Book Quotes of the Week

"Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West." E.M. Forster

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." Margaret Fuller

"Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind." James Russell Lowell

"Children don't read to find their identity, to free themselves from guilt, to quench the thirst for rebellion or to get rid of alienation. They have no use for psychology.... They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish illusions." Isaac Bashevis Singer

"My library is an archive of longings." Susan Sontag

Find more book quotes here.

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.

Q is for ... Queens and Kings 

All the books I read that belong to the category "history" (where you will find most of the books I read that include kings and queens) can be found here.

Eliade, Mircea "Marriage in Heaven"

Eliade, Mircea "Marriage in Heaven" (Romanian: Nuntă în cer) - 1938

An interesting novel. Quite philosophical. Two men reminisce about their lives and their encounter with a special woman, both have different kind of fantasies, different kind of attitudes but both are unlucky in love and pour out their hearts to each other. Whether this conversation could happen in real life, I have no idea. Maybe between two strangers who feel they have made a similar experience. Anyway, it was very interesting listening to these two guys and their perception of a relationship. If you can find an English copy, give it a go. It's worth it. I absolutely loved it.

The author was a Romanian historian of religion, philosopher, and fiction writer. His background certainly had an influence on his writing.

From Wikipedia:

"The novel Marriage in Heaven depicts the correspondence between two male friends, an artist and a common man, who complain to each other about their failures in love: the former complains about a lover who wanted his children when he did not, while the other recalls being abandoned by a woman who, despite his intentions, did not want to become pregnant by him. Eliade lets the reader understand that they are in fact talking about the same woman."

Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies"

Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies" - 1999

As most of my friends know, I am not a big fan of short stories. However, I recently read "The Namesake" by the same author and really loved it. And several of my friends had recommended "Interpreter of Maladies" to me, one had even left a copy to me when she was moving, I just had to read it.

I was pleasantly surprised. What a lovely collection of short stories, some of them even interlink, so it doesn't seem like there are a hundred small stories that you forget right away. On the contrary, Jhumpa Lahiri has created some wonderful characters that you won't forget that easily. She incorparates all sorts of problems anyone might face who lives in a culture different from the one they or their parents grew up with. She describes some lovely people (and some not so lovely ones) who are all confronted with a life in two different parts of this world. Since the author is Indian herself and grew up in the United States, this is the background to almost all her stories. Having lived abroad (though not in such a different culture as the characters in the book) almost half of my life myself, I can certainly relate to a few of them.

Jhumpa Lahiri has a good, elegant style, her stories just flow, I will certainly read more of her writings.

Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize for "Interpreter of Maladies" in 2000.

From the back cover:

"Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning debut collection unerringly charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. 

'A writer of uncommon sensitivity and restraint . . . Ms. Lahiri expertly captures the out-of-context lives of immigrants, expatriates, and first-generation Americans' (Wall Street Journal).

In stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Honored as 'Debut of the Year' by The New Yorker and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, Interpreter of Maladies introduces a young writer of astonishing maturity and insight who 'breathes unpredictable life into the page' (New York Times)."

Book Quotes of the Week

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him." Maya Angelou

"Real poverty is lack of books." (Sidonie-Gabrielle) Colette

"Words, I’ve come to learn, are pulleys through time. Portals into other minds. Without words, what remains? Indecipherable customs. Strange rites. Blighted hearts. Without words, we’re history’s orphans. Our lives and thoughts erased." Alena Graedon, "The Word Exchange"

"The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." Clarence Shepard Day

"In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody." Oscar Wilde

Find more book quotes here.

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.

P is for ... Pulitzer Prize. The first one I ever read.

Pearl S. Buck "The Good Earth" 

All the Pulitzer Prize winning books I read can be found here.

Sendker, Jan-Philipp "Whispering Shadows"

Sendker, Jan-Philipp "Whispering Shadows" (German: Das Flüstern der Schatten) - 2007

 

So far, I had only read the non-fiction book "Risse in der großen Mauer" [Cracks in the Great Wall] by Jan-Philipp Sendker and liked it very much.

Then I found this novel in a bookstore and the description spoke to me. I usually don't read detective stories, most of them are not "deep" enough for me.

But this novel is so much more than a crime story, it gives an insight into today's China of which we still know far too little. The author reports about the grief of a man who has lost his son. And he talks about the slow healing after a heavy blow.

The book is both philosophic and informative. An excellent story. The author has previously worked as a correspondent in Asia. You can tell that he has a lot of insight and background information. I have read the next part of the trilogy "Drachenspiele" (Dragon Games) and hope they will translate that one soon, as well.

From the back cover:

"The first in a suspenseful new trilogy by the internationally bestselling author of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats {German: Das Herzenhören}, this gripping story follows a retired expat journalist in contemporary China who tries to crack a murder case as he battles his own personal demons.

American expat Paul Leibovitz was once an ambitious advisor, dedicated father, and loving husband. But after living for nearly thirty years in Hong Kong, personal tragedy strikes and Paul's marriage unravels in the fallout.

Now Paul is living as a recluse on an outlying island of Hong Kong. When he makes a fleeting connection with Elizabeth, a distressed American woman on the verge of collapse, his life is thrown into turmoil. Less than twenty-four hours later, Elizabeth's son is found dead in Shenzhen, and Paul, invigorated by a newfound purpose, sets out to investigate the murder on his own.

As Paul, Elizabeth, and a detective friend descend deeper into the Shenzhen underworld;against the wishes of a woman with whom Paul has had a flirtation;they discover dark secrets hidden beneath China's booming new wealth. In a country where rich businessmen with expensive degrees can corrupt the judicial system, the potential for evil abounds.

Part love story, part crime thriller, The Whisper of the Shadow is the captivating tale of one man's desperate search for redemption within the vice of a world superpower, a place where secrets from the past threaten to upend the country's unchecked drive towards modernization."

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