A 667-pages roadtrip novel, with chapters alternating between a disillusioned “you“ mainly looking for young women to spend the night with (those sections haven't aged well), and a “I“ looking for what I'll sum up as “Eternal China“: folksongs, old monasteries, folktales... and of course, the Soul Mountain in the title. I am glad I read it -I enjoyed the folk chapters- but I am in no hurry to read any more from this #NobelPrize winner.

The grandkid is gone so it's time to return the tagged book. She loved it - and that's an understatement! She asked each of us to read it an insane number of times per day over the holidays. So, I bought it online and it should reach her in a few weeks (kennys.ie aren't quick, but they're not Amazon and they ship within the EU).
I am not fully sold on the illustrations' German Swiss nostalgia, but I like the level of detail & the story is cute.

Another pic of Carnac standing stones outside of the enclosure for #beautybreak & b/c I've just finished the tagged book, bought at the Maison des mégalithes book/giftshop. It was available in French, English & German. A well-written, clear & concise introduction to the site & its history. Unsurprisingly, its pictures were better than the ones we took😊 I wish I'd read it *before* our visit.
#Brittany
Also we missed Halloween in Carnac by 2 days😤

#beautybreak in Carnac, Brittany. These megaliths were erected around 3000 BCE. We were able to walk around their enclosure last Monday. It was bleak and beautiful and I felt privileged.
@AmyG
@kspenmoll
@TheBookHippie
@Amiable
@OriginalCyn620
@Tamra
@JessClark78
@Sace
@dabbe
@Dilara
@LiseWorks
@uncommonlycozies
@Karisa
@ImperfectCJ
@AnnCrystal

My last Samoan dish: Tina and Amazing's Green Island Salad
It is a salad that combines fruit, vegetable (watercress, cucumber) & starch (green banana). I, however, kept all the ingredients separate so that fussy people could mix and match as they wished in their plates. I used mango and pineapple instead of vi (which I'd never heard of) and guava (which I didn't have). Very nice, as I knew it would be!
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader

L'étincelle en moi is a delightful children's book about a little girl's discovery of science. The first part is about her life and the questions she has about the world (eg: “could I walk on the ceiling?“), the second contains scientific answers to her questions. It is available in English under the title The Spark in Me but for some reason, it isn't in Litsy's database.

Haul of kids‘ science books 🤗

The grandkid is quite taken with Gingerbread Baby! I read it too many times to count. And yesterday, we made gingerbread boys, babies, and other shapes. We did have to explain several times that they couldn't come alive: this only happens in stories 😁

#10BeforeTheEnd update:
I finished Paris noir and The Adventures of Vela. I was planning on starting Mejnun and Leyla but after Vela, I need a break on the long-form poetry front, so Soul Mountain it is! As it is a doorstop and I have a few days off, it should be perfect.

@ChaoticMissAdventures

Pic is of the Chinese Garden in Chaumont, back in June

#NobelPrize

More food from The Adventures of Vela, which I finished - at last! - the other day 😁
Honestly, it was a bit of a slog in places, but I am happy I read it to the end because it really was a window into another culture.
Bonito in coconut cream, yam (I thinks is is going to be proper yam, and not sweet potato), and papaya sounds delicious!
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader

pic Sonja Pieper via Teinesavaii, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0

I found the cover of a play I read recently in the book on Black artists I've just finished 😁
Anacaona is an important historical figure: she was an indigenous Taino ruler at the time of the Spanish invasion in what is now #Haiti and the #DominicanRepublic. Hence the art ant literature about her.

I came across this author the other day when reading about her uncle, the famous Samoan writer Albert Wendt, & I thought some people might be interested in the tagged book (which I haven't read), described as “the first Zombie apocalypse story set in Samoa“.
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader
Link to her website: https://laniwendtyoung.co/
ETA: I don't know the author: I just thought the book checked a few boxes for F&L & Halloween reads

More art from the tagged book, this time by Christian Raharivelo and Assane N'Doye, via the Association Wifredo Lam.

Leafing through the catalogue for the exhibition on Paris's Black artists at the Centre Pompidou that ended earlier this year and that I wasn't able to see 🙁

My first #10BeforeTheEnd update:
I finished Edith Wharton's Ghost Stories 🎉. They were quite enjoyable in small doses: 1 or 2 in the evening over the course of a month.
I picked up The Adventure of Vela again. I'd like to finish it before the end of the month, but it is slow-going & I might not get a lot of reading time next week, so we'll see.
I'd also like to read the whole of Jami's Mejnun & Leila before Nov, 8th ⬇

@ChaoticMissAdventures

Some rather alarming foot sole shapes in this epic poem that I've just picked up again.

#Samoa #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Yesterday's library haul: Gingerbread Baby, and June Fourth Elegies by Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. I might have picked up this book because I took the author for a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature 😊. It is a collection of poems written over many years, in prison, in labour camp or at home, on the anniversaries of the Tiananmen Square protests. Some are more to my taste than others.

Literally: In mummy's hair. A delightful picture book about cuddling up to mummy at bedtime. Perfect for the grandkid as the mother in the pictures looks a bit like her mum 💕Also, I love the colour palette.

My #10BeforeTheEnd are:
The Adventure of Vela for #Samoa
The Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout and Black Suits You so Well by Ahlam Mosteghanemi for #Algeria
The Devil in Love by Cazotte and Fontamara by Ignazio Silone for #Italy
Paris noir
Edith Wharton's Ghost Stories
Jami's Mejnun & Leila
The Last Quarter of the Moon by Zijian Chi
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
(tagged countries for #FoodAndLit )
@ChaoticMissAdventures

I finished this book this morning. The novel proper is quite short and readable, although I don't think I'll ever really enjoy a work where a writer uses a foreign narrator or character from a culture they don't actually know to further their plots or theories. However, the extra critical material does an excellent job of contextualising this 18th best-seller written by a blue-stocking with proto-feminist sensibilities.

illustration from the book

Still reading tagged book.
For lunch today, I made Samoan baked fish from https://www.pacificislandfoodrevolution.com/recipes/nina--iggys-island-baked-fis... and Faalifu Fa‘i (green plantain in coconut cream sauce) from https://thekokosamoa.com.au/blogs/recipes/faalifu-fa-i-recipe-history-tips-servi...
Very nice!
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader

Bamboo and apple-tree with ONE tiny but perfectly-formed red apple 😁 🍎
#beautybreak
@AmyG
@kspenmoll
@TheBookHippie
@Amiable
@OriginalCyn620
@Tamra
@JessClark78
@Sace
@dabbe
@Dilara
@LiseWorks
@uncommonlycozies
@Karisa
@ImperfectCJ
@AnnCrystal

I 1st heard of this book when researching #Peru for #FoodAndLit but it wouldn't do b/c it's all about France. It is an 18th-c. epistolary novel written by a French woman. The narrator is an Inca “virgin of the sun“ snatched by Spanish conquistadores, then taken by French soldiers to France. Her letters to her Inca fiancé describe France & its mores from the point of view of an outsider - a “Noble Savage“ - uncorrupted by European civilisation.

So, I knew some nazi scientists had been recruited by the US at the end of the war but I had no idea there were so many of them. People pointing a finger at Argentina - or Arab countries - should think again. The USSR, the UK and France did it too. So much thieving & backstabbing between allied countries! This book is mainly about those who moved to France: 1000? 6000? plus families. They had good reasons for moving to France:

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to László Krasznahorkai. I've only read the tagged book by him and I have to admit I didn't love it. I might try another work, just in case.
#NobelPrize

I am reading a book about nazi scientists and engineers recruited to work in Allied countries at then end of World War II or shortly after, without being tried for their crimes, or after a symbolic slap on the hand.
Pic of Wernher von Braun & his brother, happy & grinning, knowing they risked nothing, on the day they surrendered to the US army. He supervised an armament factory/lab in the Dora concentration camp where he behaved appallingly.

An unexpected find at the library: a kind of diary written by a mathematician over one year about her garden and the nature around her. She makes observations on insects, plants & natural phenomena, and links them with mathematical concepts. It's charming but too vague and scattershot to be useful for learning & understanding.
I want her life though: she has a lovely garden, lives a short walk from the sea & her neighbours are nice 😄

Started Vela, a long epic poem about the life and adventures of mythic Samoan poet Vela, written by Albert Wendt, #Samoa's best-known writer. It is peppered with Samoan words, and I'll just have to go with the flow, enjoy the poetry, and accept that I won't understand every single word or concept. Getting a general idea from the context and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Samoa will have to do.
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Ancient Tamil #poetry and intricate, pretty pictures on thick, textured paper!
#India

International Translation Day today! Who's reading a book in translation?
I started the tagged book, translated from Bulgarian, last night.
Very grateful to the translators who open windows to other cultures and literatures.
#InternationalTranslationDay #InTranslation

Painting of St Jerome, patron saint of translators, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My attempt at vaho/baho: steamed beef marinated in bitter orange juice (or here, a mixture of lime & regular orange) with plantain, green banana & yuca. Served with the white cabbage & tomato salad with lime dressing that seems to be a must with every Nicaraguan dish!
It's no doubt delicious when done properly but I had to find a workaround when it wouldn't cook & the result was disappointing.
#Nicaragua #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

I don't know if it's the writing, or Anthea Bell's translation, or just because it was the right book at the right time, but I raced through this autobiography, despite its heavy subject matter. It reconciled me with Zweig too. He chose to give us almost nothing about his private life, and not much more about his work - it's all about the people he met and his analysis of the (now-)historical events he lived through. Humane and thought-provoking.

I'd been meaning to read Nooteboom for ages, and yesterday, I found one of his books in the poetry section of the library: L'oeil du poète (Monniksoog) followed by Adieu (Afscheid,...). The 1st collection really spoke to me.

9
Dans l'autre île pas de dunes mais des rocs,
noirs, des plantes à crocs et dents s'abreuvant à la pierre,
agrippées aux gravières. Un phase ici aussi, haut
dressé contre la violence d'un orage,

#Netherlands

A quote from Zweig's autobiography to remind us that one can be a reader & love the books of a humanist author, and still be a fascist psychopath & a dictator.
(The wife of an imprisoned opponent of Mussolini asked him to try and get him released, which implies pleading with the enemy - Mussolini - who happens to be a fan of his work.)

Another still from Parlement, series 4 with Carmen realising the parallels between today and the run-up to WWII.

Stefan Zweig's autobiography led me to poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play Electra, which I borrowed from the library and started reading last night. It was turned into an opera by Strauss. I am listening to it on deezer, but it's not grabbing me so far. Any tips or info to help ease me into it? A passage to look forward to? A recording that's less strident than the one I am listening to? I'm OK with modernist music, so that's not it 😊

I don't want to speak ill of my capital city - and it does feel good to read nice things about a tolerant, non-classist, non-racist, fun Paris in Edwardian times - but Zweig is wearing humongous rose-tinted glasses here 😁

Call me easily led: I am reading Zweig's autobiography b/c it featured heavily in an episode (S4E7) of the TV comedy series about EU institutions Parlement, with the subtext that it is transposable to today's world & political climate. Which is scary because Zweig lived through WWI and committed suicide in 1942.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/04/machiavelli-in-brussels-bac...

#readingispolitical

This is a book about the women of the far right in the widest possible terms, from femonationalist, fascist, colonialist, etc. movements to conservative activism and TERFs. There is a lot of extraneous or “undigested“ info. I am hoping the last 100 pages are more directly relevant, but I won't be holding my breath.
Interviews with the author are more interesting than her book 😐

#readingispolitical

Today is the equinox, so the official start of Autumn, & in the short-lived French Revolutionary calendar, the start of the new year. And the day of grapes (each day was given the name of a produce, tool, animal or mineral). It has no bearing on real life, but I like to check which day it is in this calendar.
In RL, in France, we're still waiting for the new prime minister to form a government 😩
#majicmonday @Eggs

@xicanti, @Reggie, @lil1inblue

I'm just starting a book about the oral history of Queen Tasì Hangbé who reigned over Dahomey, in Western Africa, in the early 18th century. She is alleged to have created an army of “amazons“ and a school where women could learn traditional male skills. She also elevated other women to positions of responsibility.
#Benin #Africa
Pic of her 98ft (30m) statue* in Cotonou, Benin by Yemi festus, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Someone on LibraryThing mentioned that Arthur Sze has been chosen as the new US poet laureate. Having never heard of him, I was curious and read the tagged collection on Everand. I loved it! Almost every distich or tercet creates a distinct, evocative image.
#poetry #nature

Pic by Ahmed abd elkader mohamed, CC BY-SA 4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I was reading this book and wondering where its reputation for advocating duplicity (machiavelism) came from, and then I reached the second half of the book and it all made sense, although I am not 100% sure that it's not ironic... Anyway, I still have 50 pages to go 😁. The translation I am reading is archaic, and so is slighly harder work to parse, but also pleasantly twee.
Pic of the Italian Garden in Chaumont-sur-Loire taken last June

There are so many references to European literature and culture (mostly French, but also British, German, and of course Spanish, though not as much as I thought he would) in this poetry collection. The quoted poem is about Marguerite Gautier (or here, Margarita), the Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux camélias) from the novel/play of the same name by Alexandre Dumas fils.

#Nicaragua #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

So I pretty much inhaled this cult 80s novel about an upper-class female architect enrolled in the Sandinista revolutionary guerilla in 70s #Nicaragua. It's both nuanced and terrifying. Also very feminist, with men in the movement trying their best to deprogram their own machismo, with varying degrees of success. ⬇

#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Halfway through tagged book and enjoying it.
I made Nicaraguan fresco de cacao ( using this recipe : https://www.jonathanmelendez.com/nicaraguan-fresco-de-cacao/ )
Veeeery nice: it's a cold chocolate drink made with cacao beans, cinnamon, rice, sugar and vanilla. It's more involved and time-consuming than I first thought (whole process shown in pic), but I will make it again.
#Nicaragua #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

First poem in this collection by Rubén Darío, and the parallels between it and Nerval's Fantaisie jump out to me (but then, I'm French and I had to learn it by heart at school).

#Nicaragua #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

I finished this public-domain translation of Michael Kohlhaas and other short stories or novellas by Heinrich von Kleist (or Henry de Kleist, as the 19th-c. Swiss translators wrote). I liked the novella Michael Kohlhaas best, although it did play with my nerves a little bit, as the MC went up the nobility chain of command to appeal and plead his case, all in vain, to nobody's surprise 😒 I could see the parallels with Kafka.
#Germany

This first novel is set in the Château d'eau area, a Paris neighbourhood with a strong African population. The MC is a teenage girl whose mother comes from Côte d'Ivoire. It is disappointing: very didactic, very flat and uninteresting. I don't understand why it was published in an adult collection. It should have been pitched at middle schoolers. I chose to read it because it incorporates a lot of nouchi & I like non-standard French but 😐

An unusual breakfast of coffee and grilled corn on the cob bought at the market - I thought it would be better to have it still hot rather than wait until lunch. It was disappointing - overcooked and dried up 😞
On page 50 of tagged book and that also is a disappointment, but it is a fast read so I am planning on reading it to the end, so I can criticize it...

I started the tagged novella this morning. With a MC being unfairly treated, I can feel that it is not going to be good for my blood pressure!
This is my 1st von Kleist work, chosen because it's a classic, it's free to download, the theme appeals, and the author spent some time in Fort de Joux (which is in #Doubs, the département that I am focusing on in 2025).
I might watch the Mads Mikkelsen film later. ⬇