My Thoughts: Creole Folktales by Patrick Chamoiseau

I love folktales so when this was offerred as a bookring on bookcrossing I jumped at the chance to read it. The folk tales are from Chamoiseau's home island Martinique.

I started off loving this book and each tale, by the end I was enjoying the folktales less I'm not sure if this was the tales themselves which didn't grip me as much or if I had just overdosed in too short a space of time. I'm not going to talk about them all, I've just picked out a couple of those I loved.

'The Rainmaker' is the story of a village often suffering drought, one of the villagers brings a small boy to the village. The boy shows the villagers that with a needle he can draw the rainclouds closer and closer and make them shed their rain. He can even determine how much rain they drop. A village elder wishes for a shower not knowing that this is the only type of rain the village will now get.


'Madame Kelman' This short story reminded me very much of Hansel and Gretel and of several African folktales. A young unwanted daughter is sent into the forest each night with an impossible task to fill, the mother is hoping she will come to harm without the mother having a direct hand in her death. One day she sends the girl out with another errand and the girl searches and searched for the item which doesn't exist and ends up getting lost in the forest. She comes across a house with a witch inside, disgiused as an old lady. The witch promises her she can eat any of the lovely food on display if she brings the witch some water from the river. After drinking gallons of water and not fulfilling her promise the witch says she will feed the starving girl if the girl can find out the witches name. The girl ventures back out into the forest again and eventually discovers the witches name, when this is evealed to the witch the witch has to fulfill her promise. In a rage the witch rips off the horn of a bull, the leg of a donkey and the graceful neck of a crab leaving them all as we see them today.

This book is worth picking out, I think I'll get my own copy as it would be lovely to dip into this every now and again.

For the A-Z challenge

Do you have any particular countries folktales that you love?

The Sunday Salon: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers bu Loung Ung

I haven't posted a book review on here in ages - I seem to be distracted lately when reading or I'm too busy to actually get to a book. This is the first nook I have finished in a while, but I have a poetry collection and another non-ficion half read so they should be coming up for review shortly.

I picked this book about Cambodia off of the shelves as I'm planning on travelling there next summer (5 weeks to explore Cambodia, Laos and south Vietnam - I've done the north already and loved it) and also my ex is there at the moment and he has been raving about it in his emails.
First The Killed My Father is a memoir, Loung Ung was just 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge stormed Phnom Penh causing thousands to escape from the city in search of safety. Coming from a rich family bacame both a danger but also a blessing as this family went on the run. Escaping first to families homes and then to distant villages they had to be careful at every moment to hide the father's past work with the old government. The Khmer Rouge a Communist Extremist group forced families to live in camps on meager rations, for children to work in rice fields and vegetable patches to help feed the armies. Her brother is forced to face bullying by the generals children as a means of keeping the family alive with a few extra scraps of food each night. As Loung gets older she witness the death of her sister and the disappearance of her father. She then is sent to a Children's Camp where the kids are taught how to attack the 'enemy' with the tools they use in their jobs.
The stories of what the families went through and the seperation of the families is harrowing, the political side of things is very sketchy so I'll be searching out a few non-fiction texts to find out more about the place before I go - the ex has already recommended one, which I'll borrow when he arrives back in the UK.

Challenges:
World Citizen Challenge
A-Z (Author)
In Their Shoes

Sunday Salon: Travelling from the Sofa

Africa - Sudan
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

A young man returns to his village after many years and finds that a stranger has moved into town and managed to work his way into the tightly knit community who are normally wary of strangers. In this place where each persons heritage is known the stranger is a rarity, it isn't even known from which village he comes from.
When he finally meets the stranger he becomes obsessed, the stranger suddenly talks to him in well-spoken English,revealing at first a small part of his past.
The past is revealed in more detail when we discover that the stranger had been taken to court and held on the charge of murdering his own wife, and being the named cause of the suicide of many of English women. When the stranger suddenly disappears into the floods one night, feared dead, the obsession doesn't end it only becomes stronger.
Challenges:
999 (tbr + Arfican reads)
Orbis


Japan
Crossing Midnight by Mike Carey, Jim Fern and Mark Pennington
This fantastic graphic novel tells the story of twins Kai and Toshi. During the mothers pregnancy the father promised a sacrifice in payment for the birth of a healthy child. Unknown to him (and the doctors) his wife was expecting twins.
Boisterous children they quickly learn that Toshi is incapable of coming to harm through knifes and sharp objects. This knowledge leads her to be brave, disobedient and confident unlike her brother Kai.
One night Toshi wakes up to find a large man, surrounded by hovering knives leaning over her, he demands that she is his, the payment for the sacrifice her father made. When she refuses to go with him her dog is dismembered into tons of pieces. The creatures keep returning and the payments for refusal get higher, Kai ends up fighting to save the whole family from the instrusion of these mythical creatures.
This is my first violent graphic novel, I tend to stick to memoirs, and I really enjoyed it. At the back of the book the author writes about Japanese mythology and folklore which has made me want to discover more.
Challenges:
Graphic Novel
Japanese Literature Challenge
Orbis Terrarum


America (and the spiritual world)
A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

I picked up this book because the cover resembled the fantastic Siobhan Dowd novel
A Pure Swift Cry, I had no idea what the book was going to be about as the synopsis is written in a pale blue against a moss green background making it hard to read.
The ovel starts with Helen, a Light, a ghost trapped on earth. She is doomed to walk the earth following a host - a person she has chosen as a life line, if she moves away from this person she feels herself being pulled into hell.
Helen follows after Mr Brown, an English teacher and is always present in his life, unbeknown to him, until she realises that a pupil can see her. The pupil James, was also a light until he learnt how to inhabit the body of a dead soul.
The pair join up and quickly become tied to each other, they struggle with their own lives plus the lives of the host body they have come to inhabit.
I haven't done this justice at all, this is a great read - its intense, gripping and your pulled right into their world. (YA for older teens).
Challenges:
YA 2009
A-Z (Name)

My Thoughts: The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint

Having read The Wild Woods by Charles de Lint a few months ago I was eager to read some more when I spotted The Onion Girl as a audiodownload. I've been listening to this on my long walks to town and the gym (40 mins each way) and looking the world which was created in my mind.
Fairie artist Jilly is knocked down in a hit and run and left in a coma, whilst in this coma she discovers the ability to visit the 'dreamworld', a world a few of her friends inhabit reguarly or through their own dreams. When I got to this point I thought it was going to be a cute story but then things get darker. We learn about Jilly and her sister's abuse as children and the different paths it led them through. We watch as her sister Raylene grows up living a life of crime and escaping into the dream world to hunt as a wolf. We also get to know many of Jilly's fabulous friends, they're all different and quirky in their own way.
The novel splits between different characters and places and worlds, giving us different impressions of what is going on. More Charles de Lint will soon be added to my tbr pile!
Challenges:
A-Z (Title)

My Thoughts: The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

This is my second read for the Southern Challenge, it featured lots of Southern food which was making my mouth water as I was reading it, fried shrimps and grits (whatever they are!).

The Mermaid Chair is Kidds second novel after writing the bestselling The Secret Life of Bees - which I loved but can't remember a bit of. This book will be the same, it was a good read for the last two rainy afternoons but it will slip out of the memory pretty soon.
Jessie is woken one night by a phone call, her mother has puposefully chopped off one of her fingers. Jessie rushes back to her and her childhood home, a place of ghosts and memories which she has avoided for years.
The return home (as happens in many novels), sparks doubts about her present life and reveals truths from the past. Within hours of being there she has fallen in love with a monk in training and figured that her mother chopped her finger off because of her guilt over her husbands death.
The novel is set on an unnamed island off the coast of South Carolina. I think it was the islands quirky characters which made this book more enjoyable, their is Kat and her daughter Benne - a woman with a childs mind, Hepzaith who speaks Gullah the language of the slaves, a mermaid shop I wanted to dive into, a few charming monks and Max the dog who seems to belong to every islander.

Challenges:
The Southern Reading Challenge
A-Z (Author)

My Thoughts: Mudbound by Hliary Jordan

I finally got around to my first Southern book for the 2009 Southern Reading Challenge, I've only got a few weeks letf to read the other two!

Mudbound has been reviewed a lot in the blogsphere, so I 'm probably repeating what you've heard before with this review, so I'll keep it short.
Laura marries Henry unaware that he plans to spend his life as a farmer. When he buys land and a farm without her knowing her whole life is turned upside down. They settle on to the mud-bath of a farm alongside her cantankerous, racist father-in-law and the brother-in-law that she loves. Problems arise when her fathers racism is agitated.

I loved the way that this novel has different chapters narrated by different characters, not only does it give you different perspectives on the events but also you hear the different voices of each character.
I finished this in two sittings, looking forward to more from this author.

Challenges:
The Southern Reading Challenge
A-Z (Author)
999 (New Fiction)

p.s I started and abandoned Cold Mountain - so will be finding an alternative Southern book to read.

My Thoughts: The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera

After saying yesterday that my reading had slowed down I polished of The Whale Rider in an hour last night. This kids book focuses on Maori New Zealanders, living between the traditions of their cultures and the fast paced world around them.
Kahu came into the world a girl, a fact that greatly disappointed her grandfather, he desired a male grandchild to keep the Maori language and beliefs alive with the new generations. Kahu, desperate for her grandfather's attention sneaks into the lessons he gives deliving cultural knowledge and langauge to the local boys. Despite being always under his feet her grandfather doesn't see the power Kahu inside her until fate intervenes and she is forced to act.
A great read for kids, made me want to learn more about the Maori culture
Challenges:
A-Z (Author)
999 (YA)
Young Adults 2009
Orbis Terrarum

My Thoughts: Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton

This has been my bath read for the last week: perfect for soaking after a 2 hour session in the gym as its short, has short chapters and is a good easy read.
Goodbye Mr Chips tells the quaint English tale of an old school teacher with a love and passion for the school he teaches in and the boys who board there. Despite being well past retirement age, Mr Chips still meets new pupils, lunches with the staff and at times gets called in in an emergency. The boys see him as a representative of the school.
If you fancy tackling a classic but want an easy read this is the one for you.
Challenges:
999 (tbr)
The Rescue Challenge
a-z (title)

My Thoughts: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

With just 5 days to go till the end of the Once Upon a Time Challenge I still have 2 books to read!!!! Life has been chaotic and I haven't been getting in my normal amount of reads, last week we had an open door week at school - any teacher can go and walk in and observe another teachers lesson (stressful), I had to organise and take 200 kids on a trip and write 26 reports on pupils in my form group (I see them for 15 mins a day and only teach 2 of them). Plus I uped the amount of time I'm spending at the gym.

I have the biggest book pile to tackle, the 6 weeks summer holiday is going to be a book a day mission to try and control the ever growing stack of books.

Over the weekend I finished Inkheart, and boy it was great.
Synopsis: Meggie is wokeon one night to find a strange man standing outside her bedroom window. Awakening her day he invites the man in and they go off for a private chat.
After that night Meggie's life makes a massive change, her and bookloving bookbinding father go off to an book obsessed aunt in the country. Meggie discovers her father can read characters out of a book, and he is hunted down and kidnapped by the very creatures he once read out of a book. And then the adventure begins...

What I liked: The fairy tale style, made me feel like a kid again. It also has a really positive approach to reading.

What I didn't like: It made my mental tbr pile grow, each chapter starts with a quote from another novel, it made me want to read Peter Pan again, The Princess Bride, and The Jungle Book. Seriously, I enjoyed it all.

Challenges:
Once Upon a Time
YA 2009
A-Z (Title)
999 (YA)

My Thoughts: Blindness by Jose Saramago

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This is the first novel that I have read by this Nobel winning author and I'll definately be keeping my eye out for more.
As Blindness opens we are on a busy main road witing for the lights to change from red to green. As soon as the lights flicker to green all the lanes start moving except one. The car at the front of the lane is stopped still, as people go to find out why they notice the man inside screaming. Someone opens the door and the sound of his screams, 'I'm blind' echo around the streets.
Gradually as the days pass more and more people become blind, first only those who came into contact with the first blind man and then those who come into contact with them.
As a method of controlling the spreading of the blindness, those who have gone blind and those who are known to have had contact with them are entered into an empty mental asylum. No one exchanges names, as more people enter the institution they announce their proffession but all instinctively keep their names, and thus their try identities hidden.
Unbeknown to anyone except her husband a woman who hasn't lost her sight is living amongst the blind. She keeps an eye out for people, helps the sick and injured. As the days pass less and less food or sanitation is provided, inevitably things in the wards go from bad to worse and the situation spirals out of control.

This novel is so full and degfinately worth the read, clearly allegorical, looking at the 'blindness' of society, the selfish and helpless people we have become.
My only hangup with this book was the layout. There is no punctuation for speech, when someone speaks there was just a comma followed by a capital letter. And when another person replied this was simply shown by the capitalisation of their forst word. As a result the paragraphs are extremely long, after a few pages I got used to the layout and it didn't bother me so much, but made this book hard to read when I was tired.
Challenges:
A-Z (Author)
999 (Award Winners)
Lost in Translation

Book Awards III


Book Awards II finished on June 1st and I failed miserably reading only 5 books when I needed to read 10. I read:
1. The Gathering by Anne Enright - Booker (2007)
2. The Famished Road by Ben Okri - Booker (1991)
3. The Hours, Cunningham
4. Fugitive Pieces, Michaels
5. Gould's Book of Fish, Flanagan

My favourite would definately be Fugitive Pieces with The Gathering being runner up.
Despite, or probably because of my failure I'm going to be giving this challenge another go.I still have many books on my original list that I'd like to read.
This 3rd version starts on July 1st and runs untill December 1st and requires 5 books to be read. This is my pool which I will chose from (and hopefully complete this time).

The Sea by John Banville - Booker (2005)
Wild Swans - Chang - British Book Award (1994)
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy - Commonwealth Writers' Prize (1994)
Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang -Commonwealth Writers' Prize (2001)
Andrea Levy, Small Island -Commonwealth Writers' Prize (2005) Costa (2004)
Charles Frazier Cold Mountain - National Book Award (1997)
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson - Pulitzer (2005)
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami - World Fantasy Award (2006)
Alice Munro — Runaway -Giller Prize (2004)
Mal Peet, Tamar -Carnegie 2005
Mary Norton, The Borrowers - Carnegie 1952
Spell of Winter - Dunmore -Orange 1996
Sunshine, Robin McKinley (Mythopoeic)
The Fair Folk, Marvin Kaye, World Fantasy

The 5 books have to come from 5 different awards, for more details go to the challenges blog here

A Fraction of a Whole, Steve Toltz

This is one of last years Booker Nominees which I'm still trying to read through! The novel is a sons account of living with a father who is livig in the shadow of his dead brother. Sounds confusing, huh! Terry Dean became a national hero despite being a serial killer, he took it to himself to rid the sporting world of cheats and was killed whilst in prison.
His brother, Martin, had a pretty strange life, even without the murderous brother, he spent 7 years of his childhood in a coma, travelled the world, fathered and 'looked after' our narrator, rarely worked, ended up being sectioned then tried to make Australia a country of millionaires. And then became Australia's most hated man.
As you can see from above, Martin's son Jasper had a pretty strange background he writes the novel telling his own story within that of his father's.

According to Amazon this is the book they felt should win, I still haven't read White Tiger (It's waiting on a shelf). I loved the first 500 pages, the text was fast paced and amusing but then it started to drag. Last night I decided just to skim read the last 150 pages. I still loved the characters and wated to know what happened, but I didn't need the detail - and things were getting far fetched even for this book.
I'm glad I read it, but I feel the 720 pages could be edited down by a good 200 pages. Anyone else read this? What did you think?

Challenges:
Booker
A-Z (Title)
Chunkster Challenge
Orbis Terrarum
999 (New Book)

My Thoughts: A Fraction of a Whole by Steve Toltz

This is one of last years Booker Nominees which I'm still trying to read through! The novel is a sons account of living with a father who is livig in the shadow of his dead brother. Sounds confusing, huh! Terry Dean became a national hero despite being a serial killer, he took it to himself to rid the sporting world of cheats and was killed whilst in prison.
His brother, Martin, had a pretty strange life, even without the murderous brother, he spent 7 years of his childhood in a coma, travelled the world, fathered and 'looked after' our narrator, rarely worked, ended up being sectioned then tried to make Australia a country of millionaires. And then became Australia's most hated man.
As you can see from above, Martin's son Jasper had a pretty strange background he writes the novel telling his own story within that of his father's.

According to Amazon this is the book they felt should win, I still haven't read White Tiger (It's waiting on a shelf). I loved the first 500 pages, the text was fast paced and amusing but then it started to drag. Last night I decided just to skim read the last 150 pages. I still loved the characters and wated to know what happened, but I didn't need the detail - and things were getting far fetched even for this book.
I'm glad I read it, but I feel the 720 pages could be edited down by a good 200 pages. Anyone else read this? What did you think?

Challenges:
Booker
A-Z (Author)
Chunkster Challenge
Orbis Terrarum
999 (New Books)

Exploration: Latin American Fiction Challenge Round Up

I've had a hectice week so this is later than expected (by a couple of days!)
I fiished my last couple of books for the Latin American Challenge this week. Firstly I read Love in the Time of Cholera, I brought this book about 8 or 9 years ago after I first read and loved One Hundred Years of Solitude. I then read a few pages of this, thought it wasn't might type of thing and it got relegated onto the bookshelves to gather dust.
This time I picked it up willing to give it more of a chance and loved it. The book starts with the death of two elderly men, both in perculiar circumstances. One of the men is the husband of the main character of the novel. As a young girl she sent countless love letters to a young man, whom she secretly agreed to marry. After her father found out about the proposal he banned them from seeing each other forever and see eventually married another. He on the other hand swore to marry her when her husband died. The love story and all that happens in their lives in between is mesmerising. I really must read more of Marquez.
Also used as a challenge book for:
A-Z (Title)
1%
1001 Challenge
Orbis Terrarum
999 (1001)
What's in a Name (Medical Condidtion)
Guardian 1000


Then I read The Aguero Sisters by Cristina Garcia. This book started off slowly but picked up after 70 odd pages. The novel tells the story of two sisters brought up seperately - because the elder child kept trying to kill her younger sibling, as her mother had emotionally abandoned her in favour of a new life. The sisters are brought together again during their mid-life crisis. One lives in poverty striken Cuba, in the middle of the revoluionary campaign whilst the other lives in New York. Their mothers mysterious death, followed by their father's suicide leaves them both unstable. Full of magical realism this is definately a good example of Latin American Fiction.
Also Used for these challenges:
Orbis Terrarum
999 (TBR)

I also read Bel Canto and The House of Spirits, I loved 3 of them and enjoyed the other - The Aguero Sisters.

Other Challengers Books:
Ex Libris
Malinche by Laura Esquivel Reviewed by Ex Libris
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alveraz, Reviewed by Richard
Battles in the Desert by Jose Emillio Pacheco
Amulet by Roberto Bolana
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis


Anyone else with reviews or wrap up posts please comment here and I'll add it to the page.

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: Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan

Before you even start reading this I'm going to let you know that I'm still thinking WHAT?!?! about this book, I finished it an hour ago and have read what a few of the papers had to say about it.
Gould's Book of Fish is set in Tasmania, Australia. An 'antique' dealer (faker) finds this book in a junk shop and becomes obsessed with proving that it is geuine. The little book is described as containing paintings of fish, with dense script surrounding the images and trapped on scraps of paper tucked into the book, the handwriting is crabbed and a mix of colours as the writer has had to make ink from whatever he can find around him.
Up untill then everything is clear, then you get to actually read 'The Book of Fish'. Gould is a convict, imprisoned on the island. He is sent each day to work for one of the wealthy men of the island, a scientist who claims he wants to categorise the fish in the area, with a limited ability to paint Gould sets to work. We then hear Gould talkig about his paintings and his growing obsession with fish, as well as his afairs with a local black woman, the murder of aboriginies, and the treatment of the convicts among many things far more confusing.

Challenges:
A-Z (Author)
999 (Award Winners)
Book Awards 2

My Thoughts: Mr Toppit by Charles Elton

Published this year, Charles Elton has taken the tale of Christopher Robin - the real one, not the fictional character, who felt trapped and suffered after his father created a character is his name who's fame would haunt him and cause him to become seperated from his family. Elton takes this idea and modernises it, gives it a spin.
Mr Toppit is about a dysfuntional family who come under the media spotlight years after their father's death. He dies in an accident with an American radio presenter at his side. After ambushing the family home in the days after his death, the radio presenter Laurie Clow is given copies of the Hayseed Chronicles.
The father's novels, The Hayseed Chronicles are a fairly unknown children's collection, in which the father creates a tale out of his family home, the woods behind them and names his central character after his son. Laurie Clow becomes obsessed with the family and the books and ends up reading them on her radio show once she return to the States. Eventually the books become well known, films are made, readers visit the real Darkwoods looking for Mr Toppit, a dictorial figure who's identity is never revealed in the children's books.
The popularity of the books creates problems for Luke - people assume the books are actually about him, and his elder sister who is missing from the books yet becomes obsessed with having a kind of ownership over them.
I enjoyed the book, but I think I would have enjoyed The Hayseed Chronicles more.

Challenges
2009 Pub Challenge 1/9
A-Z (Authors)
999 (New Fiction)

My Thoughts: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

I came across this novel when I read Raidergirls review and quickly added it to the reservation list at the local library. I seem to be slowing down with my reading at the moment and have a rather large book on the go at the moment, so needed something easy to read to give me a sense of achievement, and this was just the thing.

The City of Ember is a post-apoclyptic novel, set in a largely recongnisable world. The city is a city of darkness, there is no moon or sun, and the electricity across the city is turned out each night at the same time. The food is largely tinned vegetables as there appears to be no animals except for bugs. Once this was a prosperous city, yet the stocks are now depleted, a tin of peaches is now something that can only be savoured in the minds of the elderly, and scraps of paper are saved and deemed as precious.
Doon and Lina, two teens who have just entered the workforce are concerned about the depleted stocks and the power cuts which are becoming more and more recent.
In Lina's flat, a damanged set of instructions are found and the pari set out to discover a new world for the inhabitants of the city.

The City of Ember is written for a 9+ audience, and it is important to remember that whilst reading, as many things seem a little to easy. I will be checking out the next book to see how their lives pan out.

Challenges:
A-Z (Author)
2009 Young Adult Book Challenge
End of the World II

My Thoughts: Y the Last Man: Unmanned (Vol 1) by Brian K. Vaugn and Pia Guerra

This fantastic graphic novel is the first in the series, I'm hoping that the rest are just as good.

This volume introduces us to a fairly recognisable world, in some jobs and careers women and men are equal in other inequality still exists. Then a series pf events occur and the men instataneously drop dead. All except one: Yorrick (and his pet monkey).

As the women try to come to terms with the recent events and keep their lives moving they have a series of problems to contend with: A need to clear away the dead bodies, a lack of food and services, a lack of a stable experienced government and the Amazons. The Amazons are a bunch of hard headed feminists, set out to control through fear and violence, they celebrate the destruction of the male society and seek ways to exploit their position. Their trademark: One burnt off breast.

The next volume is on hold at the library, can't wait to pick it up.

Challenges:
A-Z (Titles)
Graphic Novel Challenge 5/12

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: The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland

I'm bogged down in Bookring reads at the moment, you sign up to read a book in the space of four weeks and don't see a bookring book for ages and then 6 appear at once, hopefully they'll fit into challenges so I don't get too far behind.

The Gum Thief, will be my second Canadian read for the Canadian Reading challenge, this would be great but the challenge finishes in July and I'm so unlikely to even make it halfway!

I read Microserf's last year so I was ready for the quirky style of this novel. Roger, a wannabe novelist, divorcee and all roud depressed guy works at Staples and spends his time drinking out in the loading bay and most importantly writing his diary. Bethany his co-worker finds his diary and starts to read, then realises that he often writes his diary entries as if he is her writing a diary. After this discovery she starts adding letters to the diary and the two form a friendship on paper. The novel is told mainly through these letters and the odd notes sent by other people in their world.
Alongside this we also have instalments of Roger's first attempt at a novel, Glove Pond , a random story about an alcoholic couple who are in a major crisis with their lives, and also Bethany's attempts to write a descriptive piece of the life of a piece of toast. Yes I said it was quirky and I meant it.

This was a nice easy read for the weekend, and while it was mainly humourous their were lots of insights into the dark side of the characters lives.

Challenges:
A-Z (Title)
Orbis Terratum (Extra list)
The 2nd Canadian Reading Challenge
What's in a Name? (Profession)