Diffenbaugh, Vanessa "The Language of Flowers"

Diffenbaugh, Vanessa "The Language of Flowers" - 2011

When I saw this book first, I was attracted by the title. "The Language of Flowers". I love languages but I had never heard that flowers have a language. Of course, we all know that roses are supposed to mean love but there seems to be so much more to it.

I enjoyed reading this story very much. Set as a diary of a young girl who grew up in foster homes, this book is telling two stories at the same time, the time she spent in various institutions and homes until her eighteenth birthday and the time after. Same as the time divides the protagonist's life, the book is also divided into two different parts, the story of the girl and her problems, covering an extensive range of psychological issues she has with this world and the story of the flowers, how they came to mean something special.

I was quite happy to learn that the stephanotis I had chosen as the main flower of my bridal bouquet about thirty years ago was promising happiness in marriage, and I can say that this is entirely true. I did not like the fact that my favourite flower, the peony, stands for anger. Maybe it's a good thing they are only available for a very short time during the year.

Now, whether you believe in the language of flowers or not, this book offers so much more than just that. It picks up a lot of different topics without getting too confusing or chaotic.

There was a whole "Flower Dictionary" on the Random House website but since they now published a book about the topic - "A Victorian Flower Dictionary" (Goodreads) -, they discontinued it. However, there is a list elsewhere on the net, here.

From the back cover:

"A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel, The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it's been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But a mysterious vendor at the flower market has her questioning what's been missing in her life, and when she's forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it's worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness."

Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (German: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels)
Peace Prize given by the German Publishers Associations

Every year during the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (German: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels) is awarded to a humanist and writer who "contributed to the idea of peace ... through their exceptional activities, especially in the fields of literature, science and art". As those who know me are aware, I always love lists and often find valuable literature, especially among those awarded a prize for their works. I have added the books I have read in brackets behind the author's name and will add more as soon as I read more and/or write more reviews.

1950 Max Tau, Norway (Das Land, das ich verlassen mußte; Ein Flüchtling findet sein Land)
1951 Albert Schweitzer, France
1952 Romano Guardini, Germany
1953 Martin Buber, Israel
1954 Carl Jacob Burckhardt, Switzerland
1955 Hermann Hesse, Germany (Siddhartha - Siddhartha; Steppenwolf - Der Steppenwolf; Narcissus and Goldmund - Narziss und Goldmund)
1956 Reinhold Schneider, Germany
1957 Thornton Wilder, United States
1958 Karl Jaspers, Germany
1959 Theodor Heuss, Germany
1960 Victor Gollancz, United Kingdom
1961 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India
1962 Paul Tillich, United States
1963 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Germany
1964 Gabriel Marcel, France
1965 Nelly Sachs, Germany
1966 Augustin Bea + Willem Adolf Visser ’t Hooft, Germany + the Netherlands
1967 Ernst Bloch, Germany
1968 Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegal
1969 Alexander Mitscherlich, Germany
1970 Alva + Gunnar Myrdal, Sweden
1971 Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, Germany
1972 Janusz Korczak (posthumous), Poland
1973 Club of Rome
1974 Frère Roger, Switzerland
1975 Alfred Grosser, Germany
1976 Max Frisch, Switzerland (The Arsonists/Biedermann und die Brandstifter; Homo Faber/Homo Faber)
1977 Leszek Kolakowski, Poland
1978 Astrid Lindgren, Sweden (Seacrow Island; The Six Bullerby Children, Samuel August from Sevedstorp and Hanna from Hult aka A Love Story)
1979 Yehudi Menuhin, Israel
1980 Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua
1981 Lew Kopelew, Soviet Union
1982 George F. Kennan, United States
1983 Manès Sperber, Austria/France
1984 Octavio Paz, Mexiko
1985 Teddy Kollek, Israel
1986 Władysław Bartoszewski, Poland
1987 Hans Jonas, Germany
1988 Siegfried Lenz, Germany (Deutschstunde/The German Lesson; Landesbühne; Zaungast)
1989 Václav Havel, Czechoslovakia
1990 Karl Dedecius, Germany
1991 György Konrád, Ungarn
1992 Amos Oz, Israel (A Tale of Love and Darkness)
1993 Friedrich Schorlemmer, Germany
1994 Jorge Semprún, Spain
1995 Annemarie Schimmel, Germany
1996 Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter; The Feast of the Goat; The Storyteller)
1997 Yaşar Kemal, Turkey (The Birds Have Also Gone; The Drumming-Out)
1998 Martin Walser, Germany (Ein fliehendes Pferd/Runaway Horse)
1999 Fritz Stern, United States
2000 Assia Djebar, Algeria
2001 Jürgen Habermas, Germany
2002 Chinua Achebe, Nigeria (Things Fall Apart)
2003 Susan Sontag, United States
2004 Péter Esterházy, Hungary
2005 Orhan Pamuk, Turkey (The Black Book; Cevdet Bey and His Sons; Istanbul – Memories of a City;  To Look Out the Window; The Museum of Innocence; My Father's Suitcase; My Name is Red; The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist; The New Life, The Red-Haired Woman; Snow; The Silent House; A Strangeness in my Mind; To Look Out the Window; The White Castle)
2006 Wolf Lepenies, Germany
2007 Saul Friedländer, Israel
2008 Anselm Kiefer, Germany
2009 Claudio Magris, Italy
2010 David Grossman, Israel (To the End of the Land; The Zig Zag Kid)
2011 Boualem Sansal, Algeria
2012 Liao Yiwu, China (Testimonials or: For a Song and a Hundred Songs)
2013 Swetlana Alexijewitsch, Belarus (Voices from Chernobyl; Second Hand Time)
2014 Jaron Lanier, USA
2015 Navid Kermani, Iran/Germany (Dein Name [Your Name], Between Quran and Kafka: West-Eastern Affinities/Zwischen Koran und Kafka. West-östliche Erkundungen)
2016 Carolin Emcke, Germany (Gegen den Hass/Against Hate; Echoes of Violence/Von den Kriegen)
2017 Margaret Atwood, Canada (The Blind Assassin, Hag-Seed, The Handmaid's Tale; Oryx and Crake)
2018 Aleida + Jan Assmann, Germany
2019 Sebastião Salgado, Brazil
2020 Amartya Sen, India 

2021 Tsitsi Dangarembga, Simbabwe (Nervous Conditions)
2022 Serhiy Zhadan, Ukraine 
2023 Salman Rushdie, United Kingdom (Knife, Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses)

2024 Anne Applebaum, Poland/USA

2025 Karl Schlögel, Germany

Forster, E.M. "Howards End"

Forster, E.M. "Howards End - 1910

I read "A Passage to India" quite a while ago and really liked it. When a friend of mine said she always wanted to read "Howards End", we agreed to read it together. Unfortunately, her eReader died on her, so we ended up not reading it at the same time. (Yet another point why I don't read eReader, but more about that here.)

I wasn’t disappointed. A great account of life within British society a century ago. The different classes and what it meant to a person born into a certain one.

Even though this was written about a century later, the story reminded me a lot of Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, that type of writing I enjoy so much. There are sisters who are educated but not rich, there is the rich family, there is the poor guy whose life is doomed before it even begins. A lot of social as well as moral issues that are discussed delicately. Still, quite a bit of action for those who don’t just want to read about philosophical questions.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"A chance acquaintance beings together the prosperous bourgeois Wilcox family and the clever, cultured and idealisitic Schlegel sisters. As clear-eyed Margaret develops a friendship with Mrs. Wilcox, the impetuous Helen brings into their midst a young bank clerk named Leonard Bast, who lives at the edge of poverty and ruin. When Mrs. Wilcox dies, her family discovers that she wants to leave her country home, Howard's End, to Margaret. Thus as Forster sets in motion a chain of events that will entangle three different families, he brilliantly portrays their aspirations to personal and social harmony. 

Howards End is about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. A strong-willed and intelligent woman refuses to allow the pretensions of her husband's smug English family to ruin her life. Howards End is considered by some to be Forster's masterpiece."

Ephron, Nora "I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman"

Ephron, Nora "I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" - 2006

Nora Ephron. I have loved and admired her during all her creative years. "When Harry Met Sally" is one of my favourite films ever, I love her sense of humour but I had never read any book by her. So, when she sadly passed away earlier this year, I thought it was time to fill this incredible gap. "I Feel About My Neck", the title itself is very promising already.

There are so many great thoughts in this book. I was particularly struck when Nora Ephron asked whether anybody still reads "The Golden Notebook". Well, we read it in our international book club in January 2009 and most of our younger members did not really like the book very much. We had the feeling that the younger readers couldn’t really follow the reasons this book was written for.

Her book is also full of quotes. If you want a little taster, check out these links:

BrainyQuote
Nora Ephron's 27 Best Quotes On Love, Life, And Death

One of my favourites (from this book):
"Reading is one of the main things I do. Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter."

But it's so much better to read the whole book. Great thoughts, great humour, a lovely memory of a wonderful woman.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally, Heartburn, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail) turns her sharp wit on to her own life. 

* Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from 
*If the shoe doesn't fit in the shoe store, it's never going to fit 
*When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you 
*Anything you think is wrong with your body at the age of thirty-five you will be nostalgic for by the age of forty-five
*The empty nest is underrated 
*If only one third of your clothes are mistakes, you're ahead of the game."

de Winter, Leon "Zionoco"

de Winter, Leon "Zionoco" (Dutch: Zionoco) - 1995

If you didn't know Leon de Winter was Jewish, you would guess after reading a couple of his books. In most of them, the main character seems to search for his Jewish roots in one way or another, which makes me think whether this is the author himself.

I love reading about those sort of topics. Only, de Winter seems to digress a lot from his original purpose. Sex is always in the way. And so, this novel is a mixture between a porn novel including the description of alcoholics and the search for an identity, for a normal life. It's a mixture of a lot of subjects, a trial to bring them all together. But in the end, the search for the Zionoco, the mountain of Zion, is just as unsuccessful as this book. I found it flat and boring. This is my second and probably last book I have read by this author. I didn't care much for "De Hemel van Hollywood" either.

Book Descripition:

"De Winter describes movingly the tragicomic search for the unattainable father. Rabbi Sol Mayer sells absolute truths in New York, but he still doubts: about God, about his marriage, and about the miracle he had experienced, which had made the bon vivant and good-for-nothing to become rabbi like his father. When he falls in love with a young singer, it does not just mess up his hormones."

de Winter, Leon "The Hollywood Sign"

de Winter, Leon "The Hollywood Sign" (Dutch: De Hemel van Hollywood) -  1997

Three unsuccessful actors try to get back into "business" by planning the big coup, not entirely legal but with a chance of success. Apparently, the novel is supposed to be a satire about the American film business. I didn't really see that. I didn't like the plot (too far-fetched), the writing (neither funny nor intelligent), frankly, I don't understand the success of this author.

This was my first novel by de Winter. I gave him another chance and read "Zionoco" which did not change my opinion of his writing.

Book Description:

"When three great, has-been actors meet at the funeral of a legendary Hollywood agent, their alcoholic reunion leads them to visit the Hollywood Sign. There they find the body of a man – leading them to uncover an in-progress scam for stealing millions from a Las Vegas casino – which originated as a movie plot written by one of the actors' ex-girlfriends – who could not get her script produced. Desperate to make a comeback, the three risk their lives for production capital ... by writing themselves into the 'script."'

Tademy, Lalita "Red River"

Tademy, Lalita "Red River" - 2007

A couple of years ago, we read Lalita Tademy's account about her ancestors from her mothers side ("Cane River") in the book club. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, a great story about the history of African-Americans since slavery.

Well, she's done it again. This time, she tells the story of her father's ancestors, the Tademy family that came all the way from Egypt as free men only to be turned into slaves in the States. The story begins after the Civil War when the slaves have officially been freed but white supremacists don't want to accept that, so there is still a long struggle ahead of them.

As a European, I am shocked again and again when I read that "people of colour" were not allowed to vote until a hundred years after the war. I mean, right until the middle of the last century there were people in a modern country denied the most basic rights. Unbelievable.

And this is exactly why I think books like this are so important, to show us what we did wrong and how we can avoid those kind of mistakes in the future.

Great book!

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"Hailed as 'powerful,' 'accomplished,' and 'spellbinding,' Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time... and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children... RED RIVER 

For the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives.Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would 'take back' Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give-and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success-and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten-and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, RED RIVER is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours."