Hornby, Gill "Miss Austen"

Hornby, Gill "Miss Austen" - 2020

As I mentioned before, 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, and I want to do read something Austen-related by her in between.

In April, I read a German book by Catherine Bell, "Jane Austen und die Kunst der Worte" [Jane Austen and the Art of Words].  I was not impressed, I probably read too much about Jane Austen before and this one could have been written by any Jane Austen fan without doing any more research. Such a pity.

Mind you, "Miss Austen" wasn't all that much better, only a little. The Miss Austen mentioned in the title is not Jane but her sister Cassandra. We hear about her last self-given task, the intention to destroy the letters her sister had written that contained something Cassandra didn't want anyone to know, that would look bad on her sister's legacy. But, since those letters were destroyed, we don't know what it contained and the author just invented them.

I don't like people writing a sequel to a book where the original author died. I never did and I doubt I ever will. So, I guess my next book about Jane Austen (in August) will be a non-fiction again.

From the back cover:

"1840 : Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury.

She knows that, in some corner of the vicarage where she is staying, there is a cache of letters written by her sister Jane.

As Cassandra recalls her youth, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history - and her own ; secrets which should not be revealed.

And she faces a stark choice : should she act to protect Jane's reputation?

Or leave the letters unguarded to shape her legacy..."

Thoreau, Henry David "Walden"

Thoreau, Henry David "Walden; or, Life in the Woods" - 1854

Everyone told me I should read the book. I like to think about and speak about philosophy. But this was not for me. I saw it as the ramblings of a guy who thinks the world of himself. He reminded me of a certain president of these days ….

Yes, he had the idea to live on his own with no support from anyone. But he met people all the time, didn't live far from civilization where he could get help if he needed it. And - he didn't just live of nothing. He had a house to live in, albeit a cabin that was small and had just the bare essentials, but many, many people had to live with less than that. And still have. Not exactly the heroism he likes to portray.

I thought maybe it would get better and I could learn something in the end. I didn't.

Book Description:

"Originally published in 1854, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, is a vivid account of the time that Henry D. Thoreau lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. It is one of the most influential and compelling books in American literature. This new paperback edition-introduced by noted American writer John Updike-celebrates the 150th anniversary of this classic work. Much of Walden's material is derived from Thoreau's journals and contains such engaging pieces as 'Reading' and 'The Pond in the Winter' 

Other famous sections involve Thoreau's visits with a Canadian woodcutter and with an Irish family, a trip to Concord, and a description of his bean field. This is the complete and authoritative text of Walden - as close to Thoreau's original intention as all available evidence allows. For the student and for the general reader, this is the ideal presentation of Thoreau's great document of social criticism and dissent."

Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast"

Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast" - 1946

This is only a short book of 52 pages. Easy to take along on short trips.

And what a lovely title. I suppose Oscar Wilde considered himself a very boring person at breakfast.

While this sounds like another one of his not-so-well-known writings, it is really a collection of his aphorisms, quotes, anecdotes, witticisms. A delight to read. Again and again.

After reading this, I would have wished to be friends with him. I'm sure we would have really liked each other.

One of my favourite quotes, still as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago, especially with regard to certain politics:
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

From the back cover:

"Wilde's celebrated witticisms on the dangers of sincerity, duplicitous biographers, the stupidity of the English - and his own genius.

'It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable as oneself'. Oscar Wilde"

This is a "Penguin Little Black Classics" edition and it looks like there are lots of other authors who 

There is even a box set with the following description:

"A stunning collection of all 80 exquisite Little Black Classics from Penguin

This spectacular box set of the 80 books in the Little Black Classics series showcases the many wonderful and varied writers in Penguin Black Classics. From India to Greece, Denmark to Iran, the United States to Britain, this assortment of books will transport readers back in time to the furthest corners of the globe. With a choice of fiction, poetry, essays and maxims, by the likes of Chekhov, Balzac, Ovid, Austen, Sappho and Dante, it won't be difficult to find a book to suit your mood. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of the Penguin Classics list - from drama to poetry, from fiction to history, with books taken from around the world and across numerous centuries."

It would be worth getting.

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."

Orwell, George "The Road to Wigan Pier"

Orwell, George "The Road to Wigan Pier" - 1937

I read this for the "1937 Club".

I have read a few books by George Orwell already and they were all highly interesting. This one started off a little tedious, many numbers that would have been easier to understand had they been converted to today's currencies or at least given the money in context. How am I supposed to know how much 15s. or 3s. 6d. are? How much do people have to pay for a piece of bread? How much does a good earner receive?

But the book improves after the author goes on to mention the conditions under which people live.
We are in the year 1937. A year that was very important. As another blogger wrote: "A LOT of good writing came out of the 30's. Turbulent times tend to do that...." (see here, thanks Cyberkitten)

And yes, we have similar turbulent times again and if we don't pay attention, history might repeat itself.

A quote from the book:
"They [Socialists] have never made it sufficiently clear that the essential aims of Socialism are justice and liberty. With their eyes glued to economic facts, they have proceeded on the assumption that man has no soul, and explicitly or implicitly they have set up the goal of a materialistic Utopia. As a result Fascism has been able to play upon every instinct that revolts against hedonism and a cheap conception of ‘progress’. It has been able to pose as the upholder of the European tradition, and to appeal to Christian belief, to patriotism, and to the military virtues. It is far worse than useless to write Fascism off as 'mass sadism', or some easy phrase of that kind. If you pretend that it is merely an aberration which will presently pass off of its own accord, you are dreaming a dream from which you will awake when somebody coshes you with a rubber truncheon."

We shouldn't forget these famous words by Martin Niemöller.
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."
If we don't pay attention, we will be there again. And sooner than we would like to think.

From the back cover:

"In the 1930s, commissioned by a left-wing book club, Orwell went to the industrial areas of northern England to investigate and record the real situation of the working class. Orwell did more than just investigate; he went down to the deepest part of the mine, lived in dilapidated and filthy workers' houses, and used the tip of his pen to vividly reveal every aspect of the coal miners' lives. Reading today, 80 years later, Still shockingly true. The despair and poverty conveyed by this picture have a terrifying power that transcends time and national boundaries. At the same time, the Road to Wigan Pier is also Orwell's road to socialism as he examines his own inner self. Born in the British middle class, he recalled how he gradually began to doubt and then hate the strict class barriers that divided British society at that time. Because in his mind, socialism ultimately means only one concept: 'justice and freedom.'"

 

Ernaux, Annie "The Years"

Ernaux, Annie "The Years" (French: Les années) - 2008

We read this in our international online book club in July 2023.

As so often, I had never heard of Annie Ernaux before she received the Nobel Prize. And that's why I always eagerly await the awards, in 99% of the case, the choice is excellent.

And it was this time. Annie Ernaux is a little older than me but I could find a lot of her experiences in my life. I think most women born in the middle of the last century share them, no matter where they're from. Maybe that's why I liked this book.

It wasn't at all what I expected. While the author grows up, she compares her life with her country, its politics, its developments, especially for women (always to slow). Her memories are haphazard, always in fragments, like a collage or a scrapbook. She uses the third person singular. I think that makes it easier for us to associate with her story, she doesn't give the impression as if she is just speaking about herself.

So, this is not just a biography about Annie Ernaux' life but a history of France after WWII. And a reminder to reflect on our own lives and what our country has done for us and to us. So I am sure it is also interesting for younger people who would like to hear about the generations before them.

I have not studied French (at university, I have learned it at school and speak it) but taken lots of classes and read a lot about French history and politics, visited the country, have friends there. So, not much was totally new for me. But I still enjoyed learning what history and society did to one single person, how she grew up the way she did and became the woman she is today. I will surely read more by her.

Some comments from the discussion:

• "Beautiful language and picture of its time. The reading created a feeling of 'participation' or belonging, as she wrote the autobiography mostly in 'we' form.
• I have read her biographies about her mother and father, and the abortion. With this The Years, I finally understood her writing style. I found it impressive, starting as glimpses of history, flowing, like a movie, and ended as glimpses again, the person grew along with the story also, reflecting her life in different ages, the perspective growing with the story, as she grew, her perspective of the world grew. Adding more and more observations the wider her perspective and reflection became. Much of the historical references and politics I missed. But an excellent brilliant book, for adults with some reflective skills.
• A subjective culture history. I did not feel connected to the 'we' form of participation she tried to bring to the story, like she was taking power she doesn't have. The history interested me, but pop cultural references were not familiar to me.
• The modern pop culture and freer availability of products came much earlier in France than in Finland, I felt.
• The French perspective on Algeria before and in the later parts of the book felt written from a French born person, very one-sided, that turned around in the modern waves of anti-immigration feelings.
• Language was very dense, containing a lot of information in small space of pages. Interesting to read about how influences from different parts of the world arrived and 'affected' the French population. What political news shocked them, what was passed over. What parts of Europe they observed, Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe, etc. and how the feelings and thoughts about these changed. The travelling, the Euro.
• It was not an emotional book, but a very verbal one, she kept a distance to her history and feelings from youth, trying to keep neutral. Like a huge amount of source material (her life) summarized into this book, full of specifically chosen sayings and expressions. It made the book a beautiful experience to read or listen to. The translators were also skilled in translating these special sayings.
• We also discussed listening to audiobooks, how we feel about it, experience it, and how we felt it affected reading this book.
• It was interesting that she analysed her own book in the end, intention to write the book, how she wrote it, what perspective, etc."

From the back cover:

"Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist’s defining work and a breakout bestseller when published in France in 2008.

The Years is a personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television and decades of advertising, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from 6 decades of diaries.

Local dialect, words of the times, slogans, brands and names for the ever-proliferating objects, are given voice here. The voice we recognize as the author’s continually dissolves and re-emerges. Ernaux makes the passage of time palpable. Time itself, inexorable, narrates its own course, consigning all other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective.

On its 2008 publication in France, The Years came as a surprise. Though Ernaux had for years been hailed as a beloved, bestselling and award-winning author, The Years was in many ways a departure: both an intimate memoir 'written' by entire generations, and a story of generations telling a very personal story. Like the generation before hers, the narrator eschews the 'I' for the 'we' (or 'they', or 'one') as if collective life were inextricably intertwined with a private life that in her parents’ generation ceased to exist. She writes of her parents’ generation (and could be writing of her own book): 'From a common fund of hunger and fear, everything was told in the 'we' and impersonal pronouns.'"

Annie Ernaux received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022 "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory".

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

Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book"

Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book" - 2008

This is going to be one of my favourite books this year. Such a wonderful story about a book and its history. I have once read a similar story, well, not a similar story, just a book that tries to follow a piece of art, a painting from today into past until it was created. That was by Susan Vreeland and it was called "Girl in Hyacinth Blue". I loved that one and this was just as interesting.

The main "character" is the Sarajevo Haggada, a Jewish religious book that really exists (see here on Wikipedia or here on The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina website) The word "haggada" is Hebrew for telling, story or account, the book "Haggadah" is a text that describes the order of the Passover Seder.

There are books, even ancient ones, where you know exactly where they come from and who made them. This is not one. The author has put down some ideas and made a wonderful story about it that travels around the whole world. From the Australian conservationist who tries to find some clues that sound just like a crime story we travel back from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Italy, Austria, Spain and to the shores of Ifriqiya (modern day Tunisia, parts of Algeria and Libya). In between, we visit the Untied States and the United Kingdom where the protagonist does not only find out more about the book but also about her family.

I absolutely loved the whole story, how we get to know the different kinds of people who contributed first to the creation of the book and then to the saving of it. Some of the ideas might even be true. Well, we can always dream.

Remarks from the book club:
I partly felt the book was really interesting and wanted to know more about the old stories from history.
The parts about WWII always feel a little too close for comfort anyway.
The author's experience as a journalist shone through the story. But the present day frame-story felt slightly "puff-piece" kind of full with story gaps.
Overall still give it 4/5 or maybe even 4,5/5.

We read this in our international online book club in October 2023.

From the back cover:

"During World War II a Bosnian Muslim risks his life to save the book from the Nazis; it gets caught up in the intrigues of hedonistic 19th-century Vienna; a Catholic priest saves it from burning in the fires of Inquisition. These stories and more make up the secret history of the priceless Sarajevo Haggadah - a medieval Jewish prayer book recovered from the smouldering ruins of the war-torn city.
Now it is in the skilled hands of rare-book restorer Hanna Heath. And while the content of the book interests her, it is the hidden history which captures her imagination. Because to her the tiny clues - salt crystals, a hair, wine stains - that she discovers in the pages and bindings are keys to unlock its mysteries."

Le Faye, Deirdre "Jane Austen, The World of Her Novels"

Le Faye, Deirdre "Jane Austen, The World of Her Novels" - 2002

This is such a brilliant book about Jane Austen, her life, her world, her novels. It begins with "Jane Austen and her family" and "England and the world", then goes on to describe all her novels in detail, even the unfinished ones, and suggests further reading in the end. There are a lot of maps and pictures in the book so we can imagine what her life looked like. Even paintings from the time that indicate what her characters might have looked like, what they used to wear, what kind of houses they might have lived in etc.

This is definitely a book for Jane Austen fans. Or of fans of England at her time, the Regency period.

From the back cover:

"With a wealth of details about Jane Austen's life and times, this volume brings to life the world of her novels. Austen scholar Deirdre Le Faye first gives an overview of the period, from foreign affairs to social ranks, from fashion to sanitation. She goes on to consider each novel individually."

Bellow, Saul "Humboldt's Gift"

Bellow, Saul "Humboldt's Gift" - 1975

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.

Lodge, David "A Man of Parts"

Lodge, David "A Man of Parts" - 2011

The author starts this book with "Nearly everything that happens in this story is based on factual sources. With one significant exception, all the named characters were real people. Quotations from their books, plays, articles, letters, journals, etc., are their own words. But I have used a novelist’s licence in representing what they thought, felt, and said to each other; and I have imagined some events and personal details which history omitted to record. So this book is a novel, and structured like a novel."

I was made aware of this story because I had read a few books that were based on H.G. Wells' novels:

Palma, Félix J. "The Map of Time" (E: El mapa del tiempo) - 2008 (based on "The Time Machine")
- "The Map of the Sky" (E: El mapa del cielo) - 2012 (based on "The War of the Worlds") 
- "The Map of Chaos" (E: El mapa del caos) - 2014 (based on "The Invisible Man")

After that, I also read "The Time Machine", I had already watched the old film version which I really like.

So, this is about H.G. Wells' life. I must admit, I had no idea about the guy beforehand, otherwise I might not have undertaken this book. Not because it has more than 500 pages or because it was badly written. I just came to dislike the famous author. I mean, he had a brilliant mind and foresaw many developments that nobody thought about it until then. He was an adulterer, a sexually obsessed maniac who promoted "free love" only so he could have several mistresses and was still proud that his wife agreed to it. He fathered quite a few children with several women. It might have been nice for him but I wouldn't have wanted to be any of those women who had to bring up their illegitimate children (even with his financial help) in a time where that did not agree with any sort of social status. It was all right and fine for Mr. Wells, though. Well, he was a man. Even in our modern times, I don't think anyone would agree with his sort of behaviour towards women.

All in all, an interesting read but somehow I wish I hadn't learned so much about this guy.

From the back cover:

"'The mind is a time machine that travels backwards in memory and forwards in prophecy, but he has done with prophecy now...'

Sequestered in his blitz-battered Regent's Park house in 1944, the ailing Herbert George Wells, 'H.G.' to his family and friends, looks back on a life crowded with incident, books, and women. Has it been a success or a failure? Once he was the most famous writer in the world, 'the man who invented tomorrow'; now he feels like yesterday's man, deserted by readers and depressed by the collapse of his utopian dreams.

He recalls his unpromising start, and early struggles to acquire an education and make a living as a teacher; his rapid rise to fame as a writer with a prophetic imagination and a comic common touch which brought him into contact with most of the important literary, intellectual, and political figures of his time; his plunge into socialist politics; his belief in free love, and energetic practice of it. Arguing with himself about his conduct, he relives his relationships with two wives and many mistresses, especially the brilliant student Amber Reeves and the gifted writer Rebecca West, both of whom bore him children, with dramatic and long-lasting consequences.

Unfolding this astonishing story, David Lodge depicts a man as contradictory as he was talented: a socialist who enjoyed his affluence, an acclaimed novelist who turned against the literary novel; a feminist womaniser, sensual yet incurably romantic, irresistible and exasperating by turns, but always vitally human."

McLain, Paula "The Paris Wife"

McLain, Paula "The Paris Wife" - 2012

A couple of years ago, everybody seemed to be reading "The Paris Wife". But I had read "The Time Traveler’s Wife" which I hated and I neither was too happy with "The Railwayman's Wife". So, I thought maybe I should keep away from "wife" books, as well. But at some point, I bought a copy. It still stayed on my TBR pile for a couple of years.

Then, one of my blogger friends introduced me to "Paris in July" and I thought it was time to read it. First of all, it has the word "Paris" in its title and it takes place in Paris. Also, I have read a few books by Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls) and have a few more on my wishlist. So, why not give it a go?

I was positively surprised about the book. Written from the perspective of the first of his four wives, we learn a lot about Hadley as well as Ernest and his second wife, Pauline.

The author remarks: "Although Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway and other people who actually lived appear in this book as fictional characters, it was important for me to render the particulars of their lives as accurately as possible, and to follow the very well documented historical record."

I was aware throughout the whole book that this is a novel written in the form of a memoir, not a biography. That didn't change the fact that it was highly interesting to read about the lives of some extraordinary people. Hemingway was in an interesting circle of authors and artists and they all appear in the book.

I have lived in four different countries and I came from a small village into a big foreign town in my early twenties but life was different in our time. We didn't have the internet but there were books, there was the television and people had moved around, not many and often not far but nothing compared to the difference between Hadley's sheltered, very remote life before she met Ernest Hemingway and life in Paris. It must have been really, really hard for her.

There are also some small parts where Ernest tells us his side of the story. Of course, he has already been through and survived one war which always changes a man. But you also can tell there that they were two completely different personalities not just with different ideas but also with different goals. It's probably a miracle the marriage survived as long as it did.

The book is not just interesting concerning the life of the Hemingways but also the other characters are interesting as is the life in Paris in the twenties. We hear so much about it. This book helps us understanding it a little better. Definitely brilliantly written.

I'd love to read more of Paula McLain's books but definitely her memoir: "Like Family. Growing Up In Other People's Houses".

One quote by Ernest Hemingway: "I want to write one true sentence", he said. "If I can write one sentence, simple and true every day, I'll be satisfied". I think his writing shows that this was his goal and he achieved it.

At the end of the book, Paula McLain adds a list of her sources, all of them would be interesting to read if you like the subjects:

About the Hemingways:
Alice Hunt Sokoloff, Alice " Hadley: The First Mrs. Hemingway"
Diliberto, Gioia "Hadley"
Kert, Bernice "The Hemingway Women"
Baker, Carlos "Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story and Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917-1961"
Reynolds, Michael "Hemingway: The Paris Years and Hemingway: The American Homecoming"
Brian, Denis "The True Gen"

About Paris in the twenties
Wiser, Willam "The Crazy Years"
Flanner, Janet "Paris Was Yesterday"
Tomkins, Calvin "Living Well Is the Best Revenge"
Milford, Nancy "Zelda"
Fussell, Paul "The Great War and Modern Memory"

Other books by Ernest Hemingway:
"A Moveable Feast"
"In Our Time"
"The Sun Also Rises"
"The Garden of Eden"
"Death in the Afternoon"
"The Complete Short Stories"

From the back cover:

"Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a shy twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness when she meets Ernest Hemingway and is captivated by his energy, intensity and burning ambition to write. After a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for France. But glamorous Jazz Age Paris, full of artists and writers, fuelled by alcohol and gossip, is no place for family life and fidelity. Ernest and Hadley's marriage begins to founder and the birth of a beloved son serves only to drive them further apart. Then, at last, Ernest's ferocious literary endeavours begin to bring him recognition - not least from a woman intent on making him her own."

Ernest Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in 'The Old Man and the Sea' and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style" and the Pulitzer Prize for "The Old Man and the Sea" in 1953.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Italian Journey"

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Italian Journey" (aka Letters from Italy) (German: Italienische Reise) - 1817

Goethe is considered one of the greatest thinkers in the world. He was not just a writer of novels, poetry and play, he was also a scientist and an artist. One of his most famous non-fictional publications is the "Theory on Colours", published in 1810, including his colour wheel and a very early study on the physiological effects of colour.

In his late thirties, he embarked on a trip to Italy, not a two week holiday like we are used to nowadays, no, he stayed for more than a year, travelled through the country and observed their culture and art.

In this book, he tells us all about his visits to the various parts of Italy, the museums and operas, his meeting the local population. Since not many people could travel at the time, it was something like a travel documentary you might watch on television today of a place you know you will never get to visit.

But he didn't just do a sightseeing tour, he also made botanical, mineralogical, geological and geographical researches and made quite a few discoveries, e.g. on the propagation of plants.

So, if any of this interests you, I can heartily recommend the book. After all, he was a perfect author and could tell stories in a way not many can. However, if you think the topic is too dry, I recommend other works by Goethe, e.g. "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werther).

But it is certainly worth reading Goethe. I hope he is as great in the translations as he is in German. In the "Country of Poets and Thinkers", he truly is one of the greatest. His thoughts are still as up to date as they were 200 years ago.

From the back cover:

"In 1786, when he was already the acknowledged leader of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, Goethe set out on a journey to Italy to fulfil a personal and artistic quest and to find relief from his responsibilities and the agonies of unrequited love. As he travelled to Venice, Rome, Naples and Sicily he wrote many letters, which he later used as the basis for the Italian Journey. A journal full of fascinating observations on art and history, and the plants, landscape and the character of the local people he encountered, this is also a moving account of the psychological crisis from which Goethe emerged newly inspired to write the great works of his mature years."

 

The picture on the cover of the English book (Goethe in the Roman Campagna) was painted by his friend Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein whom Goethe visited in Rome during his travels. The picture is both the most famous one by Tischbein as well as the most famous one of Goethe.

Barbery, Muriel "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

Barbery, Muriel "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" (French: L’Elégance du hérisson) - 2006

This book had been on my TBR pile for too long and since I was determined to get it a little smaller by the end of the year, I finally started. Plus, I wanted to read more in French, so hopefully that's a start.

While this book is about philosophy and Russian literature, it's not that high brow to read because it's also about normal people and it makes you think about the meaning of life. If you love Russian literature, it's even better because one of the protagonists loves it, as well.

The story unfolds by the reports of two very different women, 12 year old Paloma Josse and 54 year old Renée Michel who is the concierge in the building Paloma and her family live in. You would think, they have nothing in common but this is where we can learn that even with a very different background, we can find a soulmate everywhere.

A nice read. I wouldn't mind a second book to see what goes on in Paloma's life when she grows up.

From the back cover:

"Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with society's expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this facade lies the real Renée passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. 

Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renée lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever.

By turn moving and hilarious, this unusual novel became the French publishing phenomenon of 2007: from an initial print run of 3,000 to sales of over 2 million in hardback. It took 35 weeks to reach the number one bestseller spot but has now spent longer in the French bestseller lists than Dan Brown."

Hustvedt, Siri "The Summer without Men"

Hustvedt, Siri "The Summer without Men" - 2011

I don't know when and why I bought this book; I just know that I had a list with books with "summer in the title" and this one came up. Since I hadn't read it, and summer was on the doorstep, I decided this needed to be one of my next reads.

It didn't exactly bring any to storms of enthusiasm from my side. I wouldn't exactly call it a difficult read, just a jumbled up one. At times, she reminded me of Sylvia Plath or Virginia Wolf, and not in a good way. It was philosophical but you often couldn't follow her train of thoughts, she drifted off.

The story is easy enough, Mia is left by her husband, at least for the time-being, and she falls into a deep hole, has to go to a mental hospital for a while and then goes to see her mother for the summer. All her mother's friends seem to have problems, as well. She teaches young girls in literature in a summer course, there are problems, too, of course. Oh, oh, and then there's the neighbour who has problems with her husband. Is there any problem a woman could have that doesn't get dragged into this book? The biggest trouble is, I couldn't really feel it, the characters were not real. It just seemed like one problem written down after another without given it too much depth.

And then there was too much poetry in this novel for my liking.

I know Siri Hustvedt is a renowned author. Maybe this is one of her weaker novels. Or - she's just not my thing. I still have "The Sorrows of an American" on my TBR pile, don't know whether I'll tackle that any time soon.

I did like the cover of the book, though.

From the back cover:

"Out of the blue, your husband of thirty years asks you for a pause in your marriage to indulge his infatuation with a young Frenchwoman. Do you: a) assume it's a passing affair and play along b) angrily declare the marriage over c) crack up d) retreat to a safe haven and regroup? Mia Fredricksen cracks up first, then decamps for the summer to the prairie town of her childhood, where she rages, fumes, and bemoans her sorry fate as abandoned spouse. But little by little, she is drawn into the lives of those around her: her mother and her circle of feisty widows; her young neighbour, with two small children and a loud, angry husband; and the diabolical pubescent girls in her poetry class. By the end of the summer without men, wiser though definitely not sadder, Mia knows what she wants to fight for and on whose terms. Provocative, mordant, and fiercely intelligent, The Summer Without Men is a gloriously vivacious tragi-comedy about women and girls, love and marriage, and the age-old war between the sexes - a novel for our times by one of the most acclaimed American writers."

There is a lot of talks about books in this novel but only one is mentioned: "Persuasion" by Jane Austen which is read by the protaganist's mother and her book club "The Rolling Meadows".

Taylor, Helen "Why Women Read Fiction"

Taylor, Helen "Why Women Read Fiction. The Stories of Our Lives" - 2019

My son gave me this book for Christmas because "it was a new one and I could be more certain you don't have it yourself yet, though I do think you are interested in it." He was right on all accounts. I hardly ever buy hardbacks, especially not if I think they might come out next year in paperback and it is certainly interesting to read about women reading. And why we're reading so much more than men.

When my sons were little, they were voracious readers, they devoured everything that fell into their hands and therefore, they read adult books a long time before they were adults.

I found the questions asked by the author very intriguing. I found myself in a lot of the women she described. Having been a member of several different book clubs, I understood a lot of the findings and of the frustrations that come along with deciding what to read and discuss. The author talked to many other authors, readers, book clubs, and they all had something to add to the fact "why women read fiction". She reports on our reading habits, how we choose what we read and share what we read,

I totally agree that it has to do with the fact that we used to be more housebound than the male of the species but that's not necessarily true anymore. Mind you, I lived in a hostile environment for a long time and without being able to flee into my books, I doubt I would have come out sane on the other side. So, there's that.

An interesting idea, if you're in a book club, or even if not. Let every member name "the book they loved, the one that made them stalk, the one they struggled with, the one that surprised you, the one that divided you, the one that nobody finished, the one you wished you'd read."

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading and the reason behind it. It certainly would also be a good book club book.

The book is full of quotes. Here are my favourites:

"There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away." Emily Dickinson

"Life is a handful of short stories pretending to be a novel." Susan Hill

"Reading has seen me through good times and bad. It has taken me to places I longed to go and some I did not want to go. At times, it has challenged, at times comforted." Kathy J.

"MYTH: Romance readers are obsessed with wine, chocolate and Pride and Prejudice. FACT: You say that like it's a bad thing." Maya Rodale, Huffington Post

"Every book [is] a message in a bottle." Jeanette Winterson

"Reading is a life-long collision with minds not like your own." Jeanette Winterson

And I found a new interesting blogger: dovegreyreader

From the back cover:

"Ian McEwan once said, 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.' This book explains how precious fiction is to contemporary women readers, and how they draw on it to tell the stories of their lives. Female readers are key to the future of fiction and - as parents, teachers, and librarians - the glue for a literate society. Women treasure the chance to read alone, but have also gregariously shared reading experiences and memories with mothers, daughters, grandchildren, and female friends. For so many, reading novels and short stories enables them to escape and to spread their wings intellectually and emotionally.

This book, written by an experienced teacher, scholar of women's writing, and literature festival director, draws on over 500 interviews with and questionnaires from women readers and writers. It describes how, where, and when women read fiction, and examines why stories and writers influence the way female readers understand and shape their own life stories. Taylor explores why women are the main buyers and readers of fiction, members of book clubs, attendees at literary festivals, and organisers of days out to fictional sites and writers' homes. The book analyses the special appeal and changing readership of the genres of romance, erotica, and crime. It also illuminates the reasons for women's abiding love of two favourite novels, Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. Taylor offers a cornucopia of witty and wise women's voices, of both readers themselves and also writers such as Hilary Mantel, Helen Dunmore, Katie Fforde, and Sarah Dunant. The book helps us understand why - in Jackie Kay's words - 'our lives are mapped by books.'"

Nicoletti, Cara "Voracious"

Nicoletti, Cara "Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books" - 2015

This is such a lovely book. If you like recipes, you might want to read it just for the recipes. But if, like me, you love reading, you will love to read it for the parts in the books you loved. Who doesn't remember Mr. Woodhouse (in "Emma") tell everyone at their dinner about the perfectly boiled egg? Makes me laugh every time I boil eggs.

And the other recipes are just as nice, great reminders about some wonderful books. Even if you don't like cooking or would never cook any of those recipes.

Here are the recipes with links to the books I reviewed:

Austen, Jane "Emma" - Perfectly boiled egg
Austen, Jane "Pride and Prejudice" - White Garlic Soup *
Banks, Lynne Reid "The Indian in the Cupboard" - Grilled Roast Beef
Burnett, Frances Hodgson "The Secret Garden" - Currant Buns
Capote, Truman "In Cold Blood" - Cherry Pie
Cunningham, Michael "The Hours" - Birthday Cake
Dahl, Roald "The Witches" - Mussel, Shrimp, and Cod Stew
Dickens, Charles "Great Expectations" - Pork Pie
Didion, Joan "Goodbye to All That" - Grilled Peaches with Homemade Ricotta
Eugenides, Jeffrey "Middlesex" - Olive Oil Yogurt Cake
Flynn, Gillian "Gone Girl" - Brown Butter Crepes
Franzen, Jonathan "The Corrections" - Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Buttercream Frosting
French, Tana "In the Woods" - Chocolate-Covered Digestive Biscuits
Golding, William "Lord of the Flies" - Porchetta di Testa
Grimm, Jacob + Wilhelm "Hansel and Gretel" - Gingerbread Cake with Blood Orange Syrup
Harris, Thomas "The Silence of the Lambs" - Crostini with Fava Bean and Chicken Liver Mousses
Heller, Peter "The Dog Stars" - Whole Roasted Trout
Homer "The Odyssey" - Red Wine-Rosemary Bread
Houston, Pam "Waltzing the Cat" (incl."The Best Girlfriend You Never Had") - Red Flannel Hash
Hugo, Victor "Les Misérables" - Black Rye Bread
Ingalls Wilder, Laura "Little House in the Big Woods" - Breakfast Sausage
Irving, Washington "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Buckwheat Pancakes
Keene, Carolyn "Nancy Drew" - Double Chocolate Walnut Sundae
Kesey, Ken "Sometimes a Great Notion" - Blackberry-Hazelnut Coffee Cake
Lee, Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird" - Biscuits with Molasses Butter
Lindgren, Astrid "Pippi Longstocking" - Buttermilk Pancakes
Maurier, Daphne du "Rebecca" - Blood Orange Marmalade
Melville, Herman "Moby Dick" - Clam Chowder
McCloskey, Robert "Homer Price" - Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Donuts
Montgomery, L.M. "Anne of Green Gables" - Salted Chocolate Caramels
Morrison, Toni "The Bluest Eye" - Concord Grape Sorbet
Numeroff, Laura Joffe "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" - Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Orwell, George "Down and Out in Paris and London" - Rib-Eye Steak
Paola, Tomie de "Strega Nona" - Black Pepper-Parmesan Pasta
Plath, Sylvia "The Bell Jar" - Crab-Stuffed Avocados
Poe, Edgar Allen "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" - Goat Cheese Pumpkin Pie
Rawls, Wilson "Where the Red Fern Grows" - Skillet Cornbread with Honey Butter
Roth, Philip "American Pastoral" - Hot Cheese Sandwich
Salinger, J.D. "The Catcher in the Rye" - Malted Milk Ice Cream
Sendak, Maurice "In the Night Kitchen" - Scalded and Malted Milk Cake
Singer, Isaac Bashevis "Gimpel the Fool" - Challah
Tartt, Donna "The Little Friend" - Peppermint Stick Ice Cream
Tartt, Donna "The Secret History" - Wine-Braised Leg of Lamb with Wild Mushrooms
Tolstoi, Leo "Anna Karenina" - Oysters and Cucumber Mignonette
Toole, John Kennedy "A Confederacy of Dunces" - Jelly Donuts
Virgil "The Aeneid" - Honey-Poppy Seed Cake
Warner, Gertrude Chandler "The Boxcar Children" - Chocolate Pudding
Waugh, Evelyn "Brideshead Revisited" - Blinis with Caviar
White, E.B. "Charlotte's Web" - Pea and Bacon Soup
Wilder, Laura Ingalls "Little House in the Big Woods" - Breakfast Sausage
Woolf, Virginia "Mrs. Dalloway" - Chocolate Éclairs

* Here, I would have chosen the "excellent boiled potatoes" that are served in a "superbly featured room". As we all know, it's been many years since Mr. Collins had had "such an exemplary vegetable".

From the back cover:

"An Irresistible Literary Feast

Stories and recipes inspired by the world's great books

As a young bookworm reading in her grandfather's butcher shop, Cara Nicoletti saw how books and food bring people to life. Now a butcher, cook, and talented writer, she serves up stories and recipes inspired by beloved books and the food that gives their characters depth and personality.

From the breakfast sausage in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods to chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream from Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, these books and the tasty treats in them put her on the road to happiness.

Cooking through the books that changed her life, Nicoletti shares fifty recipes, including:
* The perfect soft-boiled egg in Jane Austen's Emma
* Grilled peaches with homemade ricotta in tribute to Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That"
* New England clam chowder inspired by Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
* Fava bean and chicken liver mousse crostini (with a nice Chianti) after Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs
* Brown butter crêpes from Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl

Beautifully illustrated, clever, and full of heart, Voracious will satisfy anyone who loves a fantastic meal with family and friends-or curling up with a great novel for dessert."

And I just had to add both English book titles since they combine books and food so well.

Weidermann, Volker "Summer Before the Dark"

Weidermann, Volker "Summer Before the Dark: Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth, Ostend 1936" (German: Ostende - 1936, Sommer der Freundschaft) - 2014

This is a highly interesting book about German authors before and during World War II. Two very famous and important German (Austrian). Stefan Zweig was rich and successful, Joseph Roth was an alcoholic and on his way to destruction, even without the help of the Nazis. Both of them were in big danger, they were Jewish.

Stefan Zweig had spent a summer in Ostend, at the Belgian coast in the summer of 1914. In 1936, he goes back there again and invites many of his friends and colleagues to join him. Besides Joseph Roth, there are many other authors and editors, Irmgard Keun, Egon Erwin Kisch, Ernst Toller with his wife Christiane Grautoff, Arthur Koestler, Hermann Kesten, Émile Verhaeren, James Ensor, Štefan Lux, Soma Morgenstern, Annette Kolb, most of them refugees, most of them banned from publishing in Germany, but also non-authors, political activists like Willi Münzenberg, Otto Katz, Etkar André, Géza von Cziffra, Olga Benário Prestes.

In this novella, the author tries to retell the story of their meeting, their hopes and their despairs. He manages to build a picture about the end of a civilization and how it was hurtling down its own destruction. How many good and brilliant people have ended in this war, how much could they have told us, how much could they have discovered?

We can follow the writers in their view about the political situation, how different people try to do different things about it - or not. A totally interesting way to look at history from within.

Quite a few of them met later on in Sanary-sur-Mer in the South of France where many of them were interned as enemy aliens and some of them even sent to Auschwitz. Today, there is a commemorative plaque for the exiles.

From the book cover:

"It's as if they're made for each other. Two men, both falling, but holding each other up for a time.

Ostend, 1936: the Belgian seaside town is playing host to a coterie of artists, intellectuals and madmen, who find themselves in limbo while Europe gazes into an abyss of fascism and war. Among them is Stefan Zweig, a man in crisis: his German publisher has shunned him, his marriage is collapsing, his house in Austria no longer feels like home. Along with his lover Lotte, he seeks refuge in this paradise of promenades and parasols, where he reunites with his estranged friend Joseph Roth. For a moment, they create a fragile haven; but as Europe begins to crumble around them, they find themselves trapped on an uncanny kind of holiday, watching the world burn."

The author has also mentioned many many books by all those interesting authors:

Auden, W. H. "No more Peace"
Brecht, Bertolt "The Threepenny Opera" (Dreigroschenoper)
Hašek, Jaroslav "The Good Soldier Švejk" (Der Brave Soldat Schwejk)
Hesse, Hermann "Heumond" (no translation)
Huxley, Aldous "Brave New World"
Kesten, Hermann "Philipp II." (König Philipp II.)
Keun, Irmgard "After Midnight" (Nach Mitternacht)
Koestler, Arthur "Darkness at Noon" (Sonnenfinsternis)
Mann, Heinrich "Im Schlaraffenland" (no translation), "Weg zum Hades" (no translation)
Mann, Klaus "Mephisto" (Mephisto)
Mann, Thomas "The Magic Mountain" (Der Zauberberg)
Maupassant, Guy de "Bel Ami" (Bel Ami)
Neumann, Alfred "Das Kaiserreich" (La Tragédie impériale, trilogy)
Rilke, Rainer Maria "The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke" (Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke)
Roth, Joseph "Confession of a Murderer" (Beichte eines Mörders, erzählt in einer Nacht), "Weights and Measures" (Das falsche Gewicht), "The String of Pearls" (Die Geschichte der 1002. Nacht), "The Legend oft he Holy Drinker" (Die Legende vom Heiligen Trinker), "Erdbeeren" (Fragment) (no translation), "Job" (Hiob), "The Ballad of the Hundred Days" (Die Hundert Tage), "The Wandering Jews" (Juden auf Wanderschaft)
Schnitzler, Arthur "Der Ruf des Lebens"
Zweig, Stefan "Anton", "Das Buch als Eingang zur Welt", "Maria Stuart", "The Royal Game/Chess Story/Chess" (Schachnovelle), "Decisive Moments in History" (Sternstunden der Menschheit), "Beware of Pity" (Ungeduld des Herzens) (his only novel). Most of these stories are short stories or novellas. They might have been translated but I didn't find many of them.

He has also mentioned many other authors without listing any of their works which are all worth reading:
Honoré de Balzac, Paul Claudel, Richard Dehmel, Fyodor Dostojewsky, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gernard Hauptmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Gustav Mahler, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, Frank Wedekind, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde

Lopez-Schroder, Maite "Romping through Ulysses"

Lopez-Schroder, Maite "Romping through Ulysses" - 2013

While we visited Dublin recently (as described in this blogpost), we stayed in this wonderful guest house that was just like our own home. It was filled with books. What a treasure!

There was one that I really had to read as it gave me the opportunity to look at our host city through the eyes of James Joyce, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus or, easy, Ulysses.

A lovely little book that tells us how the two protagonists made their way through the city on 16 June 1904, better known as Bloomsday.

And the best part of it, there are more "Romping through …" books. You can romp through Dublin or any other Irish books as well as through other literature or even mathematics. What a cute idea for a booklet.

From the back cover:

"Read all about the strange affair of the garter and the bowler hat. This is a 64-page illustrated improper guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses. It's pocket-size with a retro vibe. There are maps to help you create your own romp through Dublin.

Dip into it as an introduction to Joyce's big book. You will find out what's happening in the story, get ideas of what to do and places to visit. Arm yourself with a quote or two and pick up some insider titbits."

The non-western books that every student should read

Last year, a friend sent me an article from the Guardian by Sunny Singh, lecturer at London Metropolitan University and author of "Hotel Arcadia". It was called called "The non-western books that every student should read". 

I forwarded it to my book club and we decided to read at least one of the books from the list. We then decided on "So Long a Letter" by the Senegalese author Mariama Bâ. It was a great book and I decided I would love to read all of those book. One of them (Palace Walk) had been on my wishlist for ages anwyay. 

Read the article here. And this is the list with links to the books I already read: 

Ananthamurthy, U. R. "Samskara" (ಸಂಸ್ಕಾರ/Rites) - 1965
Bâ, Mariama "So Long a Letter" (Une si longue lettre) - 1979 
Fanon, Frantz "The Wretched of the Earth" (Les damnés de la terre) -1961 
Khedairi, Betool "Absent" (غايب/Gabe) - 2004
Mahfouz, Naguib "Palace Walk" (بين القصرين/Bayn al-qasrayn) - 1956 
Narayan, R. K. "Malgudi Omnibus" (Trilogy: Swami and Friends, 1935; The Bachelor of Arts, 1937; The English Teacher, 1945)
Ruzhen, Li "Flowers in the Mirror" (鏡花緣/Jing Hua Yuan) - 1827 
Unigwe, Chika "On Black Sisters’ Street" (Fata Morgana) - 2007
"Dhammapada" (धम्मपद), Buddhist text - ca. 300 BCE 

I still think this is a wonderful list written by someone who obviously knows her business. It gives a lot of inspiration to anyone who wants to broaden their mind and understand people from other parts of this world.

de Beauvoir, Simone "She came to stay"

de Beauvoir, Simone "She came to stay" (French: L'invitée) - 1943

Paris in the 1930s, Bohemian couple. Intellectuals, theatre, writers, actors, artists, producers. A "triangle" novel. Lots of dialogues. Lots of questions. It was interesting to see Paris shortly before the war broke out, interesting to learn that people knew about concentration camps already in the early thirties. I would have liked a little more about this topic than the ideas of some flighty young people.

If you love to read about the background of the theatre with all its moodiness and jealousy, you might love this novel. For me, it was interesting because I enjoy practising my French. But I doubt that this is the novel that "made" the Great Simone de Beauvoir.

From the back cover:

"Written as an act of revenge against the 17 year-old who came between her and Jean-Paul Sartre, She Came to Stay is Simone de Beauvoir's first novel - a lacerating study of a young, naive couple in love and the usurping woman who comes between them. 'It is impossible to talk about faithfulness and unfaithfulness where we are concerned. You and I are simply one. Neither of us can be described without the other.' It was unthinkable that Pierre and Francoise should ever tire of each other. And yet, both talented and restless, they constantly feel the need for new sensations, new people. Because of this they bring the young, beautiful and irresponsible Xaviere into their life who, determined to take Pierre for herself, drives a wedge between them, with unforeseeable, disastrous consequences...Published in 1943, 'She Came to Stay' is Simone de Beauvoir's first novel. Written as an act of revenge against the woman who nearly destroyed her now legendary, unorthodox relationship with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, it fictionalises the events of 1935, when Sartre became infatuated with seventeen-year old Olga Bost, a pupil and devotee of de Beauvoir's. Passionately eloquent, coolly and devastatingly ironic, 'She Came to Stay' is one of the most extraordinary and powerful pieces of fictional autobiography of the twentieth century, in which de Beauvoir's 'tears for her characters freeze as they drop.'"