Category: English

A Gentleman in Moscow- by Amor Towles

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Book Reviews

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This book fell in my hands after Bill Gates recommended it as one of his favourite summer readings. At the beginning I thought it was a Spy’s thriller (one of my favourite genres) and that is why I ran out to buy it.

There is this shock when you realize that even before opening a book you have had a misconception. A Gentleman in Moscow was not about spies. Yes, you could feel them breathing in the main character’s neck from time to time but the story is not typical. As I was expecting the usual spy thriller, the book seemed slow and calm at the beginning. It was good that I decided to go up to the end, otherwise I would have missed a wonderful piece of literature.

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The Moons of Jupiter- by Alice Munro

.Reading time 8 minutes.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Book Reviews

This review has no spoilers but a recap of my favourite tales. Everyday life magnificent stories!

Says Alice Munro in the introduction to her book that once a story is published she cannot read it again, not even can she remember the details that someday gave the story its shape. 

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The Shadow of the Wind- by Carlos Ruiz Safón

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Book Reviews

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This review has no spoilers. It is a posthumous honorary review to one of the best Spanish speaking authors that have ever existed!

Because it is not what he says. Although that too. It is more the way he says it. It is the description of the human emotions, that sometimes are so predatory. It is the analogy, the magical idealism, the use of the dialect of those years, the Spanish traditions of the XX Century that we thought were long gone.

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In the Café of Lost Youth -By Patrick Modiano (Nobel Literature Price 2014)

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Book Reviews

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This review has no spoilers, intelligent, interesting, sweet and cruel!

Every time I read a  Literature Nobel it gives me the chills. What a way to construct sentences, organise dialogues, build a story. The characters of this book are beautiful and neat. They have been constructed like putting grain after grain of sand, adding a little bit of sparkling dust on the top.

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Why?

.Reading time 5 minutes.

This story is only a personal reflection of the US Presidential Election 2020 and what is coming ahead (Politics for dummies, including me)

November six 2020. Joe Biden has the biggest chance of being declared the 46th President of the United States. What a relief! But at the same time the waters still in movement. They are dark, sinister, and very present. Racism and misogynism are there, before visible and very soon into hiding, waiting for the best time to return. Their red eyes still being open in the dark.

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FLIGHTS by Olga Tokarczuk

.Reading time 7 minutes.

Book Reviews

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Note: This review has some spoilers…

Olga Tokarczuk does not need an introduction. Well, she is from Poland, Nobel Literature Prize 2018. That’s it. She has won several literature prices before. I understand why. She writes as if she were rolling over sentences in a beautiful song and each one of those sentences are attached to one another in perfection. But it was not this what left me with an open mouth. After several days and weeks of finishing ‘Flights’ my head is still spinning trying to guess how was she capable of put such simple stories, that could happen to anyone, in paper. Some of us have lived those stories, or at least one of the stories (exploration of the human body, migration, travel, languages, romance, life and death), but none of us would have been capable of telling them in such a sublime way.

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Literature Lover

.Reading time 7 minutes.

If there is something I find difficult is to make a description of myself. For me, the best way is cutting layers from the outside into the inside. Let’s see: I think I am an average woman of 1.67 cms high, brown hair and eyes. Nothing much nothing less. However, I was always skinny as an arrow. You must be thinking ‘how lucky is she?’ or ‘yes, now what?’ but be mindful that I was growing up in the 80s in Colombia, the country of the beautiful curvy-perfectly-measured women! So it was not always fun. I should say being all bones and skin brought me trouble at school as a lot of jokes were directed at my appearance -from constant questions about the state of my health to some comparisons at cartoons and so on- so, for the first 18 years of my life, I focused my efforts in trying to enlarge my body.

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Happy World Book Day

.Reading time 2 minutes.

MyStories

Today is World Book Day. I owe books so much. But I think what I am most grateful for is that books have allowed me to dig deep into my father’s soul hidden places.

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Coronavirus times- Coming to Terms with the New-

.Reading time 8 minutes.

MyStories

The beginning of my confinement was peaceful. I was already a bit isolated in my new hometown in France, as is a small, quiet place. The only change was that my kids school closed. Ok, I said to myself, this is a scary situation and the kids need to be here with hubby and I.

I am a big reader so whenever I have five minutes to read I take them and delight myself immersing into other people’s lives. It keeps me sane and I can stay at home reading books for quite a while, besides, reading has the advantage to take your fears  away while the book is open and you are enjoying your reading.

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Simone Veil

.Reading time 4 minutes.

MagnificentPeople

I had never heard of this woman called Simone Veil until I stepped over in France for a holiday. She had recently died and the news of passing away was everywhere on the radio, the newspapers and television. I got curious. Who was she? Why was she so important?

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