Pre-numbered label used for registration.
The blurb: Sagesse LaBasse and her family are French Algerian emigrants haunted by their history, brought to the brink of destruction by a single ruthless act.
I found some aspects of this book fascinating and I did feel for the heroine.

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Caught at the Chelmsford Meet last night. For my TBR pile!

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Have decided to take this to the Colchester Meet as my Mount TBR is getting a bit overpowering atm!

Back from Colchester and off to Sudbury!

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Taking to the Sudbury Meet today.

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To go to the Ipswich Meet tomorrow!

My boyfriend picked this u for me at cafe nero in ipswich after i 'suggested' he stopped there and have a look as he was up that way.I'm going to read it and then release it back into the wild :)

Not one of my faves but it was ok.
I'm sending this to ETMadrid.

The book has just flown in from London (I'd not mentioned it to my sister who'd taken delivery of it a couple of days ago, but it got here nonetheless!). I'm really looking forward to reading this. I've read quite a few books about Algeria, and this will probably be the first that is not originally in French. Thank you SO much. It will be interesting to compare to other reads and I'll be reporting here, and ensuring the book continues travelling afterwards.

I started to read this at last, whilst in Madrid for the weekend! Two thirds of the way through...

08/08 I finished this last night and over all I did enjoy it. It was utterly believable, a story that rang true from start to finish, impressively so in view of the changing settings, those of France, Algeria and the States. However I did not find it as gripping as the Evening Standard is quoted to have found it (according to the quote on the front cover). I too I suppose would have liked a bit more about life in Algeria, and found this to be essentially a rites-of-passage novel, that reminded me in part of what the similarly-aged Cécile, caught up in her own anxieties, was going through by the French seaside in "Bonjour Tristesse" that I'd just read. I did find it a little annoying that we always knew what was coming round the next corner, as the style is such that we are always told what to expect. Long and drawn out too, the protagonist's reflections. But that said, it was indeed very real, and reflects what many 'pied noir' families and their younger generations go through. I've met two people who told me that their parent(s) were pied noir and initially that meant nothing at all to me. Since then, my awareness and knowledge has grown, but I suppose that this book helps me understand what happened and the difficulties encountered, from varying aspects.

It would seem that anyone who knows Algiers at all, no matter in what context, is utterly mesmerised and enchanted by the near mythical view of the bay. This view becomes almost a protagonist in itself, in so many films that I've seen (through which I first discovered the country, and myself became strangely enchanted). This book is no exception.

I was quite fascinated by a small historical (or legendary) detail that was fleetingly referred to, about a ship carrying nuns to South America being wrecked near Ténès. In the book, it says that the shipwreck resulted in a change in the nuns' vocation, as they married berber men in a nearby village, where there was a shortage of women. I looked for more information and found this. If you can't read the French, do at least listen to the wonderful Algerian rythms of Djamel Laâroussi's song about it.

20/08/08 I'm going to send this to wanderingstar8 as JenKazoo's copy of the book is still on the other side of the Atlantic, and it can carry on as a bookray should there be anyone else interested in it.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Only a very slight detour required for me to drop this off at its next destination, on my way back from the South London Gallery. Enjoyed the bustle of East Street on the way back. Hope you enjoy the book.

ETMadrid reminded me that I hadn't journalled this yet! I still have it and am looking forward to reading it.

I run a bookswap meeting in Beijing and we just found the book while taking them out for this month's meetup!
It was probably dropped off last month and no one noticed.