https://youtu.be/pPF9BssYs2c
A fabulous biblioadventure
Mystery guest
Weekly highlights
Niceman Cometh by David Carpenter
A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Chaudhuri
These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere
Standing Heavy by Gauz', Frank Wynne (Translator)
How to Breathe Water by Sharon Butala
Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah
Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir by Danny Ramadan
Clear by Carys Davies
pickIt's telling that one of the oldest books in the world contains so many of the themes that continue being repeated in fiction right through today. Stories, after all, were overheard by man from the gods and quickly spread like a virus, marking the beginning of the age we still live in. Stories invade us, weave themselves into the fabric of our beings, until its hard to know where "we" end and the stories begin. Sophie says, "Whoa!"
In preparation for reading The Cloud Messenger by Aamer Hussein, I am reading the lyrical poem of the same name by 5th-century author Kalidasa in which a yaksha (nature spirit) asks a cloud to travel to his beloved. It's been a surprisingly fluid & delightful read so far, with so many mentions of flora & fauna I have to look up.
https://www.flowersofindia.net/mythology.html https://www.wisdomlib.org & wikipedia are all helpful.
#poetry
Tagore was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was Bengali, with roots in what are now #India and #Bangladesh. Gitanjali is a collection of spiritual poems written in Bengali, and translated by the author himself into a style of English that takes some getting used to, but it is worth it.
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
pick“Astha was brought up properly, as befits a woman, with large supplements of fear. One slip might find her alone, vulnerable and unprotected. The infinite ways in which she could be harmed were not specified, but Astha absorbed them through her skin, and ever after was drawn to the safe and secure.”This excellent opening paragraph just gets more excellent.Can't recommend enough.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7083955636
I‘ve really fallen behind in logging my reads - again! Enjoyed this window into a place, time, situation.. I really hope their journey to the big city worked out, but I suspect it won‘t be all fame and money. Val was so frustrating!
pickA long look at the mixture of cultural elements in lawyer‘s family in some unspecified village outside Dehli. And then a depressing parallel in Massachusetts. The 1st hundred pages are vibrant and dynamic and I truly loved reading them. The fun fades and purpose is curious. But I enjoyed the book overall.
pickWhen Bimila is encouraged by her husband Nikhil to exercise more freedom than is usual for a woman of her status in Bengal in the first decade of the 20th century, she comes under the influence of Nikhil's friend Sandip, a charismatic radical nationalist.
Although I found it a bit heavy-going at times, especially in the more rhetorical passages, I kept reading, fascinated to see how events would play out.
