Book Club History 2017 etc. (in chronological order)

I have been looking for another international book club for quite a while and I finally found one. Everyone is eager to read as many international books as possible, that's always a good start.

As you can see, the choice of literature is extremely wide spread. We try not to read the same original language in a row. And we try to read a few Nobel Prize winners. So far, we have read 16.

They have been discussing books for two years now, I added the links to the books I have read already.

Author "Title" - Year - Original Language (Original title) (Date discussed)

Jansson, Tove " Moominpappa at Sea" - 1965 Swedish (Pappan och havet) (Aug 17)
Statovici, Pajtim "My Cat Jugoslavia" - 2014 Finnish (Kissani Jugoslavia) (Sep 17)
Huxley, Aldous "Brave New World" - 1923 English (Oct 17)
Høeg, Peter "Effekten af Susan" -2014 Danish (Effekten af Susan) (Nov 17)
Hesse, Hermann "Steppenwolf" - 1927 German (Der Steppenwolf) (Dec 17) (Nobel Prize 1946)

Lee, Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird" - 1960 English (Jan 18)
Lindstedt, Laura "Oneiron" - 2015 Finnish (Oneiron) (Feb 18)
Verne, Jules "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" - 1870 French (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) (Mar 18)
Fitzgerald, F. Scott "The Great Gatsby" - 1925 English (Apr 18)
Hurme, Juha (not translated) - 2017 Finnish "Niemi" (not translated) (May 18)
Kawabata, Yasunari "A Thousand Cranes" - 1949 Japanese (千羽鶴 Senbazuru) (Jun 18) (Nobel Prize 1968)
Indriðason, Arnaldur - any book - Synir Duftsins [Sons of Dust] (Menschensöhne) - Icelandic (Jul 18)
Ferrante, Elena "My Brillliant Friend" - 2011 Italian (L'amica geniale) (Aug 18)
García Marquez, Gabriel "A Hundred Years of Solitude" - 1967 Spanish (Cien años de soledad) (Sep 18) (Nobel Prize 1982)
Gogol, Nikolai - any novellas - "The Overcoat" - 1842 Russian (Шинель/Shinyeli) (Oct 18)
Paasilinna, Arto "The Year of the Hare" - 1975 Finnish (Jäniksen vuosi) (Nov 18)
Ishiguro, Kazuo "Never Let Me Go" - 2005 English (Dec 18) (Nobel Prize 2017)

Jansson, Tove "The Invisible Child" - 1962 Swedish (Berättelsen om det osynliga barnet) (Jan 19)
Süskind, Patrick "The Perfume. A Story of a Murderer" - 1985 German (Das Parfüm) (Feb 19)
Defoe, Daniel "Robinson Crusoe" - 1719 English (Mar 19)
Saramago, José "Blindness" - 1995 Spanish (O Ensaio sobre a Cegueira) (Apr 19) (Nobel Prize 1998)
Alsanea, Rajaa "The Girls of Riyadh" - 2005 Arabic (بنات الرياض‎ Banāt al-Riyāḍ) (May 19)
Gordimer, Nadine "Burger's Daughter" - 1979 English (Jun 19) (Nobel Prize 1991)
Yu, Hua "China in Ten Words" - 2010 Chinese (十个词汇里的中国) (Jul 19)
Bâ, Mariama "So Long a Letter" - 1979 French (Une si longue lettre) (Aug 19)
Dick, Philip K. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" - 1968 English (Sep 19)
Ende, Michael "The Neverending Story" (Die unendliche Geschichte) - 1979 German (Oct 19)
Pamuk, Orhan "My Name is Red" - 1998 Turkish (Benim Adim Kirmizi) (Dec 19) (Nobel Prize 2006)

McCarthy, Cormac "The Road" - 2006 English (Jan 20)
Waltari, Mika "The Secret of the Kingdom" - 1959 Finnish (Valtakunnan salaisuus) (Mar 20)
Tokarczuk, Olga "Primeval and Other Times..." - 1996 Polish (Prawiek i inne czasy) (Apr 20) (Nobel Prize 2018)
Saki "The Open Window and other Short Stories" - 1914 English (Apr 20)
Christie, Agatha "And then there were none" (original title: Ten Little Niggers) - 1939 English (May 20)
Shelley, Mary "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" - 1818 English (Jun 20)
Slimani, Leïla "Adèle" - 2014 French (Dans le jardin de l'ogre) (Jul 20)
Lem, Stanisław "Solaris" - 1962 Polish (Solaris, powieść) (Aug 20)
Shaffer, Mary Ann & Barrows, Annie "The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society" - 2008 English (Sep 20)
Boye, Karin "Kallocain" - 1940 Swedish (Kallocain) (Oct 20)

Fatland, Erika "Sowjetistan. Eine Reise durch Turkmenistan, Kasachstan, Tadschikistan, Kirgisistan und Usbekistan" (Sovjetistan. En reise gjennom Turkmenistan, Kasakhstan, Tadsjikistan, Kirgisistan og Usbekistan/Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan) - 2014 Norwegian (Nov 20)
Bradbury, Ray "Fahrenheit 451" - 1953 English (Dec 20)

Saint-Exupéry, Antoine "The Little Prince" - 1943 French (Le Petit Prince) (Jan 21)
Mann, Thomas "A Man and his Dog" - 1918 German (Herr und Hund. Ein Idyll) (Feb 21) (Nobel Prize 1929) (Feb 21)

Jansson, Tove "Moominsummer Madness" 1954 Finnish (Vaarallinen juhannus) (Mar 21)
Adiga, Aravind "The White Tiger" - 2008 English (Apr 21)
Sapolsky, Robert M. "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst Paperback" - 2017 English (May 21)
Salinger, JD "Catcher in the Rye" - 1951 English (May 21)
Camus, Albert "The Stranger" - 1942 French (L'étranger) (Jun 21) (Nobel Prize 1957)
Neruda, Pablo "The Captain's Verses" - 1971 (Los versos del capitán) Spanish (Jul 21) (Nobel Prize 1951)
Le Guin, Ursula K. "The Left Hand of Darkness" - 1969 English (Aug 21)
Molnár, Ferenc "The Paul Street Boys" - 1907 (A Pál-utcai Fiúk) Hungarian (Sep 21)
Satrapi, Marjane "Persepolis. The Story of a Childhood" - 2000 French (Persepolis) (Oct 21)
- "Persepolis. The Story of a Return" - 2000 French (Persepolis. Vol. 2) (Oct 21)
Rushdie, Salman "The Satanic Verses" - 1988 English (Nov 21) or:
Strugatsky, Boris; Strugatsky, Arkady "Roadside Picnic" - 1972 Russian (Пикник на обочине/Piknik na obochine) (Nov 21)
Carroll, Lewis "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" - 1865 English (Dec 21)

Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) "The Miser or The School for Lies" - 1668 French (L'Avare ou l’École du mensonge) (Jan 22)
Abe, Kōbō (安部 公房) "Inter Ice Age 4" - 1959 Japanese (第四間氷期 Dai yon kan pyouki) (Feb 22)
Waugh, Evelyn "Brideshead Revisited" - 1945 English (Mar 22)
Ilf, Ilya; Petrov, Yevgeny "The Twelve Chairs" - 1928 Russian (Двенадцать стульев/Dvenadtsat stulyev) (Apr 22)
Kehlmann, Daniel "Measuring the World" - 2005 German (Die Vermessung der Welt) (May 22)
Erdrich, Louise "Tracks" - 1988 (Jun 22)
Miura, Shion "The Easy Life in Kamusari" - 2009 Japanese (神去なあなあ日常 Kamusari nānā nichijō] (Jul 22)
Meri, Veijo "The Manila Rope" - 1957 Finnish (Manillaköysi) (Jul 22)
Vargas Llosa, Mario "The Feast of the Goat" - 2000 Spanish (La fiesta del chivo) (Aug 22) (Nobel Prize 2010)
DeLillo, Don "The Silence" - 2020 English (Sep 22)
Doyle, Arthur Conan "A Study in Scarlet" - 1887 English (Oct 22)
Yliruusi, Tauno "Rikosetsivien vapaapäivä" - 1963 [Criminal Investigators Holiday] Finnish (Oct 22)
Shin, Kyung-sook "Please Look After Mom" 2008 Korean (엄마를 부탁해 Ch'angbi) (Nov 22)
Dickens, Charles "A Christmas Carol" - 1843 English (Dec 22)

Coetzee, J.M. "Waiting for the Barbarians" - 1980 English (Jan 23) (Nobel Prize 2003)
Austen, Jane "Persuasion" - 1817 English (Feb 23)
Remarque, Erich Maria "All Quiet on the Western Front" - 1928 German (Im Westen nichts Neues) (Mar 23)
Martinson, Harry "Aniara - A Review of Man in Time and Space" - 1956 Swedish (Aniara: en revy om människan i tid och rum) (Apr 23) (Nobel Prize 1974)
Ibrahimi, Anilda "Red Like a Bride" - 2008 Italian (Rosso come una sposa) (May 23)
Hemingway, Ernest "To Have and Have Not" - 1937 English (Jun 23) (Nobel Prize 1954)
Ernaux, Annie "The Years" - 2008 French (Les années) (Jul 23) (Nobel Prize 1922)
Poe, Edgar Allan "The Murders in the Rue Morgue and other stories" - 1941-1945 English (Aug 23)
Palahniuk, Chuck "Fight Club" - 1996 English (Sep 23)
Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book" - 2008 English (Oct 23)
Leroux, Gaston "The Phantom of the Opera" - 1909 French (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) (Nov 23)
Gaiman, Neil "Coraline" - 2002 English (Dec 23)

Uusma, Bea "The Expedition. A forgotten story about a polar tragedy" - 2013 Swedish (Expeditionen: min kärlekshistoria) (Jan 24)
Lessing, Doris "The Grass is Singing" - 1950 English (Feb 24) (Nobel Prize 2007)
Ryan, Donal "The Thing About December" - 2013 - English (Mar 24)
Tsumura, Kikuko "There is no such thing as an easy job" - 2015 Japanese (Konoyoni tayasui shigoto wa nai) (Apr 24)
Krall, Hanna "Chasing the King of Hearts" (Król kier znów na wylocie) - 2006 - Polish (May 24)

Shute, Nevil "On the Beach" - 1959 English (Jun 24)
Fosse, Jon "Morning and Evening" (Morgon og kveld) - 2001 Norwegian (Jul 24) (Nobel Prize 2023)
Keyes, Daniel "Flowers for Algernon" - 1959 English (Aug 24)
Bulgakow, Michail "The Master and Margarita" (Мастер и Маргарита) - 1929-39 Russian  (Sep 24)

Rulfo, Juan "Pedro Páramo" (Pedro Páramo) - 1955 Spanish (Oct 24)

Tevis, Walter "The Queen's Gambit" - 1983 English (Nov 24)

Haig, Matt "The Midnight Library" - 2020 English (Dec 24)

Salama, Hannu "Midsummer Dance" (Juhannustanssit) - 1964 Finnish (Jan 25)

Backman, Fredrik "Britt-Marie Was Here" (Britt-Marie var här) - 2014 Swedish (Feb 25)

Capote, Truman "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - 1958 English (Mar 25)

Sarte, Jean-Paul "La nausée" (Nausea) - 1938 French (Apr 25)
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Shadow of the Wind" (E: La sombra del viento - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #1) - 2001 (May 25)

Find this list in alphabetical order here.

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Top Ten Auto-Buy Authors

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". This feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists at "The Broke and the Bookish".

It is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

July 16: Auto-Buy Authors

This is such a lovely theme. There are so many authors that I love and it was tough to cut them down to ten but I made it this time.

They are sort of different kind of authors but I think it shows where my interests go.

Bryson, Bill
Falcones, Ildefonso
Frazier, Charles
Hislop, Victoria
Kingsolver, Barbara
Lamb, Wally
Lawson, Mary
Oates, Joyce Carol

Pamuk, Orhan
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos

Gordimer, Nadine "Burger's Daughter" - 1979

Gordimer, Nadine "Burger's Daughter" - 1979

I wanted to read a book by Nadine Gordimer for a long time. She is a prolific author, she's from South Africa, she writes about politics, she's a woman and she received the Nobel Prize for Literature, a lot of reasons why she should be on my list.

I certainly wouldn't call this an "easy read". The author's style is not very inviting, the flow … well, there is not really a flow. The conversations are not very clear, one often gets the impression that we're not supposed to know who is talking at the moment, whose thoughts we are following. The story jumps from one person to the next.

However, the topic of the novel is very good. The story is loosely based on the life of Bram Fischer and his family, especially his daughter. Bram Fischer was a South African lawyer, known for his anti-apartheid activism. He became most popular as Nelson Mandela's defence lawyer.

I did enjoy reading about the story even if I didn't enjoy reading the story very much. The book teaches us about South Africa, their history, the apartheid system and that there have been people fighting against it, even if there could have been more.

From the back cover:

"After the death of legendary anti-apartheid activist, Lionel Burger, his daughter Rosa finds herself adrift in a South Africa she no longer knows. Previously her life had been surrounded, created by politics. Now, confronting the left-wing legacy her father represented, as well as the rise of a militant Black Consciousness movement, she is involved in a 'children's revolt' of her own. But where and how will she find her own identity?

Emerging front the darkest days of apartheid, in its moods of elegy, homage and compassion, Burger's Daughter is a great political novel not only of South Africa but of the twentieth century."

We discussed this book in our international online book club in June 2019.

Nadine Gordimer "who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.

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

Book Quotes of the Week

"I can read a book twice as fast as anybody else. First I read the beginning, and then I read the ending, and then I start in the middle and read toward whichever end I like best." Gracie Allen

"I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon women's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." Jane Austen, Captain Harville in "Persuasion"
 
"A novel is never anything but a philosophy expressed in images. And in a good novel the philosophy has disappeared into the images." Albert Camus

"The libraries have become my candy store." Juliana Kimball

Find more book quotes here.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel "The Scarlet Letter"

Hawthorne, Nathaniel "The Scarlet Letter" - 1850

I have never been a big fan of puritanism or over-religious people who try to put their idea of "society" on everyone else. In this book, a young woman is punished for having relations with a man who is not her husband. Both she and the resulting child are ostracized by the "good people" of a village in New England. Hester seems a wonderful woman but it's hard for her to get acknowledged by the other citizens. And at the time, she didn't have a huge choice to go somewhere else.

Even though I prefer long books, I found that the length of this book was alright because everything got said. The story was rounded up well. I also liked the style, quite a typical classic way of telling a story. I read a review by someone who complained that the sentences were too long. I already noticed that when discussing my first classic book with my English book club more than twenty years ago. Being German, I am so used to long sentences (and words), it feels so familiar. I don't mind that at all. Should you not be a fan of long sentences, you might not really like this classic so much. But I did.

From the back cover:

"The Scarlet Letter is the tragic story of a woman's shame and the cruel treatment she suffers at the hands of the Puritan society in which she lives. 

A settler in New England, Hester Prynne has waited two years for her husband, an ageing English scholar, to join her. He arrives to find her in the pillory, a small baby in her arms. She must, as a punishment for her adultery, wear a scarlet 'A' embroidered on her breast and is consenquently ostracized by her contemptuous neighbours. 

Sworn to keep secret the identity of both her husband and her lover, Hester slowly wins the respect of society by her charitable acts. Her own strength and the moral cowardice of the man who allows her to face guilt and shame alone are brought into sharp contrast in a dramatic and harrowing conclusion."

Hirata, Andrea "The Rainbow Troops"

Hirata, Andrea "The Rainbow Troops" (Indonesian: Lasykar Pelangi) - 2005

A lovely book about a school in Indonesia. Not just any school, a school in one of the poorest areas where the teachers work for no money and the students have to drive several hours by bike to get there.

But they all have one thing in common, they want to learn, they want to get out of the circle where they won't achieve anything because they have no education like their parents.

To read about the struggles these kids have to face every day and how they achieve to get at least some eduction, is so refreshing. We take so many things for granted in our countries, especially that we can send our kids to school, this is a reminder that it's not a given, that we should appreciate it a lot more than we do.

This book is interesting because we get to know people who seldom get mentioned in books, those poor people who work hard so their families can live but don't get mentioned because their lives are not exciting enough for us. But we get to know all the kids in the class as well as some of their parents and definitely the teachers. Their motivation, their hopes and dreams.

Good book.

From the back cover:

"Ikal is a student at Muhammadiyah Elementary, on the Indonesian island of Belitong, where graduating from sixth grade is considered a major achievement. His school is under constant threat of closure. In fact, Ikal and his friends - a group called The Rainbow Troops - face threats from every angle: pessimistic, corrupt government officials; greedy corporations hardly distinguishable from the colonialism they've replaced; deepening poverty and crumbling infrastructure; and their own faltering self-confidence. But in the form of two extraordinary teachers, they also have hope, and Ikal's education is an uplifting one, in and out of the classroom.

You will cheer for Ikal and his friends as they defy the town's powerful tin miners. Meet his first love - a hand with half-moon fingernails that passes him the chalk his teacher sent him to buy. You will roar in support of Lintang, the class's barefoot maths genius, as he bests the rich company children in an academic challenge.

First published in Indonesia, The Rainbow Troops went on to sell over 5 million copies. Now it is set to captivate readers across the globe. This is classic story-telling: an engrossing depiction of a world not often encountered, bursting with charm and verve."

Book Quotes of the Week

"Why can’t people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?" David Baldacci

"A good reader should always have two books with him: one to read, the other one to lend." Gabrielle Dubois

"Reading is important, because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything." Tomie dePaola

"Nothing is more impotent than an unread library." John Waters, Role Models

Find more book quotes here.