Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. This week Mr. Linky is at Marg's blog.
My library loot actually consists of two weeks worth of library books. And why is it that books I've reserved tend to arrive if not in pairs then in threesomes? :)
Alameddine, Rabih: I, The Divine
I read about this book on Eva's blog and it sounded so interesting that I put a hold on it the very next day. It is a story told in first chapters, which made me very curious of how such a technique would work in a novel.
Albinia, Alice: Leela's Book
Leela is moving back to Delhi after years living in New York. Her return will unsettle many lives. The book is said to be "a tale of contemporary Delhi that crosses religious and social bounderies, reaching back into the origins of Mahabharata itself". I'm staying in India in my reading after finishing The Calcutta Chorosome by Amitav Ghosh and have just started this book. This far it feels very promising. If you have the elephant-headed god Ganesh as one of the narrators, how it could not be interesting? ;)
Blasim, Hassan: The Madman of Freedom Square
This is a collection of short stories by a writer-filmmaker originally from Iraq, who now lives in Finland.
The collection was published by a British publisher, but I heard just a few weeks ago that it will also be translated into Finnish. Blasim originally wrote the stories in Arabic. The English translation is by Jonathan Wright. From the back cover: "Blending allegory with historical realism, and subverting readres' expectations in an unflinching comedy of the macabre, these stories manage to be both phantasmagoric and shockingly real, light in touch yet steeped in personal nightmare. ... Together these stories afford us a rare glimpse of Iraq from the inside." This little collection will probably be my next read after I finish reading Leela's Book.
King, Rachael: The Sound of Butterflies
Maybe I read abouth this book in some blog? Don't remember exactly. Anyway, it's a historical novel set in 1903. Thomas Edgar, a collector of butterflies, is asked to take part in an expedition to the Amazon. When he returns, he is a changed man and has been rendered mute by what he has experienced during the expedition. The book is said to be "a story of passion and beauty, of brutalite and murder masked by surface spendour." Intriguing, isn't it?
Kneale, Ruth: You Don't Look Like a Librarian
A must read for any librarian. Just because of the title. When I got the book, I showed it to my boss, and she said to me: "Well, you don't look like a librarian!" :) The book is subtitled "Shattering stereotypes and creating positive new images in the Internet age".
Küng, Dinah Lee: A Visit from Voltaire
A comic novel about an American mother-of-three in Switzerland. She gets a visitor who offers to cure all that is bothering her and her family members and who claims to be the Voltaire, the 18th-century philosopher! Comic novels are not really my cup pf tea, but this sounded so intriguing that I want to give it a try.
Miller, Andrew: Pure
A few years before the French revolution a young engineer is asked to demolish the oldest cemetery in Paris. What starts as a "year of bones" for him, turnes out to become "a year of rape, suicide, sudden death. Of friendships, too. Of desire. Of love..." I have no idea whether I will love or hate this book! We'll see...
Moi, Toril: Sexual/Textual Politics. Feminist Literary Theory
I borrowed this classic, because I want to read what Moi says about Virginia Woolf.
Shafak, Elif: The Forty Rules of Love
Ella Rubinstein needs a new challenge in her life and takes a job as a reader to a literary agent. Her first job is to read a novel by Aziz Z. Zahara, a mysterious Scottish writer, whose book tells about the famous 13th-century poet Rumi. Ella is fascinated and starts a correspondence with Zahara. I've been thinking of reading this one for a long time now. Hopefully this time I'll finally get to it!
What treasures did you bring home from the library this week?
No comments:
Post a Comment