Drama-Lovers Book Club

For October and November I liked all my readings :

As @Thyella I read "the Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath. I found this dark novel, about mental illness and suicide, the only one she has written, very touching. One review talked about writing incarnate! I'm thinking of trying to read some of her poetry in English.

I read "Demons" by Fiodor Dostoevsky, I am always blown away by his writings, since I discovered "The Idiot" he remains one of my favorite novelists. Now I really want to get into "Crime and Punishment" and "Notes from Underground".

 "Plexiglas" by Antoine Philias, is a very beautiful social and contemporary novel, which tells the story of friendship between Eliot, in his thirties, forced to look for work in the city of his childhood, and Lulu, in his sixties, a cashier at Carrefour. I totally recommend reading it.


 "L'amour" by François Bégaudeau, is a short novel that tells a love story of a couple over 50 years, through their routine, their daily life, it's very beautiful and sometimes seems more powerful than a love story full of passion.

"Todo Modo" by the sicilian author Leonardo Sciascia, is a kind of detective novel set in a remote hermitage in Italy that depicts with finesse and irony the political and Catholic society of Italy and the degradation of moral values during the 70s.

 penel:

Lucky you! I'm struggling to finish the book I'm currently reading...

Yes, recently I'm lucky, it was for September and October, November just begin, it will be difficult to detail my readings for the month that is not even finished ;)

 Wol hwa:

For Nov, I re-read LOTR. I still think it was too ahead of its time and one of the best books written in the universe.  

But what is this CUTE COMIC!!!!!
OMG OMG I  am so reading Over the Garden Wall

Heheh enjoy~! It's very silly ^_^ 

LotR is a classic. Gotta respect the legend. 

In September I read 2 books, a short story by Kafka and "The Savage Detectives" by Bolano.

"Letter to His Father" (Brief an den Vater) was written by Franz Kafka to address it to his father when he disapproved of his 2nd marriage project, however in the end the letter was never sent. This letter is a key to understanding the whole of Kafka's work, who lived with his tyrannical and malevolent father, a destructive relationship that made him an introverted and anxious person. I really recommend reading this letter, plus it's quite short (less than 100 pages) and personally it really moved me.

Otherwise I also really liked "The savages dectives" (los dectetives salvajes) by Roberto Bolano. This rather dense novel tells how two friends, Arturo Bolano and Ulyses Lima, who founded a poetic movement, the "real-visceralism" marked many of the characters they met on their way. I continue to discover Latin American literature with a lot of pleasure.

I've just started on one of my 2024 goals, read 2 books in a non-L1 language. This one is "Zero Line Par Gulzar", a biography of the famous poet and lyricist. Seeing a glossary of Urdu phrases translated into Hindi really drove home how much these 2 languages have moved apart now.

 ASTER:

Can I mention the academic and competitive books here, I have to read 72 books, maybe in this pretext I can become a little more motivated. Lol  

Academic I get, but Competitive?

 ASTER:

I was just kidding, I knew mentioning such books would make the atmosphere heavy and serious which would take away the fun from people. Especially when the community is not academic but of hobbies.

But what if you read academic books AS a hobby?  :)  These are 4 of my most recent acquisitions, the two on the right I read last month, the 2 on the leftI will read in 2024. All just for personal interest and fun.

 fiflydramalover:

Wow what a cool collection of books. It's such an interesting topic! Love learning the origins of words and phrases.   

The two Durkin books were very enjoyable reads, and I was pleasantly surprised that the Oxford English Dictionary's chief etymologist took the time to reply to an email I sent him with a query about the book