Baum, L. Frank "The Wizard of Oz"

Baum, L. Frank "The Wizard of Oz" - 1900

I know everybody loves "The Wizard of Oz" but it was never my favourite. I like the music, some of the songs are beautiful but I was never touched by the story.

I think I found this book on one of the swap book shelves and that's where it's going back to, as well.

I still was not keen on reading it but I had put it on my classics spin list and its number was selected.

With some films, the writing is so much better and you wonder why you waited for so long. Not so much with this one. I just couldn't warm to the story. It didn't catch my interest. Would I have liked it as a kid if I hadn't seen the film before? I doubt it. Sorry, Mr. L. Frank Baum but your writing is not for me. And I surely hope that there "is no place like Oz".

From the back cover:

"Dorothy's life is turned upside down when a tornado whisks her and her dog, Toto, from Kansas to the magical land of Oz. To get back home, she must follow a yellow brick road to find the Wizard in the Emerald City.

But the Wicked Witch of the West lies in wait. Will Dorothy ever find her way home?"

Book Quotes of the Week

"There is no pleasure so cheap, so innocent, and so remunerative as the real, hearty pleasure and taste for reading." Robert Lowe
So true. We can borrow books from the library, anyone can do that without paying a penny.

"I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?" Irwin Shaw
I guess one that nobody wants to read but I do agree, someone always likes a novel.

"The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity ..." A. Edward Newton
This is speaking from my heart. I must be the champion of soul searching. 😉

 

Find more book quotes here.

Wodehouse, P.G. "The Code of the Woosters"

Wodehouse, P.G. "The Code of the Woosters" (Jeeves #7) - 1938

After reading my very first book by this brilliant author ("Right Ho, Jeeves"), I watched all the Fry and Laurie episodes and enjoyed them tremendously. Now it was time for another one and I found "The Code of the Woosters" in a bookshop.

The book has most of the favourite characters in it, Jeeves and Wooster, of course, Aunt Dahlia, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeline Bassett and her father, Roderick Spode and a few others. I only missed Bertie's dear friend Tuppy Glossop but I know he'll show up in one of the next books again.

As usual, Wooster jumps from one puddle into the other or finds himself in one pickle after the next and his "gentleman's gentleman" Jeeves has to pull him out again. Just hilarious.

P.G. Wodehouse at his best.

From the back cover:

"Aunt Dahlia has tasked Bertie with purloining an antique cow creamer from Totleigh Towers. In order to do so, Jeeves hatches a scheme whereby Bertie must charm the droopy and altogether unappealing Madeline and face the wrath of would-be dictator Roderick Spode. Though the prospect fills him with dread, when duty calls, Bertie will answer, for Aunt Dahlia will not be denied.

In a plot that swiftly becomes rife with mishaps, it is Jeeves who must extract his master from trouble."

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Top Ten Questions I Would Ask My Favorite 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.

Questions I Would Ask My Favorite Authors 

(Living or dead. We can post 10 questions for one author, one question each for 10 different authors, or anything else!)

My first question to some of my favourite living authors would be: 

When are you going to write your next book? 

 

Then I would love to ask them everything about their books, the background of their books, their lives etc.

I had already announced which are my most anticipated releases for the second half of 2020 and I would definitely keep asking those authors about their next book, especially Ken Follett, Mary Lawson, Joyce Carol Oates and Orhan Pamuk.

And then I'd add:
Bill Bryson, Ildefonso Faclones, Charles Frazier, Amitav Ghosh, David Guterson, Victoria Hislop, Barbara Kingsolver, and Alice Walker.

And then there are some dead authors I'd love to talk to, ask them everything about their books and their lives.

Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Albert Camus, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Eliot, Nora Ephron, Günter Grass, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Mary Scott.

 

And here are my questions that I would like to ask any or all of those authors:
1. Who is your favourite author? If you are dead, which one would be your favourite author today?
2. What are your favourite books?
3. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
4. What is your favorite childhood book?
5. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
6. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?
7. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?
8. How do you come up with the titles to your books?
9. What period of your life do you find you write about most often? (child, teenager, young adult)
10. Do you have a favourite character that you have written? If so, who? And what makes them so special.

Hawking, Stephen "A Brief History of Time"

Hawking, Stephen "A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes" - 1988

This was one of the most difficult books for me that I ever read. I've been meaning to read it for ages but never really was ready for it. I'm not sure whether I ever will be but I managed to read it. And I did even understand part of it. I'm not a scientist. I'm one of those people who could have been going through school happily without even a single science lesson. Instead, I lived in a country where you have to take biology, physics and chemistry all through middle school (grade 5 to 10) and high school (grade 11-13). Nowadays, you can opt for just one of them in high school but then take two foreign languages. Which both my boys did and I would have done had I had that chance.

It was interesting to read especially about black holes and all the planets. I might have been more interested in astronomy in school.

Anyway, I read somewhere that this book can make you feel more stupid and more educated at the same time. I was trying to find the person who said that but can't. If you know (or are) the one, please, let me know. Because - I agree wholeheartedly.

All in all, I'm happy to have finished the book even though it was a really hard one. And it taught me one thing. I'll never be a scientist.

From the back cover:

"Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries? These are just some of the questions considered in the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by one of the world's greatest thinkers. It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time - from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and string theory. To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and its wonders.

Since its first publication in 1988, and its last revision in 1996, there have been some remarkable new discoveries in physics. This new edition includes updates from Stephen Hawking with his latest thoughts about the No Boundary Proposal and offers new information about dark energy, the information paradox, eternal inflation, the microwave background radiation observations, and the discovery of gravitational waves."

Book Quotes of the Week

"People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned." Saul Bellow
Too late for me.

"Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen." Orhan Pamuk, "My Name Is Red"

The same goes for books.

"All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes - characters even - caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you." Diane Setterfield, "The Thirteenth Tale"

Happens to me all the time.

"A library is a hospital for the mind." N.N.

So true, it can cure you from so many ailments.
[If anyone can tell me the originator of this quote, I'd be very thankful and would happily include the name.]

 

Find more book quotes here.

Orth, Stephan "Couchsurfing in Russia"

Orth, Stephan "Couchsurfing in Russia: Friendships and Misadventures Behind Putin’s Curtain" (German: Couchsurfing in Russland. Wie ich fast zum Putin-Versteher wurde) - 2017

I have read two books by Stephan Orth (so far) and this was the first one of those that has been translated.
Initially, for my list, I had translated the title from German into English: "Couchsurfing in Russia. How I almost started to understand Putin".
But, the publishers have decided to give it another title: "Behind Putin's Curtain: Friendships and Misadventures Inside Russia". In the meantime, the author regrets having chosen that original German subtitle because he fears it might lead to misunderstandings.

The author did what thousands of young people do every year (or used to before Covid put a stop to almost anything), he traveled the world through CouchSurfing. It gives people the opportunity to stay at other private homes and get to know the people in the country a lot better than if they went to a hotel. And, of course, it's a lot cheaper. The host also gets his reward, he can learn about other countries without having to travel. I have known this concept since the 1970s when I started to learn Esperanto. We call it Pasporta Servo (Passport Service). I've been hosting many people from different countries that way. It's always a lot of fun.

Anyway, Stephan Orth travels through countries where it isn't easy to travel alone and/or privately, usually both. In this book, he went through Russia, but he's also been to China and Iran.
"Couchsurfing im Iran: Meine Reise hinter verschlossenen Türen" (Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World/Couchsurfing in Iran: My journey behind closed doors) - 2015
"Couchsurfing in China. Durch die Wohnzimmer der neuen Supermacht" (Couchsurfing in China. Through the living rooms of the new super power) - 2019

This is a brilliant book. It's not the usual travel book where someone lists all the attractions a country can offer. No, it does a lot more, it shows us how ordinary people live in these countries, how they study, earn their money, live. We get to know their lives and their customs. He doesn't just visit the big cities that everyone talks about, he goes to the "outbacks", he visits unusual sites that are still very interesting, even if (or maybe because) they don't attract millions of people.

He has a great writing style. Humorous, witty, informative. It's lovely to follow him around the country in his investigative and unprejudiced way and thereby learning more about this big country than in many history or political books.

From the back cover:

"'In the late summer of 2016,’ writes award-winning travel writer Stephan Orth, ‘a journey to Russia feels like visiting enemy territory.’ In this humorous and thought-provoking book, Orth ventures through that vast and mysterious territory to uncover the real, unfiltered Russia not seen in today’s headlines: authentic, bizarre, dangerous, and beautiful. Sidestepping the well-trod tourist path, he travels the country from Moscow to Vladivostok - across seven time zones and almost 9,500 kilometres i making stops in Chechnya, Saint Petersburg, Siberia, and beyond. Staying with an eclectic array of hosts, he bumps into gun nuts, internet conspiracy theorists, faux shamans, and Putin fans; learns to drive in death-defying Russian style; and discovers how to cure hangovers by sniffing rye bread. But he also sees a darker side of the country, witnessing firsthand the effects of Putin’s influence in the run-up to the 2016 American election and the power of propaganda in this ‘post-fact’ era. Weaving everything together with thoughtfulness and warmth, Orth follows the acclaimed Couchsurfing in Iran with another complex, funny, and personal travelogue - a colourful portrait of a fascinating and misunderstood country."