Ondaatje, Michael "The English Patient"

Ondaatje, Michael "The English Patient" - 1992

I have read "Anil's Ghost" and "Warlight" by Michael Ondaatje both of which I really liked. I had been looking forward to reading this one for ages, so when I came across the book lately, I decided it was finally time to read it.

There might have been a reason why I didn't tackle it before. I was not as happy with it as I had been with the others. Maybe I should have stayed away from it because it received the Booker Prize, I rarely like those, and I have no idea why.

It was quite confusing at times. Who is the author talking about? At what time is he talking? Before the war? During the war? After the war? Are they in Italy or in Egypt, in Canada or India? And why is that English couple in the story? I know, I know, they met the English patient before but it still is weird, somehow it doesn't fit.

I saw a review where someone said the people in the book were not speaking like people in the 1940s. That might be one of the reasons, as well.

But what really bothered me was that you didn't really get to know the people very well, they remain shallow, trivial, superficial.

I might have enjoyed this more, had I not read and loved his other books and therefore expected a brilliant novel. This is an okay novel but that's all. So, I might wait a while until I read the next book by this author.

From the back cover:

"With unsettling beauty and intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II. The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a man who is both a riddle and a provocation to his companions - and whose memories of suffering, rescue, and betrayal illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning."

Shakespeare, William "Much Ado About Nothing"

Shakespeare, William "Much Ado About Nothing" - 1598/99

As many of you might know, I am not the biggest fan of reading plays. I love seeing them in the theatre or even on TV and I always say that's what they were written for. However, from time to time, I really want to read a Shakespeare play, especially since it has been almost impossible for me to watch anything in the theatre since the beginning of Covid.

One of my favourite shows on TV is "Much Ado About Nothing" by and with the great Kenneth Brannagh as Benedick with his then-wife Emma Thompson (of whom I am also a huge fan) as Beatrice.

Some time ago, I found the "No Fear" reading version of the play and thought, that sounds interesting. The lovely thing with this is, you don't just get a modern version of the play, you get the original wording right next to it, on the left-hand side with the new one on the right. Plus explanations of old expressions etc. Brilliant. Especially for people who are not used to reading classics.

Of course, having seen the play helped a lot in understanding what was going on. But I might try to read some more of the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon from this publisher.

Description:

"In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare includes two quite different stories of romantic love. Hero and Claudio fall in love almost at first sight, but an outsider, Don John, strikes out at their happiness. Beatrice and Benedick are kept apart by pride and mutual antagonism until others decide to play Cupid."

From the back cover:

"No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete text of Much Ado About Nothing on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right.
Each No Fear Shakespeare contains:
The complete text of the original play
A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday language
A complete list of characters with descriptions
Plenty of helpful commentary"

Northup, Solomon "Twelve Years a Slave"

Northup, Solomon "Twelve Years a Slave. Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana" - 1853

On the back cover, it says this is perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives. I have to agree with that. Probably because it was written by a well-educated slave himself. Who could relate all the horrible deeds done to those poor people better than someone who has had to endure it himself?

Solomon Northup was born in the State of New York. He was a free man and as such, could get an education, work, get married, have children, all without having to fear that would be taken away from him one day. But it was. He was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He was free but he also was black, so it was easy to just let him disappear somewhere in the deep south, on one of those plantations that nobody ever goes to. He ended up in Louisiana and had to live a life that is as unhuman as none of us can even imagine. He was treated worse than anybody would treat an animal.

Because of his education, he managed to get some information out and was freed after twelve years of torture, twelve years of hell. How he survived, I don't know. But he describes it all in this book and it is well worth a read, especially with all the shocking, abhorrent, dreadful, repugnant, outrageous, hideous, repulsive news we hear daily. How can people in this day and age still look down on someone? It is beyond my understanding.

A while ago, I published a list with anti-racism books. If you are looking for more books in that category, have a look here.

From the back cover:

"Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.

After his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave."

Wells, H. G. "The Time Machine"

Wells, H. G. "The Time Machine" - 1895

I watched the movie of this book (the 1960 version with Rod Taylor) sometime in the sixties or seventies and really like it. Usually, science fiction is not my thing but this was fascinating. I suppose the dystopian side did it for me.

Then I read "The Map of Time" by Félix J. Palma a couple of years ago and was fascinated again. I knew I would have to read the novel one day.

And I did not regret it. Quite a story, even if the movie took quite a few liberties … but what else is new?

As I said in my other reviews about dystopian novels, they always mirror the fears and hopes of a generation. Did the Victorians fear we would all end up as Morlocks and Eloi? I can imagine, even though the appeal of the book at the time certainly must have been the time travelling. But, in any case, this was probably one of the first books that moved away from a utopian future, that tried to warn the people that things could also go wrong.

This is certainly a great book. And with just 150 pages, anyone could read it.

From the back cover:

"'Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare.'

Chilling, prophetic and hugely influential, The Time Machine sees a Victorian scientist propel himself into the year 802,701 AD, where he is delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty and contentment in the form of the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man. But he soon realizes that they are simply remnants of a once-great culture - now weak and living in terror of the sinister Morlocks lurking in the deep tunnels, who threaten his very return home.

H. G. Wells defined much of modern science fiction with this 1895 tale of time travel, which questions humanity, society, and our place on Earth."

Grass, Günter "Cat and Mouse"

Grass, Günter "Cat and Mouse" (German: Katz und Maus. Danziger Trilogie 2) - 1961

After "The Tin Drum", this is the second book in the Danzig trilogy. Again, we have some young people living in Danzig but the two stories have nothing to do with each other. Plus, the former is a tome, 800+ pages, the second a novella.

However, the writing is as interesting as the first, in the typical Grass style, jumping from one thought to the next, sometimes just fragments, sometimes allusions but always sticking to the story, showing us the looming war, the ever-dominant Hitler and his party that ended and ruined so many lives.

Günter Grass has just a way to make us feel like being there, living through this age of fear and terror, without even describing it, going into the horrible details, they are there, hovering in the background, determining the destiny of everyone involved.

A chilling novel, a gripping book. Günter Grass is certainly one of the greatest German authors.

From the back cover:

"To compensate for his unusually large Adam’s apple - source of both discomfort and distress - fourteen year old Joachim Mahlke turns himself into athlete and ace diver. Soon he is known to his peers and his nation as 'The Great Mahlke'. But to his enemies, he remains a target. He is different and doomed in a country scarred by the war.

Cat and Mouse was first published in 1961, two years after Gunter Grass’ controversial and applauded masterpiece, The Tin Drum. Once again Grass turns his attention on Danzig. With a subtle blend of humour and power, Cat and Mouse ostensibly relates the rise of Mahlke from clown to hero. But Mahlke’s outlandish antics hide the darkness at the heart of a nation torn by Nazi violence, the war, and its aftermath."

Günter Grass "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

When visiting Lübeck a couple of years ago, I was happy to be able to visit the house where he lived. You can read about my experience here.

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

Fielding, Henry "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling"

Fielding, Henry "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" - 1749

This book has been on my wishlist forever. One of the British classic authors that I hadn't "met", yet. And this is always mentioned as the first true novel ever written.

Actually, this could have been two books. One, the novel with the story about Tom Jones and his life. Two, the philosophical thoughts of Henry Fielding before every chapter.

While I usually enjoy reading about philosophy, I think in this case it rather distracted than added to the story. I could have done without it, didn't add anything to the story itself. I also couldn't find the humour that it claims to contain. And I love British humour but this must have been a different kind to the one we usually enjoy. The only other time this has happened to me was with "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons.

This doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book. The story itself was very interesting and gave us a great view of the society of the time, what was done and what wasn't, how many rights you had as a woman or even as a man if you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth.

So, all in all, an interesting read. But it won't be on my "read this again" list.

From the back cover:

"A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr. Allworthy on his country estate, Tom Jones is deeply in love with the seemingly unattainable Sophia Western, the beautiful daughter of the neighboring squire - though he sometimes succumbs to the charms of the local girls. When Tom is banished to make his own fortune and Sophia follows him to London to escape an arranged marriage, the adventure begins. A vivid Hogarthian panorama of eighteenth-century life, spiced with danger and intrigue, bawdy exuberance and good-natured authorial interjections, Tom Jones is one of the greatest and most ambitious comic novels in English literature."

Weir, Andy "The Martian"

Weir, Andy "The Martian" - 2011

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." ... "Captain's Log, Stardate …" Oooops, wrong story! The star trekkers and star warriors went a lot further than our protagonist, Mark Watney.

I don't know why I decided to read this book because it is usually so out of my comfort zone, I'm not a fan of science fiction, I can't get over illogical assumptions or contradicting effects. This one seemed a little different. And it was. Mars is a planet that humans might get to land one of these days.

A great story, the third crew that ever lands on Mars is surprised by a dust storm and has to evacuate, leaving one of their crew behind, assumed dead. However, he isn't. Now he needs to survive until the fourth crew will arrive more than 3,000 km away from where he is situated at the moment. And, he needs to produce oxygen, water and food in order to survive. Luckily, he was the crew's botanist and engineer (what a coincidence!).

While nobody on earth knows he's still alive, he starts preparing his living quarters and a vehicle that will take him to his destination …

I don't want to give away too much but nothing turns out to go the way Mark intends it to go.

A fantastic story, well written. I really liked that the crew included two women, one of them being the commander, but also a German scientist and one with a very Spanish sounding name. Great mix.

While following Mark Watney's quest for survival, we get to know and love him. Besides being extremely intelligent, of course, he is a very humorous guy. You feel for him, you feel for everyone else, great writing!

There is a lot of technical detail in the book where the author explains how certain things function - not that I could follow them all - but it was great to see how this might work.

I also learned that Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, well, I knew that before but I don't think I'll ever forgot it again.

"The Martian" was made into a film and received the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

From the back cover:

"Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old 'human error' are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills - and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit - he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?"

Grass, Günter "The Tin Drum"

Grass, Günter "The Tin Drum" (German: Die Blechtrommel. Danziger Trilogie 1) - 1959

Günter Grass is one of my favourite Nobel Prize winners, certainly one of the best German authors we ever had. His style is unique, his language superb.

How to describe this book? To even try would be like rewriting the whole story which is, of course, impossible.

Why is it so important? The story represents not only a part of our history that is told from a completely different perspective than most books of the war, it also describes how many things could have been through the magic realism genre.

Oscar Matzerath was born in the then free city of Danzig (now the Polish city Gdańsk). When he is three years old, he decides not to grow anymore. He tells us the story of his grandmother and through his narration we go through WWII, the occupation of Poland and the post-war life of many refugees who went to West Germany.

Oscar incorporates many different characters, the grown-up child, the obsessive drummer, the evil of this world, the actor who wants to show us how it's done. He is many people in one, hard to grasp but so much one of us that we seem to know him.

This is certainly not one of the easiest books to read but it is totally worth it. It is a story you will never forget. I will continue reading the two other books of the "Danzig Trilogy": "Cat and Mouse" (Katz und Maus) and "Dog Years" (Hundejahre).

Like many other successful books, "The Tin Drum" was made into a film and received the Academy Award for best Foreign Language Picture.

From the back cover:

"Meet Oskar Matzerath, 'the eternal three-year-old drummer.' On the morning of his third birthday, dressed in a striped pullover and patent leather shoes, and clutching his drumsticks and his new tin drum, young Oskar makes an irrevocable decision: 'It was then that I declared, resolved, and determined that I would never under any circumstances be a politician, much less a grocer; that I would stop right there, remain as I was - and so I did; for many years I not only stayed the same size but clung to the same attire.' Here is a Peter Pan story with a vengeance. But instead of Never-Never Land, Günter Grass gives us Danzig, a contested city on the Polish-German border; instead of Captain Hook and his pirates, we have the Nazis. And in place of Peter himself is Oskar, a twisted puer aeternis with a scream that can shatter glass and a drum rather than a shadow. First published in 1959, The Tin Drum's depiction of the Nazi era created a furor in Germany, for the world of Grass's making is rife with corrupt politicians and brutal grocers in brown shirts: 

There was once a grocer who closed his store one day in November, because something was doing in town; taking his son Oskar by the hand, he boarded a Number 5 streetcar and rode to the Langasser Gate, because there as in Zoppot and Langfuhr the synagogue was on fire. The synagogue had almost burned down and the firemen were looking on, taking care that the flames should not spread to other buildings. Outside the wrecked synagogue, men in uniform and others in civilian clothes piled up books, ritual objects, and strange kinds of cloth. The mound was set on fire and the grocer took advantage of the opportunity to warm his fingers and his feelings over the public blaze. 

As Oskar grows older (though not taller), portents of war transform into the thing itself. Danzig is the first casualty when, in the summer of 1939, residents turn against each other in a pitched battle between Poles and Germans. In the years that follow, Oskar goes from one picaresque adventure to the next - he joins a troupe of traveling musicians; he becomes the leader of a group of anarchists; he falls in love; he becomes a recording artist - until some time after the war, he is convicted of murder and confined to a mental hospital. 

The Tin Drum uses savage comedy and a stiff dose of magical realism to capture not only the madness of war, but also the black cancer at the heart of humanity that allows such degradations to occur. Grass wields his humor like a knife - yes, he'll make you laugh, but he'll make you bleed, as well. There have been many novels written about World War II, but only a handful can truly be called great; The Tin Drum, without a doubt, is one. - Alix Wilber"

Günter Grass "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

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

When visiting Lübeck a couple of years ago, I was happy to be able to visit the house where he lived. You can read about my experience here.

Williams, Tennessee "A Streetcar named Desire"

Williams, Tennessee "A Streetcar named Desire" - 1947

I normally don't like reading plays. Having said that, this is a great story and it didn't even read as a play, the writing is so lively, you don't need the actors to make it come real. You can visualize the characters, the places, the action. A tragic story that makes us feel for the people, all of them.

A brilliant book.

From the back cover:

"Fading southern belle Blanche Dubois depends on the kindness of strangers and is adrift in the modern world. When she arrives to stay with her sister Stella in a crowded, boisterous corner of New Orleans, her delusions of grandeur bring her into conflict with Stella's crude, brutish husband Stanley. Eventually their violent collision course causes Blanche's fragile sense of identity to crumble, threatening to destroy her sanity and her one chance of happiness."

Tennessee Williams received the Pulitzer Prize for "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1948.

Ishiguro, Kazuo "The Remains of the Day"

Ishiguro, Kazuo "The Remains of the Day" - 1989

Years ago, I read "When We Were Orphans" with my book club. I didn't like it much and thought I might not read another book by this author. But since he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017, I decided I should give him another chance.

"The Remains of the Day" was better, granted. However, not as great as some people told me it would be. I found the writing very lengthy and drawn-out, the sentences dwindling toward an end that has nothing to do with the beginning anymore. The story itself could he been told within five to ten pages at the most, the rest is a musing and meandering of a man who realizes that he is growing older and what could have been.

I might have been able to follow those thoughts and even sympathized with the butler but I found I couldn't. The protagonist doesn't appear to be an unlikeable character but the way he is described doesn't provoke any interest, the whole story just flows along like a small brook with no windings or curves. The book reads more like the minutes of a meeting than a novel.

Sorry, Mr. Ishiguro, I love reading the books by Nobel Prize winners (see below) but you don't belong to my favourites there.

Lessons learned. If I don't like the first book I read by an author, I am more than likely not going to like the other one, no matter how much my friends tell me that that is his or her worst novel or whether the author is highly regarded or not.

From the back cover:

"A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House.

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past."

Kazuo Ishiguro "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017.

Kazuo Ishiguro won the Booker Prize for "The Remains of the Day" in 1989.

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

Smith, Betty "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"

Smith, Betty "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" - 1943

Many of my friends have told me about this book and it has been on my wishlist for ages. I finally made it. And I am glad I did. A young girl growing up in poverty loves reading. That might have been my story though we were never as poor as the Nolan family. Probably because my father didn't drink and brought the money home he earned through his regular job. But I can totally relate to Francie. How she came to love books and how they became her only friends sometimes. Books are always there for you.

I could also understand Francie's mother Katie, how she tried to save some pennies in order to get food onto the table. It must have been so hard for her.

Francie lived a hundred years ago but her message lives on and is still as valid now as it was back then. With an education, we can get out of the deepest holes.

This book is well written, from the point of view of a girl growing up but with a very adult understanding. It makes you think about life and its meaning.

In any case, I could relate to Francie so well that I just had to love this book. I would have loved to read this when I was young.

From the back cover:

"A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life ... If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience...  It is a poignant and deeply understanding story of childhood and family relationships. The Nolans lived in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn from 1902 until 1919... Their daughter Francie and their son Neely knew more than their fair share of the privations and sufferings that are the lot of a great city's poor. Primarily this is Francie's book. She is a superb feat of characterization, an imaginative, alert, resourceful child. And Francie's growing up and beginnings of wisdom are the substance of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

Dickens, Charles "Oliver Twist"

Dickens, Charles "Oliver Twist" - 1838

One of the many classics by Charles Dickens I haven't read, yet.

Charles Dickens certainly is one of the best classic authors you can think of. His love of detail, his way of telling you every single event, describing every person, makes his era come alive.

I think most people have seen the movie "Oliver" which is a good musical. However, the book - as usual - is so much better, the characters are more lively, the scenes ring more true.

This is certainly one of his best novels - although, I haven't found one, yet, that I didn't love.

From the back cover:
"Dark, mysterious and mordantly funny, Oliver Twist features some of the most memorably drawn villains in all of fiction - the treacherous gangmaster Fagin, the menacing thug Bill Sikes, the Artful Dodger and their den of thieves in the grimy London backstreets. Dicken's novel is both an angry indictment of poverty, and an adventure filled with an air of threat and pervasive evil.

The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War."

James, P.D. "The Children of Men"

James, P.D. "The Children of Men" - 1992

I love dystopian novels and am surprised that I never came across this one before. What a read!

We are in the year 2020 and all men are infertile. I believe every generation has their own fears of what might happen in future and this book was written in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Something like this seemed (and still seems) very possible.

What are we really going to do if there is no future? Are we going to take advantage of each other, try to get as much of the cake as we can before we are all dead and gone? We don't know? I suppose like with all situations, there will be people who still will help each other and others who exploit the situation.

Reading this novel makes you think about all the possibilities. I don't read crime novels as such but I am tempted to try one written by P.D. James. She seems like a very interesting and smart person who could write about anything.

From the back cover:
"The year is 2021, and the human race is - quite literally - coming to an end. Since 1995 no babies have been born, because in that year all males unexpectedly became infertile. Great Britain is ruled by a dictator, and the population is inexorably growing older. Theodore Faron, Oxford historian and, incidentally, cousin of the all-powerful Warden of England, watches in growing despair as society gradually crumbles around him, giving way to strange faiths and cruelties: prison camps, mass organized euthanasia, roving bands of thugs. Then, suddenly, Faron is drawn into the plans of an unlikely group of revolutionaries. His passivity is shattered, and the action begins.

The Children of Men will surprise - and enthrall - P. D. James fans. Written with the same rich blend of keen characterization, narrative drive and suspense as her great detective stories, it engages powerfully with new themes: conflicts of loyalty and duty, the corruption of power, redemption through love. Ingenious, original, irresistibly readable, it confirms once again P. D. James's standing as a major novelist."

Hemingway, Ernest "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

Hemingway, Ernest "For Whom the Bell Tolls" - 1940

After reading this book, I don't understand why I didn't read it earlier. This is one of the "must read" classics, a book that tells us so much about a terrible time, not just a particular terrible time about the guerillas in the Spanish Civil War, but about war in general. War isn't jsut a number of how many people died or how many fights were won or lost. War is horrible. War is brutal. War is everything nobody wants. And yet, we still have wars.

You can tell that a lot of experience flowed into this piece. Ernest Hemingway faught himself in the Spanish Civil War. He must have lived through lot of the actions described here.

This novel is a brilliant account of the partisans, their fight, their effort, their dreams. A strong story about a fight that we all know was lost and cost many Spaniards dearly in the following years.

I never watched the movie with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, two actors I really loved. I probably should. They received nine Oscar nominations for it.

From the back cover:
"High in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a band of anti-fascist guerrilla prepares to blow up a strategically vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There, in the mountains, he finds the dangers and the intense comradeship of war. And there he discovers Maria, a young woman who has escaped from Franco's rebels."

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.

Swarup, Vikas "Q & A"

Swarup, Vikas "Q & A" - 2005

This book proves it again. Never judge a book by its cover. Or its movie. Or the description of the movie. After all the upheaval about the movie (Slumdog Millionaire), I thought this was just another chick lit, the way it was described it was an "easy" read, a "beach" read, whatever you might want to call it if you say there is really nothing in it that's worth touching.

This was not at all what I expected. Yes, a little Indian waiter wins an immense amount of money and is put into jail for it. But the story is so much more. For every single correct answer there is a story why the boy knew it even though he grew up in the slums. So we learn one question after the next about the life, not just of young Ram Mohammad Thomas but about many other people living in India, especially the poor ones.

A book well worth reading. Yes, it is an easy read but with a lot of content, funny and tragic at the same time, lovely and heart-breaking.

From the back cover: 

"Eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammad Thomas is in prison after answering twelve questions correctly on a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees. The producers have arrested him, convinced that he has cheated his way to victory. Twelve extraordinary events in street-kid Ram's life - how he was found in a dustbin by a priest; came to have three names; fooled a professional hitman; even fell in love - give him the crucial answers. In his warm-hearted tale lies all the comedy, tragedy, joy and pathos of modern India."

Shakespeare, William "Hamlet"

Shakespeare, William "Hamlet" - 1599-1602

I am not a big fan of reading plays. I think they should be watched, not read. Preferably in a theatre. However, since we don't have a good one nearby, and certainly not one that plays classics in English, I am determined to read some of the classics that I really would like to know.

"Hamlet" is one of them. You always hear about the Danish Prince, the Skull, "To be or not to be", Elsinore, Ophelia, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern etc. etc. But you never know the whole story until you have seen the play or read the story.

Well, I made it. A fascinating story. Quite complex. I am sure I will have to read it again to fully comprehend it. And again. And hopefully I will be able to watch it one day.

From the back cover:

"There is arguably no work of fiction quoted as often as William Shakespeare's Hamlet. This haunting tragedy has touched audiences for centuries.

Hamlet is the story of the Prince of Denmark who learns of the death of his father at the hands of his uncle, Claudius. Claudius murders Hamlet's father, his own brother, to take the throne of Denmark and to marry Hamlet's widowed mother. Hamlet is sunk into a state of great despair as a result of discovering the murder of his father and the infidelity of his mother. Hamlet is torn between his great sadness and his desire for the revenge of his father's murder."

Zweig, Stefanie "Nowhere in Africa"

Zweig, Stefanie "Nowhere in Africa" (German: Nirgendwo in Afrika) - 1995

I reread "Nowhere in Africa" by Stephanie Zweig with an online book group, created by a friend for some of her friends on Facebook. Everybody suggested a book and then would "lead" through the discussion with some questions.

If you have not read the book before, I refer you to my review here.

If you have read it, you might want to go through my questions and maybe add a thought or two to it. Here they are:

1.    What do you think of Jettel, the mother? Do you think there were many people in Germany who didn't see what was coming?

2.    What about Regina? How do you think she will be feeling when she is being transplanted to Germany after the war?

3.    Walter, the father, is mostly described as a caring father who just wants to bring his family through the war. In retrospect, this was the right decision. What do you think he would have thought if the war hadn't been like it was, if he'd transplanted his family for nothing?

4.    Did you know that "Nowhere in Africa" is almost a memoir of the author Stefanie Zweig, that all this happened to her family, that she does have a younger brother called Max who was born in Africa, for example? If you did, how did that make you feel during the read. If not, do you think differently about the novel now?

5.    Do you have the feeling that growing up in Africa has influenced the author's style? Did you feel her storytelling had a specific flow?

6.    What do you think about the other characters, mainly Walter Süßkind and Lilly and Oskar Hahn but, even more important, Owuor? How do you think Walter and Owuor influence each other and change the other's life?

7.    This book was made into a film and received the prize at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003 for Best Foreign Language Film. If you saw the film, how do you think it compared to the book? What would you have done differently if you'd been the director?

8.    I like to learn something with every book I read. Whether you belong to those readers or not, what did you learn from the book?

9.    Any other subjects I haven't touched that you would like to discuss?

Photo ABC

I am a member of a photo group where we get a prompt for every day and have to take an appropriate picture. Because we had the alphabet one month, I decided to do a book theme.

I always added either the link to my blog or to the books. I have decided to post a picture every week so my booky friends can enjoy them, as well.

O is for ... Oscar winning books

Louisa May Alcott "Little Women"

All the books I read that belong to the category "Oscar winners" category can be found here.

Hugo, Victor "Les Misérables"

Hugo, Victor "Les Misérables" (French: Les Misérables) - 1862

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

And that is the crime of all those miserable characters. They are poor. Their destiny in life is written down even before they are born and there is nothing they can do.

Or can they? In times like this, it is no wonder that people crave a revolution and that they will do anything to get out of their hell on earth. Even kill.

I have no idea why I never read this before, I just have to say that I loved everything about it. The plot was interesting, you always want to know what is going to happen next, the characters well described, every single one was so well written, they could have jumped off the page. I was so happy this was such a long book (more than a thousand pages, what a story!) because I didn't have to say good-bye so soon. And that way it stretches over the lives of several protagonists.

This is a book you would like to start reading again the minute you put it down. A true classic.

From the back cover:

"Introducing one of the most famous characters in literature, Jean Valjean - the  noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread. In Les Misérables Victor Hugo takes readers deep into the Parisian underworld, immerses them in a battle between good and evil, and carries them onto the barricades during the uprising of 1832.

Within his dramatic story are themes that capture the intellect and the emotions: crime and punishment, the relentless persecution of Valjean by Inspector Javert, the desperation of the prostitute Fantine, the amorality of the rogue Thénardier and the universal desire to escape the prisons of our own minds. Les Misérables gave Victor Hugo a canvas upon which he portrayed his criticism of the French political and judicial systems, but the portrait which resulted is larger than life, epic in scope - an extravagant spectacle that dazzles the senses even as it touches the heart."

Virgil "The Aeneid"

Virgil "The Aeneid" (Latin: Aeneis) - 29-19 BC 

I am not a big fan of poetry and this is the biggest example of a poem, one of the very earliest. I found it hard to follow because I prefer to read a flowing story, prose.

However, I can see why so many of the stories from this have been turned into big screen movies, very successful movies. The stories of the start of the Roman nation, the start of our lives today. Many of us have learned the history of Troy in school and a lot of the other stories that are captured in this poem.

As I said, tough read but I am truly happy I made my way through it and it will stay with me forever, same as "Odyssey", another epic story.

From the back cover: "The Aeneid of Virgil (70-19 B.C.) describes the legendary origin of the Roman nation. It tells of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who escaped with some followers after Troy fell, and sailed to Italy. Here they settled and laid the foundations of Roman power.
The Aeneid is a poet's picture of the world, where human affairs are controlled by human and superhuman influences. It is a literary epic inspired by Virgil's love of his native Italy and his sense of Rome's destiny as a civilized ruler of nations.
This translation by W.F. Jackson Knight aims to preserve the range, vitality, and music of the original."