1001 Books to Read Before You Die + If on a winter's night a traveller

Last night I finished another 1001 book from the list, this leaves me having read 210 books from the list of what has now become over 1300 books (they update,add in and take away books every two years). Do I plan to read them all? No.
So why use the list I hear you ask. I love the list for one reason, and that is recommendations. I know there are books on there I will never pick up, like Ian Fleming's Casino Royale; books which even if I did pick up I'd never be able to complete like James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and lots of books I've started, given up and never plan to go back to. But the list acts as a reminder of all those books I've always meant to read, of those authors I've read, loved and meant to go and discover more of, and also introduces books and authors I would never have discovered before.
In the last year I've read the fantastic Movern Callar by Alan Warner, Amok by Stefan Zweig, Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry all of which I had never heard of and would probably never have came into contact with if it hadn't been for the list. And I've read books off the TBR pile which had been sat there through numerous years and house moves.
Do you use the 1001 Books to read before you die list? Why?

Last night I finished my 11th book this year from the list, If on a winter's night a traveller, I seem to be accuring strange books from the list at the moment (Movern Callar was my last and Blood and Guts in High School is coming up).
As with Movern Callar I have no real idea how to review this book, to try and make it comprehensible I'm going to do it as a question and answer review.

What is the general plot line of this book?
'The Reader' goes into a shop and buys a book called 'If on a winter's night a traveler', when he returns home he settles in to read the first and after loving the first chapter he discovers the book has been misprinted and it simply repeats the first chapter over and over.
On returning the book to the shop, he meets 'The Other Reader' who had had the same problem. They then procure numerous books and manuscripts each one promising to be a different book.
What is the style of the book?
The book is written in alernate chapters, every odd chapter is about 'The Reader' and 'The Other Reader' quest to find a complete book to settle down with. These chapter are written in second person. At the beginning this seemed to describe how I would analyse a book, relax to read etc as it should but as the story moved on 'The Reader' became a definite character.
The even chapters are all the first chapters that the Readers are given along the way, these are in different styles and genres. This part of the book is apparently the inspiration for David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas
What did you like/love about the book?
The first chapter I absolutely fell in love with, writter in second person he describes the process of going to buy a book:

"In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricades of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To That Category Of Books Read Before Being Written."

and also the process of sitting down and finding a comfortable place to start a new book. I would say that every avid reader, even if they don't plan to read the whole book (and it cerainly isn't to everyone's taste) should read this first chapter.
What did you dislike/hate about the book?
I certainly didn't hate anything about the book, but I found that after a while the different openings of books started to annoy me. I wanted to discover more about The Reader and The Other Reader, rather than the beginnning of another strange story - especially the ones that I'd have liked to know what happened next!
Would you recommend this to a friend?
I can't think of many of my real life friends who would like this disjointed style, but for readers who enjoy postmodern fiction, who are happy to not follow a trail of a story, and can appreciate a book for its style this is for them.

My Thoughts: Love and Summer by William Trevor

After complaining yesterday that I wouldn't have much time to read I managed to get a whole book read. Love and Summer has sat on my bottom step (where library books and bookrings live, for fear of mixing them in with my personal tbr pile) for a good 6 weeks. Its a bookring so should have been read and sent of asap, ideally within 4 weeks of receiving it. I just kept putting it off and reading anything but it, as its cover and the title just made me think romance yuck! (Can you tell I'm oh so very single at the moment!). However I picked it up last night thinking I'd manage half an hour and whizzed through it.
Set in rural Ireland, a a tiny village where nothing happens 2 people meet and fall in love. Ellie, was first a maid then a wife to a local widower, lives a secluded life on the farm. She travels into town to sell eggs, pick supplies and pick lavender once a week. One week, during the funeral of a well to-do lady in town she notices a photographer, which sparks off feelings of love.
The pair meet regularly, but nothing really seems to happen between them accept the knowledge the her love for him exists.
Its a book of moments, there is little action, but it is an easy and comforting read - kind of a literary beach read. I'm not sure if I'll remember it next week, let alone in a year but I'm thinking that I may buy a copy for my Mum's next birthday/holiday.

Short Story Sunday: Squeezing in some reading time

Its coursework deadline time at the moment at school: all final drafts to be in this Tuesday (then the countless phonecalls to parents of the kids who don't do this). So I've been marking first, second and third drafts to get them back to kids so they can keep working at them. I have a new class as there is a lot of staff sickness in our department and they are going to be my biggest nightmare coursework wise, they are lazy, talkative and many of them find English hard. I had one girl hand in an essay that was half a page long! My class of special need kids in the same year group would never have dared to do that, and would have been ashamed if they had so little to say! From this little mini rant you can see that this is a stressful time of the year.
As I've been so busy - I have a day of marking ahead - I've barely managed to squeeze in any reading time, or had time to get out in the glorious sunshine we suddenly have. One and a half more weeks of school and then its the holidays, I'll still be marking for hours everyday, but will be ensuring I'm out in the garden and whizzing through books too.

This morning I finished The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin. This 101 page story is set in Benin, about a family from Brazil who travel to Africa and make their fortune from slavery. The novella focuses on various members of the family and their fall, across several generations. I liked bits of this but found that I often had read a page or so and didn't know which family member they were now talking about.
Once the marking is done and I've been to the library I'll be starting Love and Summer by William Trevor, and I have a Neil Gaiman short story: 'Snow, Glass, Apples' to read, a retelling of the Snow White story, hopefully a great way to start off the Once Upon a Time IV Challenge :D

My Thoughts: Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep by Siba Shakib

It has been a couple of years since I have read anything about Afghanistan, for a while it seemed you couldn't move for books about Afghanistan and Iraq, this one I read as it will help my tick off another country for my Olympic Challenge, (which I'm failing miserably at).

This is a non-fiction account written, by a journalist, of the life of Shirin-Gol. From just three years old the life of other people are put into Shirin-Gol's hands for her to look after. She starts off as a todler looking after, feeding and caring for her twin brothers. When Russia invade the country she is sent to school where she gains a passion for learning which stays with her her whole life.
Married off at a young age to a soldier husband she falls pregnant within days, he leaves to go back to the war, whilst she stays and raises their children whilst still gaining her education just days after their birth.
When trouble starts in Kabal, Shirin-Gol and her family are forced to flee. First she goes to the Pakistaini border, where she is forced into prostitution to feed her kids and tend to her sick husband. From then on she travels with the family from village, to towns, to other countries and back. She faces sickness, poverty and her husbands drug addiction face on. She is an independent woman who is determined that her children and other women should not live the life that she has been forced to, she educates and looks after others on her journey.
This book worringly wasn't all that shocking, firstly because I've read many other books about women lives in other coutries, but also because it felt like a novel, I had to keep reminding myself that this was non-fiction. The book shows a great example of women, in coutries in which we assume they have no power, taking power and leadership into their own hands to fight for a better future.

The Sunday Salon

Today I'm supposed to be marking, coursework deadlines are very close so I have teenagers (some nervous some indifferent) shoving pieces of coursework at me from every angle, expecting it to be marked in no time at all so they can edit it. Its sunny and gorgeous outside, and every inch of me wants to wander, but I'm forcing myself to stay in. And after this post is written I'll be forcing myself to mark :C

So just a quick note on my readings.
Earlier in the week I finished Magpie by Jill Dawson and somehow forgot to talk about it. After finishing the momouth A Suitable Boy I decided something quick and easy was needed and a friend wanted to borrow this so I rushed through it, and it was better than I expected.
The novel centres around a young single mother and her son, they are trying to start new life after a fire at their old house and the 'loss' of the father. Moving to a rough estate in London, miles from the quaint Yorkshire of their past, they have a lot to get used to. Money struggles, hearing their neighbors getting up to all sorts, being one of the few white families around and the sons sudden bad behaviour.
The novel was a quick and easy read, although I guessed the revelation at the end of the book very early on. If you're tempted to try this author, this book is worth a read, but I would recommend her novel Wild Boy first.

Then this morning I finished the short story Amok by Stefsn Zweig. Zweig is the year long author over at a librarything group which I belong to, I hadn't really heard of him before and was reluctant to start so I grabbed Amok and Other Stories as my first foray into the author.
Amok is one of those stories where the narrator recalls a conversation with another person as a means of telling the story. In this case the narrator meets a man at midnight on the voyage home from India to Germany. The man, a doctor, is a mystery as he is never to be seen during the day and he has asked the narrator not to reveal that he is on the ship. His story centres around his guilt and obssession over a female patient. I can't reveal more than that without giving away to much.
The confession is fast paced and the man's distress and need to confess spill out across the page at a pace which matches his sense of urgency. I'd recommend lovers of short stories to give this a read. I can't wait to read the other stories in the collection now.

The Little Things in Life: A story, and some poetry and fables.

This week I've read a few bits and pieces which aren't big enough to have a post each but I thought I'd like to share them with you.



The Star Above the Forest by Stefan Zweig this has to be the most wonderfully written short story that I have ever read. Zweig depicts the moment that a waiter falls passionatly in love with a lady who he can never tell of his love let alone have. Knowing that she will soon leave and he won't get sight of her again he sets out to commit suicide.
Zweig's language is stunning, the suicide is wonderfully and subtly portrayed showing the mans deep desire to die for love of another rather than the love of himself. I have copied part of a paragraph
so you can see how beautiful the language is:

"... it was one of those seconds in which thousands of hours and days of rejoicing and torment are held spellbound, just as all the wild force of a forest of tall, dark, rustling oak trees, with their rocking branches and swaying crowns, is contained in a single tiny acorn dropping through the air."

This story is to be found in Amok and Other Stories, published by Pushkin Press.



Whilst browsing poetry in the Oxfam bookshop I came across this miniscule book of poems, and had to have it for its size and the little sketches and poems contained within. The 'Parson and Poet' is a tiny, both in size and page numbers, collection by Robert Herrick, a seventeenth century British poet. This tiny 18 page book is filled with verse, epitaphs and odd lines of poetry. The main themes seem to center around the idea that life is short so enjoy it while you can.
An example of the poetry contained:
To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time



Polish Fables: Bilingual Edition by Ignacy Krasicki (trans. Greard T. Kapolka). I grabbed this from the library the other day when I was searching out poery. The fables are similar to Aesop's Fables in many ways, although apparently many can be read as a response to the first partition of Poland (about which I know nothing). Despite this it is clear to say that the messages often focus on the strong taking advantages of the weak.
Ignacy Krasicki published these poems in their original form in 1779, yet it is interesting to see how many of them still relate to the modern world.
Here's a taster:

The Flattering Mirror
When she looked in the mirror at her reflection
The girl was pleased that it lightened her complexion
When her friend came by, much plainer than she,
She saw that it made her less ugly.
That the neighbor was pleased just gave the girl fits,
So she shattered the flattering mirror to bits.

My Thoughts: Whole of a Morning Sky by Grace Nichols

Sticking with my recent Caribbean readings I plunged into Whole of a Morning Sky earlier today. Set in Guyana, this novel starts in Highdam a small country village where the different races live side-by-side happily. Archie, headmaster of the local school has had to work hard to implement a normal school routine in the village - teachers can no longer go home to cook a meal midway through the lesson, children are not allowed months off at harvest time. His family, despite his best attempts to keep distant, have become fully integrated in the village. They mix with the villagers, listen to the local womens dreams, spirits and beliefs.
Archie decides to move the family to the city of Georgetown in order to get his younger children a better standard of living. When he arrives he quickly sees that life here will have more influence on his children than ever before. Politics quickly impeeds their lives. His eldest daughter Dinah is soon spilling the words of a communist. His younger children are fed with the little their family can get and miss school because of the strikes and each night they watch as another neighbours house is burnt to the ground.
This novella was a great read, it started off seeming like a very simple story and came as a shock when the politics kicked in.

My Thoughts: Ruins by Achy Obejas

After reading After the Dance by Danticat Edwidge I thought I'd try and complete the Caribbean section of the Olympic challenge (I have a long way to go). When Ruins arrived from the library I realised I already read a book for Cuba (The Aguero Sisters) but the premise was good and the book short so I gave it a go.
Ruins is set in Havana in 1994, in the years when many Cubans were evacuating the place in anything which they could find. Usnavy, a man loyal and law abiding watches as his friends either leave or break the law to earn dollars illegally.
The place is dirt poor, houses are falling to pieces in the rain, women are selling spice and gravy soaked pieces of blanket disguised as steak to earn a few pounds and they wash in a communal area using bottles of boiled water.
Usnavy is determined that he and his family will live above the law, until he discovers ways to make money wih the discovery of a Tiffany lamp. At first he abstains from temptation, but as his wife and daughter slowly desert him he is forced to see that his beliefs are destroying his home life.
I really enjoyed this look at Cuba, we forget just how impoverished places in the Western world really are. Obejas shows the way that immigration has affected the Cubans lives, they can see what their relatives have in America and so live always wanting more, reaching in places that they wouldn't normally as a means of achieving it.

Do you have a suggestions for a Caribbean read?

My Thoughts: Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller

I spent my snowy afternoon watching TV and then finishing the novel Fox Girl. The novel is set primarily in America Town in Korea. Sookie and Huyan Jin are best friends from two different parts of the town. Sookie's mum has lots of American GIs as 'boyfriends' whilst Huyan Jin's father dotes on her whilst running a corner shop which sells both Korean and American sweets and drinks. When Sookie's mum suddenly disappears the world her mum works in suddenly becomes apparent. Sookie is soon forced to work the clubs and look for American GIs to be her boyfrind. After a revelation Huyan Jin soon finds that the world of America Town which she had always looked up to is fast becoming her only possible means of escape.

The novel created a world for me which we know exists but tend to shy away from. The girls in the novel have to stoop to the lowest levels to finds means and ways to stay alive, creating women and men who are hardened to their loved ones. The myth of the fox girl runs throughout the novel - a fox who had it all but wanted to become human.
Read for my Olympic Challenge.

My Thoughts: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

This book was doing the blogsphere rounds last year when I signed up to recieve it as part of a bookcrossing bookring, the copy visited many people in many coutries before it arrived here with me, I'll be sending it off to the next person this weekend so it can carry on its travels.

Greg Mortenson was a mountainer who whilst attempting to climb K2 become horribly lost and stranded, he was rescued by his untrained Pakistani carrier and led safely back down the mountain. He stumbled across an tiny village in Baltisan, a place where white men never visited as it was too far off the beaten track. Whilst there Greg was nursed back to health and made to feel welcome by all. He was shocked into admiration when he saw the local boys and girls trying to educate themselves on a patch of land - they had access to a teacher just once a week, the rest of the time they taught each other. Greg, touched by this promised to build the village a school.
Back in America Greg sent out letters asking for the $12,000 he needed to build a school, no replies came back, so he set about working to save the money himself. Luckily a doner was found and Greg ploughed himself into buidling this school, he faced many problems with stolen goods, travel issues, the weather and numerous others.
Greg soon realised that this village was not the only one to need help, his doner created a charity for his as a way that Greg could create schools across the region. Greg's main focus was on educating girls as they had a greater impact on the wealth and wellbeing of a village. He also set up community working areas for women so they could create goods to trade using the skills of their communities.
And his story goes on. It was particularly moving reading about the rebuilding of schools in Afgahnistan after hearing the news of the bombings in Kabul this last few days.

This was an extremely moving book, and very open minded. The issues in Pakistan where highlighted truthfully - the warring between people to gain American help, but also the desperate need to educate these children and the rights of every child to gain an education. I would love to give a copy of this to the disengaged bright kids at school to show them what they are freely given and take for granted, and the worth that others put to it.
If ou haven't read it you should. I'll certainly be getting my own copy and lending it out, and copying sections for use in school.

Challenges:
Non-fiction 5
World Citizen Challenge
Olympic Challenge
In their shoes.

A Graphic Novel Trio

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Orbiter by Warren Ellis and Collen Doran
This really wasn't my cup of tea, way too sci-fi.
Venture, a space mission which went missing 10 years ago suddenly lands back on earth, one astronaut has survived the other 7 are missing. And the space ship is covered in a layer of skin!
Very random and full of science stuff that went straight over my head, I must have been suduced by the pretty colours on the cover when I picked this up because it was never going to be my thing.



Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie
Set on the Ivory Coast in the 1970's when the country was experiencing an economical boom: the city florished, education was of a high standard and life was a lot easier than it had ever been.
Aya is hardworking, she concentrates on school while her friends spend their evenings out partying trying to attract the next man. Despite Aya's warnings her friends meet their boyfriends in the 'night city' - the empty benches of the market. Parents are concerned with finding the best (richest) husband for their child.
Gorgeous illustations.

Read for Graphic Novel Challenge, YA, Olympic Challenege, Orbis Terrarum



The Wasteland by Martin Rowson
I was really concerned when I picked this up that this fella may do a disparity to my favorite poem. Luckily he stayed fairly well away from the poem.
The graphic novel is apparently based losely on TS Eliot's The Wasteland and Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (which I haven't read). The story is about a cops hunt for his partner's murderer in the murky underground of the city.
It was okay, nothing to scream home about, odd character references and titles from the poem came into play but not in a big way.

My Thoughts: The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

Today was a bank holiday in England so rather than doing the planned list of things that are desperately calling my name, I curled up and read this in its entirety.

The Blood of Flowers is written in the first person, the young girl tells the tale of her teenage years living in 17th Century Iran.
The book opens with the fortelling of a bad year brought by the arrival of a comet to the skies. The comet's fate leaves her father dead, and her and her mother fated to live a poor relatives in an unknown city in that vital year that she should be marrying.
After moving to the city of Isfahan the girl ad her mother are fated to servitude and compliance at the hands of distant rich relatives. Whilst their the girl is able to work on her skills as a carpet maker under the guidance of her uncle, the Shah's main carpet maker.
Being headstrong and defiant she upsets the rich relatives and has no choice but to have a sigheh - a 3 month long marriage - to a rich man. A man that helps her discover a world she never knew.
She then has to make that fatal decision stay with the rich man and gain his favours to keep her and her mother from poverty's grip or chance life as a carpet maker.
This tale is gripping and is interspresed with Iranian fables, told to explain the fates, would be good as a holiday read. My only problem with the novel was that the young girl was far too modern, she stood up to men, was defiant and bold all things which surely in 17th Century Iran wouldn't have been allowed, and would have been stopped by her parets long before she got to the age of 14.

Challenges:
Orbis Terrarum
Olympic Challenge
Chunkster Challenge

Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon: An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

Pages read total: 751 (+ 66 pages of picture books)
Books read: Finished Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, read What I Was by Meg Rosoff, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, An Elgy for Easterly, Mrs Biddlebox (pic book) and The Viewer by Gary Crew
Total reading time: approx 12 hours


I woke up fairly tired this morning after 4 hours sleep but picking up this book soon had me awake and interested again.

An Elegy for Easterly is a collection of short stories all revolving around different people from Zimbabwe, people of all classes suffering from similar problems.
Presidents wifes left to suffer after the husband dies of AIDS, families cheated by neighbours who borrow money to eascpe to the Western World, women unable to have children who are judged by all, families seeing yet another young daughter marrying a man with AIDS who has already buried two wifes.
The themes are recurring: AIDS, deception, corruption, the black market and the ever increasing prices and political promises that can reck a nation.
I never read short stories one after another as I find that they merge into one another, but with this collection each character was held seperately in my mind, each life story complete in itself.
A collection I would definately recommend to others.

Challenges:
2009 Pub Challenege
100 Shots of Short
A-Z Title
Orbis Terrarum
999 (African Reads and short story collection)
Olympic Challenge

My Thoughts: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Another 1001 book ticked off the list. This tiny book, only 147 pages tells of one day in the life of a Russian prisoner. One good day in his life.
The prisoners are subjected to working outside for 11 hours a day at -11 degrees, the men have little to keep them warm and have to strive to keep every morsel of food and clothing to themselves.
The men work together like a family, constantly trying to scrape something extra for themselves at the risk of being put in confinment.
Challenges:
999 (1001)
Nobel Prize
Olympic Challenge: Russia
A-Z (Title)
1% Well Read Challenge
Orbis Terrarum
Through the Decades (1960s)
Lost in Translation
Guardian 1000 novels

My Thoughts: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Boy this book has taken me so long to read, a week and a half may not sound so long to some people but thats more than double the time I normally take.

An Indian housewife steps down to the Ganga to wash and sees a vision of a ship, she goes inside and immediately draws what she has seen. What is so shocking about the vision is that the woman has never seen even a drawing of a ship before, yet before long her life has dramatically changed and the ship, the Ibis has become an important element of her life.

This book is littered with characters from far reaching areas of life - a mixed race American, a young girl born and raised outside of the traditions of the British or Indian culture, a fallen raja, and an Indian widow on the run after marrying below her caste. Each has an individual story, a reason to end up onboard the Ibis.

These characters where all gripping and I will be looking out for the next instalment of the triology to see what becomes of them.

Having read and loved The Glass Palace I was disappointed with this book, I did find it was overly long, and although I loved all of the characters, the vast array of plot lines and the ranges of langauges, religious and cultural traditions and beliefs created a very challenging read.

Have you read this? Id be interested to hear other peoples opinions on this book.

Metamorphosis by Kafka

I've been meaning to read this for years and years and disgracefully only just got around to it, but at least I got there. This was my first read for Dewey's Martel Harper Challenge.

I knew the basic concept of this book, a guy wakes up one morning transformed into a bug, but I never realised how drawn in I'd get. As the novella progresses we watch the way his family reacts to his transformation - moving from fear through to contempt. And we watch his reaction, his loneliness and abandonment.

Definately a book everyone should checkout.

The Martel- Harper Challenge is to read the books that Yann Martel sends to the Canadian president Stephen Harper, here is a copy of the letter Martel sent along with the book

Challenges

Martel-Harper
Olympic Challenge 2012

My Thoughts: Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington

This book was a bookring from Bookcrossing, and this will be a very short book review as I really have very little to say about the book. This is a memoir about 3 aboriginal girls (aged 8-15). The girls are of mixed race, as a result the Austrailian Government decided that they should be taken from their homes and trained up for domestic labour. The girls soon realise what is happening and runaway, following the rabbit-proof fence hundreds of miles across Australia to get home. It should be good, right? This book is only 130 pages, it could have done with being longer so the whole thing didn't seem so rushed, just a few moments from the journey are picked out, and the author never manages to depict the girls suffering and determination.

Having said all this, I'm glad I recieved this book as the envelope came stuffed with postcards from all the different places across the world that this book had travelled in the last 4 years.

Challenges:

YA Challenge Book 13/12

Olympic Challenge: Australia

Fall into Reading 1/24

My Thoughts: The Famished Road by Ben Okri

This book about the life a a spirit-child, he struggles and fights for his chance to live, and at many times has to fight against the spirits who want him to return to the spirit world.

The book deals with many African political and social problems, including poverty, hunger, lack of stability and the dirty tricks and means used by politicians to capture as man votes as they can. The whole community is filled with spirits and their actions can affect the life of all, yet the boy is the person most affected. He moves between normal life, the spirit world and a time and space where they both converge.

I'll be honest and say that this book was a struggle, I'm sure that their were many references to folk tales, religion and cultural beliefs that I just didn't know enough about to recognise. However, this is a book that I wish I had had the opportunity to study when I was at university, it would have been great to learn about the influences, origins and context of the novel and to attend seminars and hear other peoples views about it.

Challenges:

2008 Booker Challenge: Book 5/6

Fall into Reading: Book 1

Olympic Challenge: Nigeria

Book Awards 2: Book 1/10

Other Reviews:

Jackie's

Trevor's Review

The Sunday Salon: An unproductive week...

I just seem to be accumulating books rather than reading many this week. In terms of reading I mannaged 1 kids book, a short story and a novel which I have no idea how to write up! The novel was The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho, an author I always enjoy. This was a strange read, I was never sucked into it but the style is easy so I got through it in a few hours. The searching for your angel part and the fact that it was based on his real life just never felt real, and never grabbed me. Anyone else read this?

As for today, I'm off to the library and for a very late breakfast/lunch in a place where the food is all gorgeous and fresh so I don't feel like I'm ruining the second day of the diet. I have some studying to do later, but then I'm hoping to sit down and read some more Maus and The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier, a book that I'm absolutely loving.

For the Olympic Challenge, which I'm taking part in over at Bookcrossing.com, I'm looking for reads for each of the various countries in Africa to start with. If anyone has any recommendations, partucuarly for the harder coutries like: Burundi, Chad, Gabon and Libiya just to name a few, I'd be grateful to hear them, the author just has to have been born there.

RIP III: Two in One

Two books read for the RIP challenge, one a graphic novel and one a kids book, I will get to a novel soon.

Three Shadows (Graphic Novel) ****

Back then, life was simple and sweet. The taste of cherries, the cool shade, the fresh smell of the river...That was how we lived, in a vale among the hills - sheltered from storms, ignorant of the world, as though on a island, peaceful and untroubled.
And then...
Then everything changed.

Three Shadows starts of with an idyllic family life, out marching in woods, picking fruit and warm nights by the fire. And, as we all know, idyllic family life never lasts. Upon the hill appears three shadows. Everyday the loom over the little family, some times a little closer some times a little further away, but still each day they are there, a threatening presence.
As it becomes clear that is is Jochaim's life they have come to take, the massive father decides to steal his son away, to escape the threat of death. But death is inescapable and will always follow.
The graphics are stunning, full of bright whites and deep blacks to reveal the ever present shadows in the distance. This is the first graphic novel I have read, where the text is fairly sparse, and at first I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but the pictures quickly grabbed my imagination.
Challenge: YA Challenge, RIP III, Olympic Challenge (France), Unread Authors Challenge

Other Reviews: Bart Shuffleboil

Varjak Paw (Kids book) ***

I was really looking forward to reading this novel, but it never quite grabbed me. I read a lot of YA fiction, and this book was aimed at children of 8-10 (I'd guess), which may have been the problem, it was just a little too young for my tastes. Having said that, I think it would be a great book to read to a child who relished scary tales.

The story is about Varjak Paw, a pedigree cat who has spent his whole life inside one house, as his family is believed too precious to risk letting outside. When their owner disappears (a trip to heaven) a man in black enters the house, with his two vicious black cats, Varjak warns the family of the trouble to come. Being the odd one out in the family, Varjak is ignored, so he goes on a hunt to find a dog to help him rescue his family.

Life outside has many lessons for Vajak to learn, some new things he is taught by his new friends and some as part of a dream sequence. The question really is, is outside more dangerous than the threat in the house. Outside you have to face gangs of cats and deal with the Vanishings. And Varjak also has to find and talk to a dog - with one big problem, he has no idea what a dog is.

The illustrations in the novel capture the story perfectly, and add to the scary tone.

Challenges: RIP III, YA Challenge, Olympic Challenge: Lebanon, Unread Authors Challenge