Chunkster 2011 - finishline

 

Yes, I did it! Kinda list minute, kinda last 100 meters, but I think I did it. Last year I joined this challenge on January 15th, the first post is here.Some things changed on the way, I didn't read the book I thought I was going to read (Gone with the Wind, Shantaram or Fall of Giants - I still have them on my TBR) - but I ended up reading 6 beautiful books, different and amazing, finishing the Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? level

Small reviews here:  

1. Anna Karenina (Adevarul - 960 pagini)
2. Cartea soaptelor by Varujan Vosganian (Polirom 528 pagini) trad The Book of Whispers
3. Casa de lut  - 3 volume - The Good Earth 438p, Sons 560p, A House Divided 393p - 1391p
4. Alegerea Sofiei - Editura ART - 712 pagini
5. Sa ucizi o pasare cantatoare - 493 pagini
6. Cioplitorul in piatra - 597 pagini 

Everything was so last minute because I neglected to write a few lines about the book once I finished it - Note to self - Don't do that again !

Looking forward to this year's challenge! I've already joined and I'm already down one book.

LE (Feb 1st) And a different wrap, here are two photos from late last night - small tower of the books I've read for this challenge and Nichi, my cat - being very interested in the books' smell, some of them are bought from a second hand shop, maybe that's why she's so into smelling them.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Reading about this book and its author I discovered Truman Capote and I added – In Cold Blood to my wish list. I read To Kill Mockingbird in the summer at the seaside, during a work thing I had last year. It is not quite the holiday book you take with you hoping for a light reading J but I loved the book and I would recommend it to anyone. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 so it fits right in my Pulitzer Project. It deals with racism related events seen though a young girls’ eyes, in America in the 1920ies.  It is Harper Lee’s only book and it won many awards, but I think that the biggest reward is that it is so up-to-date now, many years after it was first published. I will find time to see the movie also, but I know it cannot compare with the book.  Movies never do

“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,/

Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,……./

A reminiscence sing” – Walt Whitman  

The Book of Whispers/Cartea soaptelor

I bought this book because it won the best book award in 2009 and because it’s written by Varujan Vosganian – an Armenian politician and I was curious. I read it slowly because some parts are quite strong, especially the circles of death. It’s a biography of Armenians in Romania, the history of the 1915 genocide, life stories of those who chose exile and of those who chose to stay, it’s a tangled web of characters, destinies, families. It was amazing to me that the childhood memories, all the smells and images were so vivid and it was enough to close our eyes and take a break from reading and you were in Focsani in the 50ties and the smell of fresh coffee or green nuts would surround you. I think this book has it’s charm because it written in Romanian, Mr. Vosganian is a skilled and wonderful story teller and I will find an opportunity to hear him read from his book because I am sure it would be like time traveling back into a time when my parents were just babies. It is surprising how things change in 50 and so years. To me it was less of a history lesson, more of a peoples’ fresco.  

“Noi nu ne deosebim prin ceea ce suntem, ci prin mortii pe care fiecare ii plange” a spus bunicul meu Garabet.

Rough translation :

“We do not distinguish each other by what we are, but through the dead we each weep”

Sophie's Choice

Sophie’s Choice

I usually have a good reason for picking a book up, buying it and reading it. I only know where I bought this book from, but not why. I’ve read it late this summer, but I didn’t get a chance to write anything about it. Maybe I took it because of The Diary of a Young Girl – although Sophie is not Jewish.

Three characters that I loved and hated at times and a very sad story. A love story, an agonizing life,  friendship and hate. It’s about a mother’s struggle to save her children during The Second WW, her chances, her choices. I read that this book produced quite a stir in 1979 when it appeared as it was explicit, but maybe due to the translation I didn’t get that feeling, but on the other hand, I read it in 2011. After all these months I still remember the scenes between Sophie and Nathan , scenes of love, jealousy, desperation,  self destruction and dependence. For sure it is a book worth reading again, at a wiser age, just to see what feeling digs up in me. Strong, powerful, breathtaking story about family, love and war. 

No1 - Chunkster 2012

My first book of this year is An Autobiography – Agatha Christie –I totally loved this book.  I love reading her books and especially this one. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to listen :) lovely-lovely book about childhood, family, love, life, in good and in bad times. I have to say that the best part of the book is the one about Ashfield , her childhood home. She describes everything she can remember, and she has quite a memory J  She lived in different times and  I was fascinated about those years and the way things were.  She experiences both wars, has 2 marriages,  a daughter and a full life. From this book I learned The tale about the two frogs that fell into a can of milk – one gave up and drowned, the second frog persevered, refused to give up, and gradually the milk turned into butter, and it was able to free itself from the can – I never knew it.  It suits this autobiography so well. I realize that it is somewhat an optimistic way of seeing your life and ,of course, she left out things like anyone would, but this made reading it even more special.

I am sure I will read this book again. (It is amazing that I paid only 10 RON (~2.5EUR) for this book from a second-hand bookshop and it was in my TBR list for so long)

Books to add to my shopping/reading list : 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

Chunkster 2012

YES, I will join this challenge for this year, but on a different level.

The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months. 

Definition of a chunkster:

A chunkster is 450 pages or more of ADULT literature, whether non-fiction or fiction. A chunkster should be a challenge

The 2011 competition ends on January 31st and I am a little behind with the "reviews" , I've done the reading, I still have to do the writing. 


I have a few books in mind and I also have a justification for the lower level - I found myself looking for large books over the year and disregarding the thinner ones and this year this must end :) but I am looking forward to reading 6 books of  450pages each. First one, I've just started it last night -  Agatha Christie An Autobiography . 

  LE:
        Six gone! by 21st of May!!!

 1 - An Autobiography - Agatha Christie   -  13th of January 
 2 - Poveste de dragoste africana -Caitlin Davies -  27th of February 
 3 - Gargui - Andrew Davidson - 23th of March
 4 - Corectii - Jonathan Franzen - 19th of April 
 5 - Poveste despre dragoste si intuneric - Amos Oz - 7th of May 
 6 - The Drowning - Camilla Lackberg - 21st of May

House of Earth (trilogy)

This year I’m discovering Pearl S Buck. I found in a second-hand bookshop all 3 volumes of The House of Earth for 20 RON (~ 5 EUR) so I took them and read them all in a few days. I was in China following the Wangs, being happy, struggling, suffering and prevailing with them. Favorite characters ? O-Lan, Wang The Tigre (to some extent) and his son - Yuan and his step mom. First volume – The Good Earth is rapid, strong, babies are being born one after another, Wang Lung is working hard and gathers a great deal of land, ensuring the future and wealth of his family. Sons (the second volume) is more difficult to read, things happen a little bit slower and Wang The Tigre is far away from his father’s land. He is a warier. The third volume is about the 3^rd generation of Wangs being as far away as possible from their roots. I loved the trilogy, I loved the writing, it felt different from one volume to the next. In the Romanian literature we have realistic novels (high school lit) about the relationship between a men and his piece of land and this relation trespasses culture and language and time. I cannot put my finger on it, but the Chinese description was more romantic in a way, or maybe I was too young and not interested in anything that had to do with Romanian peasants and their struggle to survive solely on the fruits of their land. I liked that characters are what they seem to be and with few surprises, what you think they will become. The women of the trilogy are not many, but different and their status changes – from slave (O-Lan) to well read woman (one of Tigre’s wives) to “modern” woman (Ai-lan) as the time passes by.

I’m fan of sagas and this one in particular.
The Good Earth - the first volume was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932.

Anna Karenina

These days I’ve finished reading Anna Karenina. Yes, I did it. The only thing I regret is knowing how it ends, I hated that I knew. The only thing that everyone knows about this book, whether they’ve read it or not is that Anna kills herself by throwing herself in front of a moving train. But what drives her to do it? Yes, it must be love, but how and why? I admit I didn’t like Anna and I didn’t understand her, and the last hours of her life were unbearable to me, difficult to read, to take in, very strong pages, at times I felt I couldn’t breath and I hated her, but it’s easy to watch and judge. I felt she was ill, burdened with despair, yes jealousy can drive someone crazy.  I read the book slowly trying to avoid the end, trying to postpone as much as possible what I knew was about to happen. But there were parts I enjoyed: Levin’s everything for Kitty (love, emotions, marriage proposal, first and second), Levin’s hunt, Vronsky’s horse race, Varenka and her “love” story. The scything passage in book reminded me of my grandfather, the way he sharpened his tools, the way his body moved when scything, the smell of hay. The working days in the country side don’t seem too different from those times to recent times in Romania. I liked Dolly, devoted to her children, forgiven of her husband, but not blind anymore. And I really liked the old Prince, Kitty and Dolly’s father. He loves his daughters and comforts them best he can.  I don’t know what happens with Vronsky, what Kitty feels when she hears about Anna, how Dolly lives her life, what happens to Serioja, but it’s a treat to imagine different scenarios.  

Seria neagra - printesa gheturilor (The Ice Princess)

I loved Camilla Lackberg's book The Ice Princess
I've read it in a couple of days, on the train and staying at my parents-in-law, it is a blast of a book, totally devoured it.

I will buy the following 6 books of the series (only the second it’s already been translated into Romanian, but I will wait with patience) and I will hope that they are as entertaining as The Ice  Princess.  It is not a literature masterpiece, but a lovely book keeping you in one place for longer and longer that you thought possible. If you like Stig Larsson you like these books. A murder, two murders, family secrets well kept, a nice little town in Sweden, a struggling write , a hard working policeman, a love story. Erica and Patrik discover each other in a romantic manner and I liked their love story as much as I liked the discovery of the murderer.  Camilla Lackberg has a simple, clean strategy of describing each character, in a few lines the reader learns everything that is relevant.  You get hints here and there and the story unfolds in front of your eyes.  The books has funny bits (Patrik’s boss in his megalomania was , to me, funny as Hell, and old man and his nagging wife and his solution to his „situation” J ) , macabre parts (the discovery of the bodies) and frightful episodes (Anna being brutally beaten by her husband).  The book ends giving answers to all the questions and I was happy to see that this is the first in a series.  Looking forward to reading The Preacher.  I don’t know if Erica and Patrik are characters in the next book, but I would love them to be. I only know that all of them are set in the same little town of Fjällbacka. Kinda like St. Mary Mead, but without Miss Marple.

My No 10 - The Road

This is my No 10 in Sarah's list -

• Ask a friend (preferably a person of impeccable taste, and definitely not someone who might have an axe to grind) to choose a book that you will, in their opinion, like 

So I asked a friend with impeccable taste to recommend me a book and he did: The Road.
This book, by American writer Cormac McCarthy was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer prize for Fiction so this made me twice as happy to read it - having in mind my wish to read as many Pulitzer books as possible. Well...to be true to myself I didn't enjoy reading it. I hated reading it, I felt guilty for the comfort of my house, the beauty of my world, the food I was eating, everything I had and they didn't. Father and son in an apocalyptic world, with people turned into animals, people eating babies,cannibals with no trace of compassion, humanity, nothing at all. I felt it was all an enumeration of all the awful, dreadful things that could happen. And I couldn't help myself but feeling optimistic, that things will change at the end of the book and they will reach the coast. A hint of positivity was left with me once I was done. And I am thankful for that. I will not read it again too soon, but I am going to read it again, a bit masochistic, I know. Don't read it if you feel down, don't read it if you are happy, excited or in a good place in your life. Read it when it's quiet and warm and it's snowing outside and read it all at once, like a bitter pill you have to swallow to feel stronger.
I've tried to see the movie, but it was too much for me. Half way through I said enough. Sorry.

Let The Great World Spin

Last week I’ve finished reading Let the Great World Spin. Loved the book, loved the characters and New York, and totally hated the small print. It’s the last time I’m buying/ reading a book printed in such a small font. If it weren’t for the story I would’ve dropped many many times. This book is about ordinary people living theirs lives, interposing in each others’ paths in the 70ties in New York. Two Irish brothers Corrigan and Ciaran living in Bronx, Claire and Gloria, mothers grieving their sons, Lara, a struggling painter, Tillie and Jazzlyn, mother and daughter hookers, Solomon, a judge, all connected on way or another with each other and witnessing or interacting in some way with Petit’s tightrope walk between the Twin Towers. I liked the writing and the way the style shifted when the story was told from another character’s perspective. Solomon was for me the most surprising. He is a judge and it is not every day that you see the world from a judge’s point of view. Gloria was closest to my heart with her difficult life, all that happened to her and still she finds the strength to move on, to help others and do good. 

 It's been a couple of days since I've closed this book, but I'm still thinking of Lara, Jazzlyn... and the beautiful way Colum McCann combined all their stories in one wonderful book.

 

My No 8 - East Wind: West Wind - Pearl S Buck

This is my first book for Sarah's challenge - Not a Rat’s Chance in Hell Challenge 
Pearl Buck is the first American women ever to receive the Nobel Price in literature (1938). She also won the Pulitzer in 1932 for her novel The Good Earth.
East Wind: West Wind is a novel written in 1930 and I've read it fairly quickly because I was so into it and looking forward to the ending, although I knew the greater ending. It is about the huge differences between the Chinese culture and the American/western civilization, about following rules and customs, about parents and sons and love boundaries. The Chinese way of life, the obedience, different perspective of life may seem strange and hard to take in.

"O, raspunse ea cu indoiala, stapanul nostru stie foarte multe. Dar, e deajuns sa te uiti in jur ca sa te convingi ca pamantul nu este deloc rotund. Uite ce, daca te urci in varful pagodei de pe muntele Stelei Nordului, poti vedea pamantul pana la o departare de o mie de mile, numai munti, ogoare si tarini, lacuri si rauri, dar totul afara de munti este neted ca o lipie de secara, asa ca nimeni n-ar putea spune ca este rotund. Cat despre tara noastra, ea trebuie sa fie la mijloc. Altfel, ce motiv ar fi avut batranii nostri intelepti, care le stiu pe toate, sa-i spuna Imperiul de Mijloc."

"Oh, she replied with doubt, our Master knows a lot. But it's enough to look around to convince yourself that the earth is not round. Look, if you climb to the top of the North Star pagoda on the mountain, you can see up, as far as a thousand miles away, just mountains, fields, lakes and rivers, but everything is smooth like a rye pita, so nobody could say that it's round. And our country must be in the middle, otherwise, why would our wise elders, who knew it all, call it the Middle Empire."
 
I have another book by Pear Buck in my library The Mother, I am impatient, curious to discover that strange Asian world and atmosphere and I am sure that I will find it in her books time and time again. 
So my "rather not" turned out to be a surprising  book and I've enjoyed reading it.