A wonderful story, a family saga set over in 3 families over 20 years. A great mix of culture and humour. Recommended read.

RELEASE NOTES:

Meetup release

Caught at Westie meet today.

Spring-cleaning my shelves. Time to get this back into circulation.

RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to mikime in Italy, a winner of my October Clearance RABCK. Enjoy!

Lots of people would have liked to win this one which means you'd probably have not trouble getting enough people together for a bookring/ray when you're done - if you have the energy, that is.

I've received this today. :) Thanks a lot to catsalive (also for the postcard :) )!!! I'll read it as soon as I can, and will be glad to start a ring/ray with it afterwards if enough people sign up ! Thanks again!

This book is brilliant! It took me some time to read it, a couple of rings also got in its way, but I always went back to its story as if just one day had passed. It's the story of a family, or two, or more, through a longish period, mainly during the twentieth century. As teenagers grow into adults with their own children growing into teenagers themselves, there're so much well-thought characters insight and so many serious (identity but not only that) issues being explored, yet everything is sparkling with humour, and all troubles manage to smooth down and be embraced by it. Contemporary life gets caught up with the past and the past comes up back in the present when least expected, yet the characters finally learn to cope with it all and find each their own personal way to belong. England (London) and Bangladesh are all over the place, mostly at the same time, but Jamaica is not too far either...
The ending is weirdily put, open in a peculiar way, a confirmation of the author's peculiarity and humourous vein.

I've decided to organize an international bookring with it. I'm gathering subscriptions at the moment. Thanks so much for letting me read this!

----
BOOKRING

This ring is open and international. To join please send me a PM.

The list so far:

agnul (bc-italy- Milano, Italy/- )
JamsODonnellToo (bc-italy- Cologne, Germany/ prefer. Germany)
bluecat07 (bc.com- Frankfurt/anywhere)
silvia-pco (bc.com-Portugal/pref. Europe)
Bjorg (bc.com- Iceland/anywhere)
nuttyreader (bc.com- USA / prefer. USA)
spoiledrotten (bc.com- USA / prefer. USA)
DK1010 (bc.com- USA / prefer. USA)
bartonz (bc.com- USA/ anywhere)
[literarylover (bc.com - USA / prefer. USA) didn't reply]
sintra (bc.com - Germany/pref. Europe)
Laui (bc.com - Netherlands/pref. Europe)

I'm trying to keep a geographical order that makes sense.

Usual rules:
0- wait for the previous person to ask for your address...when they do, reply!...then wait for the book to get to you....patiently wait.... finally:
1- write a journal entry when you receive it!
2- take your time to read it, but don't forget it on your shelf. Please let us know if you have problems and it's taking you longer than expected (say, longer than 2 months...).
3- ask for next person's address when you're about to finish it.
4- make another j.e. (NO release notes please!) when you've finished and are ready to send it, with your comments and ideas.

Enjoy the book!

This book is leaving today for agnul in Milan, the first of the list in my bookring.
Enjoy!

Miki

Got it in the mail, already started. Seems funny :-)

I enjoyed it very much! Loved the characters, loved the plot and the way it has to talk about difficult problems in a funny way. I'm thinking to change my name to Abdul-Agnul :-)

The book will be on its way to JamesODonnelToo as soon as possible.

Here it is! I open the envelope and think, wow, this one looks like it's been around the world... Then I read its journal and well, it actually HAS! :D

Thanks a lot Agnul for the speedy shipment, and Mikime for sending it around! I can't wait to read it.

Just a short note to say that I mailed the book to bluecat07 on May 10. I will edit this J.E. and add my comments to the book as soon as I can!

The book arrived here today safely. Thanks for sending it, JamsODonnellToo! Unfortunately I have some other Rings here waiting to be read so I guess it will take me awhile to get to this one. But as there is a two month rule here I am positive I will be able to make it within time!:-) I am looking forward to reading it!

Although it took me some time to read it, I liked this book. I liked most of the protagonists and though their lives with its issues was interesting to read about. Thank you so much for this ring, mikime!!

The book is now on its way to silvia-pco.

Here it is :) I'll try to be brief!

First of all, I'm sorry for been keeping this one for such a long time.

It took me a while to read this book but it was worth it. I loved the characters, the plot... and it is written in such an amazing way, very funny and ironic too! Worth reading! :)

I'll PM Bjorg. Thanks for sharing!

19th December - On its way to Bjorg!

The book arrived today:) Have wanted to read this book for a long time so I´m looking forward to start on it...which I hope will be soon:)

Just finished reading the book a few minutes ago:) sorry that it took me a while to finish it!! I really liked the story, Zadie Smith is a very good writer, loved how she made the characters and how she told the story:) I thought it was a bit long though, parts of it could have been taken out I think.
Anyways will send it off to nuttyreader as soon as I´ve got the address:)

Will send the book off to nuttyreader today:)

Wow this came quick! Thanks Bjorg. It looks good. I will try to get it out soon.

Thanks for sharing. I have info for the next person and will put it in the mail soon.

Received in the mail. Please be patient as I have 2 rings in front of this one. Thanks so much for sending and including me!

First I would like to thank mikime for including me in this book ring. one of the things I enjoy most about bookcrossing is being able to try new authors that I might have otherwise passed by. Sometimes I luck out, sometimes not. Unfortunately, for me, I did not enjoy this book. I didn't find anything humorous about it, mostly I found the characters to be very disturbed. As far as the authors writing, I felt she was just too long winded, expecially as in several instances when one paragraph took up more than one page. I did finish the book and it was mailed out today to DK1010. I hope she enjoys it much better than I did. Once again, thanks for including me!

Received in the mail today. It's second on my TBR.
Thank you for including me! I look forward to reading this.

I thank mikime for hosting this bookring. Book rings give us the opportunity to try new authors. Many times we discover more books to enjoy, but alas sometimes we fail to connect with an author. That is the case with me and Zadie Smith. I read about 2/3 of "White Teeth" before I decided that my TBR was too large to spend anymore time reading it. I found the story very slow to develop, there are several extraneous plots that in my mind did not add to the main story. Perhaps if I finished it, things would tie together nicely at the end, but I decided instead to read something different. Thank you for sharing, I hope others enjoy it. I give myself credit for reading a highly acclaimed book.

June 24 - mailed to bartonz.

I am so sorry I forgot to journal this when it got here! I look forward to reading it.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

on its way to the next person

Well, this was quite unexpected - I can't even remember sending out my address for this bookring. Anyway, it's here now and I've already started reading it on my way home. I'm really enjoying it so far. Thanks! :-)

I practically loved everything about this book: the characters, the writing, the irony, the way the main issues are dealt with... Some episodes made me laugh out loud like KEVIN, Alsana's ranting, or the horribly neurotic Chalfens. Definitely one of my favourite books so far this year!

Thanks a lot for sharing this book with us, mikime! It's on its way to Laui now.

I have three books lined up before this one, but also a holiday coming up. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Thanks for including me in this ring. I've read 'On Beauty' a while ago and I wasn't really charmed by it, so I'd like to give this one a chance, but might not feel like struggling through until the last page...

August 23rd: started reading. I've read the blurb in the past few days and it seems to be the same kind of family saga as 'On Beauty', I'm really curious if it's something for me...

I'm giving up, I think it's not really fair, but I have a few other BC books piling up and this really isn't for me. The whole Archie and Clara 'thing' reminded me too much of the one part in On Beauty that I honestly disliked: an affair. So I'm struggling a bit and I find myself more willing to read other books. I guess it's time to pass on the book.

Thanks for letting me join, though. I'd looked forward to reading this and I just guess you can't have it all, so at least now I know ;-)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I mailed it out today, last week I was a bit too busy. Unfortunately all my effort in making a slimmer package so it would be cheaper to send, were in vain, I got major screwed (and I'm still pissed off about my own incapacity to tell the guy he was shitting me, because it turns out I _was_ right, after all).

Thanks for including me, mikime. I hope the book has a safe journey and you'll receive it soon!

This book has safely made it back here! :) Thank you so much to all of you for reading it and sending it on. I think I'll let it rest for a little while, until it's time for the next adventure!

Miki