"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".
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.
Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of 2020
I'm not necessarily waiting for a certain next book unless it's a sequel. That's especially difficult with German ones since here books first get published in hardback and only years later (at least it seems like it) in paperback.
Anyway, I have checked out recommendations on Goodreads and also looked out for new books by some of my favourite living authors and come up with the following list. Some of the books might not appear this next half of the year but they are about to be published.
This book has been recommended to me by so many friends and even though my TBR pile is growing constantly, I just had to pick it up when I came across it in a local bookshop. The choice of English books there isn't always great, so this already says a lot. I'm usually very sceptical about books that everyone praises because I don't often like them but this was different.
I think reviewing this book is one of the toughest I ever had to do. I don't want to spoil it for anyone but it's not easy to write about it after you read it all. I should have written my review before reading the last chapter.
Anyway, a great story about Kya, a girl that is left all alone by her family, one after the other leaves and she has to fend for herself at the age of nine. The villagers don't look favourable at her, to say it mildly.
In a way, there are two stories, one when Kya is a child and one when she is 19 and a murder has happened. Needless to say, it doesn't take long until she is the main suspect. The two stories are told alternately until they eventually merge together. I love that way of storytelling.
We get to know Kya not only as a very resourceful person, very down to earth, but also as a wonderful artist who gets her rightful acknowledgement in the end
I will now go on talking about the rest of the book in the spoiler section. If you have not read the book, don't open it.
Spoiler:
In case you disregarded this. Didn't I say? Don't open it if you haven't read it!!!! Don't blame me if I spoiled the book for you.
Like everyone else, I've been wondering all the time how and why Chase died. Was it an accident? Was it someone else? Was it Kya after all?
If you read the book, you know how it ends. Was I surprised? Not really. But it still came as a huge shock. I don't think I could ever commit a murder but sometimes I come close to understanding the killer. This is one of those cases.
What I did not understand was why Tate destroyed all the poems. That's definitely something I could not have done.
And it is a pity that this was simply left out in the film. I did think it was important.
* * *
If you look for a page-turner, an unputdownable book, I can heartily recommend this one. I hope Delia Owens will write more books. Maybe I'll try one of her memoirs, "Cry of the Kalahari", "The Eye of the Elephant", or "Secrets of the Savanna".
From the back cover:
"How long can you protect your heart?
For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps."
"Where the Crawdads Sing" has been chosen favourite book of the year 2019 by the German Indepent Bookshops.
"You are taller with every book you read." Silly Jellie, DeviantArt
I doubt that, I'm the one whos read most in my family and I'm not the tallest. 😉
"Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world." Orhan Pamuk, Snow
As always, one of my favourite authors is totally right.
"I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant ... I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS." Markus Zusak, The Book Thief I'm afraid I do that all the time, it's hard not to judge when someone does something extremely dumb or extremely clever.
"A little reading is all the therapy a person needs sometimes." N.N.
A good book always helps.
[If anyone can tell me the originator of this quote, I'd be very thankful and would happily include the name.]
Wodehouse, P.G. "Ring for Jeeves" (US Title: The Return of Jeeves) - 1953
After reading "Right Ho, Jeeves", I was eager to read the next Jeeves and Wooster novel and when I came across this book, I had to get it right away. Little did I know that P.G. Wodehouse had also written books that are just about Jeeves. Jeeves without Wooster? That's almost a sacrilege! It's like Adam without Eve, Romeo without Juliet, Stan without Laurel etc. etc.
So, Jeeves has a different "gentleman" while Bertie Wooster is away teaching something, he has absolutely no idea about - how to fend for oneself. Bill Belfry, Ninth Earl of Rowcester, however, is in no way inferior to Bertie, he gets from one calamity into the next and there's only one person to save him: Jeeves.
If you have read anything about Jeeves, you can imagine that he does this with the utmost respect and lots of humour. Even though I missed Wooster, it was a good story.
From the back cover:
"Captain Biggar, big-game hunter and all round tough guy, should make short work of the two bookies who have absconded with his winnings after a freak double made him a fortune. But on this occasion Honest Patch Perkins and his clerk are not as they seem. In fact they're not bookies at all, but the impoverished Bill Belfry, Ninth Earl of Rowcester and his temporary butler, Jeeves. Bertie Wooster has gone away to a special school teaching the aristocracy to fend for itself 'in case the social revolution sets in with even greater severity'. But Jeeves will prove just as resourceful without his young master, and brilliant brainwork may yet square the impossible circle for all concerned."
"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".
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.
Top Ten Tuesday Turns 10!
Option 1: pick a past TTT topic you’ve done and re-do/update it (Perhaps you’d remove certain books you put on the list back when you first wrote it, or perhaps you have 10 MORE books you’d add to that list now. You could also re-visit TBR posts, whether seasonal or series you need to finish, etc., and tell us if you’ve read them yet or not. Any variation of this idea works. Feel free to be creative.)
Option 2: pick a past TTT topic you wish you’d done, but didn’t get a chance to do (the list of topics is below).
Characters You Would Want As Family Members
This Tuesday, TTT turns 10 and we get to choose one topic, either one we've done before or one we've missed.
I've chosen one that I missed and made it a special girls' topic. I have three younger brothers and two sons, so besides my mother, there was never a special woman in my family. As a child, I always wished for a sister and somehow, I still do. So, I've been thinking what kind of sister I would have liked. There are many different types of women in these books but they all have one thing in common, they are all extremely strong and can get through any troubles. That's certainly a great trait you'd wish for a sister to have.
I love Russian authors and I love Nobel Prize winners, so this was a win-win situation. A book by a Nobel Prize winning author writing about the life of a Russian author must be good, right?
It was but it was a hard read, despite it being just around 250 pages. You had to constantly remind yourself that this is a work of fiction even though a lot of the events are taken from real life. You do recognize the author Dostoevsky here and all his struggles with life, you do see parts of Russia's problems during that time, some real-life people. So, you either don't know anything about Dostoevsky and just accept this as a story or you have to constantly forget that this isn't non-fiction.
However, Dostoevsky was wonderfully portrayed, it was a great book about Russia, the book received several international prizes, i.a. the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
From the back cover:
"Winner of The Nobel Prize For Literature 2003 In The Master of Petersburg J. M. Coetzee dares to imagine the life of Dostoevsky. Set in 1869, when Dostoevsky was summoned from Germany to St Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, this novel is at once a compelling mystery steeped in the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Russia and a brilliant and courageous meditation on authority and rebellion, art and imagination. Dostoevsky is seen obsessively following his stepson's ghost, trying to ascertain whether he was a suicide or a murder victim and whether he loved or despised his stepfather."
J.M. Coetzee "who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider" received the Nobel Prize in 2003 and the Booker Prize for this novel 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.
This is a sad day for readers. I was quite shocked when I saw this morning that one of my favourite authors passed away. Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of some great books, especially "The Cemetary of Forgotten Books" (El cementerio de los libros olvidados) tetralogy. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2018 and succumbed to it yesterday at the age of only 55. I was always looking forward to his next one. Now I know there won't be any. Tragic. According to many, he was "one of the best contemporary novelists", and I totally agree with that. He wrote eight novels which were translated into more than 40 different languages and sold 38 million copies.
He received several literature prizes, unfortunately, the Nobel Prize wasn't among them. What a loss. Maybe you remember, I had suggested him in my Nobel Prize post earlier this year.
Rest in Peace! Here is my list of his books: - "Gaudí in Manhattan" (E: La Mujer de Vapor) - Gaudí in Manhattan - "Marina" (E: Marina) - "The Angel's Game" (E: El juego del ángel - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #2) - "The Labyrinth of the Spirits" (E: laberinto de los espíritus - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #4)
- "The Midnight Palace" (El Palacio de la Medianoche) - "The Prince of Mist" (E: El príncipe de la niebla) - "The Prisoner of Heaven" (E: El prisionero del cielo - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #3)
- "The Shadow of the Wind" (E: La sombra del viento - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #1) * - "Watcher in the Shadows" (E: Las luces de Septiembre)
