Between Shades of Gray

My students are taking over the blog! This post is written by my dear Alexandra, aka The Pianist Butterfly :) 

The book is written by Ruta Sepetys, who was born and raised in Michigan, in a family of artists, readers and music lovers. She was born on November 19^th 1967. Her first novel, “Between Shades of Gray”, about the Genocide of Baltic people after the Sovietic occupation, was critically acclaimed and translated into over 22 different languages.

I found this book on a rainy day in November. It was just as if she was calling my name hidden between hundreds and hundreds of books from the shelves. So, when I took it, I felt that a new world is about to be born in my hands; a world made of words, simple words which built a story of hope and love. Love above all.

The voice of a young girl breaks the silence of history. Lina is a fifteen year old teenager who lives in Lithuania with her parents and her younger brother, Jonas. But one night, when some frightening bangs threaten their door, their life is about to change forever. Lina, Jonas and her mother, Elena are evacuated from the house. The secret police arrest them. They are dragged in cattle vans. Soon, they discover that their destination is Siberia. What happens next? The story describes a page of history. A page full of despair, screams, cruelty and death. But, in between the lines, some hope and shy courage sneak in Lina’s heart. She fights for Jonas even if their mother dies.

The story shows that love, even if it sounds trivial, love will overcome. Always. Nobody says that there will be no scratches, wounds and tears. Bu all these make a worthy victory. And Lina takes all those risks to win the victory against death and war in the end.

Women Writers - January 2015

This month I came across some quite interesting books, very different one from the other.

I discovered Jenny McCarthy while is high school and she was hosting some shows on MTV. I didn't like her back then because I thought she was just a dumb blonde. Then, while she was dating Jim Carrey I watched her in some interviews and realized she actually has a brain and is not afraid to use it. I was touched by her story and the fact that her son had autism and years later, "Love, Lust & Faking it" has dropped into my virtual hands... The book is a bit naught, just like her nature, lots of fun (you must love the episode in which she meets Brad Pitt, or does she... ) and how strong she can be when it comes to expressing herself no matter the obstacles or the entourage. it is a light book that still has some seriousness to it: you are responsible for your own happiness and the compromises you make. Click here for a lighthearted interview with the writer herself.

"You can create an exceptional life" was written by the famous Louise Hay, whose books I appreciate quite a lot, for being so helpful in my understanding of how things work and how you can stay positive no matter what. I follow her posts and I plan on finishing reading all her books this year, so you may call me one of her fans :) This book is written together with one of her disciples, Cheryl Richardson and you can listen to a short interview about the book here. 

How ironic to find two books whose titles are switched. After having read Murakami's "The Men without Women", I came across Parsipur's "Women without Men" (1989), a novella about five different women from Iran whose faith is defined by the men who are, were or will be present in their lives but also by the garden they share from time to time. It is a daring book, banned in Iran and one that placed its writer in jail back when it was written, but for us, the one who are free to read and discuss it, it is a special book which mixes tragic events with a magical realism that has impressed me a lot. The beautiful image of the woman transforming herself into seeds one summer will surely remain with me for quite some time.

All these books read for my pleasure and for The Women Challenge 2015 :)

The Men without Women

The second Haruki Murakami book I managed to finish a few days ago is "The Men without Women", a collection of short stories that appeared in the spring of 2014 in Japanese edition and at the end of the year in Romanian translation. I am so proud Romanian publishers appreciate his work so much as to translate it even if the American publishers have decided not to do it yet, maybe expecting to include the stories in a bigger collection, just as they did with "The Elephant Vanishes"...

Unlike the Japanese version with 6 stories, the Romanian version contains 7 stories, "Samsa in love" being added to it. All the stories except the one that gives the title of his collection had previously been published in different international magazines.
Here are the stories, in short:
"Drive my Car" - an actor and a female driver, both with a less than happy past and with a possible future together.

"Yesterday" - the story of two college students who learn how to love and let go.

"An Independent organ" - the story of a doctor so in love with a married woman that he isolates himself from the world.

"Scheherazade" - probably my favorite story of this collection, it presents Habara, a lonely man visited by a woman who tells him strange stories.

"Kino" - after his wife leaves him, a man opens a bar and thus encounters a strange presence.

"Samsa in Love" - a cockroach wakes up to discover he has been transformed into a human, one that needs to love and to feel loved.

"The Men without Women" -one midnight you are woken up by a phone call that lets you know your previous love died ...

All these Murakami stories seem to echo one another and mix lost love, disappointment and sadness, with a pinch of wonder about what it might have been. I really enjoyed rereading some of them in Romanian and I am looking forward to (re)discovering other short stories of his.

Murakami all the way...

"If you don't know something, go to the library and look it up." 

It's the 12th of January and it is Haruki Murakami's birthday! What better way to celebrate him than read one of his works and to start the new year and the challenges mentioned in the previous post I have chosen "The Strange Library", a dark story Murakami released in Japan in 2008 and in an English version with drawings at the end of last year.

The fable presents a boy who loves reading and who finds himself entrapped in an enormous labyrinth in the basement of the local library, expected to read books about how taxes were collected in the Ottoman empire and do his best in order to learn them by heart.... or else.

"Just because I don't exist in the sheep man's world, it doesn't mean that I don't exist at all."

Reality and illusion seem to mingle to perfection in this story and recurrent themes and characters put up an impressive show for the readers. Having read "Memoirs of a Shepherd", the boy seems to meet a shepherd in the basement; bitten by a ferocious black dog, he sees one there as well. The library with its hidden basement is actually meant to represent his subconscious.

How often do we find ourselves wondering about characters in the books we read, willing to meet them and interact with them? The boy seems to go through such an experience that leaves him wondering what really happened "how it feels to be alone, sadness surrounding me". Going back to 'the real world' after having been away for three days creates a feeling of loneliness and of missing out ... maybe girls speaking with their hands...

"The world follows its own course. Each possesses his own thoughts, each treads his own path."

New year, Old but Great Challenges...

Time has come for me to go back to the reading/writing board and stop fooling around :) I miss jotting down a few lines now and then to let you know what marvelous books I have come across, but one of the resolutions I am planning to stick to this year is to have 2-3 posts related to books each month, so stick around, this blog is not dead :)

And what better start than reading Japanese literature - this month for January in Japan challenge and all along the year for Bellezza's Japanese literature challenge (see links on the right)? I am planning on reading two Haruki Murakami books, since it's his birthday on the 12th of January and Kawabata's The Lake. I have wanted to read it for quite some time now and I think it will happen :)

Also, I am planning on reading 2 books each month written by female authors for The Women Challenge and this goal should not be difficult to reach since I have noticed I tend to read quite a lot of female writers. With more than 20 books read this year, this will actually turn me into a Wonder Woman (see challenge).

GOOD READINGS AHEAD!