Top Ten Tuesday ~ Water

  

"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 Jana from 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.

This week, our topic is a Water (This can be covers with water on them, books with bodies of water in them, titles with bodies of water in them, etc.).

What a lovely idea. I don't think I've ever seen this subject. And I guess many of us have read books with water in the title or on the cover. For me, it's all books with the word "water" in the title.

It happens very rarely that I have just ten books that fit a certain subject. Not nine, not eleven, exactly ten.

Abulhawa, Susan "The Blue Between Sky and Water" - 2015
Adams, Richard "Watership Down" - 1972
Ansay, A. Manette "Blue Water" - 2006
Berry, Venise "Colored Sugar Water: A Spiritual Tale" - 2003 (not one of my favourites)
de Man, Herman "The Growing Water" (NL: Het wassende water) - 1925 (Goodreads, only in Dutch)
Fermor, Patrick Leigh "Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland" - 1986
Gruen, Sara "Water for Elephants" - 2006 (also not one of my favourites)
Lamb, Wally "We are Water" - 2013
Shreve, Anita "The Weight of Water" - 1997
Turner, Nancy E. "The Water and the Blood" - 2001

Some of them have water as a topic, others just refer to it. But I always love books about the ocean.

📚 Happy Reading! 📚

Arnim, Elizabeth von "The Enchanted April"

Arnim, Elizabeth von "The Enchanted April" - 1922

A book club book. My very first novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. I might have chosen another one, I don't know.

The book seems a bit dated in parts, but we had a really nice conversation about it. It's funny, the readers really liked it, and we may read another book by her soon.

The author has led an interesting life, first married to a Prussian nobleman, then had an affair with H.G. Wells, followed by a second marriage to an English aristocrat. Her story reads like a novel.

As for the book, I didn't really identify with the characters, but then again, they lived a full century ago.

Four English women who hardly know each other go on vacation together. They rent a house and, of course, don't get along at all, because everyone has different ideas.

Well, times have changed - fortunately - and women don't see themselves as complete until they have a man in their life.

From the back cover:

"Four women, with very different backgrounds and characters - the artless Lottie Wilkins, the pious Rose Arbuthnot, the cantankerous Mrs Fisher and the haughty Lady Caroline Dester - respond to an advertisement in The Times offering a medieval castle to rent in Italy that April. As their joint holiday begins, tensions flare up between them, but they soon bond over their past misfortunes and rediscover hope and the pleasures of life in their tranquil surroundings."

#ThrowbackThursday. Jane Eyre

 

Brontë, Charlotte "Jane Eyre" - 1847

If you are a fan of English classics (like me), "Jane Eyre" is a definitive must.

Charlotte Brontë has created a wonderful, strong young woman. If she had lived today, she certainly would have gone exploring and conquering the world.

The book is  easy to read, easy to walk into.

We discussed this in our international book club in January 2012.

Read my original review here. 

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Top Ten Plus Genre Freebie ~ Top Thirteen Scandinavian Books

 

 

"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 Jana from 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.

This week, our topic is a Genre Freebie.

We have had many opportunities to share our favourite genres and I have taken plenty advantage of that. I have done Bookshop books, Classics (here, here, here, and here). Can you tell it's my favourite genre?), Dystopian literature, Epistolary novels, Love books (here and here), Nobel Prize winners, Travel literature (here and here). So, I was thinking to do travel books again, I have plenty of new ones. On the other hand, there are also many other genres or other types of books I love and then I was thinking about the next trip we plan, going to Sweden to visit Göteborg where my son studied. So, in the end, I decided to do Scandinavian literature.

I have read many books about Scandinavia (as you can see here) and so I had quite a choice. In the end, I decided to take the books that are written by a Scandinavian and take place in Scandinavia, though I had to omit one of my favourite books, "Out of Africa" by Karen Blixen (or Isak Dinesen).

So, here are my top thirteen Scandinavian books:

Fredriksson, Marianne "Hanna's Daughters" (S: Anna, Hanna og Johanna) - 1994
Gaarder, Jostein "Sophie's World" (NO: Sofies verden) - 1991
Gulbranssen, Trygve "Beyond Sing the Woods" (NO: Og bakom synger skogene) - 1933
- "The Wind from the Mountains" (NO: Det blåser fra Dauingfjell/Ingen vei går utenom) - 1934/35
Hamsun, Knut "Pan" (NO: Pan) - 1894
Høeg, Peter "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow" (DK: Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne) - 1992
Ibsen, Henrik "Peer Gynt" (NO: Peer Gynt) - 1867 
Jacobsen, Roy "The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles" (NO: Hoggerne) - 2005 
Lagerlöf, Selma "Sancta Lucia. Weihnachtliche Geschichten" [Christmas Stories] (S: Kristuslegender) - 1893-1917
Lindgren, Astrid "The Six Bullerby Children" (SW: Barnen i Bullerbyn) - 1947
Mankell, Henning "Daniel" (SW: Vindens son) - 2000
Petterson, Per "Out Stealing Horses" (NO: Ut og stjæle hester) - 2003
Sturluson, Snorri "Egil's Saga" (Icel: Egils saga Skallagrímssonar) - 1240
Undset, Sigrid "Kristin Lavransdatter" (NO: Kristin Lavransdatter) - 1920-22

I hope you can enjoy some Scandinavian stories.

🇩🇰 🇮🇸 🇳🇴 🇸🇪

Guiliano, Mireille "French Women Don’t Get Fat"

Guiliano, Mireille "French Women Don’t Get Fat" - 2004

I'm not a fan of self-help books. I didn't think this was one, I thought it was a sort of funny one but that wasn't the fact. It was a self-help book as most of them are: Only the author knows what's best and the rest of the world, or in this case, the American woman, has no idea.

I'm not American and I know a lot of Americans have weight problems, as do many Germans. But the way the author talks about Americans and American women was quite denigrating. I didn't care for that at all. You can give advice without being uppish. I love France and I have French friends and they are all really nice. And I always met lovely people in France. But this one sounded like she just wanted to confirm the prejudice that all French people are unfriendly. What a pity.

I must admit, though, that some of her advice certainly is not wrong, just the way she pronounced it.

From the back cover:

"Irresistible, chic, convincing, funny, wise, and very timely, this is the ultimate non-diet book, which nonetheless could radically change the way we think and live - showing us how to eat with balance, control and above all pleasure. Packed with wonderful recipes, this charming memoir teaches us how to enjoy our meals, like a French woman, without putting on weight."

#ThrowbackThursday. Siba Shakib

 

Shakib, Siba "Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep" (German: Nach Afghanistan kommt Gott nur noch zum Weinen) - 2002

A "faction" book, some of the events happened to Shirin-Gol herself, others to other Afghan women.

A great account of the struggles and problems women have to go through, not only in Afghanistan but anywhere in the poorer part of the world where war and/or disaster strucks.

We discussed this in our international book club in April 2006 and in our German book club in April 2010.

Read my original review here. 

* * *

Shakib, Siba "Samira and Samir: The Heartrending Story of Love and Oppression in Afghanistan" (German: Samira und Samir) - 2004

When the young Afghanistanian girl Samira is born, her father, a commander fighting in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, decides to raise her as a boy called Samir.

This is a novel. I am always amazed about the challenges women go through in order to live their lives as a man. The book is very interesting.

Read my original review here. 

German books by Siba Shakib.

Orwell, George "Down and Out in Paris and London

Orwell, George "Down and Out in Paris and London: A Gritty Memoir on Life & Poverty in Two Cities" - 1933

Having read "Nineteen Eighty Four" and "Animal Farm", I was expecting, well, I don't exactly know what I was expecting but it was something else.

The book was well written and this will not be the last one I read by this author, it just didn't seem what I thought it might be. Although, I should have known. After all, this is a memoir.

George Orwell gives us a good insight into life on the streets. The book is almost 90 years old, so it is easy to assume that things have changed in the meantime. But have they? We sill see homeless people in the streets, the larger the city, the more homeless people there are.

I guess the author's very insightful novels about the future stem from his experiences in the slums, he must have thought a lot about that when writing his later novels. It also shows us where it can lead when we neglect the poor. Not long after his experiences on the street, WWII started.

Maybe this should be read by everyone, especially those who have no empathy for anyone less fortune than them.

From the back cover:

"Orwell is well-known for his 1984 and a satire, Animal Farm. Down and Out in Paris and London is his memoir where he pens down his life as a penniless writer in two Paris and England. Through his beautiful phrases, meticulous, honest, and vivid experiences of searching for work and spending nights on benches, he blends the testimonies of others of his kind on the streets of London and Paris. The book both illuminates the huge change between 1933 and now, and exposes horrifying similarities. Job insecurity is still a major driver of homelessness nearly 90 years later. This is just an important read now as it was back then."