The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone

Page 40:

"But you have to agree that the work of art becomes noble in the degree to wich it represents the truth? Then sculpture will come closer to true form, for when you work the marble the figure emerges on all four sides."

Page 41:

"Painting is perishable: a fire in the chapel, too much cold, and the paint begins to fade, crack. But stone is eternal! Nothing can destroy it. When the Florentines tore down the colosseum, what did they do with the blocks? Built them into new walls. And think of the Greek sculpture that is being dug up, twoo, three thousand years old. Show me a painting that's two thousand yers old. Look at this Roman marble sarcophagus: as clear as strong as the day it was carved..."

Page 74:

Michelangelo mets Lucrezia at the Sculpture Garden.

Page 89:

"Now what is sculpture?....it is the art which, by removing all that is superfluous from the material under treatment, reduces it to that form designed in the artist's mind.." - Bertoldo quoting Donatello

Page 150:

Madonna and the child

Page 426:

The rivalry against Leonardo's paintings starts to bother Michelangelo.

Page 442:

After 3 years carving David, Pope Julius II ask Michelangelo to come to Rome,to carve 40 statues for his tomb in the center of St Peter's Basilica.

Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy #1) by Naguib Mahfouz

Page 56:

"The important thing is to rid ourselves of the nightmare of the English and for the caliphate to return to its previous grandeur. Then they will find the way prepared to us."

Page 322:

"Amazing news is spreading among the students. A delegation or "wafd" composed by the nationalist leaders Sa'd Zaghlul Pasha, Abd al-Aziz Fahmy Bey, and Ali Sha'rawi Pasha went to the British Residency in Cairo yesterday and met with the High Commissioner, requesting that the British protectorate over Egypt be lifted and independence declared."

Page 325:

Tell me, brother, what can Sa'd do against a nation that now considers itself the unrivaled mistress of the world?"
The mother nodded her head in agreement, as though he had been addressing her. She stated: "The revolutionary leader Urabi Pasha was one of the greatest men and one of the most courageous. Sa'd and the others are nothing compared with him. He was in the cavalry, a fighting man. What did he get from the English, boys? They imprisoned him and then exiled him to a land on the other side of the world."

Page 353:

"If we don't confront terrorism with the anger it deserves, may the nation never live again. It's unthinkable for the nation to be at peace when its leader who has sacrificed himself for it suffers the torments of captivity."

Page 358:

"Down with the Protectorate!"
"Our fathers have been imprisoned. We don't study law in a land where the law is trampled underfoot."

Page 373:

A revolution was raging in all areas of the Nile Valley from the extreme north to the extreme south. Fahmy recounted what he knew about the railroads and telegraph and telephone lines being cut, the outbreak of demonstrations in different provinces, the battles between the English and the revolutionaries, the massacres, the martyrs, the nationalist funerals with processions with tens of coffins at a time, ant the capital city with its students, workers, and attorneys on strike, where transportation was limited to carts. He remarked heatedly, "Is this really a revolution? Let them kill as many as their savagery dictates. Death only invigorates us."

Olivia and Jai by Rebecca Ryman

How to describe such magnificent book except by saying that : it MUST be read.

It is not a love story in the strictu sensu, on the contrary, it shows how love is close to hate.

The plot engages us into the story of India still under British rule where a lot of social conventions and prejudice among other factors.

The end still brings big and unexpected surprises, I won't spoil this fabulous end.

There is sequel to this book, The Veil of Illusion.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

In my opinion, the main issue of this book is not about the proper choice (or not) of a child's name by his parents when they try to keep a Bengali tradition.

The author's challenge was to show how different cultures can collide to each other in very simple questions. First, Gogol denies his background by refusing his father simple explanation for their name's choice. Only when he reaches his full maturity, he finds the real motivation for his namesake.

I personally didn't like the character of Moushumi Mazumdar who is totally disconnected to her own identity.


A magnificent book, no doubt about that.

A very interesting movie The Namesake (2006) was adapted to this book.

A Capital Crime (DI Ted Stratton #3) by Laura Wilson

I absolutely loved this book and the plot is based on the true story of Timothy John Evans, who was hanged in 1950 for the murder of his daughter who was 14-years old, and that of Reginald Halliday Christie who was also hanged in 1953 for the murder of his wife. Another book Ten Rillington Place by Ludovic Kennedy also deals with the trial of both murder cases since both murderers lived at this address in London.

According to Laura Wilson, due the controversy surrounding the related Evans case among other factors contributed to the abolition of capital punishment in Britain.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

This is the story of Louie Zamperini, an olympic medalist who became a B24's bomber during World War II. When his plane crashes into the Pacific, his terrible saga begins until he became one of the thousands POWs captured by the Japanese.

While not a big fan of non-fiction books, I really admire the extensive research performed by Laura Hillenbrand who collected an impressive amount of material during a period of 7 years about Louie and his friends.

The books is a page-tuner since the author managed to give the right tone to the narrative. After reading this book, I must read her first book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend which movie Seabiscuit directed by Gary Ross (2003) was lovely.

I'm already looking forward to next book of this brilliant writer. Laura, keep going, please!!

Pirate King (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #11) by Laurie R. King

This copy was kindly sent by NetGalley.


Russell is called to go undercover to Lisbon and then Morocco as a director's assistant of the silent movie based on The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan. Her job is to investigate strange troubles wit the team and the disappearance of the last assistant's director.

This idea is not so original since François Truffaut wrote and directed his famous movie La nuit américaine in 1973.

The plot made by laurie King is quite boring except by the appearance of Fernando Pessoa into the story, the famous Portuguese poet, who acts as a Portuguese translator. By coincidence, I've been recently to Lisbon and the author brilliantly described the real ambience of this town even at that time.

The main concern is the absence of Sherlock Holmes who reappears into the plot only in the last part of the book.

I hope the next book by Laurie King will be better than this one.

O Cemitério de Praga by Umberto Eco

The Prague Cemetery is a very erudite book in the sense that many historical facts are absolutely real and others no.

However, the author solve this apparent dichotomy by telling two stories in parallel, one of them as a flashback: the plot, which is told by The Narrator and the story where real historical facts are coming up into the narrative itself.

No matter what, I am a big fan of Eco’s books, including his non-fiction ones. All illustrations come from the iconography of the author's file.

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

This is the story of Daniel Deronda and his search for his true identify.

In this book Eliot show her best of style of writing: in the first two chapters, in a flashback point of view, Deronda met Gwendolyn at a Casino but she is forced to go home due to financial duties with her family. Apparently, a romantic relationship is established between these characters.

However, as the plot develops, one learns the true story of Daniel Deronda and his search for his true identity. In the meantime, Gwen accepted the marriage proposal made by Lord Grandcourt thus avoiding her probably future as a simple Governess.

Then Eliot introduces a Jewish component into the plot: Daniel met Mirah who is trying to find her own mother and brother and then we have the feeling of Daniel's Jewish parentage. Eliot describes in a very sensitive way in which Jews were perceived during this Victorian period.

There is other turmoil into the story but I prefer to avoid spoilers here.

I haven't read all the books by George Eliot but it seems to be Daniel Deronda is her masterpiece work as a writer. Now, I must read Adam Bede, Silas Marner and Romola in order to get a true vision of her whole work.

Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

After her father's death, Maud Ruthyn is sent to live with her Uncle Silas who is follower of the Swedenborgism. In this "religion", people could freely visit heaven and hell, and talk to angels, demons and other spirits. According to her father's will, she will be forced to live there until her twenty first birthday.

The plot is a truly turmoil of events and emotions where we can follow Maud's struggle for survival against her uncle and her French governess Madame de La Rougierre. On the other hand, she finds some alleys as Milly, Silas' daughter and her cousin Monica.

This book is based in a short story "Passage in The Secret Story of an Irish Countess", which is published in The Purcell Papers Volume 2.

Another curiosity about this book is that the author wrote in the first person as a woman which is not so usual in this kind of book, except for Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

After finished this book, I'm planning to read Carmilla and In a Glass Darkly.

The Retribution by Val McDermid

NetGalley kindly sent this uncorrected proof of this book.

Even after watching several episodes of the TV series Wire in the Blood , this is the first book I read by Val McDermid.

The plot is based on the escape of Jacko Vance which aim is to revenge his imprisonment due to a previous work of investigation performed by the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan.

Entwined with Jacko's story, Tony and Carol started to investigate a serial killer who murdered street prostitutes and signed his victims post-mortem by making a tattoo on the inside of their wrist.

However the reader is driven to focus the attention into Vance’s final goal. Even Tony, an experienced psychologist, made a clear prognostic of Jacko’s mind classifying him as a true psychopath, he wasn’t able to foresee the full dimension of his fury against him and Carol.

The author managed to keep reader’s full attention into this chilling and gripping story.

Hiding from the Light by Barbara Erskine

This is the story of Emma Dickson who gave up her career in order to live in a cottage on the Essex coast. Even if this house remembered her childhood, it's haunted by a witch who was prosecuted by Cromwell's Witch Finder General Matthew Hopkins.

If you like to read books about ghosts and witches as well then you should read this book.

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

page 38:

Kuala means the mouth of a river.

Page 56:

"People who spent the war in prison camps have written a lot of books about what a bad time they had,"..."they don't know what it was like, not being in a camp."

This book was originally published as "The Legacy".

This is the story of Jean Paget, a Scottish woman, who was captured together with 80 women and children by the Japanese during World War II in Malaya, when they have been forced to walk through the jungle trails for more than 1200 miles.

The narrator of this story is Noel Strachan, the solicitor of Jean's heritage and he must act as her trustee until she completes 35 years old.

During the death march, Jean mets an Australian soldier, Joe Harmon also a prisoner of war, who offers to help her and the surviving women and children of this . He pays a high price for this kind of help.

Only when the War finishes, Jean and Joe will be able to share their love in the Australian outback in "A town like Alice", a modern town like Alice Springs.

This is a very touching story not only during the hard time in the Malaya walk but also during the period of Jean's life in Australia when she put all her effort in order to promote an Australian city in one of the best and modern cities and helping the local population by offering new jobs.

According to the author's note, the march and death of the homeless women prisoners happened in Sumatra and thus is based in a true story.

The corresponding movie of this book A Town Like Alice (1956) has Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch as the main actors.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

This is the story of a Turkish poet Ka who after living in exile in Frankfurt returns to to the town of Kars in order to investigate the suicide of religious girls forbidden to wear their head scarves.

In the meantime a military coup takes place at the National Theatre when soldiers just shoot several people among the audience including some persons known by Ka.

Some religious aspects come naturally into the plot.

In my opinion this book is a masterpiece of the contemporary literature even if some reviewers will disagree with my point of view.

La Dame de Monsoreau (The Last Valois #2) by Alexandre Dumas

The sequel of La Reine Margot.

Queen Margot, or, Marguerite de Valois (The Last Valois #1) by Alexandre Dumas

The first book of the trilogy on the Valois. Now I must read La Dame de Monsereau and Les Quarante-cinq.

I really don't understand how L'Academie Francaise didn't recognize Dumas pere work, only of his son with La Dame aux Camélias.

Isabelle Adjani (Marguerite de Valois), Daniel Auteuil (Henri de Navarre), Jean-Hugues Anglade (Charles IX) and Virna Lisi (Catherine de Médicis) starred Queen Margot (1994), a great movie.

A Pillar of Iron by Taylor Caldwell

This book is about the story of Marcus Tullius Cicero the famous Roman lawyer, philosopher and statesman.

Several historical characters are described the extent to which Cicero's life is described by the author.

Jullius Caesar his childhood friend to whom Cicero always cheered despite some wrong political attitudes according to his point of view; Catilina his eternal enemy; Noe ben Joel a Jewish, a dearest friend and an intellectual who tried to convert Cicero to believe in the coming Messiah.

Even if his personal life was not easy with his marriage to Terentia, he adored her daughter Tullia. His son Marcus didn't follow his father's wish as a philosopher, he went to a military career instead.

The First and Second Triumvirate are interlaced with Cicero's career. Cicero founded the first Public Library in Roma, I didn't know about it. Caesar's and Cicero's assassination are described in a few paragraphs but we can shudder at the details.

According to the author's note, she made an extensive research work that began in 1947 from Cicero's diaries, from the historian Sallust and from his letters to Atticus and Julius Caesar. She translated hundreds of Cicero's letters in the Vatican Library.

Since this book was first published in 1965, the author dedicated her book to the memory of President John F. Kennedy.

Alethea by Pamela Belle

And the Heron's saga continues, telling now about Alethea, daughter of Francis and Thomazine Heron.

Alethea is a woman ahead of her time since her love for painting as above all her 3 admirers: Kit Drakelon, his half-brother, Jasper Sewell, a quiet country doctor and the infamous John of Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.

Her first tutor in the art of painting was Mary Beale who immediately recognized Alethea's gift to draw very quickly any portrait of mainly her family in the beginning oh her career. After acquiring more technique, she learnt to paint miniatures at the Court, during Restoration period. The description of the Fire in London is unforgettable.

Rochester's poems to Alethea are authentic, according to the author, and the order in which they appear in the story corresponds to the order in which most scholars considerer he wrote them. It also seems that the famous portrait of Rochester crowing his monkey at the National Portrait Gallery, is usually assigned to Jacob Huysmans. Since there is no signature on it, why not attribute to Alethea?

After reading this series, I will certainly read the Wintercombe series.

The Chains of Fate by Pamela Belle

The Moon in the Water and The Chains of Fate tell a single story of romance and adventure - a story that has lived in Pamela Belle's heart since she was twelve, when she was taken to see a great ruined Elizabethan house in England's West Suffolk.

"I can remember standing in the middle of the overgrown ruin that had once been a very beautiful house, and thinking I would like to write about the family that had lived in it."

"I did not want to write a serious book, of the sort loved by the reviewers but unread by the general public, including me: rather I wanted to share my own love of history and romance and the utterly different, yet strangely similar world-tuned-upside-down of the Seventeenth Century."

The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland

This book is based on the true story of Artemisia Gentileschi, a woman ahead of her time since her passion for painting overcame all the turbulences of her private life.

Her friendship with Galileo Galilei was remarkable in both ways.

She was the first woman to be accepted by the Academia .

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

First sentence:

A white Pomeranian named Fluffy flew out at a fifth-floor window in Panna, which was a brand-new building with the painter's scaffolding still around it.

Well, what to say about this book?

The plot is a mixture of espionage, suspense, thriller and contemporary history around two main characters, Sartaj Singh, a Sikh police inspector in Mubai and Ganesh Gaitonde, a notorious Hindu gangster and don.

Certainly, my favorite one is Ganesh above any doubt even if he is considered the "bad" guy.

The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch

This book is a family saga on the Godwin's family told over a period of fifty years in their Welsh estate, Oxmoon.

I must agree with Misfit, this book is without any doubt the best book written by Susan Howatch, even if I did love Cashelmara and Penmarric.

The parallel with the real historical characters is fabulous. As in any book by SH, is hard to tell which is my favorite character but I'm still divided between Kester and Hal.

The Veil of Illusion: A Novel by Rebecca Ryman

This book is a sequel of Olivia and Jai. The main point for me was that I found this book is much more interesting after have read Siege of Krishnapur about the Sepoy Mutiny.

The plot is about Olivia and her two sons Amos and Maya, as well as her firstborn child Allistair, and how they tried to survive after Jai's death in order to find his innocence and his final justice.

Page 194:

"What does Maya mean?"...."It means an illusion."

The mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Despite other reviews I did enjoy this book.

First, it's a classical gothic romance and certainly has influenced the books of this genre published after that.

Second, each chapter begins with excellent and memorable quotations from Shakespeare, Milton and so on.

The main character is more an Austen's type but it didn't bother into the plot, on the contrary.

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee

I really liked this book.

The plot is a "love" story between Will Truesdale, an Englishman and Trudy Liang an Eurasian socialite during World War II in Hong Kong.

What really happened to Trudy we will learn ten years later through Claire Pendleton's story, a piano teacher when she have a love affair with Will.

The end was quite surprising but I'll not add any comment here in order to avoid spoilers.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

WHAT a book!!

This is the story of Alice Howland, a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and her struggle to deal with an early onset Alzheimer's disease.

Since she wanted to help people like her, she created a group with early onset patients in order to share their problems in common, specially with their own relatives.

The book is brilliant, even if it deals with a though subject but I admire the author's courage to bring this kind of disease to fiction/non fiction field.

Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund

It took me some time to go through the plot of this book.

The beginning was a little boring since Antoinette's story was interlaced quite a lot with her mother's letters. The plot flows more naturally after Marie Therese death.

Since I've already read Marie Antoinette: The Journey Antonia Fraser's book, both stories are complementary in the sense that in Fraser's story, Antoinette biography is ended by the Royal family escape to Varennes and in Naslund's her prison and execution is described in details.

Another interesting point not mentioned in Fraser's book is her relationship with Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun, a famous painter and portraitist who managed to escape to the fury of the French Revolution.

An interesting book of Vigee Lebrun Le Peintre de la Reine : Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun was written by Geneviève Chauvel.

Shalimar by Rebecca Ryman

WHAT A BOOK, I'm still breathing hard since you really must keep your breath in the last 100 pages.

What else should I say about this book? It's a mixture of historical fiction, romance and espionage settled in the 19th Century Kashimir.

The plot is about the search of the Yasmina Pass and its chase between Russia, Great Britain and China.

Penmarric by Susan Howatch

Another fabulous book by Susan Howatch telling the Castallack family saga from 1890 to 1945.

Jan-Yves story is my favorite among all the Penmarric's masters.

It's quite interesting the parallelism made by the author with the Plantagenet history.

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

A very touching book telling the story of Stephen, a chinese man, who is sent to his family's summer house in Japan in order to recover from tuberculosis.

There, he meets Matsu, Sachi and Kenzo and how these friendships will change his life forever.

A Royal Affair George III and His Troublesome Siblings by Stella Tillyard

Even knowing that I won't be able to read this book in the next few days (I'll be away for a conference), I decided to start it in any case.

In the meantime, some historical background: George III of the United Kingdom.

Page 28:

Caroline Mathilde was to become a formidable mixture of Plantagenet passion and her grandmother's wilfulness, and she would bring her brother King George more heartache than any other of his siblings.

Page 116:

Diderot, himself the son of a doctor, repeatedly insisted, more modestly, that health and happiness always went hand in hand, and made one of the three protagonists of his secretly circulated fable Le Reve d'Alembert , written in 1769, the doctor Bordeau. Doctors, Didetot implied, could be standard bearers for thought and experiment about the nature of man and the society that man moved in and created.

Page 146:

Struensee always had a clutch of friends to advice and support him, mainly fellow German-speakers from the south. But in its swiftness and completeness his was a rise to power unparalleled anywhere in Europe. The malady of the King (Christian) and the love of the Queen (Caroline Mathilde) had placed a nation in his hands.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

It took me some time to get into this book since in the beginning they are too many characters to get know through the plot.

This is the story of the Italian invasion in the island of Cephalonia in Greece. Captain Corelli is ahead of this invasion and he fells in love with Pelagia who, in the other hand, is also involved with Madras who belongs to a group of Greek partisans. Dr Iannis is the doctor who practices medicine in this small island.

The author manages very well to make a mixture of styles from history to fantasy including a lot of irony into this fabulous story.

The movie based on this book, Captain Corelli's Mandolin was made in 2001 but with Nicolas Cage starring as Captain Corelli, a bad actor choice for this character in my opinion.

Ottoman by Alan Savage

This is the story of three generations of the Hawkwood family, starting with the battle in Constantinople, showing the power of Ottoman Turks and ending with the famous battle of Lepanto.

By the end of the book, Miguel of Cervantes appears as a character of this drama.

Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier

This is the story of Emma (English region in Cornwall) who wakes up one morning to discover that the world is completely upside down: there is no correspondence, telephone and radio do not work, a warship is docked in the port and there are American soldiers advancing toward the house.

What happens is that the action of the novel takes place in the future, a future in which Britain withdrew from the European Common Market, is on the verge of economic collapse and concluded that his only salvation lies in a political, economic and military with the United States. Theoretically it is a union where there is equality between the parties, but for some people it starts to look more like an occupation.

Even if this book is controversial, it has Dame du Maurier unique style of writing since it's a mixture of science fiction, history with a lot satyrical historical points of view both from Cornwall people and the American "invaders".

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

Heat and dust and South American passion take the listeners somewhere intense in this compelling story from Nobel prize-winner Garcia Marquez. This is a classic 'why dunnit': a gripping narrative of motive which enables the narrator to directly involve the listener as the chronicle examines the apparent facts.

A small town on the Caribbean coast of Colombia has just celebrated a lavish wedding; the following morning Santiago Nasar drinks his coffee in the kitchen, it is the day that he is going to be killed.

Towards Another Summer by Janet Frame

This book was written in 1963 but was only be published after her death, according to her own wish since she considered too personal to be published when she was still alive.

This book reminded with plenty of details of our visit to New Zealand in December 2009, an unforgettable trip.

Page 243, from Come oh Maidens :

Come oh maidens welcome here
You in all the world most dear
Sweetest voices draw you near
Come oh maidens, come

Gaily our canoe shall glide
Flowing o'er the rolling tide
Twirling pois shall lay beside
'Til we reach our home.

Blanche et Marie by Per Olov Enquist

Page 24:

Je ne comprends pas les caprices de cette radiation, elle apparait spontanément, comme si je me tenais devant la surface d'une mer et voyais quelque chose commencer a bouger, a croitre, comme si la mer était un être vivant, un animal marin ou une fleur naturelle, et que je voyais les feuilles se tendre vers moi, cette radioactivité me semble transgresser la première règle de la thermodynamique, quelle est don l'origine primitive de cette force?

I've already read two biographies on Marie Curie's life, including the one written by Eve Curie Madame Curie: A Biography and more recently I read Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith. However, I didn't know some personnel details of her life as described in this book, even if it's a work of fiction.

A GREAT book by P.O. Enquist and I'm planning to read more books by this author.

A classical movie Madame Curie (1943) with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon tells the saga of this Nobel Prize winner.

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

This book tells us the story of Jews in Hungary based on the love story between Andras Levi and Klara Morgenstern.

Even if these characters seems sometimes implausible to be so real, the author managed to captive the reader by a powerful storytelling. The Holocaust is portrayed without any slobbery, on the contrary.

I really liked this book, also included as one of my favorites and I am looking forward to read more books by Julie Orringer

The Black Moon (Poldark #5) by Winston Graham

This is the fifth volume of Poldgark saga where the fighting between Ross Poldgark and George Warleggan is still very intense.

Some new characters are introduced such as Sam and Drake Carne (Demelza's brothers) and Morwenna (Elizabeth's niece), who falls in love with a man she cannot marry.

In the meantime, Ross tries to recover some Cornwall people who have become prisoners in France. Excellent plot, as usual.

Still looking forward to read the whole series of 12 books.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

An unforgettable book written by Rebecca Skloot telling the saga of Henrietta Lacks' family in order to really know and understand what happened to her when a doctor from John Hopkins Hospital took a sample of her cells (HeLa cells, from her full name), without her consent and her knowledge, in order to provide culture of cells which have been used for decades for research of several diseases, cancer among them.

Even nowadays, the medical ethics is questionable is some cases, even with the advent of the Declaration of Helsinki which is not a legally binding instrument in international law.

Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd

This is the story of a Scotswoman Mary MacKenzie who starts her saga by sailing in 1903 in order to get married to a military attache in Peking.

However, she falls in love with a young Japanese nobleman and her adulterous case is very criticized by the British community in Peking.

If you really want to know what happens next, you MUST read this book which is written as letters to her mother in Scotland.

The Four Swans (Poldark #6) by Winston Graham

The Four Swans is the sixth book on Poldark's saga.

Who are the four swans? Demelza who unexpectedly finds a new lover; Elizabeth for whom Ross still has a special place in his heart for her, perhaps something else even more important than that; Caroline which marriage takes another step through motherhood; and Morwena with an unhappy marriage with Osborne Whitworth and the special attention given to her by Demelza's brother Drake Cane.

As historical background, the Napoleonic war starts to blow its first shots into European countries.

The White Boar by Marian Palmer

This is the story of Richard III, the last Plantagenet, as viewed by the cousins Francis and Phillip Lovell. As historical background we learn about the famous Wars of the Roses held in the last half of the fifteenth century in England.

Marian Palmer has an unique style of writing, quite different of some well known historical fiction authors.

For those who are interested on novels set during the War of the Roses, there is an interesting website on this subject: The Wars of the Roses. There is also further details on Richard's life at The Richard III Society.

A Plague on Both Your Houses: AND An Unholy Alliance by Susanna Gregory

This is the first story on Mathew Bartholomew series when he tries to solve some murder in Cambridge University and treat with some unorthodox ways some patients affected by the Plague. The Oxford-Cambridge also comes out from time to time but it's not fully explored by the author.

In this second book, Matthew Bartholomew and his colleague from Michaelhouse, the Benedictine monk Brother Michael tries to solve a mysterious death of a friar which body is found in the University's massive document chest. At the same time, they try to solve the case of the murders of the town's prostitutes.

I didn't know that Susanna Gregory is the pseudonym of a Cambridge academic who was previously a coroner's officer.

Trade Wind by M. M. Kaye

Some nice quotes from this book should be mentioned:

All the sea is not deep enough to wash away blood relationship.

What is written is written...

Visit those you love, though your abode be distant,
And clouds and darkness have arisen between you...

This is the extraordinary story of Hero Hollis and Rory Frost which is settled in Zanzibar. The author did a splendid work by describing the story of this not-well know island during slavery in the 19th century, showing the unfair game between France and England in order to profit of these workers.

There are many controversial reviews on this book due to the rape´s scene without taking into account the plot itself. In my opinion, there is a tenuous line between rape and love in this episode. Perhaps that´s the reason for the author have not described it in detail, on the contrary. In this way, every reader must use its own imagination, guessing what really happened.

Du Côté De Chez Swann by Marcel Proust

Chapter I - Combray

Single facts, such as the feeling of insomnia of a patient in a hospital, a kiss of good-bye to his parents, the reading of Georges Sand's books and the famous description of eating a piece of "madeleine" with tee, give free rein to fancy of the main character.

I am loving to reading this book and I don't understand how I waited for such a long time to do it. Once we start to read it, we immerse into the story, the details give us the joy of reading such beautiful text. I just finishes the first part, Combray. When I studied the French literature, I only read some small parts of the text, mainly from this first volume. I do intend to read the whole series, no matter how long it will take.

Part II - Un amour de Swann

My favorite quote:

Le
pianiste ayant terminé le morceau de Liszt et ayant commencé un
prélude de Chopin, Mme de Cambremer lança à Mme de Franquetot un
sourire attendri de satisfaction compétente et d’allusion au passé.
Elle avait appris dans sa jeunesse à caresser les phrases, au long col
sinueux et démesuré, de Chopin, si libres, si flexibles, si tactiles,
qui commencent par chercher et essayer leur place en dehors et bien
loin de la direction de leur départ, bien loin du point où on avait pu
espérer qu’atteindrait leur attouchement, et qui ne se jouent dans cet
écart de fantaisie que pour revenir plus délibérément,—d’un retour
plus prémédité, avec plus de précision, comme sur un cristal qui
résonnerait jusqu’à faire crier,—vous frapper au cœur.

About George Sand:

Or, justement,
les romans champêtres de George Sand qu’elle me donnait pour ma fête,
étaient pleins ainsi qu’un mobilier ancien, d’expressions tombées en
désuétude et redevenues imagées, comme on n’en trouve plus qu’à la
campagne. Et ma grand’mère les avait achetés de préférence à d’autres
comme elle eût loué plus volontiers une propriété où il y aurait eu un
pigeonnier gothique ou quelqu’une de ces vieilles choses qui exercent
sur l’esprit une heureuse influence en lui donnant la nostalgie
d’impossibles voyages dans le temps.

About Ver Meer:

je n’avais jamais entendu parler de lui; vit-il
encore? Est-ce qu’on peut voir de ses œuvres à Paris, pour que je
puisse me représenter ce que vous aimez, deviner un peu ce qu’il y a
sous ce grand front qui travaille tant, dans cette tête qu’on sent
toujours en train de réfléchir, me dire: voilà, c’est à cela qu’il est
en train de penser. Quel rêve ce serait d’être mêlée à vos travaux!»

About Alfred de Vigny:

«Quand on se sent pris d’amour pour une femme,
on devrait se dire: Comment est-elle entourée? Quelle a été sa vie?
Tout le bonheur de la vie est appuyé là-dessus.»

O Carteiro e o Poeta by Antonio Skármeta

A very touching novel showing the beginning of Chilean period under Salvador Allende.

I had the chance to visit Neruda's house in Isla Negra which was projected by Neruda himself: from his bedroom we can envisage the whole Pacific in front of us; the same happens with his workshop. There are plenty of personnel objects exposed and all his three houses (Valparaiso, Isla Negra and Santiago) are kept under Neruda Foundation.

I saw the corresponding movie a long time ago, Il Postino: The Postman (1994) where Phillippe Noiret plays as Pablo Neruda. I must watch it again after read this magnificent book.