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1L-Anne
This is my first official Orange January! I'm hoping to read:
1 Winner-Small Island by Andrea Levy
orThe Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
1 Shortlist-A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
or The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
1 Longlist- Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
orThe Girls by Lori Lansens
1 Winner-Small Island by Andrea Levy
or
1 Shortlist-
or The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
1 Longlist- Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
or
2L-Anne
I've read quite a few Orange Titles over the years, but the ones I liked best would probably have to be:
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Home by Marilynne Robinson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Home by Marilynne Robinson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
3mrstreme
Welcome, Louanne! Loved The Tiger's Wife, Swamplandia! and The Girls. Whatever you decide, enjoy your month of Orange Reading! =) ~Jill
4L-Anne
Thanks Jill! The Girls has been on my wishlist forever, and I've heard such great things about The Tiger's Wife and Swamplandia -so I'm looking forward to a great January!
5L-Anne
1. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka -- Orange Prize Shortlist 2005
An interesting and funny novel on the surface. On one level, it's about two feuding sisters (Vera and Nadia) who join forces to help their eighty-four year old father disentangle himself (unwillingly) from his immigration-visa-marriage to thirty-six year old bombshell and gold digger Valentina. But on a deeper level, the novel covers more serious topics as: care for aging parents, sibling rivalry, war camps, elder abuse, family feuds over inheritance, and dark family secrets.
One passage that really touched me was one that describes Vera and Nadia's (now dead) Mother. It illustrates what today we might call hoarding, but for her, I'd call it simply the strength that comes from memories:
"My mother had known ideology, and she had known hunger. When she was twenty-one, Stalin had discovered he could use famine as a political weapon against the Ukrainian kulaks. She knew - and this knowledge never left her throughout her fifty years of life in England, and then seeped from her into the hearts of her children - she knew for certain that behind the piled-high shelves and abundantly stocked counters...hunger still prowls with his skeletal frame and gaping eyes, waiting to grab you the moment you are off your guard. Waiting to grab you and shove you on a train, or onto a cart, or into that crowd of running fleeing people, and send you off on another journey where the destination is always death.
The only way to outwit hunger is to save and accumulate, so that there is always something tucked away, a little something to buy him off with."
She describes the length the Mother goes to to save a penny and to amass a stockpile of food. And then continues with...
"So it was that after fifty years of saving, preserving, baking, and making, my mother had accumulated a small nest egg of several thousand pounds from the money my father gave her every week. This was her poke in the eye to hunger, her comfy safe feeling in the night, her gift of safety to her children in case hunger ever came for us. But what should have been a gift became a curse, for, to our shame, my sister and I squabbled about how her little legacy should be divided.
After our standoff at the funeral, my sister and I bombarded each other with hate-filled letters and teemed venom down telephone wires. Once it started, there was no stopping it."
An interesting and funny novel on the surface. On one level, it's about two feuding sisters (Vera and Nadia) who join forces to help their eighty-four year old father disentangle himself (unwillingly) from his immigration-visa-marriage to thirty-six year old bombshell and gold digger Valentina. But on a deeper level, the novel covers more serious topics as: care for aging parents, sibling rivalry, war camps, elder abuse, family feuds over inheritance, and dark family secrets.
One passage that really touched me was one that describes Vera and Nadia's (now dead) Mother. It illustrates what today we might call hoarding, but for her, I'd call it simply the strength that comes from memories:
"My mother had known ideology, and she had known hunger. When she was twenty-one, Stalin had discovered he could use famine as a political weapon against the Ukrainian kulaks. She knew - and this knowledge never left her throughout her fifty years of life in England, and then seeped from her into the hearts of her children - she knew for certain that behind the piled-high shelves and abundantly stocked counters...hunger still prowls with his skeletal frame and gaping eyes, waiting to grab you the moment you are off your guard. Waiting to grab you and shove you on a train, or onto a cart, or into that crowd of running fleeing people, and send you off on another journey where the destination is always death.
The only way to outwit hunger is to save and accumulate, so that there is always something tucked away, a little something to buy him off with."
She describes the length the Mother goes to to save a penny and to amass a stockpile of food. And then continues with...
"So it was that after fifty years of saving, preserving, baking, and making, my mother had accumulated a small nest egg of several thousand pounds from the money my father gave her every week. This was her poke in the eye to hunger, her comfy safe feeling in the night, her gift of safety to her children in case hunger ever came for us. But what should have been a gift became a curse, for, to our shame, my sister and I squabbled about how her little legacy should be divided.
After our standoff at the funeral, my sister and I bombarded each other with hate-filled letters and teemed venom down telephone wires. Once it started, there was no stopping it."
6Donna828
It's great to see you here, Louanne. I finished my first Orange book, too.
I've been intending to read A Short History of Tractors for ages. I love the title AND your review. Thanks for including the quotes. It gives us a sneak peek at the author's writing style.
Happy New Year of reading to you!
I've been intending to read A Short History of Tractors for ages. I love the title AND your review. Thanks for including the quotes. It gives us a sneak peek at the author's writing style.
Happy New Year of reading to you!
7L-Anne
Thanks Donna! Happy New Year to you too! I am promising myself to be better at updating my LT threads in 2012, so you'll be seeing me around.
8lkernagh
Nice review of A Short History of Tractors. I have that on waiting patiently on my bookshelves. I plan on getting to it sometime this year.....
9brenzi
Louanne! Yay! I'm so glad to see you here. Excellent review of A Short History of Tractors. Do read The Girls. Loved it!
10L-Anne
>8 lkernagh: and >9 brenzi: Hello and Happy New Year Lori and Bonnie! I'm so excited to do the Orange January.
I really liked Tractors. The passage I gave above isn't really characteristic of the entire book, and isn't even about a central character (right from the first line we are told the Mom died 2 years ago), but that particular part really spoke to me. I know so many people like their Mother. People who've experienced a lack of something, and stockpile whatever it was in order to feel safe, and people who are careful to never ever waste anything because they recall when they had nothing.
My Dad (an energetic, youthful 70 year old) just spent 3 wonderful weeks staying with us over the holidays, so I've also been thinking a lot about some of the topics I found in this book. Like what happens when your parents become older and need "care." Like I said the book is comic and light-hearted, but it really made me think about other bigger issues. The mark of a good book in my eyes.
I really liked Tractors. The passage I gave above isn't really characteristic of the entire book, and isn't even about a central character (right from the first line we are told the Mom died 2 years ago), but that particular part really spoke to me. I know so many people like their Mother. People who've experienced a lack of something, and stockpile whatever it was in order to feel safe, and people who are careful to never ever waste anything because they recall when they had nothing.
My Dad (an energetic, youthful 70 year old) just spent 3 wonderful weeks staying with us over the holidays, so I've also been thinking a lot about some of the topics I found in this book. Like what happens when your parents become older and need "care." Like I said the book is comic and light-hearted, but it really made me think about other bigger issues. The mark of a good book in my eyes.
11L-Anne
>9 brenzi: Bonnie, I know I have to read the Girls. I have it recorded that you told me ages ago I would love, love, love it. It's time! It's been on my TBR for too long.
12L-Anne
I'm halfway through reading The Tiger's Wife, and I'm really enjoying it. Every few pages I have to flip to the back cover and stare at the author's photo. She looks so young - like a teenager!
After Tiger's Wife I'll read The Girls by Lori Lansens to complete my goal of 3 Orange titles (1 Winner, 1 Short List, 1 Long List). I also just got The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna from my library, so if there's time.....
After Tiger's Wife I'll read The Girls by Lori Lansens to complete my goal of 3 Orange titles (1 Winner, 1 Short List, 1 Long List). I also just got The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna from my library, so if there's time.....
14wookiebender
Late to the party here! Glad you liked A Short History of Tractors, I thought it was great too!
Hm, I seem to be a bit of a hoarder myself. My mum grew up poor so always kept everything, and then when she did have money she kept everything because she was worried about landfill. And I seem to have inherited that in full! Little bits of string tucked around the place, empty jam jars washed and in the jam jar cupboard (and I don't even make jam!), paper turned over and re-used for notes...
My workmates think it's rather funny when I get slightly stressed if I don't have at least four tins of tomatoes in the pantry, plus two boxes of dried pasta, etc etc. But then again, I can whip up spaghetti puttanesca without having to step out the door. :)
Hm, I seem to be a bit of a hoarder myself. My mum grew up poor so always kept everything, and then when she did have money she kept everything because she was worried about landfill. And I seem to have inherited that in full! Little bits of string tucked around the place, empty jam jars washed and in the jam jar cupboard (and I don't even make jam!), paper turned over and re-used for notes...
My workmates think it's rather funny when I get slightly stressed if I don't have at least four tins of tomatoes in the pantry, plus two boxes of dried pasta, etc etc. But then again, I can whip up spaghetti puttanesca without having to step out the door. :)
15L-Anne
>13 mrstreme: Thanks Jill !!!
>14 wookiebender: Tractors was a good book! I think we all tend to either save or collect one thing or other nowadays. I can totally understand saving it when you've gone without. I'm always giving my kids a hard time when they waste anything, especially food.
>14 wookiebender: Tractors was a good book! I think we all tend to either save or collect one thing or other nowadays. I can totally understand saving it when you've gone without. I'm always giving my kids a hard time when they waste anything, especially food.
16L-Anne
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht -- Orange Prize Winner 2011
My 4th book of the year; 2nd Orange January title. This one was the Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011, and although I really enjoyed it, I would probably have loved it more if the magical realism genre was more of a personal favorite. Having said that, the language and writing is very beautiful, and the story is (to my limited knowledge) remarkably original. It was difficult at times to believe that this is a debut novel from such a young author. She's so talented. I loved many things about this novel, but Natalia's storytelling grandfather stole my heart.
In a book where war and death predominate, I found the writing of this passage to be noteworthy. When Natalia tells her wonderfully wise grandfather, who is a doctor, that she may want to specialize in pediatric surgery, he comments:
"When men die, they die in fear. They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living -- in hope. They don't know what's happening, so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand -- but you end up needing them to hold yours."
My 4th book of the year; 2nd Orange January title. This one was the Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011, and although I really enjoyed it, I would probably have loved it more if the magical realism genre was more of a personal favorite. Having said that, the language and writing is very beautiful, and the story is (to my limited knowledge) remarkably original. It was difficult at times to believe that this is a debut novel from such a young author. She's so talented. I loved many things about this novel, but Natalia's storytelling grandfather stole my heart.
In a book where war and death predominate, I found the writing of this passage to be noteworthy. When Natalia tells her wonderfully wise grandfather, who is a doctor, that she may want to specialize in pediatric surgery, he comments:
"When men die, they die in fear. They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living -- in hope. They don't know what's happening, so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand -- but you end up needing them to hold yours."
