Top Ten Tuesday ~ Favourite Books Released In the Last Ten Years

"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.

May 28: Favourite Books Released In the Last Ten Years (one book for each year)

Kristof, Nicholas D. & Wudunn, Sheryl "Half the Sky. How to Change the World" - 2009
Levy, Andrew "A Brain Wider Than The Sky: A Migraine Diary" - 2009
-- I just could not decide which of the two was my favourite, so I listed them both.
Bryson, Bill "At Home. A Short History of Private Life" - 2010
Oates, Joyce Carol "A Widow's Story. A Memoir" - 2011
Ackroyd, Peter "The History of England, Vol. 2 Tudors" - 2012
Yousafzai, Malala; Lamb, Christina "I am Malala. The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban" - 2013
Harari, Yuval Noah "Sapiens. A Brief History of Mankind" (Ḳizur Toldot Ha-Enoshut/קיצור תולדות האנושות) - 2014
Bryson, Bill "The Road to Little Dribbling: more Notes from a Small Island" - 2015
Weir, Alison "Six Tudor Queens. Katherine of Aragon. The True Queen" - 2015
Şafak, Elif "Three Daughters of Eve" (Havva'nın Üç Kızı) - 2016
Ahmad, Aeham "The Pianist from Syria" (aka The Pianist of Yarmouk) (Und die Vögel werden singen. Ich, der Pianist aus den Trümmern) - 2017
Obama, Michelle "Becoming" - 2018

I think this shows that I seem to prefer mostly non-fiction books.

Book Quotes of the Week

"If I had to give a young writer some advice I would say to write about something that has happened to him; it’s always easy to tell whether a writer is writing about something that has happened to him or something he has read or been told. Pablo Neruda has a line in a poem that says 'God help me from inventing when I sing.' It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination." Gabriel García Márquez

"I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books." Gary Paulsen

"You use a glass mirror to see your face. You use works of art to see your soul." George Bernard Shaw

"Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it." Markus Zusak

Find more book quotes here.

Lundberg, Sofia "The Red Address Book"

Lundberg, Sofia "The Red Address Book" (Swedish: Den röda adressboken) - 2015

This is the story of Doris, an old lady. She is 96 years old and dying. Of all her friends, only her grand-niece Jenny is left. And the only connection to her are their weekly Skype sessions. Isn't technology great? Without that, she would have nothing. We can begin to imagine how lonely a lot of old people are and that the computer can be a life-saver.

This is a lovely story about an elderly person who reflects on her life. We accompany Doris from when she is very little through her working life as a model and writer, get to know her family and friends and what they meant to her. A quiet story, yet full of events.

Apparently, Sofia Lundberg also had a great-aunt called Doris and she found an address book after her death, just as the one described.

Did I love those address books that I also owned? Indeed, I did. But I'm happy to have my lists on my computer now. My friends move far too often for me to keep up with changing them on paper.

But there was another part that struck home. Jenny lives in the States and speaks Swedish with her kids. When questioned about their ability in this language, she mentions that her little girl understands it well because she only speaks Swedish with her and she watches Swedish kids' shows online. Her older boys are "so-so". Jenny talks to them in Swedish and they reply In English. That's exactly what happened in our family (only replace Swedish by German). I had to smile when I read that.

This is the first novel by this author and I'm looking forward to reading more.

Doris' motto, given to her by her mother. I think it's a good one for all of us.
"I wish you enough. Enough sun to light up your days, enough rain that you appreciate the sun. Enough joy to strengthen your soul, enough pain that you can appreciate life's small moments of happiness. And enough friends that you can manage a farewell now and then."

From the back cover:

"Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenn - her American grandniece, and her only relative - give her great joy and remind her of her own youth.

When Doris was a girl, she was given an address book by her father, and ever since she has carefully documented everyone she met and loved throughout the years. Looking through the little book now, Doris sees the many crossed-out names of people long gone and is struck by the urge to put pen to paper. In writing down the stories of her colorful past - working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the 30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War - can she help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family and finally look to the future? And whatever became of Allan, the love of Doris's life?

A charming novel that prompts reflection on the stories we all should carry to the next generation, and the surprises in life that can await even the oldest among us, The Red Address Book introduces Sofia Lundberg as a wis - and irresistible - storyteller."

James, Henry "Daisy Miller"

James, Henry "Daisy Miller" - 1879

I have always loved classics and recently joined an online club: The Classics Club.

The beginning for me was Spin # 20. Everyone listed 20 classics from their TBR pile and one number was chosen, it was # 19 which for me was "Daisy Miller".

I had read one book by Henry Miller before, "The American".

Same as there, the author describes life of an American woman in 19th century Europe. How life in the States clashes with that in Europe where some old-fashioned manners still have to be observed whereas the Americans were a lot more independent at the time.

My one complaint about the story is, it's too short. You've only just started reading the novel and it's already over. Not really great for me. And I wouldn't call it a comedy. I haven't laughed once which I usually expect from a comedy.

Even so, there is a lot in this book that needs to be looked at. Have we really changed that much that we don't believe in conventions anymore as we try to tell ourselves all the time, are we really that much more "modern" than the people who lived 200 years ago? Sometimes, no, often, I have my doubts.

It's a good book about society and its prejudices. Worth reading. Certainly not my last book by Henry James.

From the back cover:

"Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow-countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant of them? When she strikes up an intimate friendship with an urbane young Italian, her flat refusal to observe the codes of respectable behaviour leave her perilously exposed. In Daisy Miller Henry James brilliantly dramatized the conflict between old-world manners and nouveau riche tourists, and created his first great portrait of the enigmatic and dangerously independent American woman, a figure who would come to dominate his later masterpieces."

Book Quotes of the Week

"My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid." Joan Bayer

"Oh, I just want what we all want: A comfortable couch, a nice beverage, a weekend of no distractions and a book that will stop time, lift me out of my quotidian existence and alter my thinking forever." Elizabeth Gilbert

"We read to know we are not alone." C.S. Lewis

"Read obsessively. It will make you a better human and a better writer." Pittacus Lore

Find more book quotes here.

Trollope, Joanna "Next of Kin"

Trollope, Joanna "Next of Kin" - 1996

I thought, I had read something by Joanna Trollope before but it turned out to be another author. I doubt I would have picked this book otherwise.

It was an alright read, not badly written but I couldn't relate to the characters, it was all a little too wishy-washy, not deep enough for the promises on the book cover.

I file it under chick-lit.

From the back cover:

"The land running down to the River Dean has been farmed by the Meredith family for generations. Robin Meredith bought the farm from his father, just before he married his wife Caro and now he and his brother Joe work on the land. But now Caro has died, as much as a mystery to the family as she was when she arrived twenty years ago, and the whole family feels her loss acutely, none more so than her adopted daughter Judy.

Into this unhappy family comes Zoe, Judy's London friend, an outsider with an independent spirit and a disturbing directness. Everyone underestimates Zoe's power as a catalyst for change as the realities behind the seeming idyll of a rural community become ever clearer."

Chukovskaya, Lydia "Going Under"

Chukovskaya, Lydia (Чуковская, Лидия Корнеевна) "Going Under" (Russian: Спуск под воду/Spusk pod vodu) - 1972

I found the translation of this book in a German bookshop. The reason I picked it up at first was the cover picture, a birch forest in winter. (see below). I love birches, they have a certain something.

And since I love Russian literature, I was curious about this author who was completely new to me.

"Going Under" takes place in a Russian sanatorium. The first-person narrator has lost her husband through the Soviet regime and tries to find out what happened to him.

The author must have been really courageous. As a fearless critic of the regime, she couldn't publish her autobiographical book in the USSR but it was done in a New York publishing house years later. This led to a professional ban. Very brave.

If you're interested in history, in Russia, in the Stalin regime, the USSR, this is a story that rings true.

From the back cover:

"In the winter of 1949, Nina Sergeyevna spends weeks in a sanatorium for artists on the countryside. Here everything is focused on forgetting. But she wants to know more about the past, about her own suffering, and that of her fellow human beings.

When she met Bilibin, who was in the same labor camp as her husband, she was looking for his closeness. There is a tender affection between the two, but disappointed, she turns away, as Bilibin seeks not the truth but repression and forgetfulness."