I have read quite a few novels by Tracy Chevalier and they were all highly interesting, always about different people in different areas at different times.
But this was special. From the descriptions, I first thought this was a little like the stories by Edward Rutherfurd who guides us through centuries by introducing several people from several families. Well, this was a little different. The story starts in 1494 Orsola Rossa, the protagonist, lives in Murano with her family of glassmakers. After 500 years, she is in her sixties and has lived through a plague, several wars, many changes in the lives of people, especially women.
While I was first a little dismayed by this way of telling the story, I really loved the people in Murano and Venice. Not all, but most of them. And the story of the family and how they got through all the upheavals, was also fantastic.
You can tell, that Tracy Chevalier put a lot of time and effort into the research. I especially loved to learn about all the details of glassmaking. Well done.
I doubt I will ever get to see Venice but this is a good substitute.
From the back cover:
"Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives perfecting.
In secret, Orsola Rosso learns to craft glass. As a woman, she must flout convention to save her family from ruin. We follow her through hundreds of years of war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.
Skipping like a stone across the centuries, The Glassmaker is a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as glass."
Somebody talked to me about this book. Someone who likes Maggie O'Farrell. I have a vague recollection of who it was but I can't find it again. So, maybe it was someone else. Sorry, whoever you are.
Anyway, it was nice to read about a part of Shakespeare's life that is not so well known. We know that his son died young. That his name was Hamnet and that his father wrote a play called Hamlet. As to the book, the spelling of the name is interchangeable, so it is more or less the same. I mean, Shakespeare himself had about 27 varieties of is last name. Or something like that.
The author mentions that this is a piece of fiction based on only the few facts I mentioned above. So, she lets us know her imagination and we can add to that.
But I still learned about Shakespeare and especially his wife, Anne Hathaway, who is called Agnes in the novel. Because I like to search for more information elsewhere whenever I read a book. Sometimes, you need a starter for that.
And what was also excellent is the description of the grief parents go through when losing a child. That was heartbreaking.
We discussed this book in our local book club in April 2026.
A few comments from our book club members:
Shakespeare's life in London wasn't given enough attention.
How is it that such a strong woman suffers so much from the death of her child?
We liked the way the transmission of the plague was described.
From the back cover:
"On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?
Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.
Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.
Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written."
My goodness, what a story! I have read several books about the plague before or novels that had the plague in their book. But this one was one just about the plague. Well, up until the last couple of pages where another book was more or less forced into just one chapter.
Still, I loved this book about a village that struggled during the plague, that had the idea to shut themselves off from the rest of the world in order not to bring this horrible disease to others. The village existed, the people in the book were based on real people from that time. But it was still a novel.
Apparently, this was Geraldine Brooks' first book. I think she learned not to add such a quick end but I still loved it very much. The author is such a great writer. And I think the Covid-19 pandemic brought the story even closer to us.
From the back cover:
"Spring 1666: when the Great Plague reaches the quiet Derbyshire village of Eyam, the villagers make an extraordinary decision. They elect to isolate themselves in a fateful quarantine. So begins the Year of Wonders, seen through eighteen-year-old Anna Frith’s eyes as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. Based on a true story, this novel explores love and learning, fear and fanaticism, and the struggles of seventeenth-century science and religion to interpret the world at the cusp of the modern era."
A fantastic book. I always wanted to read "Cutting for Stone" but somehow never did. However, it has moved up on my wishlist and is at the top now.
"The Covenant of Water" is a wonderful story about a family over the length of most of a century. I have known quite a few priests from that area of India, Kerala, and this book is about the Catholics down there.
But that is only on the side. The most important part is the search of the family for the reason that so many of their members have drowned over the centuries.
You can tell the author belongs to the medical profession because he reports about this quest in such detail that you can follow it so well, even if you have no medical training at all.
But we also get to learn about the society in that part of India. Part of it is like the rest of the country but since It is so large, it should be no surprise that it also has its differences.
Granted, this is a large book, over 700 pages, but I read this in no time, devoured it. I'm not surprised Oprah has picked it for her book club, she always choses great novels.
In any case, I can only recommend this.
From the back cover:
"From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning - and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl - and future matriarch, Big Ammachi - will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.
A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years."
And then there is a great remark about reading: "When I come to the end of a book and I look up, just four days have passed. But in that time I've lived though three generations and learned more about the world and about myself than I do during a year in school Ahab, Queequeg, Ophelia, and others die on the page so that we might live better lives."
This book has been on my wishlist for a while. But, as you all know, too many books, too little time. But a member of my book club recommended it several times lately and so I just had to get to it.
She was right, this was a highly interesting book. The author comes from a Mormon house and was home-schooled - or rather not. I'm not a big fan of home-schooling since I saw too many negative examples. This is one of the worst. Mind you, I have to admit that I know a few good examples, however, they still don't convince me that it is a good idea. In those cases, the parents themselves were highly educated and could pass that on very well. I have helped many kids to catch up in school in languages and math but I would have pitied my children if I would have had to teach them any science subject.
Anyway, Tara grew up in a family with a lot of problems. She thinks her father was bi-polar, and I think she was right there. Her brother was abusive, both physically as well as mentally, he didn't treat any of his younger siblings well, which they only found out when they were grown up.
Tara managed to get educated, she even went to university. All by herself. That shows what a strong character she was because most of her siblings didn't get very far. And I am sure most people wouldn't have. I can only applaud and admire her for that. And I hope that some people might get help after reading this. In any case, it is a book very worth reading.
From the back cover:
"Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.
Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it."
I have read "Tulip Fever" by the same author and thought it was very good. So, when a friend offered to lend me this one, I took the opportunity.
This was not the same at all. Not just because it was a different topic. It just read more like chick-lit disguised as a serious novel.
While this could be a great novel about old age and how the care of a senile father can take up everyone's resources, the story turned more and more into a soap opera with family secrets everywhere. I could have done without all that and it might have been a brilliant novel. This is just very unreal. The only thing missing is a murder and the landing of an alien ship, then all genres would have been covered.
According to Goodreads, the novel is humourous. I couldn't detect that.
From the back cover:
"From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever, a deliciously funny, poignant and wry novel, full of surprising twists and turns.
James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy's virtues, their shopping trips, and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss. Is this really their father, the distant figure who never once turned up for a sports day, now happily chortling over cuckoo clocks and television soaps?
Then something happens that throws everything into new relief, and Phoebe and Robert discover that life most definitely does not stop for the elderly. It just moves onto a very different plane - changing all the stories they thought they knew so well."
What a book! Did I like it? Hm, hard to tell. It is described as grotesk, obscure, weird, … And weird it is.
The book tells the story of Peter Kien, a sinologist and philologist who lives very reclusively in his apartment with his books. He marries his housekeeper but he slides more and more into madness.
Peter's brother Georg is a famous psychologist in Paris. Alerted by one of Peter's acquaintances, he comes to Vienna in order to help but, alas, is not successful.
This is a very complex book that cannot possibly be explained in a few words. Its a book of obsession and criticism, of society at the time but also a warning about what was to come. After all, this was two years after the nazis gained power in Germany and many people, like the author, feared for the future. And they were right, as it turned out.
The meaning of the English title is explained in Wikipedia: An auto-da-fé (/ˌɔːtoʊdəˈfeɪ, ˌaʊt-/ AW-toh-də-FAY, OW-; from Portuguese auto da fé [ˈawtu ðɐ ˈfɛ], meaning 'act of faith'; Spanish: auto de fe [ˈawto ðe ˈfe]) was the ritual of public penance carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning.
The book was first published in English with the title "The Tower of Babel". The translation of the original titel "Die Blendung" would be translated into "Blinding as a punishment", "Glare", "Deception", or even in the sense of "Verblendung" as "Infatuation". All these words could be used as the title of the book. In the German book description, it is said that "like Joyce's 'Ulysses', 'The Blinding' is a powerful metaphor for the lonely reflective mind's confrontation with reality." Sounds correct to me.
Book Description:
"'Auto-da-Fé' is the story of Peter Kien, a distinguished, reclusive sinologist living in Vienna between the wars. With masterly precision, Canetti reveals Kien's character, displaying the flawed personal relationships which ultimately lead to his destruction.
Manipulated by his illiterate and grasping housekeeper, Therese, who has tricked him into marriage, and Benedikt Pfaff, a brutish concierge, Kien is forced out of his apartment - which houses his great library and one true passion - and into the underworld of the city. In this purgatory he is guided by a chess-playing dwarf of evil propensities, until he is eventually restored to his home. But on his return he is visited by his brother, an eminent psychiatrist who, by an error of diagnosis, precipitates the final crisis...
'Auto-da-Fé' was first published in Germany in 1935 as 'Die Blendung' ('The Blinding' or 'Bedazzlement') and later in Britain in 1947, where the publisher noted Canetti as a 'writer of strongly individual genius, which may prove influential', an observation borne out when the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. 'Auto-da-Fé' still towers as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, and Canetti's incisive vision of an insular man battling agianst the outside world is as fresh and rewarding today as when first it appeared in print."
Elias Canetti received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981 "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
Since this book takes partly place in Paris, it can also go with the project #parisinjuly2023.
Perry, Matthew "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing" - 2022
Do you like F.R.I.E.N.D.S.? If you do, your favourite character might be the same as the one of many: Chandler Bing.
I knew he had a problem with alcoholism. I wondered how he still managed to play such an upbeat character.
Matthew Perry opens up, he tells us everything about his life. While some might find this a little too much, I think this is a great book for those trying to understand this illness. Because that's what it is, an illness. I suffer from migraines and I've heard a lot of things about it, like just taking an aspirin, ignoring it, can't be that bad etc. Anyone suffering from a chronicle, invisible illness can tell you about that. But suffering from alcoholism or drug abuse is different, a lot of people blame them for what they are "doing", not feeling compassion for what is happening to them!
I think when reading Matthew's autobiography, you can understand how hard it is to battle such an illness and that comments like the ones above don't help but hinder.
This was a book my son gave me for Christmas. He knows how much I love F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Actually, my whole family does. Say anything and we can answer with a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. quote, we can actually have whole conversations with F.R.I.E.N.D.S. quotes. We have lots of gadgets with F.R.I.E.N.D.S. quotes, coasters, glasses, cups, plates etc. We once gave the boys cushion covers with the quote "The Cushions are the Essence of the Chair" and they both have them in their apartments. Would he have given it to me if he had read it himself beforehand and had known about all the details? I don't know but I hope he would have and I am glad he did.
There is a lot of Matthew in Chandler and a lot of Chandler in Matthew, as could be expected. Reading this memoir makes me love him even more. This is probably one of the saddest story I will read this year. So dark, so devastating.
The book is so honest, you feel the author talks to you personally as his very best friend whom he can rely on. I wish Matthew Perry all the best in the future.
From the back cover:
"The BELOVED STAR OF FRIENDS takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this 'CANDID, DARKLY FUNNY...POIGNANT' memoir (The New York Times)
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by Time, Associated Press, Goodreads, USA Today, and more! 'Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.'
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.
In an extraordinary story that only he could tell - and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it - Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening - as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for."
If you've read "The Island" and its follow-up, "One August Night", you might want to consider this. Or, if you have children who like to read.
This is Maria's story, the girl growing up in the village near the Spinalonga, the Greek island where they would send people with leprosy before they found a cure.
Not only had Victoria Hislop retold the story in such a lovely way that it will be perfectly understood by children, she also found a wonderful illustrator, Gill Smith, who brings the people and the island to life. I have been to Spinalonga a long time before the books were written, and reading her books takes me back to this beautiful little place. It is just as described by this brilliant author.
From the back cover:
"A dramatic and moving story set in the same world as the international bestseller The Island from the celebrated novelist Victoria Hislop.
The absorbing story of the Cretan village of Plaka and the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece's former leper colony - is told to us by Maria Petrakis, one of the children in the original version of The Island. She tells us of the ancient and misunderstood disease of leprosy, exploring the themes of stigma, shame and the treatment of those who are different, which are as relevant for children as adults.
Gill Smith's rich, full-colour illustrations will transport the reader to the timeless and beautiful Greek landscape and Mediterranean seascape."
Julia Win, whom we already know from the first book, suddenly hears a voice inside her. She is advised to go back to Burma to find out what the voice is trying to tell her. I don't believe in such mystical experiences, but Julia's story on her return visit is very interesting. She learns the history of Burma, meets new people, finds a new love, sees her life with different eyes. And the reader learns a lot about the differences between East and West.
As always, Jan-Philipp Sendker has written a wonderful story about Asia. His language is captivating and this is a very good sequel to a wonderful book.
From the back cover:
"Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father’s native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend recently left her, she has suffered a miscarriage, and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted.
One day, in the middle of an important business meeting, she hears a stranger’s voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation. In the following days, her crisis only deepens. Not only does the female voice refuse to disappear, but it starts to ask questions Julia has been trying to avoid. Why do you live alone? To whom do you feel close? What do you want in life?
Interwoven with Julia’s story is that of a Burmese woman named Nu Nu who finds her world turned upside down when Burma goes to war and calls on her two young sons to be child soldiers. This spirited sequel, like The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, explores the most inspiring and passionate terrain: the human heart."
I try to read the latest Nobel Prize winner for Literature and at least one former one every year. This was my fourth one since the last laureate was announced. I still need to get a copy of one of Abdulrazak Gurnah's books before the next announcements in October.
Apparently, this book didn't just get the Pulitzer Prize, it is also said that it won Saul Bellow the Nobel Prize. In his acceptance speech, he called on writers to be beacons for civilization and awaken it from intellectual torpor.
An intense book, there is so much to talk about. The relationship between Charlie Citrine, our protagonist, and his friend Von Humboldt Fleisher, a renowned author who takes Charlie under his wings. Whilst he is only at the beginning of this career, he tells us this story from the point of view when it has more or less ended.
When I was reading the book, I'd been wondering whether this might have been a biography, or at least partly a biography. I then found out, that this is a "roman à clef" (French for novel with a key), a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction. Aha! In this case, it's about the author's friendship with the poet Delmore Schwartz with Bellow being Citrine. Well, I'd never heard of Delmore Schwartz and now I have learned a lot about him (not just form the book, I also looked him up on Google and Wikipedia.) Very interesting, read the information in the links.
While this is probably a good account of Bellow's and Schwartz' relationship, the book also tries to come to terms with the constant changes in the world, especially in culture. The difference between the ideal world and the real one is a big topic in this book that was only supposed to be a short story but then ended up with almost 500 pages.
Brilliant storytelling with lots of fields covered: literature, culture, divorce, relationships, parenting, alcoholism, madness … and also all types of characters from all levels social classes, including a Mafia boss. Oh, and there's quite a bit of humour in the story, as well.
The Times mentions that "Bellows is one of the most gifted chroniclers of the Western World alive today." Apart from the fact that he has passed away in the meantime, I totally agree. So, if you're in for a great read, this is worth picking up.
From the back cover:
"For many years, the great poet Von Humboldt Fleisher and Charlie Citrine, a young man inflamed with a love for literature, were the best of friends. At the time of his death, however, Humboldt is a failure, and Charlie's life has reached a low point: his career is at a standstill, and he's enmeshed in an acrimonious divorce, infatuated with a highly unsuitable young woman and involved with a neurotic mafioso. And then Humboldt acts from beyond the grave, bestowing upon Charlie an unexpected legacy that may just help him turn his life around."
Saul Bellow received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976 "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work" and the Pulitzer Prize for "Humboldt's Gift" also in 1976.
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
Sampedro, José Luis "The Etruscan Smile" (Spanisch: La sonrisa etrusca) - 1985
The Etruscan Smile is set in Italy but written in Spanish by a Spaniard.It is about an old farmer in Calabria who was a resistance fighter in his youth.Now he is ill and has to go to his son in Milan.From the South to the North.The transition is pretty tough.
But this way he also gets to know and love his grandson.Through him he finds the meaning of life.He mixes the little boy's problems with his experiences from the war.He learns many new emotions, especially to forgive his enemies, but also to see the good in people.
An excellent book, very touching and heartwarming.
Book Description:
"A tough old farmer from southern Italy takes pride in his time served as a partisan during World War II. Due to a serious medical condition, he must move in with his son and daughter-in-law in Milan. While disliking life in the northern city, the relations between the old man and his tender grandson evolve, transforming his life during his final days."
I took the picture from the movie they made where they have changed the location but you can find the English text of the book here.
I received this book from a friend who had read and loved it. Thank you, Lisbeth.
And I loved it just as much. We all have reading lists with books that are special to us. They might have helped us through a hard time, inspired us, taught us, informed us, reminded us of something or someone, or just made us feel good afterwards.
Here we have a reading list that has been compiled by somebody anonymous and turns up at several places. It helps a widower get over the death of his wife, a teenage girl who finds a lot of examples to get through a tough time in her life, a little girl to take her first steps into a more "grown up" thinking.
This is what the Reading List says:
Just in case you need it: To Kill A Mockingbird Rebecca The Kite Runner Life Of Pi Pride And Prejudice Little Women Beloved A Suitable Boy
I think most of us have a feeling where the reading list might come from. I discovered that my idea was right from the beginning. Which made the book even more special.
At the end, the author adds more books that she would have liked to include in the list, had it been "hers". She mentioned that they found her at just the right time in her life.
Lahiri, Jhumpa"The Namesake" - 2003 Roy, Arundhati "The God of Small Things" - 1997 Smith, Zadie "White Teeth" - 1999 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "Americanah" - 2013 Heiny, Katherine "Standard Deviation" - 2017 Mistry, Rohinton "A Fine Balance" - 1995 Kawakami, Hiromi "Strange Weather in Tokyo" (センセイの鞄/Sensei no kaban) - 2001 Carter, Angela "The Magic Toyshop" - 1987 Angelou, Maya "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" - 1969 Hosain, Attia "Sunlight on a Broken Column" - 1961 Smith, Ali "There But For The" - 2011
As you can see, I have read most of those books, as well, I might have to check out those that I didn't. I noticed that all but one of the books have been written in English. I bet that my list would have had books from more than just two countries. There are so many great authors out there in this world.
From the back cover:
"When Aleisha discovers a crumpled reading list tucked into a tattered library book, it sparks an extraordinary journey.
For the list finds Aleisha just when she needs it most, the stories transporting her away from everything - her loneliness, her troubles at home - one page at a time. And when widower Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha introduces him to the magic of the reading list. An anxious teenager and a lonely grandfather forming an unlikely book club of two. Some stories never leave you.
Agus, Milena "From the Land of the Moon" or: The House in Via Manno (Italian: Mal di pietre) - 2006
An
interesting tale about the life of a woman who cannot break out of the
prescribed path. One would like to leave immediately for Sardinia. Or at
least to Milan. Definitely to Italy.
This is a short but very powerful story about family history, told by the granddaughter of the woman in question.
The original title is
"Kidney Stones". The unnamed married woman is sent away to treat her
kidney stones and then she meets the love of her life. They even turned it into a film in the meantime, see here.
From the back cover:
"But
what do we really know about other people? In this international
bestselling novel, a young unnamed Sardinian woman explores the life of
her grandmother, a romantic, bewitching, eccentric figure, and a
memorable literary creation. Her life has been characterized by honor
and fierce passion, and above all by an abiding search for perfect love
that has spanned much of the twentieth century. Ever in the background
of this remarkable woman's story is the stunning Sardinian landscape,
the deep blues of the Mediterranean, the rugged mountains of the
Sardinian back-country dotted with charming villages lost in time.
With
warmth, great humor, and deep insight Milena Agus writes about the
customs and the beauty of her native Sardinia, about love, family,
immigration, war, and peace. From the Land of the Moon is the moving
English debut of one of Italy s most important new literary talents."
I absolutely love Victoria Hislop. My first book by her was "The Island" and I have read all her subsequent novels (see here). All of them were fantastic, great stories with a lot of information mainly about Greece but also some other Southern European countries (Cyprus, Spain, Turkey).
Fourteen years after her first novel, the sequel to it was published. It is the end of the leper colony in Greece since they found a cure. That is great news for some since their loved ones return, not so good news for others who fear their lives will change. And they do.
A drama that occurs on the return changes the life of everyone whom we got to know in the first book. It would have been nice to learn more about other inhabitants of Spinalonga but we learn more about Maria who spent a long time of her life there.
As in all her novels, Victoria Hislop tells us a lot about her beloved country Greece. She has been made an honorary citizen in the meantime, a well-deserved recognition. I always love her describing the Greek whom I got to know as a warm and loving people. And her stories always have a feeling of truth, you can believe the people really existed, they led this life. She always brings me back to Crete which I really love.
I am already looking forward to her next book which she will hopefully write soon.
From the back cover:
"25th August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leper colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences.
When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy.
In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past.
Number one bestselling author Victoria Hislop returns to the world and characters she created in The Island - the award-winning novel that remains one of the biggest selling reading group novels of the century. It is finally time to be reunited with Anna, Maria, Manolis and Andreas in the weeks leading up to the evacuation of the island... and beyond."
Shaparak "Shappi" Khorsandi is an Iranian-born British comedian and author. I've known her from various British panel and quiz shows and I think she is absolutely fabulous.
So, when her memoir "A Beginner's Guide to English" was published, I really wanted to read it and found it just as great as the comedian herself. Then I learned that she had also written a novel "Nina is Not OK". Without even looking at the content (which I hardly ever do), I bought the book and started reading.
At first I was disappointed. Nina, the protagonist, came across as one of those heroines from chick lit novels. Superficial and dumb. If she had been blonde, she would have been the best example for the kind of girls that are always seem to populate those novels.
But, after a little while, the novel begins to grow on you. This is not a superficial book about some stupid teenagers, this is a book that deals with many problem topics. You can tell at times that the author has a great sense of humour though this is not a funny book. But I started to like the characters very much, not all of them, of course, otherwise there would be no problems and this book would never have been written. But there are not only accusations but also trials to solve some of those problems.
Some horrible things happen in this novel and I'm sure it's too much for some readers but the scenes had to be included in order to understand what was going on. Alcoholism in a family and sexual abuse are the worst things but it's not all.
While the mother's feelings are not portrayed as much as those of Nina, I think mothers can very well understand the nightmares they all go through, not just Nina. And if you didn't think alcoholism was an illness before, you will certainly understand those people better after reading this book. And hopefully not make the same mistakes everyone around Nina made.
I don't like alcohol, so I always find it hard to understand how someone can drink so much. It's not that I judge them, I just can't follow personally. I've had to take so much medication in my life that I am always afraid I get addicted to some of them. I do think that this book helps to understand people who are afflicted with this illness.
I hope Shappi Khorsandi will write more books. This one was fabulous.
From the back cover:
"Nina does not have a drinking problem. She likes a drink, sure. But what 17-year-old doesn’t?
And if she sometimes wakes up with little memory of what happened the night before , then her friends are all too happy to fill in the blanks. Nina’s drunken exploits are the stuff of college legend.
But then one dark Sunday morning, even her friends can’t help piece together Saturday night. All Nina feels is a deep sense of shame, that something very bad has happened to her…"
Slimani, Leïla "Adèle" (French: Dans le jardin de l'ogre) - 2014
An interesting book though I really disliked the protagonist, Adèle Robinson. Read the description of the book and you might get an idea why.
This is the story of a sex addicted woman. She goes around and sleeps with everyone "in trousers". I just couldn't follow that woman.
If you don't like your marriage, give it up. We don't live in the middle ages (or in the middle of the 20th century) where you were bound to that husband of yours.
If you don't feel like a mother … well, how can you not feel like a mother if you are a mother? I don't know any mother who doesn't love her children, even those that nobody else likes. You just do.
I know that being addicted is an illness and it's hard to get out of it but I can't deal with that kind of people. They are selfish and exploit everyone around them.
I think the idea of the author was not to judge Adèle. But I gave up my time in order to read about her, so I just take that as my right and judge her. I just felt sorry for her husband who did everything to please her and her son who didn't ask to be born but then deserves the love of his parents. There are always victims when someone decides to lead a selfish life.
Let's face it, we all have troubles at times that seem unsolvable. Sometimes they really can't be solved. But Adèle would have had many ways out of that situation without hurting too many people.
I wonder why they didn't translate the title "Dans le jardin de l'ogre" into "In the Ogre's Garden" but put the name of the protagonist there. I think the French title is a lot better even though it is all about "Adèle".
Here are some comments from the other members:
Adèle is an unlikable antihero.
The book was more about attention deficit disorder than addiction.
She seems to suffer more from attention deficit disorder
The character is described as an addict who can't control herself and keeps cheating almost everyone around her.
The topic is such that it is very difficult to identify with the person from a male perspective, I can only compare Adèle to other characters as an outside observer.
Leila Slimani's mother is a doctor and Leila used to work as a reporter so the characters in the book draw a lot from this life experience.
I didn't like the book at all. Me neither.
I find it easier to think deeply about books I did not like.
Which one of her problems was caused by society, her upbringing, her own personality, her IQ too?
Sex addiction was a symptom, not the cause.
I have no respect for people with Adèle's weakness.
I also liked the original title much better and would really have loved to hear the views of some French speaking reader on how the book was in the original language. I read it in Finnish which made it cold and harsh, nothing fascinating sexy about it. (Remark from me: I read it in French and even there it was cold and harsh.)
I felt I was cheated with the ending. Even though I might have a right to a book without reality's hard end, I frown upon the husband's silly thoughts about it not being the end.
******
Looks like everyone agreed with me.
This was our international online book club novel in July 2020.
From the back cover:
"Adèle appears to have the perfect life. She is a successful journalist in Paris who lives in a chic apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son. But beneath the veneer of 'having it all', she is bored - and consumed by an insatiable need for sex, whatever the cost. Struggling to contain the twin forces of compulsion and desire, she begins to orchestrate her life around her one night stands and extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she's been, until she becomes ensnared in a trap of her own making. An erotic and daring story - with electrically clear writing - Adèle will captivate readers with its exploration of addiction, sexuality, and one woman's quest to feel alive."
Giordano, Paolo "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" (Italian: La solitudine dei numeri primi) - 2008
When I saw the title of this book, I thought it might be a book about mathematics or at least a novel about mathematics. Well, it's a novel about a mathematician. Not exactly the same but it was a very interesting story and I can see why the author received the highly renowned Premio Strega and the Premio Campiello for this first novel. They even turned it into a film and I can see that it gets a wide audience.
It's difficult to describe this book, and that's probably what makes it so interesting. There are twins in this story and people who are almost like twins. It's not really a love story but there is love involved. It's not a story about (mental) illness and/or death but that's involved, as well. The story jumps back and forth in time by telling us the stories of Mattia and Alice.
The title alludes to the fact that prime numbers are natural numbers that are divided only with number 1 and itself. They never stand together, are always divided by at least one (even) number, so they are always alone.
A brilliant first novel, makes you want to read his next ones.
From the back cover:
"A prime number can only be divided by itself or by one - it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia, both 'primes', are misfits who seem destined to be alone. Haunted by childhood tragedies that mark their lives, they cannot reach out to anyone else. When Alice and Mattia meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit.
But the mathematically gifted Mattia accepts a research position that takes him thousands of miles away, and the two are forced to separate. Then a chance occurrence reunites them and forces a lifetime of concealed emotion to the surface.
Like Mark Haddon'sThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, this is a stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and the weight of childhood experience that is set to become a universal classic."
Bryson, Bill "The Body. A Guide for Occupants" - 2019
Bill Bryson should have been my biology teacher. Or any science teacher. I might have learned something in that direction in school. Alas, he would have been too young when I visited school and also, he's not a teacher. Or is he?
I've already learned a lot about science in his book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and this is another example about how you can make a dull subject more interesting for others. Nobody has to convince me to read any of his travel books (see the list in "Bill Bryson - Funniest author ever") or any book by him at all but I was a tad apprehensive about this one since biology was never my "thing".
Bill Bryson said: "We spend our whole lives in one body and yet most of us have practically no idea how it works and what goes on inside it …"
And he is so right. Whilst I knew the basics, there is so much more to learn and to know and with this book, I have learned a lot more than in many years at school. And it was not boring, not a minute of it.
One thing I have to say, whilst I always knew how much could go wrong in your body and that it's more astonishing how little actually does go wrong, this book is more reassuring than troubling. We all die at one point, some sooner, some later. And while it is terrifying to lose a loved one, we do live a lot longer than any people in history did which also causes us to die of illnesses our ancestors wouldn't get because they'd been dead for decades.
I did miss the author's usual humour, but you can't have it all, I guess.
Still, please, carry on writing these kind of informative books as well as your funny ones, Bill Bryson. No matter what subject you choose for your next book, I will definitely read it.
"In his brilliant, bestselling A Short History of Neary Everything, Bill Bryson set off to explore the universe and the science of everything in it. In The Body, he turns his gaze inwards, to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us. As he guides us around the human body to discover how it functions, what can go wrong and its remarkable ability to heal itself, what emerges is that we are infinitely more complex, wondrous and mysterious than any of us might have suspected.
From our genes to our linguistic skills, our big brains to our dextrous fingertips, we are an astonishing story of success. And the history of how we have tried to master our biology and stave off disease is full of forgotten heroes, astounding anecdotes and extraordinary facts. (Your body make a million red blood cells since you started reading this.)
Endlessly fascinating, and as compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. A must-read owner's manual for everybody, this is Bryson at this best."
Saramago, José "Blindness" (Portuguese: O Ensaio sobre a Cegueira) - 1995
This is my second book by this wonderful author. Same as "Cain", this book is totally captivating.
We get no information about the city or even the country where this takes place. However, this is a dystopian novel and they usually could take place anywhere. We never know what will happen if a catastrophe - or in this case an epidemic - strikes us.
In this book, the people go completely mad. Everyone goes blind one after the other and everyone is scared. That doesn't mean they all react in the same way. There are those who stick together and help others and other who live according to the motto "help yourself so God will help you". It wouldn't even be fair to the animals to say they behave like them because animals at least only take what they need.
Both the sentences and the paragraphs in this book are very long, there is hardly a place where you can stop. But that makes it even more compelling, you have the feeling you are stuck in the book just the way the blind people are stuck in their destiny. A good way to emphasize the situation.
None of the characters have a name. They are just called "the first blind man" or "the doctor's wife" and "the girl with the dark glasses". Again, this makes it easier for us to identify with them, I guess. Anyone could be one of the guys or one of the girls.
He definitely makes it easy for us to imagine that this actually could happen. We can try to imagine how it is when you turn blind. And we can feel with the people who not only go blind but lose their life as they knew it until then.
Great novel. Like many dystopian books, a look into humanity or the lack of it.
From the back cover:
"A city is struck by an epidemic of 'white blindness'. The first man to succumb sits in his car, waiting for the light to change. He is taken to an eye doctor, who does not know what to make of the phenomenon - and soon goes blind himself.
The blindness spreads, sparing no one. Authorities confine the blind to a vacant mental hospital secured by armed guards under instructions to shoot anyone trying to escape. Inside, the criminal element among the blind holds the rest captive: food rations are stolen, women are raped. The compound is set ablaze, and the blind escape into what is now a deserted city, strewn with litter and unburied corpses.
The only eyewitness to this nightmare is the doctor's wife, who faked blindness in order to join her husband in the camp. She guides seven strangers through the barren streets. The bonds within this oddly anonymous group - the doctor, the first blind man and his wife, the old man with the black eye patch, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with no mother, and the dog of tears - are as uncanny as the surrounding chaos is harrowing. Told with compassion, humor, and lyricism, Blindness is a stunning exploration of loss and disorientation in the modern world, of man's will to survive against all odds."
José Saramago "der mit Gleichnissen, getragen von Phantasie, Mitgefühl und Ironie, ständig aufs Neue eine entfliehende Wirklichkeit greifbar macht" erhielt 1998 den Nobelpreis für Literatur.
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
