Michell, Tom "The Penguin Lessons"

Michell, Tom "The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird" - 2015

I discussed this with my German book club in August 2025.

I'm not an animal person. I don't mean to say I'm totally against animals, but they don't particularly interest me.

The book was quite nicely written. I also found the accounts of the school where the author taught and his travels through South America very interesting. But the relationship with the penguin, well, okay. As I said, I'm probably the wrong person to describe this book. It just wasn't really my cup of tea.

The only thing that was interesting to me was the description of the people the author met, the anthropological aspect.

The other members, however, found the book very readable. Here are a few quotes:

• I learned a lot about a species of animal I didn't really know much about.
• I found the description of how he travels through the countries with youthful carefreeness and enthusiasm, and even saves the penguin, refreshing.
• The parts where he describes how the school outcast can show off his talent were touching.
• I particularly liked the scene in the swimming pool.
• Mir hat das Buch gut gefallen. Interessant und klug geschrieben und oft sehr berührend, aber ohne Pathos.
• I liked the book. It's interestingly and cleverly written, and often very touching, but without pathos.

From the back cover:

"'I was hoping against hope that the penguin would survive because as of that instant he had a name, and with his name came the beginning of a bond which would last a life-time.'

Set against Argentina's turbulent years following the collapse of the corrupt Peronist regime, this is the story of Juan Salvador the penguin, rescued by English schoolteacher Tom Michell from an oil slick in Uruguay just days before a new term. When the bird refuses to leave Tom's side, the young teacher has no choice but to take it with him and look after it. This is their story."

Domínguez, Carlos María "The House of Paper"

Domínguez, Carlos María "The House of Paper" (Spanish: La Casa del Papel) - 2007

An interesting book about a woman who dies reading, a man who builds a house out of books and another guy who tries to find the link between them. Too short for my liking (only 96 pages), one doesn't get to meet the characters very long, you just get started and the story is over.

But it was a pleasant enough read. And as a bonus, there's a lovely map in the front of the book showing the route of the protagonist to South America. It looks like those old maps that were printed on parchment, a detail every book lover must also love. A lovely little story about people who love books.

From the back cover:

"Bluma Lennon, distinguished professor of Latin American literature at Cambridge, is hit by a car while crossing the street, immersed in a volume of Emily Dickinson's poems. Several months after her untimely demise, a package arrives for her from Argentina-a copy of a Conrad novel, encrusted in cement and inscribed with a mysterious dedication. Bluma's successor in the department (and a former lover) travels to Buenos Aires to track down the sender, one Carlos Brauer, who turns out to have disappeared.

The last thing known is that he moved to a remote stretch of the Uruguayan coastline and built himself a house out of his enormous and valuable library. How he got there, and why, is the subject of this seductive novel-part mystery, part social comedy, and part examination of all the many forms of bibliomania.

Charmingly illustrated by Peter Sís, The House of Paper is a tribute to the strange and passionate relationship between people and their books."

There are a lot of books mentioned in this novel. The main one is
"The Shadow-Line" by Joseph Conrad.

Others:
Burckhardt, Jacob "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" (GE: Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien)
Cervantes, Miguel de "Don Quixote" (E: El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha)
Dickinson, Emily "Poems"
Dostoevsky, Fyodor "The Brothers Karamazov" (RUS: Братья Карамазовы/Brat'ya Karamazovy)
Faulkner, William "Absalom! Absalom!"
Hesse, Hermann "Siddhartha: An Indian Poem" (GE: Siddhartha)
García Márquez, Gabriel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (E: Cien años de soledad)
Hemingway, Ernest "A Farewell to Arms"
Salgari, Emilio "The Tigers of Malaysia" (IT: Tigre della Malesia)