Alphabet Authors ~ J is for Joyce

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

Sometimes, you read hundreds of books by one author, other times only a few but you still know he or she is one of the greatest authors ever. James Joyce is such an author. He has written some extraordinary works.

- "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" - 1916  
- "Dubliners" - 1905 (short stories)
- "Ulysses" - 1922

Facts about James Joyce:
Born    February 2, 1882 in Rathgar, Dublin, Ireland
Died    January 13, 1941 in Zürich, Switzerland, aged 58
Married Nora Barnacle 1931

They had two children together, Girgio born 1905, and Lucia born 1907.
They moved around a lot from Zürich to Pula in Croatia, then Trieste, Rome, Dublin again, Zürich, Trieste, Paris, London and again to Zürich. They got married in London, so his son would get an inheritance when he died.

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

Backman, Fredrik "Britt-Marie was here"

Backman, Fredrik "Britt-Marie was here" (Swedish: Britt-Marie var här) - 2014

This was my second book by Fredrik Backman. And my last. The first one was quite nice, funny, but I couldn't care for this one. I didn't like the protagonist, Britt-Marie because I'm not OCD even though I like order, I don't like football, so that didn't allure me, either. The story is described as "funny and moving", I couldn't find either.

This was a book club book, otherwise I might not have finished it.

We read this in our international online book club in February 2025.

Some comments from the other members:

"It scored pretty low by most others in the discussion.

Some commented that it felt more like a movie script than a real novel. Which makes sense as Backman's books have many of them been filmed both in Sweden and internationally. For me it was a nice light humorous read, maybe more like a fun summer read than real thought raising literature. This despite me hating the main character from the very start. I guess much of Backman's stories are like that, with quite stereotypical characters, and predictable plot and then an uplifting twist at the end. The timeline of the book felt familiar in terms of what was happening in small towns here in the Nordics in maybe 90-s or early 00s. Services being closed down and some neighbourhoods being quite poor. Not really something I believe can be saved by one determined lady and the community. But a nice thought."

From the back cover:

"Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention.

But hidden inside the socially awkward, fussy busybody is a woman who has more imagination, bigger dreams, and a warmer heart that anyone around her realizes.

When Britt-Marie walks out on her cheating husband and has to fend for herself in the miserable backwater town of Borg—of which the kindest thing one can say is that it has a road going through it—she finds work as the caretaker of a soon-to-be demolished recreation center. The fastidious Britt-Marie soon finds herself being drawn into the daily doings of her fellow citizens, an odd assortment of miscreants, drunkards, layabouts. Most alarming of all, she’s given the impossible task of leading the supremely untalented children’s soccer team to victory. In this small town of misfits, can Britt-Marie find a place where she truly belongs?

Funny and moving, sweet and inspiring, Britt-Marie Was Here celebrates the importance of community and connection in a world that can feel isolating."

#Throwback Thursday ~ August 2012

 

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from August 2012.

Elwell Hunt, Angela "The Tale of Three Trees" - 1989

This has been one of the best books for children about religion that I have ever seen. 

Gao, Xingjian "Soul Mountain" (Chinese: 灵山, língshān) - 1989

An extraordinary book. A biography, a search for someone's soul in a world where the individual means nothing.

Grisham, John "Skipping Christmas: A Novel" - 2001

Not a thriller. It is a comedy, and quite a hilarious one.

Rutherfurd, Edward "Dublin: Foundation (The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga)" - 2004

Reaching from the fifth into the 16th century, this novel introduces us to the Ireland of the druids and the ancient Celts until the beginning of the Tudor reign.

Shute, Nevil "A Town Like Alice" (US Title: The Legacy) - 1950

A young English woman works in Malaya (now Malaysia) during World War II and becomes a prisoner of war of the Japanese.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Alphabet Authors ~ I is for Ingalls Wilder

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc.

First I thought, I wouldn't find any author with the initial I that I could use but then I remembered Laura Ingalls Wilder. I do not remember whether I read any of her books as a child. Probably not. My first recollections of Laura Ingalls and her family is from the TV series.

Ingalls Wilder, Laura "Little House Books" 1932-1971
Little House in the Big Woods (1932) (Goodreads)
Farmer Boy (1933) (Goodreads)
Little House on the Prairie (1935) (Goodreads)
On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937) (Goodreads)
By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939) (Goodreads)
The Long Winter (1940) (Goodreads)
Little Town on the Prairie (1941) (Goodreads)
These Happy Golden Years (1943) (Goodreads)
On the Way Home (1962, published posthumously) (Goodreads)
The First Four Years (1971) (Goodreads)

And then there is the book
Rylant, Cynthia "Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years" - 2002
This story was based on Laura's memoirs.

Facts about Laura Ingalls Wilder:
Born    February 7, 1867 in Wisconsin
Died    February 10, 1957 in Missouri, aged 90
Married Almanzo Wilder 1885

Her life was more or less how she describe it in her books. Her parents were pioneers who moved around and settled in South Dakota. Laura first worked as a teacher until she got married and became a farmer's wife. They had two children but only her daughter Rose survived.

If you live in the United States or go there on holidays, maybe you would like to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder House and Museum.

There is also a lovely website about her books, mainly for children.

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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Pronoun

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

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This week’s topic is a Top 5 Books With a Pronoun in the Title. "Find all of your he, she, they, we or you books and then shout them from the rooftops!! Or just on your blog page." Yes, I have chosen my blog page for that, I'm getting too old for climbing rooftops. 😉 I found quite a few different ones, all great ones.

Ephron, Nora "I Remember Nothing. And Other Reflections" - 2010

Bythell, Shaun "Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops" - 2020

Trotter, Derek "Del Boy" (Family of John Sullivan) "He Who Dares" - 2015

Cristofano, David "The Girl She Used to Be" - 2009

Clinton, Hillary Rodham "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us" - 1996

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🔖Happy Reading!🔖

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Spell the Month in Books ~ March

Reviews from the Stacks

I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Books are the New Black who found it at One Book More. It was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles.

March: Science Fiction

Science Fiction is not my genre and I was wondering whether I would be able to fill even five letters. But, as you can see, I managed. Some are more dystopian than science which (which I really prefer) but I even managed to find five books that I like that fit the subject.

MARCH

M

Weir, Andy "The Martian" - 2011  

A
Stephenson, Neal "Anathem" - 2008
R
McCarthy, Cormac "The Road" - 2006 
C

Mitchell, David "Cloud Atlas" - 2004

H
Adams, Douglas "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - 1979

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Happy Reading!

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Six Degrees of Separation ~ Prophet Song

Paul Lynch
"Prophet Song" - 2023

#6Degrees of Separation:

from Prophet Song (Goodreads) to The Discovery of Slowness

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here.

The starter book this month is "Prophet Song" by Paul Lynch, an Irish author who received the Booker Prize for this novel. The last ones I read were not to my taste, so I didn't even try to get it.

But since this book is not written by a British or an American author, I have tried to find some other foreign authors who were awarded prizes either in their country or internationally. I succeeded for all but one.

If you are interested, here is a description of this novel:

"A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice, from an internationally award-winning author

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and Eilish can only watch helplessly as the world she knew disappears. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanish, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society.

How far will she go to save her family? And what – or who – is she willing to leave behind?

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together."

I start with the word Song.

Liao, Yiwu "Testimonials or: For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet's Journey Through a Chinese Prison" (CHN: Zheng-Ci) - 2000

Yiwu Liao received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2012.

García Márquez, Gabriel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (E: Cien años de soledad) - 1967

Gabriel García Márquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts".

Giordano, Paolo "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" (I: La solitudine dei numeri primi) - 2008

Paolo Giordano won the Premio Strega literary award with this, his first novel.

Simmonds, Jeremy "Number One in Heaven – The Heroes Who Died For Rock 'n' Roll" - 2006
A fantastic book about all the rock stars we loved and who left us far too early.

Mulisch, Harry "The Discovery of Heaven" (NL: De ontdekking van de hemel) - 1992
Harry Mulish received several international awards, and the NRC Handelsblad readers voted this novel the greatest Dutch book ever written.

Nadolny, Sten "The Discovery of Slowness" (GE: Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit) - 1983

Sten Nadolny received many German and Italian literature prizes, i.a. the prestigious  Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.

We always try to find a connection between the first and the last degree. I think a prophet could be very helpful in the search for slowness.

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