Thursday, 28 February 2019

Book Review: Normal people - S. Rooney



A very sad book, indeed. I really liked it, it is written beautifully and it is one of those novels that involve you so much into the story. But it is sad, it is covered by a film of depression, solitude, misery, unhappiness, inability by the two main characters to live in the "normal" world as it is being themselves.
There is a lot of leaving and getting back together between Marianne and Connell in the story, but even when they are together it also seems like the unification of two big solitude that just give you back one enormous solitude.
It made me feel unease and worried for the new generations, for my kids when they will be teenager.
Very well written, deep, sad. I'd recommend it.

Overall rating:  8   Plot: 8   Writing style: 8   Cover:  6



Title: Normal people
Author: Sally Rooney
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Pages: 288
Publication year: 2018


The Plot:
Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years.

The Author:
Sally Rooney was born in County Mayo and lives in Dublin. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times and The London Review of Books. She is the author of Conversations with Friends and winner of the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer Award 2017. Her second novel Normal People was published in 2018 and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She is the editor of the biannual Dublin literary magazine The Stinging Fly.

Tuesday, 26 February 2019

Book Review: The outsider - A. Camus


A pleasant read? Yes, sure. Did it blow me away? Not really.
It is a sad story of solitude and emptiness really, well written, quick to read. But that's it. I am sure that at the time it was published it was innovative and out of the scheme,  a pioneer. Today this book is worth reading as a classic and I don't know what I was expecting but it didn't "wow" me.


Overall rating:  6,5   Plot: 6   Writing style: 7   Cover:  4


Title: The outsider
Author: Albert Camus
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Pages: 127
Publication year: 1970 (first published 1942)


The Plot:
Set in Camus' native Algeria, this story centers around Meursault. The young French-Algerian leads an apparently unremarkable bachelor life until his involvement in a violent incident calls into question the fundamental values of society.

The Author:
Albert Camus (Algeria 1913- France 1960) was a representative of non-metropolitan French literature. His origin in Algeria and his experiences there in the thirties were dominating influences in his thought and work. Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest in philosophy, he came to France at the age of twenty-five.
He is best known for such novels as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work in leftist causes. He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. 

Monday, 25 February 2019

Book Review: A death in the family - K. O. Knausgaard



My struggle - Book 1

I have mixed feelings for this book: it is a memoir, the first in a serie of six, and while I really liked parts of it, very deep and thought provoking, I found other parts very tedious. The interesting thing for me is that it doesn't read like an autobiography, but more like a novel and it builds up to something which doesn't happen though.
I am still unsure if I will try and read the second chapter of the saga or not.

Overall rating:  5   Plot: NA   Writing style: 6   Cover:  6


Title: A death in the family
Author: Karl Ove Knausgaard
Publisher: Vintage Books
Pages: 496
Publication year: 2013


The Plot:
Karl Ove Knausgaard writes with painful honesty about his childhood and teenage years, his infatuation with rock music, his relationship with his loving yet almost invisible mother and his distant and unpredictable father, and his bewilderment and grief on his father's death. When Karl Ove becomes a father himself, he must balance the demands of caring for a young family with his determination to write great literature.

The Author:
Karl Ove Knausgård (b. 1968) made his literary debut in 1998 with the widely acclaimed novel Out of the World, which was a great critical and commercial success and won him, as the first debut novel ever, The Norwegian Critics' Prize. He then went on to write six autobiographical novels, titled My Struggle (Min Kamp), which have become a publication phenomenon in his native Norway as well as the world over. 

Friday, 22 February 2019

Book review: Bluebird, Bluebird - A. Locke



East Texas, present days, black and white people still divided by hate and prejudice, while their lives are so interconnected instead it would be difficult to tell them apart.
Texas Ranger Darren gets deeply involved in trying to solve two crimes, a black man and a white woman, in a town where drugs, white supremacy and hate and love run riot. Darren is also taunted by issues in his marriage, being the only black ranger and wanting to fight to make his home - Texas - a better place.
A good crime novel, extremely interesting in how it explore the racism in Texas. Open ended, I will surely read the sequel.


Overall rating:  7   Plot: 7   Writing style: 7   Cover:  7



Title: Bluebird, Bluebird
Author: Attica Locke
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Pages: 320
Publication year: 2017


The Plot:
When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply conflicted about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him back.
So when allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders - a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman - have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes - and save himself in the process - before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

The Author:
Attica Locke’s Pleasantville was the 2016 winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. It was also long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction, and made numerous “Best of 2015” lists. Her first novel, Black Water Rising, was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her second book, The Cutting Season, is a national bestseller and the winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke has worked as a screenwriter as well. Most recently, she was a writer and producer on the Fox drama, Empire. She serves on the board of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.

Friday, 15 February 2019

Book Review: The invisible life of Euridice Gusmao - M Batalha


A very pleasant book, this novel set in Rio de Janeiro in the 40s, a family saga centred around Euridice, who transforms herself time after time during her life to please the ones around her and who finally finds her true self in the end. A story which is funny, witty, but also quite tragic in the struggles to find herself.
It is also a novel about sisterhood and the unconditional love between the two sisters, despite the events of life that come between them.
A novel that appears quite superficial at first for the tone of the writing style, but alsmost magically reveals itself as a deep snapshot of Brazil in the 40s.


Overall rating:  7    Plot: 7   Writing style: 7   Cover:  7,5


Title: The invisible life of Euridice Gusmao
Author: Martha Batalha
Publisher: One World
Pages: 240
Publication year: 2017

The Plot:
Euridice is young, beautiful and ambitious, but when her rebellious sister Guida elopes, she sets her own aspirations aside and vows to settle down as a model wife and daughter. And yet as her husband's professional success grows, so does Euridice's feeling of restlessness. She embarks on a series of secret projects - from creating recipe books to becoming the most sought-after seamstress in town - but each is doomed to failure. Her tradition-loving husband is not interested in an independent wife. And then one day Guida appears at the door with her young son and a terrible story of hardship and abandonment.

The Author:
Martha Batalha worked as a journalist and publisher for many years in her home country of Brazil. She moved to New York in 2008, where she worked in the publishing industry. “The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao” is her first novel. It was sold to several countries and it will soon become a major motion picture. She is currently finishing her second novel, a family saga set in Ipanema. Martha lives in Santa Monica, California, with her husband and two kids.

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Book Review: The nightingale - K. Hannah



I read two books by Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone, which I loved, and Winter garden, which I abandoned as I was not taken by the writing style at all. Unfortunately the latter has also happened with The Nightingale. The plot is surely interesting but I just did not like the writing style, which I found quite redundant and slow, it didn't encourage me to go ahead and want to know more about the two sisters and their lives during the second world war. 
So, as I do when a novel doesn't "take" me, I abandoned.


Overall rating:  Abandoned    Plot: 6   Writing style: 4   Cover:  6


Title: The nightingale
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: Pan MacMillan
Pages: 464
Publication year: 2015


The Plot:
Despite their differences, sisters Viann and Isabelle have always been close. Younger, bolder Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann is content with life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. But when the Second World War strikes, Antoine is sent off to fight and Viann finds herself isolated so Isabelle is sent by their father to help her.
As the war progresses, the sisters' relationship and strength is tested. With life changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Viann and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.
The Author:
Kristin Hannah is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbuster, The Nightingale, Winter GardenNight Road, and Firefly Lane.Her novel, The Nightingale, has been published in 43 languages and is currently in movie production at TriStar Pictures, which also optioned her novel, The Great Alone. Her novel, Home Front has been optioned for film by 1492 Films (produced the Oscar-nominated The Help) with Chris Columbus attached to direct.Kristin is a former-lawyer-turned writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. Her novel, Firefly Lane, became a runaway bestseller in 2009, a touchstone novel that brought women together, and The Nightingale, in 2015 was voted a best book of the year by Amazon, Buzzfeed, iTunes, Library Journal, Paste, The Wall Street Journal and The Week.  Additionally, the novel won the coveted Goodreads and People’s Choice Awards. The audiobook of The Nightingale won the Audiobook of the Year Award in the fiction category.

Monday, 11 February 2019

World Book challenge 2019



Inspired by a great reading forum I follow and by the A year of reading the world blog, I have decided to set myself two long term reading challenges.

One is to read one book set in each of the United States of America (link here).


The other one, which will probably take me a lot longer. is to read a novel set in each of the country of the World! 


Suggestion for titles are very welcome.


Here it goes then!


  Afghanistan

  Albania 
  Algeria - The outsider - A. Camus
  Andorra 
  Angola 
  Antigua and Barbuda 
  Argentina 
  Armenia 
  Australia 
  Austria 
  Azerbaijan 
  The Bahamas 
  Bahrain 
  Bangladesh
  Barbados 
  Belarus 
  Belgium 
  Belize 
  Benin 
  Bhutan 
  Bolivia 
  Bosnia and Herzegovina 
  Botswana 
  Brazil - The invisibile life of Eugenide - M. Batalha (Rio de Janeiro)
  Brunei 
Bulgaria 
Burkina Faso 
Burundi 
Cambodia 
Cameroon 
Canada 
Cape Verde 
Central African Republic 
Chad 
Chile 
Colombia 
Comoros 
Congo, Democratic Republic of 
Congo, Republic of 
Costa Rica 
Côte d’Ivoire 
Croatia  - Girl at war - S. Novic  (Zagabr)
Cuba 
Cyprus 
Czech Republic 
Denmark 
Djibouti 
Dominica  
Dominican Republic 
East Timor 
Ecuador 
Egypt 
El Salvador 
Equatorial Guinea 
Eritrea 
Estonia 
Ethiopia 
Fiji 
Finland 
France - The Mystery of the blue train - A Christie (Cote d'Azur; Nice)
Gabon 
The Gambia 
Georgia 
Germany - Figlie di una nuova era – C. Korn   (Hamburg)
Ghana 
Greece 
Grenada 
Guatemala 
Guinea 
Guinea-Bissau 
Guyana 
Haiti 
Honduras 
Hungary - La ballata di Iza - M Szabo  (Budapest)
Iceland 
India  - The best exotic Marigold hotel - D. Maggoch
Indonesia 
Iran  - Disorienal - N. Djavani
Iraq 
Ireland - Normal people - S. Rooney (Dublin)
Israel 
Italy - La forma del buio - M. Zilahy  (Roma)
Jamaica 
Japan 
Jordan 
Kazakhstan 
Kenya 
Kiribati 
Kurdistan
Kuwait 
Kyrgyzstan 
Laos 
Latvia 
Lebanon 
Lesotho 
Liberia 
Libya 
Liechtenstein 
Lithuania 
Luxembourg 
Macedonia 
Madagascar 
Malawi 
Malaysia 
Maldives 
Mali 
Malta 
Marshall Islands 
Mauritania 
Mauritius 
Mexico 
Micronesia, Federated States of 
Moldova 
Monaco 
Mongolia 
Montenegro  
Morocco 
Mozambique 
Myanmar 
Namibia 
Nauru 
Nepal 
Netherlands  - The cut our girl - B. Van Es
New Zealand 
Nicaragua 
Niger 
Nigeria 
North Korea 
Oman 
Pakistan 
Palau 
Palestine 
Panama 
Papua New Guinea 
Paraguay  
Peru 
Philippines 
Poland 
Qatar 
Romania 
Russia 
Rwanda 
Saint Kitts and Nevis 
Saint Lucia 
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 
Samoa 
San Marino 
Sao Tome and Principe 
Saudi Arabia 
Senegal 
Serbia 
Seychelles 
Sierra Leone 
Singapore  - Crazy rich Asians - K. Kwan
Slovakia 
Slovenia
Solomon Islands 
Somalia 
South Africa 
South Korea 
South Sudan 
Spain 
Sri Lanka 
Sudan 
Suriname 
Swaziland  
Sweden 
Switzerland 
Taiwan 
Tajikistan 
Tanzania 
Togo 
Tonga 
Trinidad and Tobago 
Tunisia 
Turkey 
Turkmenistan 
Tuvalu 
Uganda 
Ukraine 
United Arab Emirates 
United Kingdom - Middle England - J. Coe
United States of America - The first lady - J. Patterson  (Washington)
Uruguay 
Uzbekistan 
Vanuatu 
Vatican City 
Venezuela 
Vietnam 
Yemen 
Zambia 
Zimbabwe