World Book Day

Image stolen from the World Book Day charity site (in case you're looking for any ideas)

I always thought this was a day just for school kids to get dressed up but it's given me a chance to do another update to my Reading My Way Around the World challenge - follow the link to get the full list for my challenge to read a country from as many countries in the world as I can manage - no time limit - and I'm taking a lot of ideas from a great blog called TaleAway where Ash sets a world reading challenge every year with 52 books from 52 different countries. 

Iceland/Algeria

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson

I loved this book  ****

1627 - In a notorious historical event, pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted 400 people into slavery in Algiers.   Among them a pastor, his wife, and their children.  

In this debut novel the writer imagines what history does not record:  the experience of Asta, the pastor's wife, as she faces her losses with the one thing left to her - the stories from home - and forges an ambiguous bond with the man who bought her.

Liberia

She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore ****

This is a strange book - I enjoyed it, but I was a bit bewildered by it at times.   

It's a mix of fantasy realism and historical fact relating to the creation of the new country of Liberia.  It focuses on three characters who all have special powers and have come from backgrounds of all loss and tragedy.  

Here's what the cover notes say:

In the West African village of Lai, red-haired Gbessa is cursed with immortality at birth.  On a plantation in Virginia, June Day struggles to hide his extraordinary strength from the brutal slaveowners.   High in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, Norman Aragon discovers he can fade from sight at will.  

Cast out, forced to flee, sent away, they are drawn together in the tumult between settlers.  

Norway

The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder **

This is a very short book - a sort of modern day fairy tale.  

"My father died eleven years ago.   I was only four then.  I never thought I'd hear from him again, but now we're writing a book together."  

Georg's grandmother finds some papers stuffed in a chair that are a letter to Georg written shortly before his father died.   It's the story of a girl he sees and becomes besotted by and asks the now older son to help him solve the riddle.  

Denmark

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry ***

This is a Young Adult novel telling the story of the Danish Resistance during World War 2 and their plan to smuggle the entire Jewish population of Denmark, nearly seven thousand people, across the sea to Sweden.   Told through the eyes of one 10 year old girl.    A part of history I knew nothing about.  

And my top selection from this group of books 

Kenya/Liberia/America and others

The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr ( Short Stories) *****

I've not been a fan of short story collections but seem to have been reading more of them in recent years.   And this one, as the critics said, was Exquisite.    Anthony Doerr wrote one of my all time favourite books "All the Light We Cannot See" and he has a beautiful way of writing. This collection starts with the title story which is set in Kenya and is a story of a blind shell collector who is an expert in his field. There's a story about a Liberian refugee; a couple of stories about fishermen in America - just a lovely collection.   5 stars from me.  

So, I hope you enjoy your reading and I hope there's a suggestion or two here for you.  I'm nearly caught up to date with my list and if you have any good suggestions for me of books you've enjoyed you know I'd love to hear.  Are you a fan of short stories?  or fantasy realism?  

Happy World Book Day

A reading challenge

After Christmas I read a book that my brother had left behind on his last visit home from Australia - it was by Tim Winton which described a journey up the West Coast of Australia through and to an area that I will never get to visit and I just loved the descriptions of the landscape and travelling along with the characters.

So I decided to start a little challenge for myself - to travel the world with the books I read.
While I've always been very loyal to Irish writers, and there are many many wonderful Irish writers, both north and south, male and female, old and new - I've long been fed up with the emigration story and often pick up books just for the sake of going somewhere new.  And I almost have to put on blinkers when I pass Waterstones - their book of the month nearly always ends up in my bag.

Anyway, looking around the web at reading challenges, I came across Tale Away, a fantastic blog written by Ash, an American woman who regularly puts up challenges to read 52 books from 52 different countries each year and her suggestions are fabulous.  I'm not following her challenge as I've already read a lot of the titles on her suggestions lists and I don't get through that many books in a year either,   So my challenge to myself is to read a book from or about every country in the world - ideally written by someone from that country but as long as it's set there, that will be enough.    I've no time limit as I'll likely wander off at various times to read the latest best sellers and books by local writers, and some of the books by new to me authors will almost certainly send me in search of more that they've written, but it's already a fun journey.

So for this year, here's the pile of books I've been through so far.  I mostly only read at night, so I don't get through many books a month, but a lot of these have been real epics, and not all will go onto my books of the world list.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - a lot of people didn't like the tv show of this book which I haven't watched, and I've never read any Atwood books before which was why I picked it up before I started this challenge (although I might cheat and add her as a Canadian entry).   I found it fascinating for a book written 30 years ago and so much of it is scarily possible in this crazy world we're in at the minute.  

Dirt Music by Tim Winton - the book that started this idea.   An interesting story of a dysfunctional community on the south west corner of Australia - and the journey up the full length of the west coast was fascinating and the landscape was well described.

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce - set in England and not really a travel type book, there was a fascinating insight into classic and classical music in this story of a record shop owner who has the gift of knowing what piece of music a distressed person needs to hear to heal.   And there was a great Spotify playlist added at the end which I've listened to several times. 

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks - a collection of short stories that all revolve around a typewriter.   I'm not particularly into short stories but I was interested to see what Tom would write and they were very enjoyable short night time reads and his voice is almost audible in the way he writes. 

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.   What can I say.   This book was amazing - really a 5* from me.  It's not recent and I'm sure many of you have already read it, it held me enthralled the whole way through.   Set in Afghanistan during the rise and subsequent fall of the Taliban, it's the story of two women thrown together.  

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi - this is set in Germany between the two wars and again it's a fabulous story, a suggestion I got from Ash's blog .   The lead character is superb - she's a dwarf and thereby an outsider and is featured in other books by this writer which I will definitely look into.   We spend so much time in Germany and yet I had not read any books by German writers before and the translation was very good as well.   I loved the fact that it left some German words untranslated, words that are already in the English language or are well enough explained that you understand what they mean.   

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende - although the country isn't specified in this book, it is definitely South America and it had a really surreal cast of characters, but then that's Isabel Allende's trademark isn't it? It wasn't one of my favourite of her books but still an enjoyable story.  

Small Island by Andrea Levy - Oh, I adored this book - another 5* from me.   And it explained a lot to me, or rather pointed out a lot, of the awful discrimination suffered by the Windrush people who came from Jamaica to help out in Britain's call for workers after the war.  Great story, beautifully written and a wonderful cast of characters.  

Tangerine by Christine Mangan - I only picked this up because of the title and it gave me a north African storyline but for me it didn't hit the spot.   

There's more to come, but I'll not bore you just yet.   

Five on Friday - Catching up on reading

I'm joining in today with Five on Friday run by Amy at Love Made My Home.

I haven't been out taking many photos over the past while, so I thought I'd focus on some recent reads - here are 5 I've really enjoyed.

The winter months are great for catching up on reading and I have been bingeing - both on my Kindle and in the lovely big juicy properly printed versions.  So here's a few  to mention in case you're looking for some reading ideas...

I have taken the synopsis on each book from Goodreads.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

I thought this was a superb book and I really enjoyed it.  A very detailed account of  some parts of World War II told from the point of view of two young characters both of whom were very well rounded and very human.  5/5

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 

This book was so moving ... and gripping..   I couldn't put it down.  A story about consequences - can't recommend it highly enough.  5/5

Peaches for Monsieur le Curé by Joanne Harris
When Vianne Rocher receives a letter from beyond the grave, she allows the wind to blow her back to the village in south-west France where, eight years ago, she opened up a chocolate shop. But Lansquenet is different now: 

This follow up to Chocolat by Joanne Harris was a great read - a bit of a soap opera, not too taxing, and most enjoyable .... I wish now that I had read Chocolat rather than just watching the movie - Joanne has a great way of describing food - I've read several of her books over the years and they always make me hungry!!  This one is a very timely look at the divisions of immigrants and natives .... 4.5/5

The Reader on the 6.27 by Didier Laurent
An irresistible French sensation - Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore meets Amelie - The Reader on the 6.27 explores the power of books through the lives of the people they save. It is sure to capture the hearts of book lovers everywhere. Guylain Vignolles lives on the edge of existence. Working at a book pulping factory in a job he hates, he has but one pleasure in life ...Sitting on the 6.27 train each day, Guylain 
recites aloud from pages he has saved from the jaws of his monstrous pulping machine. 
A thoroughly enchanting read - I loved the characters and the snapshots of the stories he reads .... Lovely .. 4.5/5

Hello Is This Planet Earth? by Tim Peake
 This is a great coffee table book.  I bought it for Tom for Christmas although really I wanted to look at it myself.  It was so exciting to follow Major Tim's journey to the Space Station and back last year - he's such a likeable man and his enthusiasm for all he saw and did comes across in this collection of photos from the Space Station.   With the added bonus that all his proceeds from the sale of the book go to the Princes Trust to help young people get some of the opportunities he had in his early life.  And it was just announced that he's heading up into space again ... excellent.  5/5

Have a lovely week and if you have time, check out some of the other people participating in Five on Friday.  Thank you Amy for putting this together.

Love Made My Home

Reading challenges

Booking tours, doing arrangements and planning and sending out publicity materials can be very intense - usually I end up stressed to the nines.   But with renewed determination to not get stressed by day to day stuff this year, I've buried my nose in a book instead - 4 of them this month so far ... details at the bottom.

Several people had been writing about reading challenges so I had a wee look around and spotted this post from the  Storyteller Matters blog... with a link to several challenges.  This one from Modern Mrs Darcy looks do-able.

• There's several on this list that I have been meaning to get around to ... a book that I own and have never read - phew - that's probably half of those on my shelves.
• A book I previously abandandoned - see above.  Someone pointed out to me once that if you read a book a month that's only around 500 books for a lifetime -Good point - So why finish something that you don't like when you could be really enjoying some new author.   A case in point is J.K. Rowling's A Casual Vacancy - I could not get into that at all.   One to be relegated to the book Corner.  But there are more that might be worth another visit.  

Apart from the book you can finish in a day which will be a challenge, the others look great.   Have you got any suggestions for that?

So far this year I've read A Man Called Ove which is simply wonderful - funny, uplifting and a real page turner - easily 5*

And Paris Letters which I wrote about here ... another 5* from me

And still continuing my binge of John Grisham novels, just finished The Testament - brilliant.

And lastly The Savage Garden by Mark Mills which was not a bad read - a good thriller.

Goodness knows when I'll have another month of binge reading like that but it was great to escape for a while.

What now!!  Maybe a book I abandoned.

What are you reading at the minute?
Any recommendations?

The Architect's Apprentice

My blogging friend Hilary, who's blog Positive Letters...Inspirational Stories  is always full of information, recently posted about renovations to Canterbury Cathedral which she got to see up close - check out her post about it here.  It's a wonderful insight into a great and historic building.

It reminded me of this book which I've just finished.  The Architect's Apprentice is written by Elif Shafak and tells the story of a young boy called Jahan and a snow white elephant which he befriends, and the journey and life the two have, getting to the Palace of the Sultan  in Istanbul, where Jahan eventually falls in love with the Sultan's daughter and becomes apprentice to the great Architect Sinan.  

I didn't realise it when I was reading it that many of these characters actually lived - and eventually in his old age, Jahan becomes the Chief Architect who builds the Taj Mahal whilst his teacher and master Sinan was responsible for many of the fine buildings still standing in Istanbul today.

There were six of us: the master, the apprentices and the white elephant.  We built everything together.  Mosques, bridges, madrasas, caravanserais, alms houses, aqueducts . . .  

I think about Istanbul every day.  People must be walking now across the courtyards of the mosques, not knowing, not seeing.  They would rather assume that the buildings around them had been there since the time of Noah.  They were not.  We raised them: Muslims and Christians, craftsmen and galley slaves, humans and animals, day upon day.  But Istanbul is a city of easy forgettings. Things are written in water over there, except the works of my master; which are written in stone.  

Beneath one stone, I buried a secret.  Much time has gone by, but it must still be there, waiting to be discovered.  I wonder if anyone will ever find it.  

If they do, will they understand?

It's a compelling story with great characters, not least of which is the white elephant Chota.  It’s a story of building and destroying bridges, and of building things as a parallel to how we, or others, build our lives.

I must confess that my reason for buying it in the first place was the cover of the book - full of exotic colour and pattern, a picture of a world I've only seen very little of (many moons ago when I lived in Dubai for a few years).  But I'm glad it found it's way into my line of vision - it was a thoroughly enjoyable read and perfect for picking up at night when there wasn't time to do long bouts of reading. The story stayed very alive.

4* 

Special Things this week

In the B&B on Thursday night it was a treat to have a couple of hours to check out blogs and to follow some links on Facebook.    I thought I'd share a few treasures with you here.  

I had seen this video a few years back and it was lovely to be reminded of it by Denise at Denise's Planet.   These children are remarkable and indeed so are the adults who came up with this wonderful idea to recycle rubbish.

We take so much for granted in our wealthy Western worlds - look at what can be achieved.




This one is especially for my lovely blogging friend Deborah at Temenos of the Blessing Light in Chicago - I know you'll be in love with this project :)  A Children's Book you can Plant and it will grow into a tree.



I've been at a lot of funerals this year already and the topic has been at the front of our minds, how would our own final farewell be dealt with.  For one I was asked to sing a special song for the couple - called One True Place - the lyric talked about the person not being gone, but being in the room next door.  This piece of writing is from that angle and it just summed it up for me my feelings on the next life.   I want to post it here so that I can keep it for myself.  It was a lady that I met at a writing retreat last year had shared it on her Facebook page and I hope she doesn't mind me passing it on.  It came via the blog of the writer M.J.Rose

Written by Henry Scott Holland (27 January 1847 – 17 March 1918) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford

What interesting things have come up in your week? I'd love to hear.