Les Aventures De Léna Léna

The first one is easy: Daron again. See Day 14.

Seafaring Novel: De scheepsjongens van Bontekoe.

It's been years since I read this, but I loved this as a kid and it's pretty much the perfect seafaring novel, as far as I am concerned. My cousin recently hooked me up with the English translation, named Java Ho! and I am looking forward to reading that. maybe i'll try reading it to my son. It might be right up his alley. I'll keep you posted on the quality of the translation.

Skipping Agatha Christie, because what i have read by her I have long since forgotten. Also skipping the detective, because I really don't care for mysteries. Those two facts may be related, though not causally I'm sure.

So picture books! For once I don't feel like talking about childhood favorites and really, do we need more posts about Where the Wild Things Are and The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

Here are a few new favorites from when I used to read to my toddler yoga class.

I've already answered this one. See the review.

I am deriving a particular kind of pleasure out of the slap dash fashion I am doing this challenge in that I think Roald Dahl would probably approve of.

My favorite Roald Dahl character, and I can say I probably met them all, is Roald Dahl himself. As much as I loved his children's books (and I love those, both when I read them myself and again when i read them to my kids), as much as I loved his stories for grown ups (and I loved those too), my favorites are the autobiographical ones. His war stories in Kiss, Kiss and other books, and his autobiographies, Boy and Going Solo.

Hope? Of what? My future? The future of mankind? Relief of my IBS?

Pffffff.

Gonna go with Life After Life. It relieved some of my crushing fear of Death when I was a kid. (More on the eclectic book choices of my youth can be found here). My own death and my parents' death and everybody I loved was going to DIE! I don't know if religious little girls have an easier time with the concept of Death, with Heaven in their future, but I can tell you it wasn't easy for this agnostic one. Well, at least I didn't have to believe in Hell and sin and all of that, so that was the upside of that upbringing.

This book made me have hope that I would not spend eternity rotting in a coffin, fully conscious of the process. (Still, I'm getting cremated, just in case.)

Maybe I am only remembering this because my 10 year old has woken me up twice this month, crying, because everybody he loves is going to die. This irritates my husband, who just wants to go the fuck back to sleep, and my 14 year old has never seemed to have gone through this phase, but it breaks my heart because I remember how horrendously scary a concept Death is when you're 10 and it's dark out and you're all by yourself staring at the ceiling of your bedroom.

I think I'll order a copy of this book for him. Maybe it helps him too.

Fictional crushes are a fact of life, I am sure. At least for people that I consider normal. But none of my adult crushes can hold a candle to my childhood crushes. In fact, what I am noticing with this challenge in particular is that many of the questions lead me to answer with childhood books. Books from before the time when I felt I had read it all before. Everything was just a little more impressive when I was more impressionable, I suppose.

So, anyway. Edu Jansen is the protag of this, as far as I know untranslated, book, called Torenhoog En Mijlenbreed (loosely translatable as Sky High And Miles Wide). The title refers to the forests on Venus that explorers from Earth come and explore in a century when there are no more forests on Earth (this was written in the 60s before the actual climate data from Venus were available). It's about the fear of the unknown and how to face it. Edu is drawn to the forests with a pull he doesn't understand and one that is certainly not approved by the powers that be. When Edu accidentally-on-purpose crashes in the forest he not only discovers intelligent 'aliens' (technically Edu is the alien, of course), he figures out they are telepathic and in the course of the story he figures out that he himself is telepathic too. So much angst and loneliness, people! How can you not love the guy?

Uhoh. Behind already!

Good thing these questions can be answered with the same book.

Favorite Monarch: Emperor Gregor of Barrayar. His deadpan melancholy makes him one of the most human of fictional monarchs and he is the perfect foil for Miles's hyperactive genius. And damned if he doesn't steal every scene he is in.

Best dinner party also in this book. If 'cringing with second hand embarrassment' can be considered the same as best. I tried to think of something more sophisticated, like Babette's Feast or something, but no, I got nothing. Miles it is.

Difficult choice, people. Any Romance novel ever qualifies. So do most Fantasy books. Bujold has some real doozies. But I am going to dedicate this post to Catherine Asaro, who may have written the only worth wile series of scifi/romance ever and has been rewarded with some real toe curlers.

Yikes.....

Just to be clear, the only ones of these I have bought are Ascendant Sun and The Ruby Dice. For the other I want to express my eternal gratitude to my local library. 

I was 18 and in the US for the first time and had never heard of this book. But it was such a nice, hefty tome with the gilt embossed cover. Eighteen is probably the perfect age to read this book, so that worked out well. 

I am assuming they mean the UK home front, this being a UK challenge thing. But I am going to have to mention my Dutch favorite first. 

Oorlogswinter (Wartime Winter) is one of those kid's books you never, ever forget. This is the story of a 15 year old boy in Nazi occupied Holland who finds a wounded English fighter pilot and has to figure out what to do with him. 

If we're talking UK homefront, I am going with All Clear. Time travel for the win! 

Day one: Favorite book about books and/or bookshop

Are there really that many books about books or bookstores? Outside of fanfiction, I mean, where bookstores are only slightly less prolific than coffee shops. All I can think of is that I did NOT like A Note in the Margin. And Adrien English is a no too. 

I feel like I am missing something obvious, but I can't for the life of me think of what it could be. 

I guess I'll go with The Neverending Story. Pretty sure that was about a book. 

Right? 

Day two: Favorite book set in a school

I'm passing up Hogwarts and Enid Blyton here, because while those are fun, they do not fill me with undying love like Ciske de Rat does. (The only booklikes listing I could find was fro the omnibus, but technically I am talking about Vol. 1, which was also called Ciske de Rat).

The first person narrator of Ciske de Rat is Mr Bruis, an elementary school teacher  in the slums of Amsterdam in the 1930s (yes, the Depression reared its ugly head there too). His class is filled to bursting with underfed kids from the wrong side of the tracks, the condensation drips down the moldy walls in the school's hallways, his fellow teachers (all veterans) believe corporal punishment is the only way to go, the schoolbooks about cherubic children braiding daisy chains in sunny meadows are so far removed from his kids' reality the contrast hurts, and most of the parents don't give a shit. 

Into this pit of despair is tossed a new pupil, Ciske, nicknamed 'the Rat' that Mr Bruis takes a liking to. Of course, he only sees him at school, so the book takes place in the school and it is at once a vivid commentary on life in the 30s (the books were actually writtenin the early 40s, so it is not technically historical fiction) and an incredibly moving story about how some people can shape your life. 

This book has been made into a movie that I flatout have refused to see, because there is no way they didn't completely murder the book. I mean, it's a fucking musical.... or at least, there is singing involved. 

And I guess it has been translated into English in 1958. I am almost afraid to check that out, considering my experiences with Crusade in Jeans. I'm curious though.....

Oooh, I like lists! And I am only two days late. I'll do 1 and 2 today, 3 and 4 tomorrow and then we'll see how it goes. -Lenalena

________________________________________________

Well, I failed utterly with August, but for anybody who's interested September's list comes from We Love This Book (also on Twitter) and looks like this: 

1^st: Favourite book about books and/or bookshops

2^nd: Favourite book set in a school (Back to School)

3^rd: Best Home Front novel (declaration of WW2)

4^th: The book you bought for the cover

5^th: The book you bought despite the cover

6^th: Favourite book of short stories

7^th: Favourite fictional monarch (Elizabeth 1^st birthday)

8^th: Favourite literary dinner party

9^th: Literary crush

10^th: A book that gave you hope

11^th: Best book recommended by a librarian

12^th: Favourite Austen character (Austen Festival)

13^th: Favourite Roald Dahl character (Roald Dahl Day)

14^th: Character most like you

15^th: Favourite Agatha Christie story (Christie’s birthday)

16^th: Favourite picture book

17^th: Favourite literary detective/policeperson

18^th: Favourite coming-of-age book

19^th: Favourite seafaring novel (Talk Like a Pirate Day)

20^th: Favourite literary friendship

21^st: A book to turn someone into a reader (International Literacy Day)

22^nd: Best book recommended by a bookseller (Bookseller's Association conference)

23^rd: Favourite prize-winning book

24^th: Something to do with Gatsby/Fitzgerald/20s (F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birthday)

25^th: A book recommended by your parents

26^th: Favourite poetry collection (TS Eliot’s birthday)

27^th: Book set in your favourite country to visit (World Tourism Day)

28^th: Favourite literary troublemaker

29^th: The book that made you question everything

30^th: The best book you read this month.

This book has the sort of fragile beauty that makes you kind of forget that you're a cynical 40-something who has read it all before. I thought it'd be tedious to read the same story as Gives Light, but then from Rafael's POV. I've seldom been so happy to be completely and utterly wrong. Still, it probably helps that I read that book a while ago.

Rafael Gives Light (who should have been named Rafael Sees Light, or Rafael Touches Light) is one of those Christo MCs that just bowls you over with their ungainly vulnerability. He's probably my favorite. Maybe after Tommy from White Buffalo Calf Warriors, I don't know. I am not going to spoil the book by telling you why, read it yourself.

The book isn't perfect. Christo tends to be a bit repetitive, although it's really not that bad here. And the end is a bit abrupt. But hell, it's close enough, better than I remember Gives Light being, to give bunches of stars.

That is how wrong I was when I thought it would be kind of lame to read the same story as Gives Light from another POV. But I was the wrongest person to ever be wrong.

WRONG I tell you.

This has a fragile beauty that has sucked me in completely and has made me misplace my hard won cynicism somewhere. I already know I will be rereading Gives Light after this.

@61%

Randy's story is picking up. Bobby needs to get his ass out of Sweden. Lawrence is interesting as always and Goto Dengo..... that part of the story is just gross.

This lovely YA novel is free until the end of the month on Smashwords with the promo code AC89H.