has been made into a TV series last year, it seems to be everywhere and my book club chose it as our next read. Also, Margaret Atwood just received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis), as well.

I probably enjoyed this book even more the last time than this time, I think a lot of the fears Margaret Atwood portrayed in her book thirty years ago are more true now than then. Aren't we surrounded by people who believe that only "true" Christians who follow the Bible "by the book" deserve to have a good life? At least most of the news I hear nowadays of the United States seem to suggest that. The trouble is, the louder they shout, the less Christian they are.

Unfortunately, I had to miss the book club talk but I know everyone enjoyed it.

We discussed this in our international book club in January 2018.

From the back cover:

"The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire – neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.

Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first-century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit and astute perception."

Margaret Atwood was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "The Handmaid's Tale" in 1986.

Margaret Atwood received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2017.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell "Strangers in Their Own Land"

Hochschild, Arlie Russell "Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right" - 2016

I have read this book in the hope that I will understand the Republicans a little better and I truly believe that the author wrote it in order to understand them. I still don't understand. And I doubt the author does. How can you not want the government to help you when the companies pollute your environment? There are people out there who know what goes wrong but still don't want any rules for the companies who destroy their lives, their landscapes, bring cancer and other illnesses to their families and treat the few people who work for them like rubbish.

I think the difference between Democrats/Liberals and Republicans is that the former sees the government as a caring parent who will help you on your way, sending you to a good school, making sure you'll find your way in the world, taking care of you when you are sick or can't do anything and for that you help in the household. The latter see them as as Big Brother who doesn't just watch you, doesn't share their toys but takes away all yours and destroys them. Well, without a caring parent, companies will just behave like Big Brother.

I would recommend this book to anyone, especially Republicans, in order to understand where this is all going and how we hopefully can find a better way to save this planet.

From the back cover:
"In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country--a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets--among them a Tea Party activist whose town has been swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a drilling accident--people whose concerns are actually ones that all Americans share: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children.

Strangers in Their Own Land goes beyond the commonplace liberal idea that these are people who have been duped into voting against their own interests. Instead, Hochschild finds lives ripped apart by stagnant wages, a loss of home, an elusive American dream--and political choices and views that make sense in the context of their lives. Hochschild draws on her expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in "red" America. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of contemporary American politics: why do the people who would seem to benefit most from "liberal" government intervention abhor the very idea?"

A friend sent me a link to an article about two books, One Way To Bridge The Political Divide: Read The Book That's Not For You.  You can find the review to the other book "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates here.

Hessel, Stéphane "Time for Outrage!"

Hessel, Stéphane "Time for Outrage!" (French: Indignez-vous!) - 2011 

This is probably one of the shortest "books" I ever read. It would not even go as a short story for many people. Just about 30 pages.

Stéphane Hessel is 93 years old and he was a member of Résistance during the war.

When he published his book in France, it caused a lot of attention. The author encourages us to be outraged. He has seen what happens when people aren't. He encourages us to stand up not only to dictatorship but before that to the business world, the banks, the financers, to fight for the minorities, against pollution and therefore for humanity and our earth.

I think everybody should read this, it doesn't take long but could change the world for the better if we all acted accordingly.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"This controversial, impassioned call-to-arms for a return to the ideals that fuelled the French Résistance has sold millions of copies worldwide since its publication in France in October 2010. Rejecting the dictatorship of world financial markets and defending the social values of modern democracy, 93-old Stéphane Hessel - Résistance leader, concentration camp survivor, and former UN speechwriter - reminds us that life and liberty must still be fought for, and urges us to reclaim those essential rights we have permitted our governments to erode since the end of World War II."

Alexievich, Svetlana "Voices from Chernobyl"

Alexievich, Svetlana "Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster" (Russian: Чернобыльская молитва/Černobylskaja molitva) - 2006

I knew about Chernobyl. We all do. We have all heard of the nuclear disaster in 1986. We have all heard about the dangers we all have been put in by nuclear power plants. And not just since Fukushima 2011. For us Europeans, it started a lot earlier.

We also knew that the Russians tried to hide the fact of the accident to the foreigners for as long as possible. What we only knew from hearsay was the fact that they even hid it from their own people, that they sent their own people into harm's way. Firefighters and other "volunteers" who were sent into the danger zone to clean up. And not just for a couple of minutes. Most of them are dead now and if it hadn't been for Svetlana Alexievich and a lot of heroic people telling their stories, we still wouldn't know what exactly happened in Chernobyl and its surroundings.

If you are at all interested in the future of our planet, in the environment, you should read this harrowing account of what money can do to people. Because that's what it's all about: money and power. Every war is fought over it and every decision in business is made over it. And who pays the price? We, the "little people".

A very powerful story that everyone should read, especially those who still think that nuclear power is the "cheapest" and "best" form of energy.

This book is a strong reminder of the quote "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children" (probably by Moses Henry Cass - according to Quote Investigator but attributed to many other wise folks and people).

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"'Voices from Chernobyl' is the first book to present personal accounts of what happened on April 26, 1986, when the worst nuclear reactor accident in history contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Svetlana Alexievich a journalist who now suffers from an immune deficiency developed while researching this book interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown. Their narratives form a crucial document revealing how the government masked the event with deception and denial. Harrowing and unforgettable, 'Voices from Chernobyl' bears witness to a tragedy and its aftermath in a book that is as unforgettable as it is essential."

Svetlana Alexievich received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time" and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2013. 

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

Kingsolver, Barbara "Flight Behaviour"

Kingsolver, Barbara "Flight Behaviour" - 2012

I am a fan of Barbara Kingsolver and her novels. I love her writing style, I love her stories, I love the subjects she talks about. She is a very environmentally oriented person who knows how to write about this highly important subject that is far too often dismissed by people who think they can save some money and disregard the impacts it has on our future and, even more, the future of our children. Yes, I am, as a friend once put it, a "damn environmentalist", I have been wondering what is going to happen to our world for decades, people have been laughing at me for sorting my trash long before it was "fashionable".

What is so great about this novel? Barbara Kingsolver brings the impact of environmental pollution, of climate change to the most rural area you can imagine, to a part where people think if they don't pay attention to the big bad world, nothing bad is going to happen to them. Even though the setting is in the United States, this could happen anywhere. But that is not the only subject she addresses, she talks about friendship, poverty, education, religion, science, intolerance.

The characters, everyday people, a farmer living with his family on the grounds of his parents, the parents just next door, a normal life for a lot of people living in rural environments. They want to sell their forest to make money and then they discover butterflies that never were in that area and that shouldn't be in that area.

But the author also keeps a close look on the family and their lives, the interaction they have with the local people and the visiting biologists. I like her way of describing her characters, I have come to love many of them in her books.

As the story progresses, so does our understanding that something is tremendously wrong, that something needs to be done but that it is already too late, as a lot of actions come at least thirty years too late.

If this novel has made at least a few of the readers aware that we should change things, not just complain about gas prices going up but looking at what we, the little men and women, can do to improve our environment, it has fulfilled its purpose. I guess those who don't want to understand, those who dislike scientific findings and rather go on like their ancestors, will not like this book anyway.

I have said before that I want to read all of her novels, a few are still missing, they are still on my wishlist and I will make sure to get there soon. I also hope that she is still going to write many more beautiful novels.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.

'Flight Behaviour' takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world."

I have also read other books by Barbara Kingsolver, you can find my reviews here.

Atwood, Margaret "The Handmaid's Tale"

Atwood, Margaret "The Handmaid's Tale" - 1985

The Handmaid's Tale. A young lady called Offred tells us the story of Gilead, a country in the future, situated in a part of the present United States of America. Some catastrophes must have led to the state they are in, certainly some ecological disaster but also a revolution that caused the situation the people find themselves in, in a way they have a dictatorship in Mosaic times, the fertile young girls are sent to an older man whose wife can't have children, like Hagar who was the handmaid who was brought to Sarah's husband Abraham in order to bear him children. A lot of the parts of their lives are named after biblical characters or events.

We never get to know the name of the narrator, she just doesn't wish anyone to know it so she can believe there is another life, another place to go back to after all the horror in her life is over. I was wondering about the weird name the author gave to our protagonist until I came across the next ladies who all had a similar one. Offred = Of Fred. Sounds like a dream for guys that all the women carry their name, as if they were their possession ......

I don't even remember what I thought this book would be about, I certainly didn't think it might be a dystopian novel. I love those kind of stories better than the utopian ones, I cannot believe in a glorious future where everyone is peaceful and nobody has to suffer. Those stories that tell us about worlds gone wrong seem much more realistic.

The breeding part reminded me of Hitler's maternity institutions "Lebensborn" where he wanted to breed "pure" Aryans. Here, they just want to breed human creatures which seems to have become a problem. They also know what to do with people who do not comply or are otherwise useless. Their concentration camps are called "colonies" and people are sent there to work in contaminated regions where they will slowly, but very surely, die.

The biblical part reminded me more about what is going on in the United States now, interesting how Margaret Atwood could foresee that almost thirty years ago. Every law, every rule, everything has to confirm to the bible, anything that doesn't is evil. I can very well imagine that in the event of a major catastrophe, these kind of people will try to take over and a dictatorship not much unlike the one described could develop from this.

What I also really liked about the novel, even though it might be tempting and Offred does dream of a better world, she does not have any unrealistic hopes that this will ever happen. Nothing written with rose-tinted glasses.

Yes, a wonderful story, well told, changing between past and present, an interesting, nor foreseeable conclusion at the end, I loved the style. I loved the story. I will definitely read more by Margaret Atwood.

My favourite quote: "Maybe I'm crazy and this is some new kind of therapy. I wish it were true, then I could get better and this would go away."

I re-read this novel with our international book club in 2018. See my new review here.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire – neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.
Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first-century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit and astute perception."

Margaret Atwood was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "The Handmaid's Tale" in 1986.

Margaret Atwood received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2017.

Haushofer, Marlen "The Wall"

Haushofer, Marlen "The Wall" (German: Die Wand) - 1962

I know this is a book I will never forget. One of the few German books that have been translated into English, it truly deserves this. The author died in 1970 at the age of fifty.

The novel is about a woman who wakes up one morning only to find out there is an invisible wall around the house in the mountains where she has spent the night. Her friends have not returned from a visit to the village, so she starts investigating the area left to her. Something terrible must have happened, all life - except hers and her animals - seems to have vanished. The woman describes her hunt for food, her fight for life on scraps of paper.

The author has a great way of describing the life of this isolated woman. Even though we are not in this situation and we don't even get to know why she did, the heroine sends us a message about the meaning of life. A very good read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"'I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead…' writes the heroine of Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall, a quite ordinary, unnamed middle-aged woman who awakens to find she is the last living human being. Surmising her solitude is the result of a too successful military experiment, she begins the terrifying work of not only survival, but self-renewal. The Wall is at once a simple and moving talk - of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one’s name - and a disturbing meditation on 20th century history."

Adams, Richard "Watership Down"

Adams, Richard "Watership Down" - 1972

When I looked up the year this was published, I could hardly believe it. Almost forty years ago. Seems like yesterday.

I saw this story as a sign how careless we are with Mother Nature, how easily we destroy our home planet, how little we consider our fellow human and animal beings. A very sad story.

Apparently, the author based this tale on his own war experiences. No wonder it is so gloomy, yet real, and - therefore - fantastic. It is full of symbolism, retells stories of old, and thus turns into a timeless philosophical account.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

Everybody should read this.

From the back cover:

"Watership Down is one of the most beloved novels of our time. Sandleford Warren is in danger. Hazel's younger brother Fiver is convinced that a great evil is about to befall the land, but no one will listen. And why would they when it is Spring and the grass is fat and succulent? So together Hazel and Fiver and a few other brave rabbits secretly leave behind the safety and strictures of the warren and hop tentatively out into a vast and strange world. Chased by their former friends, hunted by dogs and foxes, avoiding farms and other human threats, but making new friends, Hazel and his fellow rabbits dream of a new life in the emerald embrace of Watership Down."

Oates, Joyce Carol "The Falls"

Oates, Joyce Carol "The Falls" - 2004

"A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding."

This is how the story begins. The "Widow Bride" starts a new life but her past catches up with her.

My third Joyce Carol Oates novel. Liked it just as well as the other ones. Her characters are so alive. As she describes every single person, you have sympathy with all of them because you can see everybody's point. I really thought I knew everyone. And, yet, you can never tell what would happen next, everything comes so unexpectedly.

The novel left me devastated. Great read. My wish, award JCO the Nobel Prize for Literature.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"A novel of tremendous sweep and pace about the American family in crisis and a tale of murder, loss and romance in the mist of Niagara Falls. It is the crowning achievement of Joyce Carol Oates's career to date. newly-wed, and his bride has been left behind in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. For two weeks, Alma, the deserted bride, waits by the side of the roaring waterfall for news of her husband's recovered body. During her vigil, an unlikely new love story begins to unfold when she meets a wealthy lawyer who is transfixed by her strange, otherworldly gaze. So it all begins, in the 1950s, with the dark foreboding of the Falls as the sinister background to the tragedy. secrets and sins; of lawsuits, murder and, eventually redemption.As Alma's children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste materials, they must confront not only their personal history but America's murky past: the despoiling of the American landscape and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s. crisis -- but also about America itself in the mid-20th century. This book alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the Great American Novelists."

Find links to all my other Joyce Carol Oates reviews here.

Kingsolver, Barbara "Prodigal Summer"

Kingsolver, Barbara "Prodigal Summer" - 2001

"Three interwoven love stories set in the Appalachian farmlands, US. The first - involving a reclusive wildlife ranger and a young hunter, the second, a young widow taking over her husbands farm, and the third - between two old cantankerous farmers, one a traditional farmer and the other organic. As always with Kingsolver, nature and the environment rule!"

So far, I liked all the Barbara Kingsolver's books I've read. I like her style, the way her characters come alive. This one involves a lot of family history, the different people in the book all seem to have some links to each other, but there is also quite a bit about nature protection which I liked a lot but some other book club members have found a little "too much".

Anyway, if you are a fan of Barbara Kingsolver and similar writers, you will like this one, as well. A book that gives you a nice feeling.

I have also read other books by Barbara Kingsolver, you can find my reviews here.

We discussed this in our book club in January 2003.

Book Description:

"Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.
From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly feuding neighbours tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place. Prodigal Summer demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama and ideas that is characteristic of Barbara Kingsolver's finest work."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.