The English Patient | 
pickTwenty years ago, THE ENGLISH PATIENT held me at a distance. I bailed early on.
This week, I was right there inside it from the start. It‘s a remarkable book; nuanced, emotionally complex, and far more concerned with the enduring impact of English colonialism than the me of the early 2000s was equipped to recognize. I love it deep in my soul.
5 stars
📖 The English Patient
✍️ George Eliot
📺 Eerie Indiana
🎤ELO, Emerson, Lake and Palmer
🎶 Epic (Faith No More)
#ManicMonday #LetterE @CBee
so-soThis was beautifully written but dark and often confusing. Kip was my favorite.
pickI wanted to read this as it‘s on the Big Jubilee Read list, and will also feature on the new series of Between The Covers on the BBC.
I didn‘t know the story, having never seen the film either. It was simultaneously quite a calming, soporific read, but also very dark and disturbing, if a book can be all of those things at once!
I‘m glad I read it but can‘t say it would ever make my personal ‘best of‘ lists.
pickFinally got around to reading this for #thebigjubileereadinglist Oh there are reasons books resonate with people. This one is so lyrically written and the characters are so…let‘s just say I loved everything about this. This is for the decade 1992-2001 representing Canada/Sri Lanka truly a story with heart. Although Kip is probably my favorite character out of all of them. #readingchallenge2022
Well I‘ve got three books now off the book challenge “The Big Jubilee Read List” in honor of Queen Elizabeth II reign. First to kick things off The English Patient. Cold brew with cream and a book. Happy Friday to me! #readingchallenge #thebigjubileereadinglist @mcctrish
so-soMy second #JoysofJune and #14Books14Weeks2021 completed book!
I have fond memories of the film but I didn‘t like the book so much. The stories are all very fanciful and the writing often poetic and obscure. The grand romance worked better for me on the screen. Still, my favorite character is Kirpal “Kip” Singh, both the literary version or the one portrayed by the gorgeous Naveen Andrews. 😍
pickReading this book is like eating dark chocolates...
You just love this mysterious bitterness melting on your tongue...
pickAnother bucket list book read!👍🏽 I‘ve been wanting to read this book for decades, literally. Not sure why it took me so long to get to this. The language was beautiful, the story compelling. 4/5⭐️
As we get further into my #12BooksOf2020 list, it seems important to mention that I‘m not just listing favorite reads. Some of the books I‘ve listed were just thoroughly enjoyable, but several make the list more as memorable reads. This book made an impression and I still think about aspects of it randomly.
Thanks for the tag @MariaW
#thankfulThursday @Cosmos_Moon
1) Charmed
2) Friends I can call at 6am, who let me vent about my a-hole landlord because I don't have hot water.
What about you? @Maike @Buechersuechtling @Heideschrampf @Sarah83
He whispers again, dragging the listening heart of the young nurse beside him to wherever his mind is, into that well of memory he kept plunging into during those months before he died.
Very clever! I‘m not sure where is originated, but I saw it on Maks Victor Antiquarian Books FB page. The caption read:
“Just another shelf of books? Take a closer look.”
I‘ll post the titles in a spoiler comment or check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/maksviktorantiquarian/photos/a.1867889649909950/3148186...
pickCheck out this book on Goodreads: The English Patient http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11713.The_English_Patient
This one is one of my all time favorite reads. Beautifully written. I also enjoyed listening to the Audible version w/ the narrator, Ralph Fiennes & his soothing & intoxicating voice! A must read for anyone!
#theenglishpatient
#michaelondaatje
pickSupper tonight included soup, salad, and finishing this book. It describes the experiences and memories of four people in an Italian villa just after the retreat of the Germans at the end of WWII. I was saddened yet fascinated by the war time experiences of each character and especially intrigued by the descriptions of dismantling bombs. The writing style took a while for me to adjust to, but I appreciated the vivid detail and literary allusions.
The last book I finished in 2019 was Squint. The book I started and am continuing into the new year is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. However, the first book I started after midnight on January 1 is The English Patient.
Thanks for the fun prompt, @BookNAround! #lastfirst
pickA book I read more or less unplanned. But how lucky I got! This definitely is a highlight this month and maybe even in 2019. That beautiful language caught me and didn't let me go again.
1. An oldie
2. Crunchy
3. Sunset - i never want to be up early enough to see the sunrise 😜
4. All of the concerts I want to go to but can‘t afford!
5. I hated elementary school but my 4th grade teacher was always very nice to me.
#friyayintro @howjessreads
“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.
#februarywrapup
Lots of bookclub and challenge reads this month...
The English Patient was my favorite new to me book.... ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I also thoroughly enjoyed my two audio re-reads for bookclubs with The Wife and The Song of Achilles..... I like to re-read anything in a new format, and both of these on audio were fantastic 💕
1. But Kip and Hana
2. 🌻 sunflowers
3. Chocolate (white!)
I‘m pretty late to this. Thanks for the tag @Beatlefan129
#hellothursday
pickThis post-war set novel has a beautiful sense of place, and the poetic writing is dense but so lyrical and sensual.
4 damaged people share a crumbling Tuscan villa- Kip, a Sikh sapper, Caravaggio the thief and Army nurse Hana caring for the mysterious ‘English‘ patient. The story floats between their time together and the memories and heartbreak of their pasts.
No page-turner, but I savored every moment with the gorgeous prose.
#mywheelhousetbr
"Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations. We are deformed by nation-states."
Such a powerful quote. Feels as relevant today as in WWII when this book takes place.
Just a few pages in, and look! @mrsmarch
It‘s not just us, who love the smell of dog feet!!😍👃🐶🐾💕😂
“She had come to love these books dressed in their Italian spines, the frontispieces, the tipped-in colour illustrations with a covering of tissue, the smell of them, even the sound of the crack if you opened them too fast, as if breaking some minute unseen series of bones.”
Who would have guessed that someone else wanted to read this? I have 5 hours left and 1 day to listen. If all else fails,I own it on my Kindle.
bailedBlargh! This one really didn't do anything positive for me. Had to read it for an English class though.
“It is still terrible out there. Dead cattle. Horses shot dead, half eaten. People hanging upside down from bridges. The last vices of war. Completely unsafe. The sappers haven‘t gone in there yet to clear it. The Germans retreated burying and installing mines as they went. A terrible place for a hospital. The smell of the dead is the worst. We need a good snowfall to clean up this country. We need ravens.”
Tonights book. I love the movie so fingers crossed for this one.
#currentlyreading #manbooker
This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world. She sat at the night table, hunched over, reading of the young boy in India who learned to memorize diverse jewels and objects on a tray, tossed from teacher to teacher - those who taught him dialect who taught him memory those who taught him to escape the hypnotic.
