This week my newly ordered books have arrived. I needed more reading material for the summer. I’ve already read Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse. I finished it in one sitting, because I couldn’t put it down. It’s the perfect summer read. Sagan seamlessly takes you to a different time and place with her wonderfully composed, flowing writing and her words have a merciless candour, not like anything I’ve read before. This has become one of my all-time favourite books.
I’m now diving into Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. A Passage to India has been on my wish list for a long time and I am anxious to start that one too. I loved David Lean’s movie and I imagine I will enjoy the novel much more. As for Out of Africa, I read it only in Romanian some years ago and I can not believe it’s taken me so long to get an original version. If only we could read all our favourite books in the language they were written in. What are you reading this summer?
photos by me (2 & 3 taken on our recent road trip)
Books, yay! My love affair with books has been going strong this summer! You know all about my current Blixen marathon, I’m still enjoying her Gothic Tales and the biography by Thurman. I will have to take your word and buy a copy of Bonjour Tristesse, as it isn’t available at the two libraries that I use. Mary Jo has made me eager to read some of Louise Erdrich’s books and then yesterday the postman brought me Saladin: Hero of Islam by Geoffrey Hindley.
Lisa, I think I will also want to read more by Karen Blixen after I’ve finished Out of Africa. Louise Erdrich’s Plague of Doves and The Round House are on my wish list already.
Oh, that’s so true about reading books in their original language. I learned English mainly for this very reason (as boring as it might make me sound…) and I wish I could speak at least Italian and French to the point when I can read and understand them.
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I speak Italian and I like to improve it with reading as much as I can in Italian, but I don’t speak French, unfortunately. I understand a lot given the fact that it’s a Latin language, just as Romanian, but maybe some day I will make time to learn it properly. I wish I could speak Russian too, because Russian writers are among my favourites.
i will have to put bonjour tristesse on my reading list. i have been reading quite a bit this summer, the last book i read was “the art of hearing heartbeats” i think the original language on that was hungarian maybe? but, alas, i am american and i only know one language 😉 and now i am reading “code name verity” so far it’s going slow for me but the reviews have been stellar, so hopefully i will get into it soon.
I’ll look these two books up, Christine. Thank you.
I love that you ordered the real books, rather than the e-versions – relaxing with a tablet doesn’t have quite the same appeal! In summertime, I love to read travel memoirs. Last summer (for it is, unfortunately, still winter here in the southern hemisphere), I read Peter Mayle’s classic, A Year in Provence, Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, and Matthew Forte’s Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons.
Oh, I can not read e-books. I have downloaded a few on my iPad, but I simply can’t read them. I have to hold a book in my hands, that’s part of the pleasure of reading. Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and For Whom the Bell Tolls will soon find their way to my bookshelf. I’m putting down on my list Mayle’s A Year in Provence.
I am impressed with the reading you are tackling this summer! I have barely finished one book— that is the challenge with having the baby. Instead we are attempting to do some classic reading as a family. Right now we are tackling “Treasure Island” —- hopefully my munchkin will grow up loving to read as much as I do!
Alexis, I think you are already instilling in your baby daughter the love for reading and that’s wonderful.
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