Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Book Review

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This book fell in my hands as a simple coincidence. It was a gift. I’ve heard about Siddhartha, of course, but never expected a book to be so deeply grounded  and at the same time so ethereal.  Paulo Coelho, one of my favourite authors and who made introductions for this book, explains the troubles Herman Hesse —the German born author— had to go through in order to complete this book. When reading it, one can decipher why: This is a book about illumination, of looking for the One and Only, and finding It through the inner self. Of acknowledging the internal divinity, the infinite possibilities that connect the Universe with every human being. Hesse had discussed with acquaintances about his lack of guidance on how to finish the book. The task he had on his hands was too great and proved of enormous challenges.

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The Choice —By Edith Eger

.Reading time 7 minutes.

Book Review

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This story opened my eyes. Once again. We have all heard about the Holocaust, its millions of tragedies, its injustices, its suffering and pain. It does hurt to read such a detailed account of torture, even if we think we have seen and heard it all. We have not. It astonishes me that someone can suffer in this degree and still survive.

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Women who run with the Wolves —By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Book Review

Clarissa Pinkola Estes. This woman is the first that comes to my mind when I think about this book. She is prismatic, multifaceted, a whole, complete, intellectual, emotional and spiritual woman. Wherever side you look of her, it has been worked, it is full with experiences and memories, and specially with wonderful teachings in which every single woman can benefit from.

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The Stranger —By Albert Camus

.Reading time 8 minutes.

Book Review

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

I would not rate Monsieur Meursault, the protagonist, as an antihero, but I have never seen so much apathy in a character, not even with cold blood assassins, which, I think, was not his case. 

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1Q84 — From Haruki Murakami

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Book Review

Rating: 4 out of 5.

As every novel written by Murakami, we can find big amounts of fantasy, sex, strange scenarios and characters living in parallel worlds that come out of the ordinary. However 1Q84 takes its fictional features to another level.

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The Golden Notebook —By Doris Lessing

.Reading time 12 minutes.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Book Review

This novel incarnates an amazing power and a vast relevance to these days. It is easy to forget that it was written in the 50s, as we are still discussing the subjects of the book, which are all different, although they make part of the same woman’s life. These woman’s thoughts are full of contradictions between being a communist and racist, between being a feminist and a homophobic, between being a good partner to her men and a lousy mother to her daughter.

The book narrates the life of Anna Wulf, an independent writer, communist and in a certain way a feminist. She has a dear friend, Molly. I found this friendship to be dysfunctional, or at least to accentuate the dysfunctional personalities of both women individually, which causes great damage to them and their children. The entire book is narrated by Anna. It is not divided in titles or chapters, which made the reading difficult. However, it is interesting how the author changes subjects, dividing the book in notebooks, black, red, yellow and blue. It is still disorganised, as she changes subjects and colours as she writes, but one can follow the sequence of the changes when getting used to what she is talking about.

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City of girls —By Elizabeth Gilbert

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Book Review

Rating: 5 out of 5.

The book starts with the protagonist, Vivian Morris, writing a letter to Angela, a secondary character. I have always cherished whoever can write a letter, as I do not know many people who can actually do it. At this point of the book Vivian has aged and she is planning to recall her own story only to answer one single question from Angela. “Vivian, Angela wrote, “given that my mother has passed away, I wonder if you might now feel comfortable telling me what you were to my father?”

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Crime and Punishment ­-By Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Book Review

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

‘To find the sense of life one has to read Dostoyevsky’, someone has said once, so I put myself to work. I have been on a mission to read as many classics as I can, and the Russians, especially Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, are mandatory when climbing the ladder in the pursue of learning how to read. Because knowing how to read is not to scroll across a bunch of letters with no sense or sentiment, but to taste the flavour of every sentence, it is to stop and enjoy the smell of every quote, conversation and emotion, and to get to know the characters to the point in which you can feel them at every breath.

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Approaching Eye Level ­­­–By Vivian Gornick

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Politics and Feminism

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I wanted to read this book for a long time. I considered it an ovation to feminism. It really is. Vivian Gornick’s feminists statements are the mix of a self-portrait of a woman who decided to live alone, and another who is looking for meaningful company. She has devoted to the type of feminism that was on furore on the 70s, the one that is not into marriage. This type of feminism that interlocks with spinsterhood is the life she has been living since then.  Gornick loved to find sisterhood groups, full with intellectual-type ladies, dedicated to solve the problems of the everyday life for women. However, those groups always lost their momentum, and ended up melting again into the same cultural patterns they were fighting, alienating her all over again.

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The Problems of Making War

.Reading time 9 minutes.

Politics and Feminism

Picture taken from Dreamstime.com

A lot of academics argue that if someone doesn’t know anything about a subject, the best thing to do is to keep quiet and let the experts handle the matter. I cannot disagree more. In cases that involve human rights violations the importance is not about the knowledge of the conflict, or even the politics, but the empathy towards the victims. I say this now because I was also part of that academic world, the political analysis, where a lot of arguments and conversations flew around, directed only to intellectuals, and not to the public, that was ultimately the one with the power to implement changes.

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