Hislop, Victoria "The Return"

Hislop, Victoria "The Return" - 2008

I loved "The Island" so much that I had to read Victoria Hislop's next book. After this one, I completely fell in love with this writer. She has a way of drawing you into her stories, it's amazing. And she didn't disappoint with this one. "The Return" leads us to another place and another time in history but one that is just as exciting. A young woman discovers not only the terrible history of the Spanish Civil War but also her own. Along with her, the reader is forced to learn more about this awful part of history through this gripping account.

The characters are just as vivid and alive as the whole story, you feel yourself compelled back into that time when brothers fought each other over an ideology. The author also manages to describe Granada so well that you believe you are there with the protagonist of the story. I certainly would love to visit it after having read this book. I am still thinking about it days after having finished it and I am sure I will still think about it for a long, long time. And I definitely want to read Victoria Hislop's next books.

An excellent novel.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Beneath the majestic towers of the Alhambra, Granada's cobbled streets resonate with music and secrets. Sonia Cameron knows nothing of the city's shocking past; she is here to dance. But in a quiet café, a chance conversation and an intriguing collection of old photographs draw her into the extraordinary tale of Spain's devastating civil war.

Seventy years earlier, the café is home to the close-knit Ramírez family. In 1936, an army coup led by Franco shatters the country's fragile peace, and in the heart of Granada the family witnesses the worst atrocities of conflict. Divided by politics and tragedy, everyone must take a side, fighting a personal battle as Spain rips itself apart."

Find the other Victoria Hislop books I read here. 

Book Quotes of the Week

"I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me." Tahereh Mafi

"If you have enough room for your books, you don’t have enough books." James Bryce

"Some people say that life is the thing... but I prefer reading." Logan Pearsall Smith

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." St. Augustine 

“Books are delightful society. If you go into a room & find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome.” - William Gladstone

Find more quotes here. 

Gopnik, Adam "Paris to the Moon"

Gopnik, Adam "Paris to the Moon: A Family in France" - 2000

I love Paris. So, when I saw this book title, I just had to get the book even though it looked a tad on the chick lit side.

I have read quite a few books about expats in a new country, especially English or Americans going to France. So, I was a little weary about the book when I started reading it.

However, contrary to most of the other expats who go to France, this journalist went to Paris. I absolutely love Paris. And I love Adam Gopnik's kind of humour, so I had no problem getting through the 350 pages in no time. It is funny and written with a lot of affection for his host city without leaving out the negative sides any expat lives through in their new place.

It's an easy read but still quite worthwhile.

From the back cover:

"In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York for the urbane glamour of Paris. Charmed by the beauties of the city, Gopnik set out to experience for himself the spirit and romance that has so captivated American writers throughout the twentieth century. In the grand tradition of Stein and Hemingway, Gopnik planned to walk the paths of the Tuilleries, to enjoy philosophical discussion in cafés - in short, to lead the fabled life of an American in Paris. Of course, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with everyday, not-so-fabled life."

Ansay, A. Manette Vinegar Hill"

Ansay, A. Manette "Vinegar Hill" - 1995

It is always amazing to see how much a person can endure. And how long they can watch to see how their loved ones, their children, can go through hard times.

The story of Ellen and her husband who move in with his parents is that of a lot of women in the seventies, not enough money to raise their family, so moving in with the parents seems like a good idea. Well, not exactly but it seems like the only idea.

The story is told with a lot of detail, yet very flowing. The language is beautiful, the author manages to build anticipation, to make the book exciting from the first line to the last. No wonder Oprah chose this for her list.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilty and pain, and the tormented souls who inhabit it. It is 1972 when circumstance carries Ellen Grier and her family back to Holly's Field, Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her newly unemployed husband, Ellen has brought her two children into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill -- a loveless house suffused with the settling dust of bitterness and routine -- where calculated cruelty is a way of life preserved and perpetuated in the service of a rigid, exacting and angry God. Behind a facade of false piety, there are sins and secrets in this place that could crush a vibrant young woman's passionate spirit. And here Ellen must find the straight to endure, change, and grow in the all-pervading darkness that threatens to destroy everything she is and everyone she loves."

Book Quotes of the Week

"Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed." Anne Rice

"Books change people's destinies. "Carlos Maria Dominguez

"The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to their dream." Joan Didion

“Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.” -- Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago

"One technology doesn't replace another, it complements. Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators." Stephen Fry

Find more quotes here.

Buck, Pearl S. "Imperial Woman"

Buck, Pearl S. "Imperial Woman" - 1956

A mixture between fiction and non-fiction, a biography but also a novel. Tzu Hsi, the last Empress in China. Her life and her death.

Pearl S. Buck manages, as always, to describe the life of this extraordinary city in a gripping way. A fascinating description of a world long gone, the way people lived in the Far East.

It is difficult to understand in our modern world how families could send their daughters to become a concubine of any man, even if he was to become the emperor of a vast dynasty.

I really love this book that resonates with me even years after I read it the last time.

From the back cover:

"Imperial Woman is the fictionalized biography of the last Empress in China, Ci-xi, who began as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor and on his death became the de facto head of the Qing Dynasty until her death in 1908. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rulers during a time of intense turbulence. Tzu Hsi was born into one of the lowly ranks of the Imperial dynasty. According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of seventeen to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort. Tzu Hsi was feared and hated by many in the court, but adored by the people. The Empress's rise to power (even during her husband's life) parallels the story of China's transition from the ancient to the modern way."

Find other books by Pearl S. Book that I read here.

Pearl S. Buck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938 "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces".

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

Reading a classic you have never read but know anyway

I love reading classics. Even if I haven't read them before, it's almost like visiting an old friend, or finally getting to know that best friend of a good friend. Because, even if I haven't read a classic, I might have heard about it, seen a play, watched a movie, talked to friends who read it ... there are so many ways we hear about classics, we get to know them.

Classics are my all time favourites. So many people have read it before me and liked it. There must be something about that book, right? Alright, there are some that are outdated after a while but if they didn't reach that point after several hundreds of years  why should that be the case now.

A classic also links me to all those human beings that have lived before me. I can follow their thoughts, dream their dreams and compare their lives to mine. I can try to find whether life has changed. I don't think so. Circumstances have changed, ways of life have changed but we still have the same dreams as our ancestors. Reading their novels makes us understand that.

So, what stops you from reading a classic?