The temptation of recent releases

I’ve always loved this Goodreads stat on read books’ publication date. What does yours look like?

I try not letting myself be completely taken over by new releases, but there’s still a trend towards the top of the graph year on year, which increased after I started blogging.

In 2018 I want to read more broadly, time-wise. A good start is the A Century of Books challenge (are you joining?) – I’ll try to read 1 book per decade between 1918 and 2018. To compliment it, I’ll also add a couple of Shakespeares, and at least 6 other classics (re-reading Downton Abbey, read my last Brontë – Shirley).

If you know of any buddy reads or read-alongs of older books, please let me know!

Maybe sort of back?

Haven’t written since June 2016 and all of the sudden there’s this urge to be back. Maybe not exactly in my own blog, but within the book blogging community. I’ve started visiting feedly regularly and was happy to see some old friends still going strong (hi Tasha, Jay, Kailana, Lisbeth, and everyone out there!).

2017 was a really meh year book-wise and I’ve noticed that my best years were the ones I spend blogging. Blogging it seems, helps me make better reading choices and read more in general.

So, I’m looking forward to meeting you here and at your own sites. Meanwhile, let me know about any interesting challenge I should join!

Reading in Tbilisi, Georgia (October 2017)

David among the phone-gazing commuters

Bookish update

Things have been quiet over here, so wanted to pop in and just say hi. I’ve been reading and commenting on other blogs and vlobs, tweeting, but lazy about writing my own posts.

Still, I’ve had read a really good book life lately. May’s readings ranged from a Russian historical mystery to Southern family drama, from a Swedish suburbia tearjerker to non-fiction about British early Renaissance. In between I squeezed in some feminist essays and superhero comics.

Also started re-reading Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. This time around I’m determined to get every single obscure reference. I even got a dedicated notebook. It’s been great in a history nerd kinda way.

I gave into the hype and started The Raven Cycle. No regrets… except about wishing there was more Blue in it. Also worth mention the amazing River of Stars audiobook narrated by Simon Vance. Guy Gavriel Kay recently released Children of Earth and Sky also read by Vance and set in an past Dubrovnik-like city (get out of my brain!). It’ll be the perfect beach audio. I’m almost afraid to start it, the expectations are so high.

Also in May I went back to Brussels for a friend’s birthday and bought some comics in French (they’re double the price here in Geneva).

I’m especially curious about La Dame à la licorne, a collection of stories by different authors (art students) inspired on The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Re-read Tracy Chevalier’s book about them recently and last year finally had the chance to see the tapestries live at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. I was mesmerized. In turn, they (and the whole museum, really) made me want to read more Dunnett. And that’s the way life and books intersect and complement each other 🙂

2016 #armchairaudies prediction

Aaaand that’s a wrap!

Listened to all the books in my category (well, Little Big Man was a DNF) and am now ready to place my bet. Had great fun with Literary Fiction & Classics, especially because for the first time I got to share the category, which makes it much more fun. In the end, Tanya and I agree that the winner should be:

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma, read by Chukwudi Iwuji

In all my years doing the Armchair Audies I have yet to pick the winner 😛 so maybe this is the year!

Iwuji did the book justice (a native Nigerian accent helped). It’s a story full of emotions, I laughed and cried, got outraged, was sick to my stomach and filled with hope for humanity. Iwuji made this happen without me being constantly aware of his presence.

My 2016 Armchair Audies posts:

• The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma, read by Chukwudi Iwuji
• ‘Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma, read by Bahni Turpin and Ron Butler
• Sweetland by Michael Crummey, read by John Lee

And here’s the Ballot for the other categories (thanks Jennifer for once again organizing!)

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Book That Will Make You Laugh

‘Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma

My first-ever book set in Trinidad and one of the few from the Caribbeans. Right now can only think of Wide Sargasso Sea and (partially) Captain Blood.

Don’t be fooled by the covers, that indicate a lighter type of story than this really is!

Went into the book without knowing anything except it’s nominated for the Audies 2016. It turned out to be a great surprise and one of those reading experiences enhanced by the audiobook.

The story begins in the 40s and mostly follows Marcia Garcia (can still hear the narrator in my mind saying  Má-cia-a Gá-cia), that at sixteen meets Farouk Karam, a Trinidadian policeman of Indian background. They set of on a stormy relationship that we follow throughout many years.

There’s a lot of topics running through book – social and racial status, matriarchal families, immigration – but it doesn’t feel crowded or overwhelming. It’s easy to become emotionally invested in Marcia and her family, and the two narrators (Bahni Turpin and Ron Butler) play a huge role in that. Their colorful narration perfectly fits the story and adds something to it. For a while I was talking to myself in their accents.

The main reason why I didn’t give it a 5/5 was that the second part was mostly an illegal immigration story set in the USA. I wish the author had just focused on Trinidad. It’s learning about the island, it’s people, culture, food and history that makes the book so unusual and special. Strangely enough, the strong sense of place is lost when we jump to the much more familiar Manhattan.

If you know of any more good books set in the Caribbean please let me know!

 

***

Other thoughts: BookNAround, (yours?)

Read for Armchair Audies 2016
Literary Fiction & Classics category

Armchair Audies 2016

It’s that time of the year again! Since the first edition, the Armchair Audies has been one of my favorite book blogging events. I’ve discovered lots of great reads but unfortunately, have yet to put my money in the winner – maybe this year? I’ve also noticed that this time around all books I searched for were available to me on Audible.com, while in previous years there were lots of annoying country restrictions.

I was really torn between categories. History, Female Narrator, Male Narrator, Fiction, and Sci-fi looked really interesting, but I’ll go with Literary Fiction & Classics. (Still a bit confused about the difference between fiction and literary fiction.)

Several reasons for the choice: a couple of them were already under my radar, there’s a nice diversity in the writers, narrators, topics and geographical setting, and none are sequels.

So these are the books I’ll listen to by mid-May:

• The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma, read by Chukwudi Iwuji
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, read by Kieron Elliot
• Little Big Man by Thomas Berger, read by Scott Sowers, David Aaron Baker, and Henry Strozier
• Sweetland by Michael Crummey, read by John Lee
• ‘Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma, read by Ron Butler and Bahni Turpin

Are you joining?

So it starts, so it ends – beginning Gemini by Dorothy Dunnett

From Venice to Caffa, from Antwerp to the Gold Coast of Africa, merchants anchored their ships and unloaded their cannon and flipped open their ledgers as if in twenty years nothing had changed, and nothing was about to change now.

Last night I finally begun the last book of Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolò series. I’d ended my previous read two days ago and still hadn’t found the right time to pick up Gemini. But last night, at around 9:30PM, when David was finally asleep and the husband was out for a concert, I made myself comfortable with a rare after-dinner Coke, got the two Companions, put the BBC on mute for company, and finally was able to engaged my brain 100% – Dunnett never asks for (or deserves) anything less.

This means I’ll soon end my first-time reading of her historical series. I’ve been postponing this moment since I first begun The Lymond Chronicles (Niccolò‘s sequel in plot but prequel in publication date) back in 2009 and my reading life was changed for ever. From then on, every historical fiction (every fiction really!) will always be compared to these books.

Two chapters in and the Companions had already failed me in translating the Middle Scots opening quote, there was a line to be discussed with other fans in the yahoo group (“He had met other husbands like this. Men who could sail but not navigate.“) and I got the sudden urge to eat oysters. It’s going to be a ride.

I already know that for the rest of my life I’ll always be re-reading Dunnett and will always find something new to awe me, but first-time readings are special. The end of Gemini will be the end of an Era and I’m feeling rather emotional about it.

2015 in review and 2016 plans

I’ll skip the stats this year for lack of time, but still wanted to record for posterity a general impression of 2015 and make 2016 reading goals.

2015 was a good one, professionally probably the happiest I’ve ever had, but also did great travelling and really enjoyed family life (it helps we’re back to almost normal sleeping patterns…).

The highlights:

• Watching David grow – how fascinating to see him become a little boy!
• Visited 3 new countries: Lichtenstein, Morocco and Senegal (other travelling highlights: Edinburgh and Paris with BBFs, south of Portugal and Genova with family)
• The Dave Matthews Band concert in Lisbon this fall was one of the best of my life
• My quiz team was top-3 in the yearly Quiz League
• Working on the inception of the Sustainable Development Goals

(see 2014, 2013 and 2012)

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a good reading year really makes a good year in general. To get me back into blogging and pre-David reading performance I joined lots of challenges and other community activities and managed to complete every one of them. This includes:

• The Armchair Audies – always one of my favorite book blogging events
• Jay’s Deal Me In Challenge – one short-story per week the whole year. Also a good challenge, although I didn’t blog much about it. Two quick thoughts: 1) German classic short-stories are great and want to read more of them and 2) modern short-stories are obsessed with infidelity!
• The Re-Read Challenge – very worth while, led me to some of the year’s best
• Graphic Novel Challenge – 2015 was my comics/GN year. Read an average of 2 a month.
• Books in Translation Challenge – 12 books (one a month, yay!), written in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, French, Spanish, German and Italian.
• Book Riot Read Harder Challenge – It was an interesting one to join, although I ended up with the feeling it didn’t really challenge me much, as most of the books that ticked the boxes were already in my TBR. I’ll take that as a good sign!
• Sherlockian Month
• German Literature Month
• A More Diverse Universe
• Finding Ada

And looking back at my 2015 plans:

1. Continue to re-read, 100 Years of Solitude and Emma a priority: re-read both and 3 others
2. Read more sci-fi: read 15 sci-fi books, 9 more than in 2014. Highlights: The Martian, Saga, Station Eleven
3. Read more in Portuguese, Spanish and French: read 2 in Portuguese (+1 than 2014), 4 in French (=) and 2 in Spanish (+2).
4. Read the only two Brontë sisters’ books I’ve never read: fail in both
5. Finish several series: fail in all but Narnia
6. Participate in more blogging events: success – see above!

Plans for 2016

1. Continue to re-read, at least at the same rate as 2015. Consider His Dark Materials, Atonement, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, A Short History of a Small Place, some by Guy Gavriel Kay.
2. Continue to read in different languages and in translation, also at least at 2015 rates
3. New try: read the only two Brontë sisters’ books I’ve never read (Shirley and The Professor)
4. New try: finish several series (The Tea Rose, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The House of Niccolo, The Dark is Rising)
5. Less challenges, but more read-alongs/bookclub books, recommendations welcome!

Happy 2016 everyone!

 

Best of 2015

Happy New year everyone! I have a good feeling about 2016 🙂

Things have been a bit quiet around here, but work then laziness happened. Still, I read a lot: 104 books, which puts me back to pre-Baby levels (comics and travelling for work helped).

I gave 8 books 5-out-of-5 stars, one less than last year. The resolution to re-read more payed up (3 of the list) and I’m also happy about their variety: historical, classics, children’s, crime, 2 not written in English, 6 by women, 4 audiobooks.

Rosa, minha irmã Rosa by Alice Vieira
A favorite from my childhood that brought me to tears. It’s about a 10-year-old girl adjusting to a new-born sister. Unfortunately, there’s only translations from Portuguese to Spanish and Hungarian.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The plan was to re-read it ahead of Go Set a Watchman, but that one is still on the TBR. I just didn’t have the courage to ruin Atticus…

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez
Still a beautiful book and once again, 15 years after, I’m awed by Márquez’s genius.

Saga Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
What’s there to say about the series that hasn’t been said before? All the hype was well deserved.

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
One of those book where the brilliancy of the author just shines through. A gentle story with hidden depths.

Desolation Island by Patrick o’Brian (Aubrey & Maturin #5)
Aubrey and Maturin travel to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Shenanigans ensue. Five books into the series, the quality remains.

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith
The surprise of the year and the most underrated book I’ve read in a long time. Also, the best audiobook of the 36 I listened to last year, closely followed by:

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
I was expecting to like it, but not love it. It pushed all the right buttons and proved once again that just because it’s genre, it can have just as much characterization as the best literary fiction. It was the book that got me more emotionally involved with the characters, and that’s saying something when Maturin and Finch are on the list.

Honorable mentions:

• Station Eleven by Emily St. John mandel
• We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
• Emma by Jane Austen
• Busman’s Honeymoon (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #11) by Dorothy L. Sayers
• The Martian by Andy Weir
• Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman