#ThrowbackThursday. April 2012 Part 1

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews for the first part of April 2012.

Danticat, Edwidge "Breath, Eyes, Memory" - 1994

The world of Sophie Caco, her world starts in Haiti with her aunt Atie while her mother lives in the United States. We follow her from the age of twelve into adulthood where she has to battle with her mother's past, her mother's ghost.

Follett, Ken "World Without End" - 2007

The follow-up to "The Pillars of the Earth" which I absolutely loved. This takes place 200 years after the first book, so our heroes have all passed away. But, they have descendants, so the drama can start again. 

Mak, Geert "Jorwerd: The Death of the Village in late 20th Century" (Dutch: Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd. Een Nederlands Dorp In De Twintigste Eeuw) - 1996

The original Dutch title is (translated) "How God disappeared from Jorwerd". The story is about a small village in Friesland and the changes it underwent in the first half of the 20th century, changing from farming to a commuting place, the influence of modern technology on a people that had lived off the land for centuries. But it is not just the story of Jorwerd, overall in Europe, the countryside changed. 

Simmonds, Jeremy "Number One in Heaven - The heroes who died for Rock 'n' Roll" - 2006

Apparently, the author worked eight years to put together all the facts on all those Rock & Pop icons that have left us far too early due to an untimely death. 

I love reference books on any subject, this is one very close to my heart and I am glad someone took the time to research all those details.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Alphabet Authors ~ D is for Dickens

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

Dickens or Dostoevsky - that's the question. I had to choose Charles Dickens though it was a tough decision.

I know he wrote more books and I intend to read them all one day but these are the ones I read so far (I will add to the list whenever I read another one).

- "A Christmas Carol" - 1843
- "Barnaby Rudge" - 1841
- "Bleak House" - 1852/53
- "David Copperfield" - 1850
- "Great Expectations" - 1861
- "Hard Times" - 1854  
- "Little Dorrit" - 1857
- "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" - 1838/39
- "The Old Curiosity Shop" - 1840
- "Oliver Twist" - 1838
- "A Tale of Two Cities" - 1859
- "The Pickwick Papers" - 1836

Facts about Charles Dickens:
Born    7 February 1815 Portsmouth, England
Died    9 June 1870 Kent, England (aged 58)
Buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, London, England
There are museums and festivals in his honour and statues of him and his characters all over the world.
He was the father of ten children.

Dickens was such an important writer of his time that we even comment on this with the term "Dickensian".

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

Top Ten Tuesday ~ New-to-Me Authors

     

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. 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's topic is New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2024

There are a few authors I really liked that much that I went and bought the next book by them. (Matt Haig, Florian Knöppler, Abraham Verghese), but these others are not bad, either. I'm sorry, a lot of them are German authors, not all of them translated (the ones in italics).

Fosse, Jon "Morning and Evening" (NO: Morgon og kveld) - 2001
Haig, Matt "The Midnight Library" - 2020
Herrndorf, Wolfgang "Why We Took the Car" (GE: tschick) - 2010

Knöppler, Florian "Kronsnest [Name of Village]" (GE: Kronsnest) - 2020

Leky, Mariana "What You Can See From Here" (GE: Was man von hier aus sehen kann) - 2017

Loewe, Elke "Teufelsmoor = Devil's Bog, German region" (GE: Teufelsmoor) - 2002
Tomalin, Claire "Jane Austen - A Life" - 1997
Verghese, Abraham "The Covenant of Water" - 2023
Wahl, Caroline "22 Lanes" (GE: 22 Bahnen) - 2023
Zierl, Helmut "Follow the Sun. The Summer of my Life" (GE: Follow the Sun. Der Sommer meines Lebens) - 2020

Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2025

I have taken part in this reading challenge since 2013. The moment I saw that post, I know this was the most interesting challenge for me. I signed up for the highest of the four levels "Mor-book-ly Obese" which meant eight or more chunksters (books over 450 pages) of which three must be 750 pages or more.

I have carried on with that challenge without setting goals, I love big books and I will always read some. And I am more than willing to tell my friends about them.

If you are interested in the challenge, check out this link. They discontinued their challenge in 2015.
You can still find suggestions by page number, in case you can't find any chunksters yourself. 😉

Or you can check out my lists from the previous years (below), maybe you are interested in a couple of them.

I read in
2013: 38 chunky books, 13 of them chunksters
2014: 37 chunky books, 15 of them chunksters
2015: 26 chunky books, 8 of which chunksters
2016: 28 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2017: 35 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2018: 29 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2019: 20 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2020: 18 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2021: 24 chunky books, 10 of which chunksters
2022: 11 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2023: 12 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2024: 16 chunky books, 4 of which chunksters

I will be posting the books I have read here:
(I add the German title, if available, for my German friends)
[I add my own translation of a foreign book title if it's not available in English.]

Austen, Jane "Sense & Sensibility" - 1811 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) - 462 pages
Abel, Susanne "Stay Away from Gretchen. Eine unmögliche Liebe" [Stay Away from Gretchen] - 2021 - 544 pages
Backman, Fredrik "Britt-Marie war hier" (Britt-Marie var här/Britt-Marie was here) - 2014 - 509 pages

I read 3 chunky books in 2025 of which 0 are considered a chunkster.

If you want to do this challenge or just check at the end of the year what category you are, here is the list:

    The Chubby Chunkster - this option is for the readers who want to dabble in large tomes, but really doesn't want to commit to much more than that. FOUR Chunksters is all you need to finish this challenge.
    The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months.
    Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX Chunksters from the following categories: 2 books which are between 450 - 550 pages in length; 2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; 2 books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length (for ideas, please refer to the book suggestions page for some books which fit into these categories).
    Mor-book-ly Obese - This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to EIGHT or more Chunksters of which three tomes MUST be 750 pages or more. You know you want to.....go on and give in to your cravings. 

Looks like I've always been "more book-ly obese". 😂

#ThrowbackThursday. March 2012

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from March 2012.

Chang, Jung "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China" - 1991

Jung Chang's grandmother was born at the beginning of the last century, when girls in China still had their feet bound. The mother was an active Communist. They go through all kinds of troubles in the China of Mao When Jung gets the chance to study abroad, she takes it. In England, she writes this memoir of her youth, her parents' and grandparents life.

Apparently, this is the biggest grossing non-fiction paperback in publishing history. 

Dai, Sijie "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" (French: Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse Chinoise) - 2002
A great story about the Chinese Cultural Revolution in its later years. Two boys from an educated family are sent to a village for re-education. Through the stories of Balzac (whose books they find and steal), they get to know a village girl who is known as the Little Seamstress.

Walker, Alice "The Temple of My Familiar" - 1989
A story of a couple of people whose lives are interwoven. Several characters from "The Color Purple" appear, you could say it is a sort of sequel to it. Or - you could say it is a story of hundreds of people during the centuries. Any kind of people turn up, any colour, any state, slaves, slaveholders, rich and poor.

Winchester, Simon "The Map that Changed the World: A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption" - 2001
One of the most interesting scientific books I ever read. William Smith, an ordinary boy in the 18th century, discovers the history of our planet. He was the first to find that the earth is arranged in layers. If you love maps and their story, this is the book for you.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Alphabet Authors ~ C is for Camus

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

I might not do it exactly as he does but I will try to get to all the letters of the alphabet over time.

Albert Camus is probably going to be the only French language author I will mention in this series. He is one of my favourite writers of all time.

- "The First Man" (F: Le premier homme) - 1994
- "The Just Assassins" (aka The Just) (F: Les Justes)- 1949
- "The Plague" (F: La Peste) - 1947
- "The Stranger" (aka The Outsider) (F: L'étranger) - 1942

Facts about Albert Camus:
Born    7 November 1913 French Algeria
Died    4 January 1960 France
Algerian-born French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist.
He joined the Résistance in WWII.
He died in a car accident at age 46.
A French postage stamp with his image was issued in 1967.

Albert Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times".

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

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

#ThrowbackThursday. February 2012 Part 2

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the second part of February 2012.

Brooks, Geraldine "March" - 2006
Who hasn't read "Little Women" and wouldn't mind reading more about the March family. Well, here's your chance.

Allende, Isabel "Island Beneath the Sea" (E: La isla bajo el mar) - 2010
A great description of life on a plantation, first in the Caribbean, later in Louisiana, the life of the slaves and the free, lots of history, an incredibly rich account of the lives people had to lead. 

Pausewang, Gudrun "The Last Children" (GE: Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn oder … sieht so unsere Zukunft aus?) - 1983
A youth book from the early eighties. When we were in the middle of the Cold War. When our biggest fear was the nuclear bomb. This book shows the worst case scenario.

Pessl, Marisha "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" - 2006
A modern book about teenagers. Granted, not the usual ones. 

Şafak, Elif "The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi" - 2001
Two books in one: Ella, an American woman receives a script to be edited. It is about Rumi, a Muslim poet who lived in the 13th century. His poems are world famous.

Faber, Michael "The Fire Gospel" - 2008
A scientist visits a museum in Iraq that was looted. He discovers the "fifth gospel" and finds that it is difficult to share with the modern world.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.