Thursday Quotables (Mar 17)

Welcome to Thursday Quotables, a weekly meme hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Every Thursday you can post a quote from a book that you're currently reading. It can be meaningful, funny, a real tearjerker or just something beautifully written. You decide. Click on the link above if you want to learn more.

And we're moving on. From mind-boggling science fiction to heart-breaking reality. I had a dubious pleasure of reading The Ukranian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death under Soviet Rule, a non-fiction graphic novel by the Italian artist Igort. It's a collection of stories told by survivors of Holodomor (the government-sanctioned famine) and the Communist oppression in Ukraine, as well as those who lived through the second Chechen war.

The first story is that of Serafima Andreyevna, a woman who survived Holodomor when she was just a little girl:

"... And there were some kids I played with there Yura, Misha and Kostya. They died one after the other. When it happened everyone knew. There were no funerals, nothing like that. The house would be closed up, and soon after that you'd see smoke coming from the chimney."

Comments

Musing Mondays

Musing Mondays is an original meme created by A Daily Rhythm . This week's random question: Have you ever chosen a book mostly because of its cover art and then regretted it because the content didn't live up to your expectations? Three words: Pride, prejudice, zombies. I mostly read this book because of the upcoming movie adaptation, but it was the cover art that made this book stand out from all the other titles on my "maybe" list. The image of a high society zombie girl, created by Doogie Horner was basically a spoof of William Beechey's painting of Marcia Fox (thank you, Wikipedia). It's a funny and provocative artwork that promises an equally funny and provocative story. Alas, the story is boring and the humour is dull and juvenile. Image source: Wikipedia

Thursday Quotables (Feb 4)

Welcome to Thursday Quotables, a weekly meme hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies . Every Thursday you can post a quote from a book that you're currently reading. It can be meaningful, funny, a real tearjerker or just something beautifully written. You decide. Click on the link above if you want to learn more. First of all, my latest post - Top Ten Futuristic Worlds I Want to Live in - got six likes on Google+. I don't think I ever had this many likes in the short time that I've been running this blog, so I'm a little surprised, but also grateful. A big thanks to you guys :) Back to the meme... Orange is the New Black is one of the most interesting books I have read in a long time. While writing about her experience as inmate at a women's prison, Piper Kerman tackles some very serious issues about American judicial system and the treatment of inmates. The book is sad and disturbing on a multitude of levels. But at the same time, there is a lot of humour and...

Audiobook Review: The Man in the High Castle

Image source: Audible Title: The Man in the High Castle Author: Philip K. Dick Year of publishing: 1962 I listened to: Audiobook by Brilliance Audio Narrated by: Jeff Cummings It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war, and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. I streamed The Man in the High Castle on Audible, and it took me about two weeks to finish it. And while for the most part I enjoyed both the story and the narration, I have to say I was a little disappointed. Cummings, I thought, did a very good job narrating this book. Aside from having a voice that's nice to listen to, he gave great performances, portraying very diverse characters in this book. While I found his German and Japanese accents comical at first, I then got used to them. So much about...

Dinara Tengri

Search This Blog