No luck

I am not having much luck with the books at the moment.

Windfalls is on my library catalogue but seems to be lost, and then both Devil in the White City and Jim the Boy are not listed at all.

Maybe the next one.

POB - Video review

I know that people have probably moved on to the next book, but last night People of the Book was one of the books reviewed on a national book club that is shown here on the ABC (our public network). I thought that some of you might be interested in watching the video. It runs for about 10 minutes, and was quite an interesting discussion.

The main presenter is a journalist, and the other two regulars are Jason and Marieke. She is an actress/writer/blogger and Jason is the Books Editor in one of our major newspapers.The other two are guests - one is a satirist and the other an author.

Click here to watch

POB - DQ 24-30

Sorry I have been a bit AWOL - I had to return the book to the library so I had to finish it off quickly, and then have been not exactly busy, but just not posting all that much anywhere!

Hanna ~ Boston, Spring 1996 ~ (pp. 191-214)

24. Marg said, "I was surprised by how quickly Hanna and Ozren fell into bed with each other." Zorro said, "She jumps in bed with Ozren on the day of their first meeting." What do you think of Hanna's reasoning, here?

I suppose I am a bit of a prude, about some things, anyway. I like loyalty. I mean, do what you like when you're single. Live and let live. Lay and get laid. But why bother to be married at all, if you don't want the commitment? (p. 197)

In the context of what had happened just before Hanna said that, I thought it was a justified response. I wonder too if it is meant to give us some idea of the growth that Hanna as a person has had since the beginning of the book, perhaps because of the relationship with Ozren. Given that Hanna already had a history with Raz, one has to respect that she has boundaries that she is not willing to cross.

I actually think the fact that Hanna jumped into bed with Ozren so quickly, and this passage are very different circumstances.

25. Will all humans someday be blended, like Raz (p. 141)? Is this the direction humanity is going? (See more in the post Benetton ad families?)

I commented in the Benetton ad post, I am the mother of a blended child, and therefore it would certainly make his life easier if it was common place and not something completely unusual.

Speaking from an Australian perspective, for a very long time, we had a very white society, unlike in America where there are lot of African-Americans. Up until the 1950s or 1960s the official government immigration policy was called the White Australia policy. We welcomed immigrants, basically from anywhere in Europe, as long as they were white. Over the years since then the face of immigration has changed, and seems to change quite regularly now. That doesn't mean to say that there weren't other cultures here but just not in any great numbers.

I do wonder if the thought of being blended is really all that new - just that the scope has changed a little. Nowadays it is certainly not unusual for people of one country to move to another country for work or political reasons, and so it is more likely that there will be more mixed relationships. Australian society has changed significantly over the last say 50 years in terms of its multicultural makeup. This may be different from the US where there has been large numbers of different cultures for a long time.

Speaking personally, I spent five years living in the UK, basically just because I could. It was there that I met my ex, who was half African and half Carribean, and his parents had met in London in the sixties. I live in a cul-de-sac where there are 6 houses - of those 6 houses as far as I can tell 3 of them house families from a typical Australian/Anglo-Saxon background, one houses an African family who come originally from Ethiopia, one English immigrants, and the other has a Vietnamese family in it.

26. Delilah Sharansky, the Jewish woman introduced on page 202, died in the accident that hospitalized Hanna's mother. Why do you think Sarah Heath never told Hanna about Delilah or her son, the artist Aaron Sharansky? Hanna is very hurt by this lack of knowledge: "It was going to take me more than one night to catch up with thirty years of missing information. Missing love. ... in the end, she'd made all the decisions, and I'd paid for them" (p. 213). And again, "Why hadn't she told me?" (p. 261).

To be honest, I don't think that Hanna's mothers reasons for not telling anything of her background really added up at all. The story of her affair with Hanna's father was moving and tragic, but she seems to have forgotten what it was to love. Having said that, I don't think it was all one sided. It was very clear that Hanna was also somewhat difficult as a teenager. In the end, it would appear that their relationship was one that was quite toxic and could not be made healthier.

Saltwater ~ Tarragona, 1492 ~ (pp. 215-258)

27. What did you think of the story of Ruti, daughter of David Ben Shoushan and his wife Miriam? Ruti was enthralled by the text, the words, the meaning of the words. Ruti understood the text, "They will build me a temple and I will dwell in them," to mean, "In them, not in it. [God] would dwell within her. She would be the house of God. The house of transcendence" (p. 234).

I found Ruti to be kind of a contradictory character. On one hand she was very devout at studying the scriptures and learning, and on the other she was involved with the book binder. Then, she was very devoted to her brother taking her risks, and in due course putting him at risk also. Her actions in relation to the baby displayed many of her best qualities, but then again, some of her not so great qualities in allowing the mother to believe that the baby was dead.

28. Look up Tomas de Torquemada, if you don't know much about the Grand Inquisitor. The chapter of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov entitled "The Grand Inquisitor" is so important that it has been published as a small book, separate from the huge novel itself.

I actually haven't heard of this person before, but just generally the whole idea of the Inquisition is just scary, scary, scary. I do find it interesting that in his bio that there is suggestion that his grandmother was a Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity. Shades of Hitler there in that he had a Jewish heritage and yet they both persecuted the Jews.

Hanna ~ London, Spring 1996 ~ (pp. 259-272)

29. Ostensibly, Hanna is the one we are reading about here: "I wanted to give a sense of the people of the book, the different hands that had made it, used it, protected it" (p. pp. 264-265). Since this sentence provides us with a good explanation for the book's title, how well do you think Geraldine Brooks has done in giving us a sense of these people?

Having now finished the book, I don't know that we did get a great idea of the people of the book, simply because we were with them for basically one episode in the book's past, and we therefore did not really get to know them to the same depth as we would have had the novel only been about one of these incidents.

As a story about the book though, it did work for me. Taking a beautiful piece of literature and following a trail through the various physical changes that had happened to it was very interesting to me.

30. Were you expecting the death of Alia (p. 270)? Or had you hoped for a happy ending, in spite of Ozren's words to Hanna, "Not every story has a happy ending" (p. 37)?

I am generally all for the happy ending, but whilst I would have liked it in this case, I think that it was clear from the description of the injuries and the conditions that would have been prevalent in Sarajevo at the time, there was not ever much hope.

POB - Question

This is a question that is purely for my curiosity. Given how much Australian idiom is in the book, I was wondering whether or not the American version has mum spelt as mum or as mom. For a specific reference, on about page 142 (I think the page numbering varies slightly in my version) Hanna talks about going to listen to her mum's speech. In the Australian version of the book is says:

Mum's talk was humbly titled "How I Do It: Giant Aneurysms."

It's not a important question ..... but I was wondering! LOL!!

Maybe a better question is how do you find the Australian colloquialisms within the book? The author has definitely got them right...which she should given that she is Australian herself, although she has lived away from here for a very long time.

POB - DQ

8. What did you think of Lola's adventures? Did it make sense to you when the young man told Lola, "The only true home for Jews is Eretz Israel" (p. 50)?

The whole Palestine/Israel question is quite a complex one really, and one that we are pretty much still dealing with today. Does it make sense that people that have lived for hundreds of years would think that it made sense to just up and leave to live in a newly created country where they weren't really wanted? No. But then when you add in the Nazi threat and the latest wave of anti-Semitism, then you can understand that there were many families who would just want the chance to live in safety.

Mordecai was however a radical, and yet he and the people who went with him turned out to have made the correct decisions.

It did seem strange to me that Marshall Tito would disband the partisan groups but I think I had heard of that happening before, not sure whether it was in regard to Tito or not. Even stranger that the commander expected the group to just disband and go home, when for so many of them there was no home to go to. I was shocked by Isak's actions, but understood his desperation.

9. What did you think about Stela and Serif Kamal, the Albanian Muslims Lola met?

There are good people everywhere.

10. Why do you think the Nazis were intent on destroying Jewish books? Could something like that happen today? Before you answer, take a look at Banned Books blog.

I definitely think it could happen again, and quite frankly how do we know that it isn't happening in places where there are ethnic tensions.

I found the idea that they wanted to create a "Museum of the Lost Race, to exhibit the finest Jewish objects, after the people themselves are gone" (page 86) laughable. I think that Serif and his boss were right to be sceptical, and right to hide the Haggadah. Good job they were on the same wavelength though given how quickly they had to think when General Faber came to visit and demanded to be given the Haggadah.

Different covers

I thought that some people might be interested to see some of the different covers there are for this book, simply because I know that my cover is different to one that other Book Buddies are reading.


Australian Cover:




UK Cover:



US Cover:




I am not particularly fond of any of them. I guess the UK one is 'prettiest' if I had to choose one. If I wasn't already a Brooks fan, I am not sure I would have picked up either the US or the Australian books if I was just browsing in the bookstore

POB - First 5 DQ

Yay! The book finally came in at the library - seemed like I was number 1 on the list forever!

1. We've met two main characters: Dr. Hanna Heath and Dr. Ozren Karaman (Muslim). What do you think of Hanna? What do you think of Dr. Ozren Karaman, "a thin young man in faded blue jeans" (p. 13)?

I really liked Hanna straight off! I like her humour (for example when she talked about the backpacker on the plane) and the whole phone calls at 2am thing as well. I have to say that, in a way, I find her kind of disconnected from the world. She is passionate about her work, and has some connections to people who are all a long way from her every day world but still accessible, but she doesn't seem to have any really strong personal connections in her every day life.

I was surprised by how quickly Hanna and Ozren fell into bed with each other. To me it felt more in character for Hanna - she says in the book that as soon as feelings get involved she runs a mile. It felt less in character for Ozren, but then at the point where this happens, I don't think we know much at all about Ozren other than that he's a librarian who risked his life to save the Haggadah, and that he's younger than Hanna expected him to be.

I ~ (pp. 3-13)

2. When I reached the words: "And then he handed me the book" (p. 13), I wrote this note: "Oooh, I wonder what that must have felt like, to know you are holding such a treasure!" If you click on Mary Zorro's link, you have the closest we can get here at Book Buddies to having the book in our hands: looking at it page by page. What do you think of those illustrations?

I was so glad to have seen those illustrations. They are beautiful. Thanks Mary Zorro! I don't think that at this stage of the book there were a lot of really clear descriptions of what exactly we were looking at (other than the one that has the mystery African woman in it). I was thinking that they are probably still to come.

II ~ (pp. 13-25)

3. Hanna believes, "Change. That's the enemy. Books do best when temperature, humidity, the whole environment, stay the same" (p. 13). See what change has done to the actual Haggadah by looking at the UN photo Mary Zorro found. Have you ever been dismayed at what's happened to an old book you have seen? Tell us about it.

Not too long ago I went to an exhibition that was on at the State Library of Victoria where they are featuring many old books and looking at the progression of books through the ages. What I found amazing was how well preserved those books are. I know the question is have you ever been dismayed at what's happened to an old book, but as I think about the way I treat my books now - I read them and love them, I might reread them. I might just stand at the shelves and touch the spines. I reorganise them. Sometimes, if I can bear the wrench, I might take some out and dispose of them. In short, I USE them. How do I know that one of those books might not be something that someone a hundred years in the future might value and look at and think that they wished that the book had better care taken of it.

In a way I guess it is different for the Haggadah, given that books were so rare when it was created and then it was passed through the years. I guess my point is that in as much as the rebinding did damage the book, the people who did the rebinding would have been doing the best they knew how to try and preserve the contents.


4. I love my books for what they SAY, not for their physical properties. Book collectors value a book for itself, the THING, not the words inside. I can see value in both views. Tell us what you value about books. Hanna says:

"To restore a book to the way it was when it was made is to lack respect for its history. I think you have to accept a book as you receive it from past generations, and to a certain extent damage and wear reflect that history. The way I see it, my job is to make it stable enough to allow safe handling and study, repairing only where absolutely necessary. This here," I said, pointing to a page where a russett stain bloomed over the fiery Hebrew calligraphy, "I can take a microscopic sample of those fibers, and we can analyze them, and maybe learn what made that stain -- wine would be my first guess. But a full analysis might provide clues as to where the book was at the time it happened" (p. 17).

I too am more interested in the content of a book, but having said that there are some books that I own that I love just because they look beautiful. When you compare different covers around the world for the same book, I would definitely prefer to buy the one with the most attractive cover. Yes, I will read the book and hopefully enjoy the contents, but at the end of the day, in a case like that it is the attractiveness of the book itself that I am buying.

Of course, if I really want a specific book I will get it regardless of the cover.

III ~ (pp. 25-33)

5. "Kunta Kinte" (p. 28) ... do you remember (or know about) Alex Haley's 1976 book Roots, which became a 12-hour TV mini-series in 1977? Could we say this novel is about the "roots" of a book?

I vaguely remember the mini-series Roots but I was pretty young when it came out. I did immediately recognise the reference though, mainly because I think I remembered it from a documentary once where some African-Americans returned to Africa. In some cases they were deeply affected by what they found there.

Is this book about the "roots" of a book? Maybe. I dare say it is. I guess what I am interested to find out is the story of the lives that were touched by the book.

IV ~ (pp. 33-41)

6. Hanna believes that "if something can be known, I can't stand not knowing it" (p. 41). Can you understand that feeling? What were you thinking when Hanna implored Ozren to get a second opinion on Alia's condition and he becomes angry, saying, "Not every story has a happy ending" (p. 37)?

I do understand what Hanna believes, but don't think that I feel it quite so strongly as she does. For example, if I read a book about a subject that I suddenly find fascinating, then I will go off and read other books about that subject, but I generally stick to fiction. I don't really go as far as researching as such.

One thing I do love to do when I read about a place I find fascinating is go off on a virtual tourist jag and visit websites, google images, just generally immerse myself in the feel of a place! I LOVE it when a book makes me want to visit somewhere.

In terms of this book, I have to say that my interest is a little piqued to go off and see what Sarajevo looks like today - but I will save that for the end of the book!

I wonder if Hanna's idea to get a second opinion on Alia's condition is some how a gift to Ozren. She knows that she is already pulling away from him emotionally, and this is one way she can make a difference to him.

V ~ (pp. 41-44)

7. "Bits of butterfly don't generally wind up in books. Moths do, because they come indoors, where books are kept. But butterflies are outdoor creatures" (p. 43). So how did bits of butterfly wing end up in the book?

Someone took it on a picnic? Someone used the book to hold the body of a butterfly (a bit like pressing flowers) and a bit of the wing was left behind. No idea.





ETA: Sorry this was stuck up the top for so long. I posted using Australian time, instead of blog time!

Suggest December books HERE

Okay, let's work on some books for December. Shall we include the book left over from this weekend's voting in the December list? We need suggestions NOW, so please think of something you would like to read and put it in the comments for this post. I'm going to suggest a big list this time, from books being considered by a group I'm a part of. But please, please, please don't let one or two of us suggest all the books. Add something you've been considering or have on your TBR pile. I'll keep adding all books suggested to this post, so we'll have all the nominations in one place.

Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen
__________

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith
__________

A Summons to Memphis
by Peter Taylor
__________

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
by Mark Haddon
__________

March
by Geraldine Brooks
__________

Wish You Well
by David Baldacci
__________

The Distinguished Guest
by Sue Miller
__________

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
by Barbara Kingsolver
__________

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
__________

World Without End
by Ken Follett
__________

The Night Journal
by Elizabeth Crook
__________

Family Tree
by Barbara Delinsky
__________

The Gilded Chamber
by Rebecca Kohn
(maybe after the new year)
__________

The Devil and Miss Prym
by Paulo Coelho
__________

Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons

Oprah pick: Love in the Time of Cholera

I read Love in the Time of Cholera last year, and really enjoyed it! Then again, I enjoyed One Hundred Years of Solitude as well.

In my opinion, Love in the Time of Cholera is more accessible than One Hundred Years, and is a lovely story.

If you are interested, you can read my review here.

As far as The Other Side of the Bridge goes, I have it on request, but it hasn't come in yet. Hopefully soon!

I've just checked,

and I can get The Other Side of the Bridge, so that's a start! I'll request it today and see how long it takes to get in!

Shirley's told us what she is currently reading....how about everyone else? What are you all reading while we are in the process of getting organise?

I just finished The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai today, and now I have started Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon. I am also reading Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong, which is a fantasy type read featuring witches, vampires, and lots of other paranormal creatures, and is the 4th book in the Women of the Otherworld series.

Another Aussie!

Hi everyone

My name is Marg, and I live in Melbourne, Australia. I work full time and am a single mum, so reading is my escape and my me time! I am also 'lucky' enough to have a total of just over 3 hours reading time every day on my way to and from work!

I have been participating in Book Buddies for about 4 years now, although I have been a bit scarcer over the last 12 to 18 months. In the past I have really enjoyed the discussions of books that I just wouldn't have chosen to read by myself, and I look forward to more of those. I am hoping to be able to participate most of the time but there may be sometimes when I just can't!

Not only am I an avid reader, I have been an avid blogger for nearly two years, and really it was the discussion on places like Book Buddies that prompted me to explore more groups and then to start blogging, so it has been quite influential in my online life!

I am looking forward to joining in on discussion!