Where in the World Are You Now? May 2007

Sorry, I didn't get this up until late on the 2nd of May! Please continue telling us all what you are reading and where in the world you are now...

I'm in Argentina and just started to read Mestizo by Feierestein, a murder mystery set during the time of the desparecidos (the missing) and dealing with jewish identity and assimilation. I'm also continuing in the 4 volume collection of letters and diaries of George Eliot, where she is traveling in Germany with George Henry Lewes, and has just finished the 20th chapter of Adam Bede. I just got the set of diaries, published in 1885, and edited by her husband John Cross after she died. It's fabulous to hear her voice as it were, in her diary and her letters, rather than in her fiction. (she had just finished translating Spinoza). What an intellect she had!

I am in Liberia, and on a farm in northeast U.S., with Russell Banks' The Darling.

I'm in Barcelona with The Shadow of the Wind. Things are moving agonizingly slowly there.

I am in Saint Lucia, onto which has been juxtaposed ancient Greece. I am reading the wonderful epic poem Omeros by the Nobel prize winning Derek Walcott.

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Hmmm... Mestizo sounds very interesting. I'll have to look for that book.

Here's an interesting article about how its translator, Stephen A. Sadow, became interested in translating Jewish/Latin-American literature.

I just started Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I'm kinda disoriented, but I think I'm on an island off the coast of New Zealand.

>7 cestovatela:: cestovatela, Cloud Atlas was my favorite book for the month of April, and I really like David Mitchell's work. Enjoy!

I'm in Nigeria for the second time this year: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Abeche.

Cestovatela - I LOVED Cloud Atlas - it gets clearer as the novel progresses.
Amandameale - Achebe is wonderful and this novel is one of his best.
Lindsacl - I noticed that we have 99% of books in common :) gee who would've thunk it???!?

I left Indiana on Saturday (The Bright Forever by Lee Martin) after a disturbing stay there. I'm now visiting the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean).

After spending adequate time in the Philadelphia area with Black Girl White Girl, I have left the mid-1970s (once again) to return (once again) to the 19th century with Nights at the Circus.

Am in 1740 Austria. Maria Theresa is 23 and has just been called to the throne at the unexpected death of the Emperor Charles VI. Written by Edward Crankshaw.

avaland, I'm so glad you got Nights at the Circus back!

I am in 1850s northern England with Hard Times, by Charles Dickens.

I've just left Jane Austen's England, landing in Afghanistan with The Bookseller of Kabul.

After finishing The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett, I am still in England with Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott**

**title does not touchstone

Like amandameale, I'm in Nigeria too, but with Half of a Yellow Sun

I reluctantly left The Madonnas of Leningrad in what is now St. Petersburg, and decided to see how Alias Grace was doing in her prison cell in mid-1800s Canada.

I finally finished Cloud Atlas. It was, in the end, an outstanding piece of literature but definitely something it takes effort to read.

Right now, I'm in 1960s Japan with The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. It looks to be a disturbing place. I'm also visiting China during the Cultural Revolution with Red Azalea. It's a very inhuman place but Anchee Min's incredible writing makes it bareable.

If anyone is interested, Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner has a new book. Called A Thousand Splendid Suns it received a pretty good review in Literary Review (UK).

I'm still in Middle Earth, but now it's approximately 60 years after the events in The Hobbit. I'm reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, being the first part of The Lord of the Rings.

I'm in London, 1792, and living next door to William Blake! Burning Bright by Tracey Chevalier.
(I keep thinking this book is called Burnt Earrings - I am turning into my mother.)

I'm still in Asia, but I've left China in favor of Japan. This time it's immediately pre-war Osaka in The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki.

#6-Squeaky-Thanks for the link to the article about latin american jewish literature and the translator of Meztizo. There were lots of references to other LA writers I'll have to look for. Thanks, again. Miriam

#22 I hope you enjoy The Makioka Sisters as much as I did.

I referred in my post(no.16) that I was reading Half of a Yellow Sun. Is it me? I thought it would be some sort of masterpiece from comments I've noticed.
If I don't finish it I'll definitely get hold of non-fiction dealing with the war in Nigeria as I'm ashamed that aside from being aware of Biafra and the starving thousands in the 60s war I knew virtually nothing.

#25 I think the popularity of Half of a Yellow Sun is due to: it's nicely written; the characters have depth, especially Ugwu and Olanna; the setting (time and place) is remarkable to those of us who knew nothing about the war or Nigeria.
Do you hate it OR are you a victim of too much hype?

I am in Vietnam with some American soldiers in The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

#25 and #26, In addition to the reasons amandameale gives, I loved Half of a Yellow Sun because I thought the author was able to interweave complex issues and complex characters without being the least bit "preachy" or didactic.

Just had a fairly traumatic time in prison in Buenos Aires with Kiss of the Spider Woman. Now in an unnamed city by the sea with Rohinton Mistry's A fine balance which is shaping up well so far.

I left Kabul on Saturday and am back in England with The Thirteenth Tale. I seem to travel between England & Africa/Middle East a lot :-)

It would be fun to plot our travels on a map!

#26
#28

No, I don't hate it at all, but I think that amandameale is on the right track with 'hype' as because it's shortlisted for the Orange Prize in the UK my expectations were perhaps too high. I agree about the characterisation of Ugwu and Olanna being good.

When I've finished The Kite Runner I'll return to Adichie's book which I'm 2/3rds through anyway.

I just left Jerusalem and Russia in A woman in Jerusalem by Yehoshua. Not sure where I'll go next... I still have open passage to Absurdistan and suppose I'll eventually return there.

I just left England with Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott and I am now in Venice with Serenissima by Erica Jong.

> 32: CEP, what did you think of A Woman in Jerusalem? It was a New York Times Notable book for 2006 and on my TBR pile.

I just left Minnesota (The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg) and am now in Morocco with Malika Oufkir (Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail)

I've gone to hell. Or Hades, to be more accurate. I'm there with Penelope in Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad.

Soon I'll be going back to Japan with The Makioka Sisters, whom I still really like, but their story is long and I wanted a break.

>36 cestovatela: It's probably cooler in Japan (hope you brought a fan with you!):-)

lindsacl,
I enjoyed A Woman in Jerusalem. Characters were well drawn and the story left plenty of room for thought and conjecture. It had an element of suspense to it that moved it along. I selected it based on the NYT recommendation--which has increased my TBR pile too.

I'm moving back and forth (in time and space) between New Kingdom Egypt (approximately 1353-1336 BCE) with Dorothy Porter's Akhenaten and suburban, post-war Japan in Taeko Kono's* Toddler-hunting and other stories

Normally I'd be expect to be rather dizzy, but both the protagonists in Kōno's brief but haunting tales and the pharaoh who is the focus of Porter's novel in verse are so deeply strange that the transition is nearly effortless and not at all jarring.

I'll probably finish both tonight. Not sure where I'm off to after that.

*Note in any good library or bookstore this name would be catalogued as Kōno Taeko. But LT won't touchstone unless I go against proper Japanese naming order. Bah humbug! :-(

Still in Middle Earth, but now I'm reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, being the second part of The Lord of the Rings.

Edited: Now that touchstones are loading.

I have departed from both Japan and Hades. Now I am in Paris with The Sun Also Rises but I gather our ultimate destination is Spain.

I've left Morocco (thank goodness), and am now traveling The Road in post-apocalyptic America.

I'm back and forth between Vietnam and Wisconsin with Falling Through the Earth by Danielle Trussoni.

Grr...touchstones won't load.

I'm spending my nights in post-war Japan with The Stones Cry Out by Hikaru Okuizumi, but I'm still in Spain by day with The Sun Also Rises.

I'm usually patient with books, especially ones that have been well-received by others (e.g rebeccanyc) but when I keep looking at how many pages to go every ten minutes then I know Half of a Yellow Sun hasn't worked for me.

#46, Well, there are also books I don't like that others love . . . that's why it's so much fun to talk about books!

I just left New York and China in the future in China Mountain Zhang it was a fantastic novel about some really interesting characters trying to make it in a world where China and communism have completely taken over and America is just a backwater country. It was really interesting, highly recommended.

Now I am moving on to the Trojan war but on Mars in Ilium

I've left post-apocalyptic America (wow, what a journey on The Road) and have moved to the suburbs of the mid-west in Eat the Document.

Having left Biafra yesterday I'm now in north-east India (and occasionally New York) with The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai and, touch wood, am so far really enjoying it.

I am now in upstate New York with Rebecca Barry's Later at the Bar (no touchstone).

By day, I'm in 17th century England with Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. The plague is upon us.

By night, I'm still in post-war Japan with The Stones Cry Out. We are feeling very, very anguished.

Having spent the past week in Cambridge & Yorkshire, England, I've zipped up the A1 to catch the Edinburgh Festival and Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn. There's been a rather horrible road rage incident, and we'll need to get to the bottom of it before I leave.

It's already time for new books!

By day, I'm in Afghanistan with The Kite Runner. It's too early to tell if it's as amazing as people say it is.

By night, I'm in internment camps for Japanese Americans in When the Emperor Was Divine. I'm not far in, but it's beautifully written.

Having just left Venice with Erica Jong's Serenissima, I am now in Asia with Marco Polo's Il Milione, and in South Africa with The story of an African farm by Olive Schreiner.

I am in Sitka, in a Jewish settlement due to revert to Alaska, in Michael Chabon's alternate-history The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Approaching the end of my current journeys in Middle Earth in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King.

I am enjoying the hot, humid weather of Houston, Texas with Aurora and Emma and Flap in Terms of Endearment. I had only seen the movie (not read the book) and I almost forgot how much I adore these characters. Larry McMurtry is such an awesome writer!

I'm in New Zealand with Janet Frame: An Autobiography and East Africa with "Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton" by Sara Wheeler

Just left Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart on the Caspian Sea and am now in California and WW2 Leningrad with The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

touchstones seem to be a problem tonight.

I just left Afghanistan. Now I'm in the USA with Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle.

torontoc: I LOVED The Madonnas of Leningrad ... hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

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Sorry I just missed seeing you in Afghanistan, cestovatela! I just got there yesterday (and am staying in the city of Herat) with Khaled Hosseni's new book, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I'm now in post-Cultural Revolution China with One Man's Bible. I'm kind of nervous about the second person point of view there, so I'm not sure if I'll stay for very long.

I just left North Carolina, USA in Special Topics in Calamity Physics, deliberate in the first half and most engaging suspense to the end. I'm now in London with Daniel Isn't Talking.

I just left Colfax, Louisiana in the 1930's with Lalita Tademy's ancestors along the Red River. Now I am in Germany with poor little orphaned Liesel Meminger in The Book Thief.