Beloved - Toni Morrison

I can't even begin to describe the beauty of this book. It's simply among the best written novels I've ever read.
It's also a strange book, and I can't say I completely understood it. I just enjoyed it immensely even if its subject was tough and the story a very sad one, made of denied rights, cruelties, nightmares and unspeakable deaths.
It's set in the late 1800s, in America. Slavery is ending, but at 124, Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, its inhabitants are plagued by a different kind of slavery. The angst of the ghost of a baby who died violently. Sethe, the mother of the dead baby and of Denver, knows it and accepts it as a part of her punishment. She earned her freedom from slavery, but she's condemned to suffer even through her free life. This is her story. But it's also about many other people: Paul D, a man who was a slave in the same house as Sethe, and who returns to her after years of his escape, and tries to establish a new life for himself.
Denver, Sethe's youngest daughter, who was born on a boat, and never met her father.
Baby Suggs' who preached ex-slaves to recognize the beauty in themselves and decided to die after her people betrayed her.
All these people escaped slavery, but their nightmares, their past, find a way of catching up with them, one way of another.
And of course, this is the story of Beloved, who is the incarnation of Sethe's dead baby, but is also "something more". Maybe the collective spirit of every slave, brought from Africa, who died and were forgotten.

This was painful, like every story of slavery. But also so beautiful. And moving, deep, sensual, mysterious, dramatic, passionate. It's one of those books that are hard to talk about, but that resonate deeply inside.
It was a journey into the highest level of writing, and into the deepest of emotions.
I can see myself reading everything by Toni Morrison in the future.

other reviews:
1 more chapter
Matching Curtains
Jackie (Pulitzer Project)

21st Bookworms Carnival (GLBTQ Literature) is out + I got an award!

This month is hosted by Renay. Go check it out!

From the books featured in the carnival I'm interested in:
Relief by L.E. Butler reviewed at Curl up with a good book, because it's set in Venice, in the 1910's and it's about painters and ballerinas.
Then of course I want to read Affinity by Sarah Waters reviewed by Alessandra. It's the only book by this author that I haven't read, since I had heard it wasn't her best. But Alessandra made me change my mind.
And Hero reviewed by Nymeth.
Then I'll stop here cause otherwise I'll just replicate the carnival on my blog and that would be stealing:P
Renay also included some links to gay teen literature which made me add more than one book to my wish list. It's just that they sound all so good!
I've added:
Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger
Luna by Julie Anne Peters
and Skim by Mariko Tamaki.

I think it's enough...

And now for the award! Emerald fire, Ms Ulat Buku and Shooting Stars Mag awarded me with the buttefly award. Thank you all so much!!! *sending virtual hugs*

the rules are:

1. Post the logo on your blog

2. Add link to the person who awarded it to you

3. Award up to 10 blogs

4. Add links to those blogs in your award post

5. Leave a message for awardee on their blog

This time I'd like to award some illustrator blogs that I visit regularly and which I think are awesome:
Lisa Evans
Irisz Agocs
Jackie Morris
P.J. Lynch
Niamh Sharkey
I love lots of other illustrators but they don't have blogs, or I don't know if they have one. I'll have to keep looking...

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams

I enjoyed this even more than the first in the series The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Probably because I had read it right after I watched the movie, which I enjoyed immensely, and ended up comparing the two all the time, and finally I spoiled the whole reading experience. Just like it happened for Bridge to Terabithia.
With Restaurant at the end...nothing of the sort happened. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series. I will try not too put too much time in between reading the next so that I will still feel close to the story and its characters. Sometimes I have troubles warming up to sequels that I left unread for too long.
But I better say something about this one first! It starts with the Vogons about to destroy the Heart of Gold and all its passengers (Zaphod, Ford, Arthur, Trillian and the most adorable paranoid android, Marvin). The Vogons' purpose is made even easier by the fact that Arthur has inadvertently caused the whole ship computer system to freeze when he asked the Nutri-Matic to produce a proper cup of tea. The Nutri-Matic had asked Computer for advise and the whole ship had become unusable.
But I won't go further into the plot, because:
1) if you haven't read these books you need to start from the first.
2) the plot is not the main reason why you should read these books.
3) it doesn't make much sense, anyway.

It's enough to say that they're a work of comic genius. They follow a perfectly absurd logic and they're completely unpredictable, but they are also seriously funny and seriously smart.
They're not so much about a story as about ideas. That's why it's very hard to explain what actually happens!It's a series of crazy events with incredibly funny situations and some pretty mad ideas, like existentialist lifts, a restaurant that shows the end of the universe as a special feature show, the Total Perspective Vortex and much much more!

My only complaint is that Trillian as a character doesn't have much space. She only has few lines and doesn't seem to be much use to the story. Perhaps she will become more important later on. I hope so.
The ending left me also wondering about poor Marvin, my absolutely favourite character. What happened to him? Will he be alright? I need to read the rest of the series!!

other blog reviews:
Once upon a bookshelf
The wasteland
Adamduckworth
I can't stop reading

Q & A with Inbali Iserles

I'm very excited to present you with my first interview ever. Inbali Iserles, the award winning author or The Tygrine Cat and The Bloodstone Bird, was so kind to agree to answer a few questions about her books. I hope you enjoy her answers as much as I did.
To read why I like her books and why you should read them, go here and here.
While if you want to know more about her, visit her website: www.inbaliiserles.com. The bio article is worth a reading, as well as the Q&A...oh by the way, I love Marmite too!


Q: Hello, Inbali! Can you tell us something about your second book? Was it hard to come up with an idea after your first book? Did you feel the pressure of expectations or was it easier because you're now a published author?

A: In my second book, The Bloodstone Bird, a quest for an enchanted bird takes school boy Sash and his classmate Verity to a dangerous parallel world. The adventure starts behind a lonely taxidermy shop in an unassuming city street where Sash’s father practises his trade. Life for Sash seems bleak: his schoolmates torment him, sensing an outsider, and his father is too busy to notice – lost in his mysterious research. Everything changes when Sash finds a riddle in his father’s study, revealing a quest for a magical bird. Fame awaits its captor, and Sash decides to track it down. Verity insists on helping, whether Sash likes it or not – perhaps she has reasons of her own for wanting the bird. But beneath the suns of a dazzling new world, dangerous forces are also stalking the bird. Who will stake the most to catch the greatest prize of all?

The idea for the story was in my head for years but writing it was challenging. Expectations and deadlines certainly cranked up the pressure. On the flip side, I now had a wonderful editor to keep me on track!

Q: I know you had the inspiration for The Bloodstone Bird after hearing about the Fleet, the subterranean river flowing beneath London. But what about the bird from the title? How did that come to your mind?

A: I have always found birds intriguing. As a child I would sit for hours in the Cambridge University Zoology Museum sketching the birds of paradise. These sad but exquisite creatures were stuffed and long dead – preserved forever through taxidermy.

The birds in the story represent a great deal to different people: wealth, fame, danger, power and harmony, depending on the perspective of each of the characters. From eagles of power to doves of peace, birds seem curiously suited to mythologizing and symbolism. They soar overhead, seemingly free – and yet their natures remain remote. I was fascinated by the dissonance between a creature – the symbolic bird – and human expectations: the hopes and fears that are manifested in a human perception of something wild.

Q: About The Tygrine Cat...how is the sequel going? Do you have a deadline?

A: I am in the thick of the sequel to The Tygrine Cat and the deadline is looming. At this stage of a book, the world of the story begins to take over my conscious mind – I’ve even started to see whiskery faces at the borders of my dreams.

Q: And now some more general questions: how did you decide to write for children? Was it a conscious choice?
A: It really wasn’t conscious at all. I had filed away dreams about being a writer in a dusty compartment of my brain marked “Impossible” and was training to be a lawyer in London. The idea of a rivalry between ancient feline tribes came to me by chance as I flicked through a book on cat breads, and I brooded on it for weeks before the story took shape in my mind. I wrote it for young people because I imagined that fewer adults would be interested in feline fantasy – although the four-pawed fraternity may disagree!

Q: Usually, how much do you write every day? Night or day? (I prefer to have the whole day. Write a bit, then break, then a little bit more writing, then break again, and so on. I know, it's a lot of procrastination, but it works for me!).

A: I would love to say that I wake up at 7am, have a brisk run and write between 9am and 5pm. I try to be disciplined, but my writing patterns remain frenetic. I agree with you though – it’s better to have the whole day. In reality, I probably only “write” two or three hours a day, if I’m lucky! Research, notes, planning and editing seem to occupy most of my time, together with book-related events – that and nipping out for coffee, getting my shoes re-heeled, de-frosting my freezer… I’m open to more inventive procrastination suggestions.

Q: Who are your favourite authors?

This changes by the week. Of recent reads, I love Neil Gaiman’s balance of mystery, wit and the bizarre; the exquisite detail of Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori; the depth and tenderness of Toni Morrison; the warmth of Alexander McCall-Smith.

Q: Do you have any recommendations for our readers?

A: For young readers or those who are young at heart: Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book; Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations; Linda Newberry’s Catcall.

For adults: Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient; Sarah Water’s The Night Watch; A.B. Yehoshua’s A Late Divorce; Caryl Phillips's Crossing the River.

Q: Anything else you'd like to say?

For anyone who would like to write, I really recommend going for it. Write whenever you can and try not to worry too much about how it sounds – you can go back and edit later. Don’t let a crafty nuance waylay you. Think about what inspires you: what makes you laugh, or cry; what makes your heart start thumping, or your blood run cold. Start there – the rest will follow.


Thank you very much for your time, Inbali. I will keep in mind your recommendations and precious advices.

As for The Tygrine Cat's sequel, it's still too early to announce a possible date of release. Any updates will be published on Inbali's website.

Nation - Terry Pratchett

"To summarize Nation is quite impossible" says Terry Pratchett, and I couldn't agree more. There's so much to say about it. It starts with an island in a pacific-like ocean being hit by a huge wave that wipes out its entire population, except for one, Mau. At the same time, the wave brings the Sweet Judy to the island, carrying a high-class Victorian girl, Daphne, and a swearing parrot.
The book really takes off for me when the two of them starts to know each other. There's the language barrier to overcome and the cultural differences which cause some pretty funny misunderstandings. But they are both ready to learn from each other because it's all they have left. That, and an incredible sense of duty that, as Pratchett points out, brings them together to save the Nation, but will also, ultimately, force them apart.
Mau is a wonderful protagonist, and also a great leader for the new community that starts gathering on the island. He feels like a crab without a shell, without a soul, because his manhood initiation never took place. He's tormented by questions that are hard to answer. What is the meaning of everything? Are gods watching us? And if so, why didn't they do anything to save us, or to warn us? The birds knew about the wave and flew. Why weren't human provided with the same warning system?
In a way, this is a book about the nature of questions and the importance of answers:

So that's what the god are! An answer that will do! Because there's food to be caught and babies to be born and life to be lived and so there is no time for big, complicated and worrying answers! Please, give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be.

But then other kind of questions start to come. What if the wave never happened? The ghost girl, Daphne, would have never arrived. He probably wouldn't have grown so wise and brave. He became a leader because they needed him to be. And he probably would have never questioned the gods and find an answer in the cave of the grandfathers!

Although this book was more serious and complex than I expected, being Terry Pratchett's , it was full of truly hilarious moments. My favourite is the chapter called "A star is born", where Daphne has to help a baby to be born and the men must wait outside and try to guess what is happening inside the hut. The men waiting are so funny and tender and the whole scene made me laugh out loud!
Then there's the whole perception of the "trousermen" who are afraid of legs! So true.
I also loved the parrot, who could scare away the grandfather birds, and I loved the grandfather birds, with their grumpy and disapproving expressions, and of course I loved the grandfathers voices, even though I thought the grandmothers were much wiser than them :P

I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the ending. I wasn't when I finished it, because I like romances to be rewarded at the end, because it's fiction, and because I want so! But, alas, Terry Pratchett is right when he says that the ending is not happy, it's not sad, just appropriate.
I'd like to re-read it one day to fully appreciate the different layers on which the story is based, and to be again with some wonderful characters like Daphne, Mau, Mrs Gurgle, Milo and all the rest.

I just want to say one last thing that bugged me when I read this book. I'm familiar with the notion of parallel universes and always thought it made sense. But if it's true that there's no such thing as "does not happen" but only "happens somewhere else", well, then there should be an infinite amount of universes. If one single event can split into two possibilities and thus two universes, there would be a mind-boggling number of universes being created every minute!
I don't know if I can believe that, though it's fascinating and a great subject for novels.

I leave you with the Pratchett's interview that I quoted from, done for Amazon. I really liked listening to it!:



other reviews:
Nymeth
Chris
Guys Lit Wire
The Hidden Side of a Leaf
Adventures in Reading
Ben
Abigail
Bookgeeks
Shermeree

please let me know if I missed yours.

Eva's Bookshelf Meme

Mariel tagged me for this meme. I loved it, although it took me a while to write it. Hope you enjoy reading it:)

The Rules
1. Tag 3-5 people, so the fun keeps going!
2. Leave a comment at the original post at A Striped Armchair, so that Eva can collect everyone’s answers.
3. If you leave a comment and link back to Eva as the meme’s creator, she will enter you in a book giveaway contest! She has a whole shelf devoted to giveaway books that you’ll be able to choose from, or a bookmooch point if you prefer.
4. Remember that this is all about enjoying books as physical objects, so feel free to describe the exact book you’re talking about, down to that warping from being dropped in the bath water…

the book that’s been on your shelves the longest:
In my house in Italy I still keep most of my childhood books in my room. They remind me of the first time I discovered the wonders of stories. First read to me so many times I'm sure my parents were nauseated by them, and then read by me even more times. I will never know which was was the first but I'm choosing the oldest and maybe the favourite, La Bambina dai Capelli d'Argento (the silver-haired child) by Modì. It's an old copy, probably impossible to find now, battered and falling apart, that belonged to my father when he was a child. Recently I've noticed, surprised, how I seem to love dramatic stories. But I shouldn't be surprised, because I've always been! This is a tear-jerker, melodramatic story of a child who is vexed by her evil step-mother and one day runs away with another guy who's in the circus. They travel with the circus happily till something happens (maybe the step-mother looks for her and they have to leave the caravans) and the two of them are forced to hide in a hollow tree in the midst of a snow torment. They end up dying there, and haunting the place. Jesus! Very pathetic. But I absolutely adored it and asked my parents to read it over and over and over and OVER again. I wished I could find a picture of the cover, but there's no trace of it on the web. One day maybe I'll scan it, when I'm back home.

A book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time, etc.):
There's so many! Every book reminds me of a place, or maybe a person, or a time. How can I choose just one?
Ok, since I have to, I just thought about Isabel Allende and The House of the Spirits. This book reminds me of a whole phase of my life (at 15-16years-old) when, after I read it, I started reading Allende's books one after the other. I read Eva Luna first, but The House of the Spirits made me fall in love head over heels for Allende's writing. I remember lying on my bed during a cold winter in Sicily and be completely immersed in the book. I passed it on to my father (or did he read it first?I'm not sure anymore) and we both raved about it. It was cool because I felt I shared something with him that was special, that was only between me and him. Unfortunately, since this meme is also about the physicality of the book, I must say I don't own the original copy anymore, because it was somehow...destroyed, by our fiercest dog. She loved chewing on stuff (mostly hands of unknown visitors, ehmm ehmm) and when the book was left outside once, she literally shredded it to pieces. I was secretly devastated, but I was bought a new copy soon. I wished I could show you a picture of the destroyed book which was carefully put back together. This is the cover anyway:


I love Feltrinelli editions. This is their paperbacks series, and they will always be among my favourite books. I love the smell, the paper, the texture of the covers. They also publish nice trade paperbacks, that are more expensive, but I don't like them. They don't feel the same. Probably because the economic editions are forever linked, for me, to Allende and the spell that she put on me with her words.

a book you acquired in some interesting way (gift, serendipity in a used bookstore, prize, etc.):
The Bloodstone Bird by Inbali Iserles.

It was sent to me by the author herself, signed and everything! I was delighted. She had told me she wanted to send it to me, but it was still a surprise when I received it. This is one the best thing that has happened to me since I started blogging. Getting to know the author of a book I loved and then keeping in touch and even meet for a long and dense chat about a lot of stuff bookish and non bookish. So yes, receiving this book was very special. She also sent me the US version of The Tygrine Cat, when it came out. It's a lovely hardback and I plan to re-read it just to make this edition more mine:)

the most recent addition to your shelves:
The very last is a book in Italian that hasn't been translated called Tana per la bambina con i capelli a ombrellone by Monica Viola. It's actually a very interesting book not only because it's an interesting read, but also because it was published originally on the web, through an Italian publishing project that gathers a group of editors who choose books to edit and then publish them for free on their website, Vibrisselibri. I knew about Tana because a friend of mine did the editing for it. I downloaded it but never brought myself to read it. I should have printed it but I was lazy. Then it was picked up by one of the major publishing houses in Italy and given a different cover and an existence on paper.

I don't know which one I like more. The first, on the left, has more sense, it tells more about the book. The second, on the right, is very attractive and I would have probably bought it in a bookshop if I didn't know about it previously. It's eye-catching. What do you think? Anyway, the most interesting thing about it, is that is published with a "copyleft" philosophy. Instead of stating that it's forbidden to reproduce it, it says that anyone can reproduce parts of it, or the whole book, and anyone can publish it on the web, provided it's not for commercial purposes. It also states that the author doesn't claim royalties for libraries loans. I didn't know authors could claim royalties for that.



a book that’s been with you to the most places:
I don't have a book in particular. I don't bring books with me unless I'm reading them or I'm going to read them. After that they belong to the bookshelf. So all the books on my tbr pile at the moment here have travelled with me in all my house-movings in the last couple of years! Still too many to mention:P

a bonus book that you want to talk about but doesn’t fit into the other questions:
again there's so many more special book to talk about. But I'llkeep it to just one. It's the first book I got signed. By my (then) favourite author, Dacia Maraini.
I was so excited my heart was pounding. She was sitting down, surrounded by eager fans, and she looked up at me and smiled the sweetest smile, and her eyes twinkled and I wanted to faint. I didn't even think I could have told her something. I just got the book signed and retreated. I was 17, maybe. The book was La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa translated into The Silent Duchess and it still is one of my most treasured books. This is was Amazon says about her and the book:

Dacia Maraini is something of a national treasure in Italy. The author of more than 50 books, a director of stage and screen, and an outspoken feminist, Maraini has never been afraid of controversy. The Silent Duchess won prestigious awards in Italy upon its publication there in 1990, and has since been translated into 14 languages. It tells the story of Marianna Ucria, an 18th-century noblewoman who is both deaf and mute following a mysterious childhood trauma. Though outwardly Marianna's life follows the same trajectory as most women's of her class and time--an arranged marriage and endless childbearing--her inner life is quite unique. Within the silent world she occupies, Marianna pursues a vigorous life of the mind; in fact, silence becomes a weapon she wields to defend her deepest, truest self against society's suppression of women's creativity and will. From the first, horrifying images of a child's hanging, through Marianna's forced marriage to her elderly uncle, and finally to her recollection of the trauma that scarred her, The Silent Duchess takes the reader on a remarkable journey through the mores and manners of 18th-century Sicily and into the mind of its enigmatic, courageous heroine.

There! This was long! Now I should tag 3-5 people. Please forgive me if you've been tagged already. If you were, I suggest you pass the tag on to different people, so that my tag doesn't get lost:)
Lesley
Alessandra
Annie
Trish
Zoe

Some thoughts on 2008

As I'm sitting here thinking about the year that has just passed I'm realising how quickly it went by. If I think about February, the month I moved into my lovely bedsit and started living on my own (no sharing) for the first time, it seems like just a month ago. At first I thought I might feel lonely, but in fact I've totally enjoyed my life without worries of unwashed dishes (mine), unwanted noises in the morning or at night (theirs), or just plain crazy flatmates.
The only thing I wasn't enjoying was my job in the new bookshop, which I endured till september when I moved back to my original shop. That time coincided with my starting the training to teach Italian. I need to acquire the practice experience to get the qualification and I've been going to Italian classes once a week since then, listening to an experienced teacher, who let me do something with the class at the end of the lessons. I found out I really enjoy doing this, so I'm thinking of starting to teach my own pupils, maybe at home, to get more experience and to earn some money too.
When I was working in the other bookshop I had to travel 1 hour and a half every day to get there, between bus and train. People thought that was my main problem, but actually the travelling was sometimes the best part of the day, because I could read loads! I trained myself to read on the bus without feeling sick, and it worked. I read much more than last year, thanks to all the travelling.
Looking back to my resolutions for this year, I can be quite proud of myself. For the most part I've enjoyed reading and even though I freaked out a little about the challenges, in truth, I felt quite liberated. I even took some books from the library, happily ignoring my tbr shelves.
I didn't write reviews right after finishing books, but I took notes sometimes and it helped. Also I tried to write a review for every book that I read, which I didn't last year. I think that's a great improvement. I want to try again this year to see if I can actually read a book and write a review straight away, or shortly after.
I've also almost finished the story I've been writing for ages, and that's mostly thanks to NaNoWriMo. As a resolution for 2009, I want to 1) finish the story 2) take part in NaNoWriMo for real.
Reading resolutions:
- try to read from the tbr pile as much as possible. There's plenty of wonderful books to discover there!
- don't fall behing with reviews
- read more

Other memorable things that happened in my blogging year:
-I started reviewing picture books and I've loved it. I'm looking forward to discover more gems this year.
- I've done the Read-a-thon. I really hope someone can carry on Dewey's legacy and organise it again this year. If I can, I'd like to help.

As for the books, I don't know if I can pick a list of favourites. But I'll mention a few titles that really stood out, and will probably make my all-time list of favourites.
-The Book Thief by Mark Zusak
I've read it early in the year but it's still up there, my absolute favourite. I've bought it for all my family and friends and I talk about it with customers all the time!
- The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
Close runner up. It made me want to read everything that Charles de Lint wrote.
And then in no particual order:
- War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Tales of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Holes by Louis Sachar
- Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
- High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
- Nation by Terry Pratchett
- The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- Hellfire by Mia Gallagher

Reading recap:

Total books read: 69
Fiction: 61
Non-fiction: 8
YA and Kid's: 41 + lots of picture books...
Written by Men: 30
Written by Women: 33
Written by Men and Women together: 6
New Authors: 40
Re-Reads: 2
New Favourite Authors Discovered: Charles De Lint, Toni Morrison, Shannon Hale, Jenny Valentine, Mary E. Pearson, Emma Bull, Marjane Satrapi, Mia Gallagher, Nick Hornby, Dan Rhodes, Diana Wynne Jones, Louis Sachar.