Beautifully illustrated book about animal migrations.
A great way to teach your kids about new animals and their migration paths.
Jenni Desmond did an excellent job illustrating this book, while Mike Unwind offers vocabulary rich descriptions of the animals and of their migrations.

I'm not going to lie, it took me a while to read, and I thought of bailing. But I'm glad I didn't.
The beginning was hard, because I didn't see the links with the different characters, but eventually everything links together.
I liked learning about Kerala, about the politics, about the progress in medicine along the pages. Some parts of this family saga are more interesting than others, but so is life. A solid 3/5 for me.

Such a fun read!
Children will enjoy it, but adults too. I love when there are different levels of reading in books. And I love the span of humor: anachronisms, play on words, situational humor...

Originally written in the 1950s, these memoirs written by a 25-year-old author about his growing up in Guinea reveals the daily life, customs and traditions of his time.
It's a short read that will open a window to witness life there and then through the eyes of the author. If you pick this book, keep in mind that it's main focus is daily life, so it may not interest everyone.

2.5/5
Quick, somewhat entertaining read.
While the plot is fun and entertaining, the narration is repetitive, far from subtil, and caricatural. So it gets old fast (pun intended).

Reread
Ferrante's writing is excellent, it transports us to another time and place, making us invisible observers of the life and culture of a Neapolitan neighborhood. We grow attached to the different characters, we get to know their good and bad sides, their aspirations too.
Definitely recommend it.

3/5
Interesting book that can be read from start to finish, or in bits, depending on which articles catch your fancy. Each article is related to Provence, Peter Maybe sharing his knowledge, observations or personal experience, often with wit and humor.

Nice little read

The illustrations are very nicely done. And the storyline interesting.
The story is set in the winter. While this book doesn't have much written parts, it could lead to interesting conversations with your young ones.

Beautiful wordless story about a girl from the countryside who loves gardening moving into the city, and how she makes this new place home.

The illustrations are stunning and colorful. I like the idea of it being wordless, like that children can make their own story from the images, using their own words.

The above image is an example of how stunning the illustrations are.

Nicely illustrated biography of Tyrus Wong

Tyrus Wong was a Chinese American artist, who among other endeavors played an important role in illustrating Disney's movie Bambi.

In just a few pages, Julie Leung and Chris Sasaki manage to tell his life story: from leaving China, studying art to working at Disney. I also enjoyed the extra information at the end containing also the author's motivation for writing this book.

2/5 - soft so-so
While I enjoyed the photographs, I didn't like how this book was structured.
The introduction of each state by a short paragraph written by famous people about why they love it, I couldn't care less. I would have preferred the pictures collected by States with more info on the actual pictures and the people in them.

“Before building your vision, you have to destroy what's there“
That's pretty much what the main character and his father want to do in this graphic novel, but of course they are faced with brutal oppositions.

Not sure this one was for me, even if I enjoyed the art style, and some satirical contents.

Excellent graphic memoir.
Tessa Hulls did a great job retracing her family's history and organizing this book so readers could get a thorough picture of her family history. How the persecutions suffered in China by her grandma made her lose grip with reality, how her grandma's mental illness affected her mother, and how her mother's experience having to take care of her grandma had a bearing on her parenting, and their relationship.

2.5/5
On the fence... It's written well enough, but during my reading I kept wondering what was the purpose of this book, what was the objective of the author.
Also, I guess the subject matter didn't captivate me: a homeless man traveling around the US in a kayak... Yes, he's a colorful man doing something quite unusual and impressive, but reading about him for 250 pages?!

Fun book to read, perfect palate cleanser.

Every reader will find an illustration that will speak to her/him.

You're probably familiar with some of the content shown in this book from social media.

I think bookshelves can say a lot about their owners. How do you organize your books?
My French books are together. Then my English books are divided into fiction and non-fiction.
Pet peeve: seeing books organized by color

3/5
Written in 1956, it's a novel about the life of a houseboy under colonialism.
From the first pages we learn the tragic end of the houseboy, then we get to read his diary: how he came to be a houseboy, his daily life, etc.
Segregation, hypocrisy, racism, black/white relationships are the main themes.
It's a level B1 read in French, some words/phrases may be difficult for a non-native.

3.5/5
This graphic biography recounts Beethoven's childhood and teenage years up to adulthood through well-executed illustrations.
I liked all the colors used in the illustrations, how his creativity is represented in the drawings.
It also portrays realistically the epoch, with some references to the major events of the time.

3.5/5
Interesting read if you're curious about how counseling works. The footnotes were very useful to understand the process. They also put things into perspective by reminding us that a counselor/psychotherapist is human, and as such not always perfect, and that's okay.
Here we follow one patient. It would have been really, really nice to have different patients with different pathologies/problems.

4.5/5
I love this detective series set in Accra, Ghana. It's the #2 in the series. I will definitely keep reading it.

Darko Dawson has to find a serial killer targeting the street children of Accra. While being a mystery, it also reveals the difficulties faced by street children, the nepotism and corruption in the police force, but also how some people at every level try to help.

I like that Darko Dawson isn't a perfect detective.

4/5
Excellent read to (re)view the basics of critical thinking.
Sometimes, he sounds a little too preachy, but I value his honesty when recounting the times he made mistakes in assessing situations.
Written in 2018, but already outdated when it comes to social media and algorithms. Still, it made for a very interesting discussion at my book club.
Very easy to read, very accessible.

2/5
Just wanted to read it before later reading Unmask Alice. It's the “diary“ of a teenager in the 70s from a good family, falling into drugs.
Didn't seem realistic to me. Would not recommend it. If you are interested in this book, visit your library ;)

3/5
In this book, Peter Maybe travels around France for culinary events. He observes, and learns from locals about the food, sometimes how to eat it, how to cook it or prepare it...
It's a well-written light read.
⚠️ This book can make you hungry!!!

Picture: cheese at restaurant in Auvergne.

4/5
Very interesting read about the author's quest to find out what happened to her Jewish family in Poland during WW2. During her travels there with her old cousin Sam, they discover that one member survived, and try to find her.
Key themes: history, personal trauma, frustration, hope, deception, war crimes, bureaucracy, national myths, etc.
This book highlights the importance of knowing history, all of it. Not to hide the dark parts of it.

4/5
Atmospheric and well-written, here are some key words to describe this book: first love, heartbreak, country life, unreciprocated love, depression, family support, manipulation, thrilling revenge, primal instincts.
The story of Blanche won't leave you indifferent.

3/5
Like with the volume one, I'm on the fence.
I liked the art and the format, some of the plotlines, but I'm having difficulties with the main character.

2/5 - soft so-so
While this book reads well and fast, with some humorous content, I just couldn't get past all the inconsistencies. Where were the editors!?
The thing I hated the most was probably the wannabe inspirational list towards the end... Inconsistent and quite lame.
It's a book that had a lot of potential, that could have really been great...

Not available in English. Reading level B1
3/5 - soft pick
Mathieu Palain decides to attend a group therapy for violent men who are sent there by a judge for domestic violence.
It's an interesting journalistic piece, but still too superficial. It reveals a big problem with the French justice system with inadequate sentencing. It's also hard to read, as most men consider themselves victims, blaming their female partners.

3/5
Well-written, this classic account of an Englishman purchasing a house and renovating it in Provence reads well, and quite fast.
I like his writing style, his humor, but if you are reading it now, it is quite outdated.

Very interesting read about searching for missing people on the Pacific Crest Trail. Somewhat informative about the process, law enforcement, and what it entails in terms of man power, cost, and emotional up and downs.
This book puts forward the hard work by volunteers.
Can be repetitive at times, and hard to follow the different cases.

4/5
Excellent book, well-written as usual for a novel by James McBride.
A lot of humor to balance a gloom reality.
I know that having so many characters tend to scare or confuse some readers, but personally I love it, as it is more realistic.
The end, however, was disappointing... Too well wrapped up for my liking.

3.75/5
Very good collection of short stories by Vercors, all set during WW2.
In Le Silence de la mer, silence plays a major role as a resistance tool. It's really well written.
Outside one or two stories I didn't care much about, the other stories in this collection are equally good, I really enjoyed Ce jour-là, which is told by a young narrator about the arrest of his parents.

Available in English.

4/5
Very interesting read. Well-written.
It's always interesting to me to read about a writer's life, as it shows where he got some of his inspiration for his books.

4/5
My book club was reading The Four Winds, which I had already read, so instead I picked up The Grapes of Wrath.
I honestly prefer the latter which offers more characters, more depths, more complexity. It's a very interesting read about a very difficult time. Well-written, realistic.

3.5/5
Well-written story, it is easy to get attached to the different characters, the storyline about the boy sent to the asylum was very interesting, while difficult to read.
However, the way he structured this novel didn't really work for me. We start with bones being discovered in a neighborhood, then yes, we find out who they belong to, but that mystery isn't used to its full potential, it feels like an excuse to explore the past.

I read tome 1 to 5 of this manga series based on Japan's emperor Hirohito. They're the only ones available in French. I think this series isn't available in English.
Overall, it's an interesting series, as it focuses on his education. I really liked the first ones when people in charge of his education question themselves and try to figure out what education an emperor should receive. It's a quick read that offers a glimpse into Japan's history.

Excellent graphic non-fiction about “comfort women“ (Japanese euphemism for “prostitute“ which refers to the victims of Japanese military sexual slavery during WW2)
Beautifully illustrated, this book offers the moving testimony of a comfort woman. The author also shares her thoughts, she draws herself during the interviews, during her research, which adds value, and also shows how politically this issue is still unresolved.

2/5
Not my cup of tea.
Light read, very predictable (in the first few pages, you know exactly what will happen)
Quite a lot of repetitive parts...
It's a cliché story, Hallmark like.

The perfect book to travel from your couch. The pictures are stunning.

2/5
First, I think these poems were collected mostly from personal letters Proust sent to friends, so they were not intended for publication.
Because of this, they are not polished, they tend to be simplistic in the rhymes, but also they contain a lot of personal references or references to characters from that period, which can make their context difficult to understand.

3/5
Graphic biography of Stephen Hawking.
It focuses more on his work, which is quite hard to understand. I probably should have read physics for dummies beforehand, haha.

3/5
I really liked the historical parts about the Holodomor, the man-made famine in Eastern Ukraine orchestrated by Stalin. It's a subject I knew nothing about, and quite depressing to read. To counterbalance this, the author brings us back to the present, but unfortunately does a pretty bad job with conveying feelings. The present parts read like a Hallmark movie...

4/5
In this short book (90 pages), Annie Ernaux recounts the life of her mother, a woman with ambition, who like her daughter, changed social status (one of the major theme of Annie Ernaux).
Ernaux's writing is very factual, bare, distanced. Some parts read like photographs, a description of a short moment in life.
Another theme: mother-daughter relationship in this context of socio-economical growth.

Here is my current read with my favorite chocolates from France, and a glass of chai with my homemade chai concentrate! I started with three bottles of water, I added ten bags of Bengal spice herbal tea, then I filled out three tea bags with black pepper, cloves, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon and cayenne pepper... The result: two bottles of chai concentrate and a little extra for two cups of chai. And, it's quite spicy 🔥🔥 Just like I like it.

Usually, I'm not a fan of feel good books as they tend to be very cheesy. But this one I very much liked. I enjoyed how Libby Page writes about time passing. It's a book filled with nostalgia which also talks about what a community is made of. Well written, she's definitely written about what she knew, and it helped her staying away from clichés.

My current read ;)

Still have a lot of pages to read for my book club tomorrow morning... But with a warm chai, I should be able to make it.

And you, what is your current read?

Striking art in black and red, unfortunately the story didn't work for me... The references to the mythology aren't integrated well to the plotline. It's actually hard to make sense of this graphic novel: the plot itself, but also the message the author wanted to pass on.

3.5/5
Short feel good novel.
Guylain's job is destroying books. Each morning, in the RER heading for work, he reads out loud random sheets that escaped the destructive machine.
We follow Guylain, the atypical characters he meets.
Overall, an interesting and somewhat funny read.

#wondrouswednesday @eggs

- Paperback for convenience
- Fiction in French, but nonfiction in English
- Historical fiction, but world fiction would be my favorite, love to travel through books
- I like reading classics, but I actually read more recent releases...
- 100% tea
- 100% physical books
- Print, I just can't do audiobooks

Currently reading tagged book... 65 pages in, not sure where the writer wants to take me...

3/5
Étienne Klein recounts his search to discover what came of Ettore Majorana, a brilliant physicist who chose to disappear in 1938. Suicide, new life? Klein covers Majorana's impact in the field of physics, how he's still quite relevant today.
Despite Klein's efforts to simplify the science, I must admit having been lost in some parts because I don't have the basics...
Overall, Klein brushes an interesting portrait of a complicated man.

Quick read about Sophia Glock's teenage years spent living abroad because of her parents' job. Also about her difficulty dealing with the secrecy of their job.
The feeling of belonging nowhere expressed in this book is relatable, but I couldn't care less about her adolescent drama.