Books We Read.
Link to Bibliophilia and Readings (Part 2): Here
Book lover friends, Any interesting books you're reading? From my lists below, can you identify books you have read, books in your shelves, books you're currently reading, books you want to read, or...?
8 February 2024
Postmark Paris: A Little Album of Memories by Leslie Jonath. Unputdownable, charming little book I finished reading in a day. It stays in my bookshelf and I believe it is the first version published by Chronicle Books (1995), as I must have gotten it sometime 1996. I love the book not only because of the wonderful reminiscences and exquisite images, but because I've been an avid stamp collector in my youthful years, plus I got a lovely surprise seeing a Mozart stamp image, the third to the last illustration in her book.
5 February 2024
Joyce Carol Oates' I'll Take You There, a novel about a young woman's "coming of age" and quest for human connection that happened at a fictional university during the turbulent years of the early 60s - antiwar protests, Vietnam War, Civil Rights movement, the "give peace a chance" mantra, etc. The narrator calls herself "Anellia". The novel consists of three parts: (part one) in which Anellia, originating from a poor, migrant and blue collar family from upstate New York, describes her experiences as an outsider in an upper class sisterhood in Syracuse, New York; (part two) her experiences of a lover with a different ethnic
(Afro-American) background; and (part three) finally her coming to terms
with her family background. The brief plot and characters can be found at wiki. Honestly? I sense that the author is writing through deeply personal material in this book... she's holding important clues to the
autobiographical impulses that appear partially to shape
her fiction.
23 January 2024
A book I thought I'd let go but again, decided not to. I'm currently revisiting Bernard Mac Laverty's Grace Notes, shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize. I like it then. I like it now. With impressive artistry and astonishing intimacy, Irish writer Mac Laverty brings us into the life of Catherine McKenna - estranged daughter, vexed lover, new mother and a woman composer making her mark in a male-dominated world. It is a story of resilience. Of sacrifice. Of fierce love. Of grace. Catherine McKenna is forced to face the baggage she's carried since childhood in an overly oppressive religious environment as she returns to bury a difficult father in her hometown Northern Ireland. She forges peace with her mother and confronts the ghosts of her constricting past. In Glasgow she gives birth to a child and receives a music career-making commission. Through it all, she strives to maintain her kind of art. It is truly a book that the Virginia Woolf of A Room of One's Own would instantly understand. If you love classical music like I do, grab a copy of this book. You might just be carried away by its melodic sounds, and find love in its purest form.
18 January 2024
I've just finished re-reading The World is Round by Australian writer Louise Mack. Having culled about a dozen books today for donation (my ongoing 'Letting Go' project), I thought this will be my last addition for the day. I found a review to my liking, changed my mind; the book stays in my shelf for now. Reviewer: WHISPERINGGUMS (January 5, 2017). Accessed Jan 18, 2024, 6pm. whisperinggum's copy is the same as mine.
16 January 2024
Here's a Japanese novel I dawned upon my bookshelf. I must have read it moons ago, but it's good to revisit. The Twilight Years by Sawako Ariyoshi, translated by Mildred Tahara. The book looks at the problems of caring for the elderly in a verge of senility surrounding a modern industrial society. It tells the story of the Tachibanas, and ordinary family living in a Tokyo suburb, who after the sudden death of the husband's mother, are faced with the care of his aged father, Shigezo. The task of looking after the old man falls mainly on Akiko, his daughter-in-law, herself a working woman. With quiet desperation, she tries to support his struggle for independent survival, and by the same token, she puts up with her family's everyday life as an ordinary housewife's responses to unbearable pressures. The author "creates a story that has the poignancy and emotional force of subjective personal experience while retaining a universal meaning. (About the author: Ariyoshi Sawako, (20 January 1931 – 30 August 1984) was a Japanese writer, known for such works as The Doctor's Wife and The River Ki.
She was known for her advocacy of social issues, such as the elderly in
Japanese society, and environmental issues. Several of her novels
describe the relationships between mothers and their daughters. She also
had a fascination with traditional Japanese arts, such as kabuki and bunraku. She also described racial discrimination in the United States, something she experienced firsthand during her time at Sarah Lawrence, and the depopulation of remote Japanese islands during the 1970s economic boom.)
I've loved books all my life but lately, I mainly want to read a book that can refresh me like a bubble-bath after reading it. The clock's ticking fast and there are lots of wonderful books I'd love to read, five of them are beside me now... / Tel. 10 May 2021.
11 November 2023.
As some friends would know, I've been culling books from my 'ruthless' down-sizing. The exercise is sometimes painful especially letting go treasured books. And then again, we've got to face the moment with openness and acceptance of the inevitable 'time to let go'.
Here's one book I've decided to reread, and might not even let go. I've always loved reading historical fiction books. It's The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland. Artemisia Gentileschi was an artist during the Baroque era. It's a story of suffering, love and the triumph of talent. From her extraordinary creation of original paintings, patronage by the Medici and Galileo's friendship, this brilliant woman lived as she wanted, but paid a high price.
4 September 2021.
Olive Again [Hardcover]:
Olive, Again follows the blunt, contradictory yet deeply lovable Olive Kitteridge as she grows older, navigating the second half of her life as she comes to terms with the changes - sometimes welcome, sometimes not - in her own existence and in those around her. Olive adjusts to her new life with her second husband, challenges her estranged son and his family to accept him, experiences loss and loneliness, witnesses the triumphs and heartbreaks of her friends and neighbours in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine - and, finally, opens herself to new lessons about life.
1 September 2021.
Oh the days dwindle down, to a precious few... but the days grow short when you reach September. Hello September!
I have few books waiting to be read. With lock down that started last week of June 2021 still going on due to COVID-19, I've slowed down on reading. Rather, I've been busy with other priorities; mainly, another interest, one that has gone through the cracks for a long, long time.
10 May 2021.
My latest read: Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee. Published by Vintage Books. A Division of Random House, Inc. NY. 1999.
Subscribing to Virginia Woolf's own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, author Hermione Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of Adeline Virginia Stephen Woolf, the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.
Quoted:
"One of the most impressive biographies of the decade: moving, eloquent, powerful as both literary and social history."- Financial Times
"A biography wholly worthy of the brilliant woman it chronicles... It rediscovers Virginia Woolf afresh." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
27 January 2021.
I happily picked up some of my ordered books from my local bookstore yesterday. I'm so looking forward - too much reading to do. This is most likely my last entry for sometime...
19 January 2021.
Latest books in my pipeline I'm interested looking into:
- How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
- Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time: A Reader's Guide to The Remembrance of Things Past by Patrick Alexander. (Am about to start reading it; got the book recently. My no. #1 priority book to-read.)
- The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald (local bookstore still looking into it)
- The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis (Rowan Coleman)
- What Stars are Made of by Donovan Moore. The life of Cecilia Payne-Gopppishkin. (already ordered; may take a while).
- Clementine by Sonia Purcel. (I'm surprise that before this work by Sonia Purcell, the only other biography of Winston Churchill's wife (influential in her own way despite playing it more traditional but a significant role as a woman's advocate) was written by Mary Churchill Soames, one of Churchill's daughters.)
And then I have several eBooks waiting in the pipeline mainly written by wonderful creative writer friends, including Jo Allen (Jennifer Young), Liz Ringrose, Janet Cameron, Chris Eirschele, Natasha Sheldon, Val Tobin, John Erwin, Carol Rzadkiewicz, and Maria Blanco, to name some. They're my active friends at Facebook.
This could be my last entry here. Lots of books waiting in the pipeline. I might be "quadruple-booking", that is, reading one main book, whilst three more started...
29 December 2020.
More books to explore. With physical distancing due to Covid-19, there's time to follow-up where these books will lead me... actually, I have few more to add to this list, later...
- The Greater Journey by David McCullough tells the enthralling, inspiring story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, hungry to learn and to excel in their work.
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a multi-layered tale about a ten-year-old boy named Daniel Sempere, who picks up a copy of a book by an author who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Daniel and his father live above a bookstore, and their lives revolve around the love of books.
- March by Geraldine Brooks. It's the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott′s Little Women - and conjures a world of brutality, stubborn courage and transcendent love. An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone as chaplain to serve the Union cause. But the war tests his faith not only in the Union - which is also capable of barbarism and racism - but in himself. Brooks novel is a love story set in a time of catastrophe. As March recovers from a near-fatal illness, he must reassemble and reconnect with his family, who have no idea of what he has endured. He explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief.
- The Woman from Saint Germain by J.R. Lonie. Two strangers go on the run to outwit the Nazis in 1941: She is a celebrated writer stranded in Paris after her French lover is killed fighting the German invasion. He is an enigmatic foreigner with a dangerous secret, fleeing Nazi-controlled Austria. Only the war could bring them together.
19 December 2020.
List of books I've noted in my iPhone that I'm interested looking into:
- The Crystal Cave (Arthurian Saga: Book 1) by Mary Stewart ... the last enchantment, the wicked day, the prince and the pilgrim - covering Arthurian legend.
- Madame Chrysanthème is a novel by Pierre Loti, autobiographical journal of a naval officer who was temporarily married to a Japanese woman while he was stationed in Nagasaki, Japan.
- The Woman on the Stairs by Bernard Schlink. It's not an examination of emotional inheritance as is Homecoming, nor intergenerational guilt like The Reader. Rather, it is the story of one individual's struggle to feel the losses and trauma he has experienced in his life.
- The Daughter of Victory Lights by Kerri Turner. An enthralling story of one woman’s determined grab for freedom after WW2 from a talented new Australian voice. This romance and historical novel is 'Part Cabaret, Part Burlesque...' Kerri Turner's second novel following her impressive debut novel The Last Days of the Romanov Dancers.
- The Light Behind the Window by Lucinda Riley, is a breathtaking and intense story of love, war and, above all, forgiveness.
- Tchaikovsky: The Early Years 1840-1874 by David Brown.
- What on Earth Have I Done?: Stories, Observations, and Affirmations by Robert Fulghum. Somehow, I turn to his books when I need some uplifting, a smile or a chuckle. What on Earth Have I Done? is an armchair tour of everyday life as seen by Robert Fulghum, a man who has two feet planted firmly on the earth, one eye on the heavens and, at times, a tongue planted firmly in his cheek. The answer is neve easy... Fulghum writes to his fellow travelers, with a sometimes light heart, about the deep and vexing mysteries of being alive.
25 November 2020.
Added in my list of books I want to read: The Lost Love Song by Minnie Darke. A bewitching novel about love, second chances and the power of music.
16 October 2020.
What I would want to read: Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus, translated from the French by Justin O'Brien. (Resource: Goodreads)
The book comprises of six stories, written at the height of Camus' artistic powers, all depicting people at their decisive, revelatory moments in their lives. The six works featured in this volume are:
"The Adulterous Woman" ("La Femme adultère")
"The Renegade or a Confused Spirit" ("Le Renégat ou un esprit confus")
"The Silent Men" ("Les Muets")
"The Guest" ("L'Hôte")
"Jonas or the Artist at Work" ("Jonas ou l’artiste au travail")
"The Growing Stone" ("La Pierre qui pousse")
11 September 2020.
An interesting link I found today, choc a block with organised information of great books and literary works in chronological order works best books. The website creator/author (BeckChris) collected over 25 lists of the best books and best literature of all time and combined them into one meta-list, sourced listed. Make Lists, Not War: The meta-lists website. Accessed 14 Nov 2020.
18 August 2020.
It's been few years since I visited this page. Well, with Covid pandemic crisis, I get the chance to update this post. As I challenge myself to practice minimalism, numerous books have gone, and still going ... but it doesn't mean I no longer buy books. I still do. Handful now, instead of boxful like I used to do. I still maintain a smallish library.
I'm grateful to Facebook friends who recommend interesting books they've recently read.
As starter, here's a link I've enjoyed this week: brainpickings' The Greatest Books of All Time, As Voted by 125 Famous Authors.
It's been few years since I visited this page. Well, with Covid pandemic crisis, I get the chance to update this post. As I challenge myself to practice minimalism, numerous books have gone, and still going ... but it doesn't mean I no longer buy books. I still do. Handful now, instead of boxful like I used to do. I still maintain a smallish library.
I'm grateful to Facebook friends who recommend interesting books they've recently read.
As starter, here's a link I've enjoyed this week: brainpickings' The Greatest Books of All Time, As Voted by 125 Famous Authors.
50 Books Everyone Needs to Read, 1963-2013.
(Posted January 2013. Actually, the count is 51!)
Here's a list of 50 books compiled by Emily Temple that she says everyone needs to read, dating from 1963-2013. It's not easy to choose. Our tastes also vary according to the genres we favour. Through the years, I've been compiling my own varied lists, from my Folio subscriptions to those provided by my local booksellers. I still do. For a reason or two, there are books we'd like to own, even if the local library is just stone's throw. Up to you.
1. 1963 — The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
2. 1964 — Herzog, Saul Bellow
3. 1965 – The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley
4. 1966 – Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
5. 1967 — The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
6. 1968 — Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
7. 1969 — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
8. 1970 – Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
9. 1971 – The Complete Stories, Flannery O’Connor
10. 1972 – Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
11. 1973 – Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
12. 1974 – The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
13. 1975 – The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux
14. 1976 – Speedboat, Renata Adler
15. 1977 – The Shining, Stephen King
16. 1978 – The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
17. 1979 – The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
18. 1980 – Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
19. 1981 – Outside Over There, Maurice Sendak
20. 1982 – The Color Purple, Alice Walker
21. 1983 – Cathedral, Raymond Carver
22. 1984 – Money, Martin Amis
23. 1985 – The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
24. 1986 – Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman
25. 1987 – Beloved, Toni Morrison
26. 1988 – Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
27. 1989 – Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
28. 1990 – The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
29. 1991 – Possession, A.S. Byatt
30. 1992 – The Secret History, Donna Tartt
31. 1993 – The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
32. 1994 – The Ice Storm, Rick Moody
33. 1995 – Sabbath’s Theater, Philip Roth
34. 1996 – Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
35. 1997 – Underworld, Don DeLillo
36. 1998 – Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
37. 1999 – Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
38. 2000 – Pastoralia, George Saunders
39. 2001 – Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
40. 2002 – Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
41. 2003 – The Known World, Edward P. Jones
42. 2004 – The Epicure’s Lament, Kate Christensen
43. 2005 – Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link
44. 2006 – The Road, Cormac McCarthy
45. 2007 – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz
46. 2008 – Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser
47. 2009 – Lit: A Memoir, Mary Karr
48. 2010 – A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
49. 2011 – Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan
50. 2012 – Building Stories, Chris Ware
51. 2013 – The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner
Books I've recommended to friends... books we've read, or we keep in our shelves or we leaf through, or we want to read.
(Posted July 2008. Updated 20 October 2013)
- 12 Books That Changed the World by Melvyn Bragg
- A History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
- Blindness by José Saramago
- Execution - Business
- Good to Great - Business
- If Only We Knew What We Know by C. O'dell and C.J. Grayson, Jr.
- Justine by Lawrence Durrell
- Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint Exupery
- Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza
- Les Miserables by Hugo
- Love, Again by Doris Lessing
- Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen Barr
- Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
- O Jerusalen - History
- Prague by Arthur Phillips
- Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest - Wayne Muller
- The Great Awakening by Jim Wallis
- The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
- The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- The Six Day War - History
- Troublesome Words by Bill Bryson - Reference
- Jeffrey Archer - Kane and Abel, As The Crow Flies, The Prodigal Daughter, Shall We Tell the President? plus more novels and short stories too
- Jane Austen
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Graham Greene - Brighton Rock, The Quiet American, The End of the Affair
- Franz Kafka - The Trial, Metamorphosis, Wind-up Bird Chronicle, The Castle
- Ian McEwan - Atonement, On Chesil Beach, Saturday, For You (a libretto)
- Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore, and his novel Wind-up Bird Chronicle which has musical themes. Being a Mozartean I love his inclusion of Mozart's The Magic Flute (Murakami adapted The Bird-Watcher, who of course is none other than Papageno!), and also from Robert Schumann's "Bird as a Prophet" piano music and Rossini's The Thieving Magpie orchestral overture.
- Muhammad Yunus - Banker to the Poor, Creating a World Without Poverty
Books To Give for Christmas
(Posted December 2013)
Looking for the current best seller books to give for Christmas? There are lists upon lists of best sellers over the internet, in numerous categories too. There's also an overflow of suggestions, from online book stores (like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble) to the best-seller lists providers. On the latter, my top priority is naturally the New York Times for the latest in best seller lists down to the week's bests, and on various criteria they abide by, accordingly. At least I'm sure of one thing, my good friend in Toronto, Canada is giving me Dear Life, the latest book by 2013 Nobel laureate Alice Munro, a favourite short story writer of mine.
I've chosen to include only the current and latest top 10 lists from The New York Times's "Paperback Trade Fiction," "Paperback Nonfiction," and "Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous" categories.
For those wanting the top 20 and many other categories, click here for more information from New York Times Best Sellers.
Paperback Trade Fiction
1. Dark Witch by Nora Roberts
2. Dear Life by Alice Munro
3. The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
4. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
5. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
6. Gabriel's Redemption by Sylvain Reynard
7. The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
8. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
9. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
10. Me, Before You by Jojo Moyes
Paperback Nonfiction
1. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander
2. Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson
3. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
4. Quiet by Susan Cain
5. Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
6. America The Beautiful by Ben Carson with Candy Carson
7. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
8. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
9. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
10. Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous
1. The Daniel Plan by Rick Warren, Daniel Amen, Mark Hyman and others.
2. Guinnes World Records 2014 (Guinness World Records)
3. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year Of Holidays by Ree Drummond
4. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
5. Miss Kay's Duck Commander Kitchen by Kay Robinson with Chrys Howard
6. Grain Brain by David Perlmutter with Kristin Loberg
7. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier by Ree Hummond
8. Giada's Feel Good Food by Giada de Laurentiis
9. The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp
10. How To Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You by Matthew Inman
Resources:
- Paperback Trade Fiction. The New York Times - Bestsellers. Accessed 15 December 2013.
- Paperback Nonfiction. The New Your Times - Bestsellers. Accessed 15 December 2013.
- Advice, How-To, and Miscellaneous. The New York Times - Bestsellers. Accessed 15 December 2013.
(c) January 2011. Updated February 8, 2024. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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