Theme Thursday 28/07

Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event hosted by Reading Between the Pages

This week’s theme is

ANY ACTION (go, walk, close, clap etc)

This one is perfect for my current book I'm reading as it's all about action. There's a lot of movement when you're trying to build schools in Pakistan! Excerpt from Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

"Twaha strode seriously away and returned with a massive ash-colored animal with nobly curving horns. "Usually you have to drag a ram to make it move," Mortenson says. "But this was the village's number-one ram. It was so big that it was dragging Twaha, who was doing his best just to hold on as the animal led him to its own execution." (p143)

Wednesday New Read Roundup 27/07

One of the best things about starting a book blog is finding all the other great bloggers out there and getting fantastic recommendations for great books. So welcome to my new weekly update detailing any new reads I have added to my TBR list thanks to some of the great blogs out there.

See my full To-Read list at goodreads.com.

1. Thanks to the wonderful review by Helen at Helen's Book Blog I have just placed Sisters of the Sari (Brenda L. Baker) on my list. I love reading books in new locations and India is such a fascinating country this had to go on my to-read pile.
2. I have a love for all things aviation so when I spotted this review at Dolce Belleza I knew that Night Flight (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) would definitely make my list. The fact that it's an international novel too is just a bonus.
3. Absolutely love historical fiction but haven't read too much in the 1920s so looking forward to The Return of Captain John Emmett (Elizabeth Speller) reviewed at Book World In My Head.
4. The moment I started reading this review by Bippity Boppity Book on the book Moloka'i (Alan Brennet) about a leper island in Hawaii in 1891 I knew I would want to read it. Not only have I never read a book set in Hawaii before and would love to learn more about the history of such a beautiful place, but I have previously read a book about a leper island which I absolutely fell in love with. The Island (Victoria Hislop) details the story of an island leper colony in Greece called Spinalonga. It was such an eye opener to learn about what the leper colonies were really like and it's a subject that I'd love to read more on. So I've definitely got this one on my list now.
5.  I have also put I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith) on my list thanks to the review at Sophia's Book Blog.
6. Gotta love a bit of historical fiction. And I'm a bit over The Tudor saga so Reign of Madness (Lynn Cullen) set in the Spanish Monarch could just be the thing for me.  Thanks Jennifer @ Rundpinne for the review. 

And since I'm all about the book covers. Here they all are:

Locations

Photo Credit

I love reading books in locations all over the world. I have the travel bug so I find myself falling over books set in places I have been or want to go. Helen over at Helen's Book Blog does a geography connection for her books and I loved the idea. So I decided to create a location map too. It's a great way to summarise all the places you have travelled to in your reading. Thanks Helen for the awesome idea.

Check out my locations page.

It's Monday. What are you reading? 25 July 2011

It's Monday. What are you Reading? is a weekly meme where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between! This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!







Last week I read 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth By Xiaolu Guo and you can read my review here.










I am currently reading the book I borrowed at book club called Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Then I have decided to read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte as the next book for my 100 book challenge. I can't find a photo of the book cover version I own but this one is so pretty I'll just use this one instead.





I also ordered a few books from Amazon for my 100 book challenge. I have ordered Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Great Expectations, The Woman in White, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Oliver Twist and Middlemarch. I usually buy these kinds of classics at second hand stores but I have been eyeing up the Coralie Bickford-Smith illustrated hardcover collection for months now so I decided to splurge and invest in these classics in hardcover. I hope to slowly acquire the whole collection so this is a great start.

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (Xiaolu Guo)

Title: 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
Author: Xiaolu Guo
Translated By: Rebecca Morris (with revisions by Pamela Casey)
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Publication Date (English Edition): 2008
Source: Book club (borrowed)
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Translated Literature
Location: Beijing




20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth is a fantastic title for this novel. The book introduces us to Fenfang, a peasant who leaves the sweet potato fields of home to travel 1,800 miles to Beijing. It provides us with 20 snippets of her life as she battles to find her place in this modern city.

Each fragment is augmented by a picture of Chinese living that brilliantly illustrates what daily life is like in this culture and each fragment reveals an important moment in her young life. Even if these moments seem mundane you get a sense that everything that happens to us, whether big or small, helps define who we are.

It's a nice short read although because of this some may find it lacks a little in content but I found this a fascinating insight into the life of a young Chinese woman.

Read It

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by  Xiaolu Guo

Order from Amazon

Book Blogger Hop 22/07

This weeks question from the Book Blogger Hop at crazy-for-books.com is:

“What’s the ONE GENRE that you wish you could get into, but just can’t?“

I really wish I could enjoy fantasy books. I love the idea of other worlds, made up cultures, travelling around in space, time travel; the imagination is limitless. But whenever I sit down to read a fantasy book I just get so lost; the complex back stories and character development along with the myriad of complex place names, locations and unpronounceable character names means I just really struggle when I do.

So I find that historical fiction is where I am the most comfortable. I get to live in another place or time but with a familiarity that allows me to get lost in the story rather than worry over the details.