Rainy Day Reads

On my first “big” trip abroad in 2004 I went to India for three months on a group tour. We partly travelled the country and partly stayed in a small town to teach English in the schools. During the traveling part of the trip we went to Taj Mahal. This place had always been on my “To see” lists and it was quite an experience finally getting to see it. I took a whole bunch of pictures, but being old school, this was with a film camera and I have had to scan them on my not-so-great scanner, so please excuse the quality. Hopefully, they convey the greatness of the experience anyway.  The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum built in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is located on the south bank of the Yamuna river in Agra. Across the river you can see the supposed foundations of a black twin mausoleum which according to legend the emperor meant for himself. It was never finished however, as he was deposed, and instead he was buried in t

I picked this book up because I thought the premise sounded interesting. It tells the tale of the Warszava Zoo and how it was used as a hideout for Jews and resistance members during the Second World War. It is based on a true story and mainly gets its details from the diary of the director’s wife, who chronicled her life and work during the years of the occupation.  I was under the impression that this would be a fictionalized account based on the facts in the diary, but I soon discovered that it was actually more of a retelling of the events in the diary interspersed with facts and stories from other sources. I had looked forward to a retelling of an interesting, personal story from the war, as I always find these kinds of stories interesting, but instead I essentially ended up reading a non-fiction book. I kept waiting for the story to shift into “fiction-gear” but it never happened. Once I resigned myself to that fact, the story was still interesting, but I did not mu

This tag was created by Marie Berg from Youtube and it is basically based on The New York Times By the Book book, which again is based on a column in the Times. In this column any author being interviewed is asked these questions and they are great fun to answer, so why not spread it around? I’ve seen a number of people on Booktube doing the tag, and it seemed like fun, so here are my answers:  What book is on your nightstand now? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’ve slowly been re-reading the entire Harry Potter series this year.  What was the last truly great book you’ve read?  This probably has to be Winter, the last book of the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. It was just such a blast, and a great ending to a great series. The plot twisted and turned every which way and kept you guessing right until the end.  If you could meet any writer - dead or alive - who would it be? And what wold you want to know? Maybe J.K. Rowling to ask how the H*** yo

I picked this up on a whim at the library. I think I have said a few times that I don’t really like reading crime/mystery novels, so you might wonder why I would pick this up, since it is blurbed as such. It’s because I’m a sucker for historical fiction. Especially ones that involve some sort of riddle or mystery. This book isn’t really historical fiction, as it is set in present day, but it is based on one of the most persistent conspiracy theories out there; the fact that some of the Romanovs survived the execution in 1918. The theory is largely based on the fact that the bodies of the son, Alexej, and one of the daughters, often believed to be Anastasia, but there is no certain proof, were not found along with the other bodies. However these last missing bodies were found in 2007, 3 years after the publication of this book, finally laying the Romanovs and the conspiracy theory to rest.   This book is about an American lawyer, Miles Lord, who has come to Russia to help

The book:  “The House of Mirth” was serialized in Scribner’s Magazine in 1905, and describes the customs and ways of the wealthy class in New York in the early 1900s. The book is considered her first major work, and Wharton is thought to skillfully criticize and satirize the society it describes.  The author:  Edith Wharton was born in 1862 into the rich society, which she writes about in her books. She was taught at home by a governess, and at an early age started writing stories. At 15 her parents had some of her poems privately published, and at 16 she had finished her first novella; Fast and Loose. At 17 she made her debut into society and was a great success, despite being very shy.  In 1885 Edith married Edward R. “Teddy” Wharton (her maiden name was Jones) and settled in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. As Edith became more famous the marriage suffered, and in 1913 they divorced, both having had affairs. Edith settled in France and stayed there during Wo

This book takes place during the siege of Leningrad in World War II. Lev, a 17 year old boy is caught looting from a German soldier. He is taken into custody and expects to be shot, but instead he is sent on a crazy journey to find a dozen eggs for an NKVD general’s daughter’s wedding cake. He is joined on this quest by Kolja, a young soldier in the Red Army, who was caught allegedly deserting his unit. Their quest seems impossible, as the people of Leningrad are starving and some have even turned to cannibalism. Finding a dozen eggs in these conditions seems like an impossible feat. But if they don’t return with the eggs, they will be shot, so there is nothing for it but to set off and try and find some eggs.   During their hunt they encounter many people and end up in a number of dangerous situations. The quest seems impossible but you can’t help rooting for them anyway. I thought the action was well written and it was well paced too. There are a few quieter moments in-bet

Well, this book was all anyone ever talked about a few months back. So naturally I decided to read it. It was also turned into a movie and that had rave reviews as well. I haven’t seen the movie and don’t know if I will.  The book is about Mark Watney, an astronaut, who due to a number of unfortunate events gets stranded alone on Mars when the rest of his crew leave him behind, thinking he has died. However, he has not died and he sets about trying to survive on Mars until the next mission can pick him up. In four years time. As he has no way of communicating with Earth or his comrades on their spaceship, he is pretty much left to his own devices. He sets about starting to figure out how to stretch 30 days of supplies to last four years. Needless to say this takes some “outside-of-the-box” thinking and it is interesting to see what he comes up with. Unfortunately for me, I am very much out of my depth when it comes to pretty much any science, so when he explained all of th

The book The book first appeared in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890, and the year after it was released as a book in a revised edition. As I am working on this post, I discover that the book is not necessarily considered a classic….great choice for the kick-off post for the series then! However, in my experience, it does usually appear on “classics” lists, so I am going to count it! At the time of the first publication in 1890 it was considered immoral, by a lot of people, but Wilde took offense to that and defended his story. When it was published in book form though, he had changed some things and added a preface, that stated that books cannot be moral or immoral, only well written or badly written.  The author Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was Wilde’s full name, but he later changed it to Oscar Wilde because, as he said, the name was too long for someone who was going to be famous. He was born on October 16th 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. He went to Trinity Co

I love Italy. Back in 2005 I spent 4 weeks Interrailing down the country with a good friend of mine. I remember that time as filled with sunshine, amazing sights and lots of gelato. I also remember long train rides, sweating profusely in the summer heat and constantly being stressed out about finding the next hostel. But let’s not dwell on that bit! During this epic trip we went to Venice for a day. We squeezed it in between an early morning train from Milan and a late train to Bologna. We decided to do it like this because we had heard that Venice would be quite expensive, but we didn’t want to miss it. And I do feel like we made the most of our day there.  We went to Piazza San Marco to look at St Mark’s Basilica. This cathedral was first built in 828 AD to house the supposed relics of Mark the Evangelist. In 978 the church was restored or rebuilt after a fire, but the oldest parts of the present church probably date to 1063. The building style is Byzantine with featur