Baxter, Charles "The Soul Thief"

Baxter, Charles "The Soul Thief" - 2008

I saw this novel in the library and thought it sounded interesting. Well, the title caught my eye.

The book has an interesting narrative but is slightly weird nonetheless. There is a lot of psychology in it. Nathaniel Mason is a student who is more or less stalked by a guy called Jerome Coolberg. You get a strange feeling reading about his story. All the time, you are waiting for it all to come together but it remains strange until the end.

Charles Baxter is supposed to be a great writer but I'm not sure I will read any more of his novels anytime soon.

From the back cover: 

 

"During Nathaniel Mason’s first few months as a graduate student in upstate New York, he is drawn into a tangle of relationships with people who seem to hover just beyond his grasp. There’s Theresa, alluring but elusive, and Jamie, who is fickle if not wholly unavailable. But Jerome Coolberg is the most mysterious and compelling. Not only cryptic about himself, he seems to have appropriated parts of Nathaniel’s past that Nathaniel cannot remember having told him about. It is Jerome who seems to trigger the events that precipitate Nathaniel’s total breakdown, and Jerome who shows up 30 years later--Nathaniel having finally reconstituted his life--to suggest, with the most staggering consequences, that Nathaniel’s identity may in fact not be his own.

In The Soul Thief, Charles Baxter has given us one of his most beautifully wrought and unexpected works of fiction: at once lyrical and eerie, acutely observant in its sensual and emotional detail and audaciously metaphysical in its underpinnings. It is a brilliant novel--one that is certain to expand both his already-stellar reputation and his readership."

Book Quotes of the Week

"Reading to small children is a speciality." Clifton Fadiman

"With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw its fragrance deep inside me. This was enough to make me happy." Haruki Murakami

"Books do furnish a room." Anthony Powell

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it." Oscar Wilde

"Sorrows that she's but read of in a book weigh on her mind as if they had been her own." W.B. Yeats. 

Find more book quotes here.

Scott, Mary "Strangers for Tea"

 Scott, Mary "Strangers for Tea" - 1975

Another visit to Susan and Larry's farms in New Zealand. In this novel, Susan brings home a hitch hiker and so does Larry. Some new faces in the small community and a lot of young people that make the life in the backblocks more versatile. But one day, people miss money and everyone is afraid that one of their new friends might be a thief. An almost detective story this time but the two friends Susan and Larry solve this problem as well as they have solved any other obstacles thrown their way so far.

As always, a fun and easy read, sometimes very easy but the stories remind me of my youth and I love them.

This is the seventh book in the series by Mary Scott. And this is the list of all of them:
"Breakfast at Six" - 1953
"Dinner Doesn’t Matter" - 1957
"Tea and Biscuits" - 1961
"A Change From Mutton" - 1964
"Turkey at Twelve" - 1968
"Shepherd’s Pie" - 1972
"Strangers for Tea" - 1975
"Board, but no Breakfast" - 1978

Unfortunately, they are out of print and only available second hand. I have heard in the meantime that you can buy some of them as ebooks.

From the back cover (translated): "Te Rimu in the highlands of New Zealand is a peaceful area. Here three comrades have settled as farmers together with their wives: Paul with Susan, Sam with Larry, Tim with Anne. They lead a busy, sociable, yet quiet life. Until one day ...
Until one day, Susan brings a hitchhiker home, a young man with shoulder-length blond hair: David, who is looking for a job. And that's just life, a couple of days later Larry also picks up hitchhiker: Tom, a robust young man who is also looking for work.
The two strangers bring variety to the farmers' leisurely life. They gather other young people and found a youth club, the "gang". Suddenly, money is stolen everywhere, and when it is discovered that Tom has been in prison for car theft, suspicion falls on him. Cheerfulness and good humor have disappeared from the village ..."

Find all my reviews to novels by Mary Scott here.

Pamuk, Orhan "My Father's Suitcase"

Pamuk, Orhan "My Father's Suitcase" (Turkish: Babamın Bavulu) - 2007

The title of this collection refers to the first story in the book, the lecture Orhan Pamuk gave in Stockholm when he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read the German translation ("Der Koffer meines Vaters. Aus dem Leben eines Schriftstellers") that does not only have the addition to the title "From the life of an author" but also has 344 pages as opposed to the English one with only 28 pages. There are a lot more stories in the German one. He has put them together in subcategories titled "Life", "Istanbul", "America", "Reading and Books", "My Books are My Life", "Pictures and Texts", "Politics and Citizenship" and "Paris Review" where he publishes his interview for Paris Review.

The parts of this book are more like articles rather than short stories. I learned a lot about one of my favourite writers. I had the feeling I got closer to Orhan Pamuk, the writer, but also to Orhan Pamuk the private man. He talks to us about Turkey, its history and its contemporary politics, Istanbul, as always, where Orhan Pamuk is, Istanbul is not far. But we can also learn what he thinks about writing and how to be a writer.

A great book, I am happy that it was translated into German. Even if they will never translate all of it into English, try to read at least "My Father's Suitcase", it is a wonderful story.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

Buchbeschreibung:

"'Two years before his death, my father gave me a small suitcase full of his writings, hand writings and notebooks.'

Orhan Pamuk gave a speech called 'My Father’s Suitcase' when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in December 2006. This emotional speech which sincerely conveys the spirit of Pamuk’s thirty two years of writing effort, had a deep, worldwide impact. This book combines 'My Father’s Suitcase' which is a basic text about writing and living with Pamuk’s two other speeches in which the same subjects and problems are discussed from other perspectives. 'The Implied Author', the speech that Pamuk gave when he received the Puterbaugh Prize given by World Literature magazine, in April 2006 is about the psychology of writing and the urge and adventure of being a writer. Pamuk’s other speech, 'In Kars and in Frankfurt' that was given when he received the Peace Prize given by the German Publishers Associations in October 2005 is investigating the power of the writer to put himself in another’s place and the political consequences of this very natural human talent. My Father’s Suitcase consists of three speeches that are seen as a whole by their writer.

It’s a unique, personal book on what writing is, how to become a writer, life and writing, the writer’s patience and the secrets of the art of novel (from the author's website)"

Orhan Pamuk "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

Orhan Pamuk received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2005.

You can read more about the books I read by one of my favourite authors here.

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

Book Quotes of the Week

"Beyond the highest mountain, past the farthest star, the stories found in a book are what makes us who we are." Jeff Liss 

"Reading takes us away from home, it finds homes for us everywhere." Hazel Rochman 

"No furniture is so charming as books." Sydney Smit 

"I love bookshelves, and stacks of books, spines, typography, and the feel of pages between my fingertips. I love bookmarks, and old bindings, and stars in margins next to beautiful passages. I love exuberant underlinings that recall to me a swoon of language-love from a long-ago reading, something I hoped to remember. I love book plates, and inscriptions in gifts from loved ones, I love author signatures, and I love books sitting around reminding me of them, being present in my life, being. I love books." Laini Taylor 

"Buying books is immensely comforting. Maybe I won’t read them immediately, but they make me feel so much better whenever I’m sad and blue. Just their presence, it’s like having more to look forward to." N.N. 

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.

Berry, Wendell "Hannah Coulter"

Berry, Wendell "Hannah Coulter" - 2004

A friend recommended this book to me. I might not have read it first if I'd found it in a bookshop because it's the umpteenth novel in a series of stories about the inhabitants of Port William. But I doubt that it matters because I can imagine that they all start at the life of a certain person and go on until today, so they will probably intermingle.

Hannah Coulter, for example, is the mother of Nathan Coulter whose story was written quite a while before that of his mother.

Anyway, Hannah Coulter led a long life in rural Kentucky, she had several children, lived through World War II, the Great Depression, and everything that that encounters. She talks about her life in a diary form but not necessarily in a chronological one.

I came to like Hannah and her loved ones. The way they work together, very old form, maybe still possible in some rural areas but certainly not everywhere.

The writing style is pleasing, just as if your grandma was telling you about your life. I liked that.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the latest installment in Wendell Berry's long story about the citizens of Port William, Hannah Coulter remembers. Her first husband, Virgil, was declared 'missing in action' shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, and after she married Nathan Coulter about all he could tell Hannah about the Battle of Okinawa was 'Ignorant boys, killing each other. 'The community was stunned and diminished by the war, with some of its sons lost forever and others returning home determined to carry on. Now, in her late seventies, twice-widowed and alone, Hannah sorts through her memories: of her childhood, of young love and loss, of raising children and the changing seasons. She turns her plain gaze to a community facing its long deterioration, where, she says, 'We feel the old fabric torn, pulling apart, and we know how much we have loved each other.' Hannah offers her summation: her stories and her gratitude, for the membership in Port William, and for her whole life, a part of the great continuum of love and memory, grief and strength."

Here is a list I put together from various sites of all the novels that talk about Port William:
Nathan Coulter - 1960
A Place on Earth - 1966
The Memory of Old Jack - 1974
The Wild Birds: Six Stories - 1986
Remembering - 1988
Fidelity - 1992
Watch with me - 1994
A World Lost - 1996
Jayber Crow - 2000
That Distant Land - 2002
Hannah Coulter - 2004
Andy Catlett - 2006
Whitefoot - 2009
A Place in Time - 2012

I intend to read a few more.

Hislop, Victoria "The Last Dance and Other Stories"

Hislop, Victoria "The Last Dance and Other Stories" - 2012

I have read all of Victoria Hislop's three novels and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Therefore, I bought this one in the hope that it would be just as great.

However, this is not a novel like her other books, it's a collection of short stories and I'm not a big fan of short stories. And, she mentions this herself in the afterword, her Greek readers have criticized her before for seeing their country through rose-tinted lenses, and she is trying to adjust that in her stories.

So, quite a change to her previous books one would say.

Nonetheless, I loved this book. Even though her previous stories also tell about historic problems, these here talk about the life in Greece today, about the life of modern Greeks in an ever changing world.

I loved these stories, whether they were about an abandoned kafenion, fighting brothers, a love lost or political protests. And I am looking forward to this author's next story.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In ten powerful stories, Victoria Hislop takes us through the streets of Athens and into the tree-lined squares of Greek villages. As she evokes their distinct atmosphere, she brings vividly to life a host of unforgettable characters, from a lonesome priest to battling brothers, and from an unwanted stranger to a groom troubled by music and memory.

These bittersweet tales of love and loyalty, of separation and reconciliation, captured in Victoria Hislop's unique voice, will stay with you long after you reach the end."

Find the other Victoria Hislop books I read here.