Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks – The Summary

1 January – 31 December 2016

For the 2016 edition of Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks hosted by Robin of My Two Blessings on a special blog just for this annual challenge, I set myself the goal to read my way through the English alphabet of writers from A to Z (women) and from Z to A (men). It goes without saying, that I had no problem whatsoever to complete this challenge since I have been posting a review every Friday for four years now. I must admit that some of the letters – notably X and Z – have been a hard nut to crack, but in the end I succeeded in finding two authors for each of them. As usual, I alternated female and male writers, classical and contemporary works thus making my double alphabet more varied. Actually, I could include not just 52 but 53 new literary gems, some more brilliant than others, in my list of reviewed books here on Edith’s Miscellany because my review of The Man Who Searched for Love by Pitigrilli went online on 1 January. This book doesn’t count for the challenge, of course, and I haven’t included it in my alphabet.

Book Review: The Face of Another by Abe Kōbō

2016 review of a book written
by an author whose family name starts with the letter
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Although the expression isn’t used in all languages with exactly the same meaning as in Japanese, we all feel at once that it can’t be a pleasant experience “to lose your face”. In fact, it uses to be rather embarrassing, if not shameful because the person concerned inadvertently disappoints expectations, violates social rules or commits another faux pas and thus loses respect. Sometimes “losing face” may be synonymous with “showing the true face”, while other times it may just reveal the void or confusion behind a very artful mask. In The Face of Another by Abe Kōbō the first-person narrator lost his face in a more literal sense in an accident. In three notebooks addressed to his wife he describes the psychological repercussions of the loss, expounds his thoughts on the importance of the face and explains his strategy to recover his face, to construct a new self and to get closer to his wife.

Women Challenge #4 – The Summary

1 January – 31 December 2016

This year was the second time that I participated in a reading challenge hosted by Valentina from the bilingual book blog peek-a-booK!. More precisely it was the Women Challenge #4 to which I contributed altogether 28 reviews of books written by women authors from around the world. 26 of the novels I presented here on Edith’s Miscellany as part of my personal challenge to complete a female as well as a male alphabet of fiction writers in 2016. The remaining two reviews I published on Lagraziana’s Kalliopeion because they didn’t fit into my planning, one because it was too old for Edith’s Miscellany and the other because it was kind of a follow-up by the same author. As usual, I alternated contemporary works with classics dating from 1886 through 1970.

Read the Nobels 2016 – The Summary

One of the reading challenges for which I signed up in January without giving it a second thought is Read the Nobels 2016 hosted by Aloi aka the Guiltless Reader on her blogs Guiltless Reading and Read the Nobels. Now the New Year’s Eve celebrations are already around the corner (time flies!) and because only one last review will be going online in 2016, moreover one that isn’t relevant for this challenge, the moment has come to take stock of the writings from the pen of en-NOBEL-ed authors that I was able to add to my list of over 200 reviewed books here on Edith’s Miscellany.

Poetry Revisited: For Saint Stephen's Day by Luke Wadding

For Saint Stephen’s Day

(from A Small Garland of Pious & Godly Songs: 1684)

Saint Stephen had an angel's face
All full of virtue, full of grace,
By the false Jews was stoned to death,
For Jesus Christ and for his faith;
But for those stones in Heaven he found
Of precious pearls a glorious crown.

The Jews do falsely him accuse
And in their council him abuse,
Their furious rage without delay
Make stones their arms him to destroy;
And for those stones in Heaven he found
Of precious pearls a glorious crown.

The most sweet saint with his last breath
Doth pray for those who seek his death,
And leaves not off whilst life doth last,
As thick as hail their stones to cast;
And for those stones in Heaven he found
Of precious pearls a glorious crown.

Luke Wadding, O.F.M. (1588-1657)
Irish Franciscan friar and historian

Book Review: The Secret of an Empress by Countess Zanardi Landi

2016 review of a book written
by an author whose family name starts with the letter
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Men and women claiming to be the illegitimate offspring of someone rich and powerful, notably a king or less often a queen, have been known at all times. Today a DNA test suffices to find out the truth once and for all, but until not so long ago this was different. There always remained doubts unless the assumptions were so far-fetched or the impostor so clearly out of his or her mind that nobody could take the claim seriously. Of course, some of these people will have ended in psychiatric asylums, some will just have resumed their old lives, and others will have continued their fight for being recognised as natural son or daughter with all possible means. When legal action proved useless, some resorted to… writing a book like The Secret of an Empress by Countess Zanardi Landi that brought the strange story of Elisabeth – Sisi – of Austria’s secret daughter into the world.

Back Reviews Reel: December 2013

Admittedly, it might already be a little late for a look back on my Christmassy reviews that closed the blogging year 2013. On the other hand, maybe you haven’t yet decided what to read during the upcoming holidays or you still need a suitable present for this one friend of yours whom you always forget with all that is on your mind at this time of year. The two English-language novels – one classic, one contemporary – in my review archives of December 2013 should be easy enough to find, while the third book that an expatriate Austrian wrote in English during World War II has been out of print ever since its first and only edition of 1941. My fourth read for the end of the year was the translation of a Spanish novel from 1994 and I have no idea if it’s still to be found anywhere except the library, a second-hand bookshop or a flee market.

Poetry Revisited: The Christmas Rose by Annie Matheson

The Christmas Rose

(from Love Triumphant and Other New Poems: 1898)

O Star of hope and courage, winter-bound!
Thy stem, now graced with that corolla white,
All glistening clear, as if compact of light,
Has striven through the hard and bitter ground,
And in the coarse earth vital beauty found.
Symbolic art thou of His love and might
Who did not flash, transcendent, on our sight.
But came by ways at which the dreamers frowned.
The pains that darken this, our mortal span,
The common joys, made holy, sacrificed
As God's enrichment of our sorrowing earth,—
The Son of Man has blessed for every man.
At Cana, Calvary, Bethlehem, the Christ
Has sealed as sacred, marriage, death, and birth.

Annie Matheson (1853-1924)
British Victorian era poet

Book Review: Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

2016 review of a book written
by an author whose family name starts with the letter
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Most avid readers like me will know the experience. You get engrossed in a book and as you advance page by page you become ever more impressed by the power, the wisdom and the beauty of the words. And it’s only natural to long for more of it, isn’t it? Sometimes it can be sobering to read another work from the pen of the same author who caught our attention and touched us in such a way. If we’re lucky, though, further reads confirm the first impression and we become fans not just of the writings but of the woman or man who put them to paper. The narrator of Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes greatly admires the work of the nineteenth-century French writer Gustave Flaubert. During another visit to Rouen on the traces of his literary idol he becomes obsessed with finding the stuffed parrot that Flaubert had on his desk for a while in 1876.

New on Lagraziana's Kalliopeion: The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee

A History of the Book Trade:
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee 

However much we love reading, we seldom think about the book trade in general or about bookshops in particular. We take both for granted until something unexpected happens: the one-man bookshop around the corner that has been there ever since you can think closes because sales have constantly gone down and costs up; a small local publishing house files bankruptcy because it can no longer compete with transnational media companies swamping the market with cheap books; the middle-aged writer whose career you’ve been following with interest and something bordering on awe for many years sells hot dogs in the street because literary magazines don’t pay for short stories and revenues from her books are low thanks to pirated copies multiplying like rabbits on the internet. But none of this is new. The book trade has always been tough for everybody involved as shows The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee.

Read more » (external link to Lagraziana's Kalliopeion)

Poetry Revisited: Όσο Mπορείς – Best You Can by Constantine P. Cavafy

Όσο Mπορείς (Από τα Ποιήματα: 1935) Κι αν δεν μπορείς να κάμεις την ζωή σου όπως την θέλεις, τούτο προσπάθησε τουλάχιστον όσο μπορείς: μην την εξευτελίζεις μες στην πολλή συνάφεια του κόσμου, μες στες πολλές κινήσεις κι ομιλίες. Μην την εξευτελίζεις πηαίνοντάς την, γυρίζοντας συχνά κ’ εκθέτοντάς την στων σχέσεων και των συναναστροφών την καθημερινήν ανοησία, ώς που να γίνει σα μια ξένη φορτική. Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης (1863-1933) Έλληνας ποιητής, δημοσιογράφος και δημόσιος υπάλληλος

Best You Can (from Poems: 1935) And if you cannot lead your life as you wish, So at least try Best you can: do not disgrace it With too much connection with the world, With too much bustle and chatter. Do not disgrace it walking about, Often taking it and exposing it In relations and contacts To the daily madness, As to become a burdensome hanger-on. Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) Greek poet, journalist and civil servant English translation derived from Google Translate and revised by Edith LaGraziana with the help of different copyrighted translations reprinted on The Official Website of the Cavafy Archive

Book Review: The Lake by Yoshimoto Banana

2016 review of a book written
by an author whose family name starts with the letter
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

For people who wish to be left alone and to go about their business without friends and family giving advice or commenting unasked for, the big city can be the perfect place to hide. Also for the loner it can be a veritable paradise because like any virgin forest at the back of beyond the metropolis offers solitude and anonymity, but without the need to renounce the amenities of modern existence or the option to socialise at any time. It’s the undisturbed life among strangers and casual acquaintances that both protagonists of The Lake by Yoshimoto Banana appreciate most in Tōkyo. The drifter who paints murals for her living and the graduate student focused on his studies of biotechnology only meet because they live in apartments with windows facing each other. Almost imperceptibly their nodding acquaintance changes into love stronger than the ghosts of the past that so far kept them from getting truly involved with another person.

Poetry Revisited: A Song for Saint Nicholas by Mary Mapes Dodge

A Song for Saint Nicholas

(from Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates: 1865)

Welcome, friend! St. Nicholas, welcome!
Bring no rod for us to-night!
While our voices bid thee welcome,
Every heart with joy is light.

“Tell us every fault and failing;
We will bear thy keenest railing
So we sing, so we sing:
Thou shalt tell us everything!

“Welcome, friend! St. Nicholas, welcome!
Welcome to this merry band!
Happy children greet thee, welcome!
Thou art gladdening all the land.

“Fill each empty hand and basket;
‘Tis thy little ones who ask it.
So we sing, so we sing:
Thou wilt bring us everything!”

Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905)
American children's writer and editor

Book Review: The Hive by Camilo José Cela

2016 review of a book written
by an author whose family name starts with the letter
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It’s a characteristic of the big city that there’s a constant hustle and bustle in all the central places. Around every corner seems to wait big adventure… or maybe just the daily struggle for a petty livelihood that is the inexorable fate of the masses crammed together in its less fashionable quarters. However hard the times, day in day out without fail people go about their business – because they have to – and fill the city if not with cheer then at least with life. Overall, their existence may appear ordinary and dull, but it suffices to break it down to the individual level to discover the unique, sometimes surprising and often moving stories that make it up. The Hive by Camilo José Cela, the Spanish recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature, shows the much-tried people of Madrid striving to return to something like normality after the Spanish Civil War.