Top Ten Tuesday ~ Top Ten Books I've Read So Far In 2015

"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". 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. 

June 30: Top Ten Books I've Read So Far In 2015

This was an easy one, well, not sooo easy, after all, I had to throw out a few. I read a trilogy in that time-frame and listed all three books as one because it really should be read as one. So, I didn't cheat. Well, not really. Hope my friends will like some of them, as well.

Azevedo, Francisco "Once Upon a Time in Rio" (O Arroz de Palma) - 2008

Follett, Ken "Fall of Giants" - 2010
- "Winter of the World" - 2012
- "Edge of Eternity" - 2014
Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies" - 1999
- "The Namesake" - 2003
Lamb, Wally "We are Water" - 2013
Mann, Thomas "Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family" (Buddenbrooks) - 1901
Oates, Joyce Carol "The Sacrifice" - 2015
Patchett, Ann "The Patron Saint of Liars" - 1992
Roth, Charlotte "Als der Himmel uns gehörte" [When Heaven Belonged to Us] - 2015
Smiley, Jane "Some Luck" (Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga #1) - 2014

Scott, Mary "Pippa in Paradise"

Scott, Mary "Pippa in Paradise" - 1955

Another delightful novel by Mary Scott who has been writing so much about her beloved countryside in New Zealand.

Pippa is a young woman without a family who inherits some money and invests it in a small library in a little seaside town. Something every reader dreams about. But Pippa has other dreams, as well. She wants to change people's lives as the heroine in one of Robert Browning's poems "Pippa passes". She might have some influence on a few of the character but, true to Mary Scott's style, she mostly changes her own life.

Humorous, lovely, nice, an easy read, a feel good novel.

From the back cover: "Here is the third novel set in New Zealand by the author of Breakfast At Six and Yours To Oblige which have delighted so many readers. Pippa, like her poetical namesake, aims to make people happy. When she is left a little money, she decides that a small country library should provide a pleasant and sufficiently profitable occupation and, above all, be a likely centre for meeting people and brightening up their lives for them. There are some light stains down the spine and light foxing along the page edges but overall a tidy copy."

Unfortunately, Mary Scott's books are out of print and only available second hand. I have heard in the meantime, that you can buy some of them as eBooks, like this one here.

Book Quotes of the Week

"It isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you - and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life." Isaac Asimov

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." C.S. Lewis

"There's more to life than books, you know. But not much more." Morrissey

"Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness." Lemony Snicket

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." W. Somerset Maugham

Find more book quotes here.

Photo ABC

I am a member of a photo group where we get a prompt for every day and have to take an appropriate picture. Because we had the alphabet one month, I decided to do a book theme.

I always added either the link to my blog or to the books. I have decided to post a picture every week so my booky friends can enjoy them, as well.

L is for ... Lego

Matheson, Richard "I am Legend"

Matheson, Richard "I am Legend" - 1954

All of my friends will be surprised that I even started this book. Yes, I did read it. And yes, I did finish it. Again, it was for an online book club and I would have never chosen it for myself if I'd read the description - and I always do that when I choose a book.

However, I did not choose this book. It was not a subject I am inclined to read, I don't believe in zombies, vampires, time travel, anything that has to do with something science can't explain. However, I liked that the author tried to explain these vampires through biology during a time where people did not know, yet, what vampires were, how these stories were created. Nowadays we do and even though they are not bacteria like Richard Matheson said, at least he made an attempt to find an explanation.

I was not too impressed with the story, I couldn't be with a story like this. But the book is not too bad. If you like these kind of narrations, I think you will like it.

From the back cover:

"Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman, and child on Earth has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood.

By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn.

How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?

I am legend
Buried talents
The near departed
Prey
Witch war
Dance of the dead
Dress of white silk
Mad house
The funeral
From shadowed places
Person to person"

Top Ten Tuesday ~ My Ten Favourite Top Ten Topics We've Ever Done

"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". 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. 

June 23: My Ten Favourite Top Ten Topics We've Ever Done In The Past 5 Years

In honour of 5 years of Top Ten Tuesday (our first Top Ten Tuesday debuted June 21, 2010)

I only joined the top ten idea in 2013 and I already found eleven instead of ten of my favourite top ten topics. I guess I'm more a Top Eleven kind of girl. Well, anyway, here goes: 

1. Top Ten ALL TIME Favourite Authors 
2. Top Ten All Time Favourite Books in X Genre (Classics!)
3. Top Ten Authors I REALLY Want To Meet 
4. Top Ten Bookish Things  
5. Top Ten Books For Readers Who Like Classics  
6. Top Ten Books I'd Love To See As Movies/TV Shows  
7. Top Ten Books if you like British Classic Adaptations  
8. Top Ten Characters Who I Admire 
9. Top Ten Favourite Classic Books  
10. Top Ten Most Memorable Secondary Characters  
11. Top Ten Character Names I Love or Top Ten Unusual Character Names 

Coory, Kasey "Pious Evil. Condemn not my Children"

Coory, Kasey "Pious Evil. Condemn not my Children. A mother's journey to insanity" - 2014

If you don't like to read about other people's misery, don't read this book. The Coory family has had more than their fair share of misery. I already read the book written by the authors sister, Anne Frandi-Coory "Whatever Happened to Ishtar?", and wanted to hear the voice of another family member when I heard her brother had written a book, as well. A lot of the family circumstances were already known to me but I am sure I would have understood them even without reading the other book first. What I want to say, it doesn't matter which one you read first, they both tell their part of a story, a story of a malfunctioning "family", a story of a miserable childhood but also of miserable adults. Why is it that people who already live in more than bad circumstances, always find other people just like that. Couldn't they find just one normal functioning person to help them to start a better life?

The book tells us a lot about the hardships in a big family that hasn't learned how to deal with their life in a new culture but especially about the tragic life children have to lead in these kind of families. It makes you want to go out and help them, in any way possible. That the author and his siblings have found their way into an ordinary life is more a miracle and certainly the exception rather than the rule. It can't have been easy. It also tells us about the church and their misgivings that were certainly responsible for a lot of the misery of the children.

Same as in "Whatever Happened to Ishtar?", one tragedy follows another, they slither from one bad situation into a worse one.

What I would have loved in this book though is a sort of family tree because there are many many members in that family and sometimes it is hard to find the connections. Luckily, you can find one online on Anne Frandi-Coory's page "A Life in Two Halves". It helps checking the situation from time to time.

As I said above, don't read this book if you cannot bear to hear about other people's misery but if you think you might want to do something to make this world a better place, to understand the background of tragedy, this is the book for you.

From the back cover: "Based on a true story, Pious Evil is an historical narrative of prejudice and intrigue. A revealing chronicle of a manic depressive mother, who is deprived of her children, as seen through the eyes of a disparaged and vulnerable child. A deviant priest rapes a nun. She is sworn to silence in a cover up by the Church to avoid scandal. She is then ostracized and married off to the deviant's older brother, with unforeseen consequences. A mother is propositioned to sell her baby daughter, who is blessed with beautiful auburn hair. She is eager to execute a betrayal in an endeavour to gain freedom from her despised husband. Pious Evil is an autobiographical saga of two families who immigrate to New Zealand at the turn of the twentieth century. The Patriarchs and their wives weave a tapestry of Piousness and Evil, which is revealed in the machinations of the following generations."