I bought this book at the Friends of the Library used book store in Rockville, Maryland.

This is a fascinating story told from the point of view of a rat. It's the rat's life story, in English translation, written by a Polish novelist. Sometimes you, the reader, become the rat!

I think it would be a fabulous bookray. That's why I bought it. I've already read it and posted my review here. The book is a hardback book, but it weighs a little less than 14 ounces so it should not be expensive to mail.

If you'd like to join this bookray, please send a private message to SqueakyChu and let me know your mailing preferences. Be aware that the list order may change at any time due to participation, geography, or originator's whim. Your only cost is the postage to the next in line.

Begin international bookray - 8/28/09:
SqueakyChu (Maryland, USA) done
sothisdhampir (Texas, USA) done
bilbi (France) done
Rach-489 (UK) done
Vekiki (UK) done
Tsjara (Netherlands) done
dutch-book (Netherlands) done
hakkalina (Hungary) done
liz-z (Ohio, USA) done
Ilios (Florida, USA--US/int'l)
End International Bookray - 9/3/11

This bookray ended because there were no journal entries for over a year and no one left to receive this book. The book traveled for two years to five countries and four states within the USA. Thanks, all, for your participation!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This book is being mailed to sothisdhampir in Forth Worth, Texas.

Got it today! :) I should be able to start reading right away, it looks like a great book. Just reading the introducation make its look like this will be right up my alley, I love rats. I have owned four of them! :)

Well it was certainly a harsh, and cold look at the unforgiving life of being a wild rat, and in many ways it was quite enjoyable. It didn't hold back anything at all. The author made no attempt to humanize his rat and I quite liked that, he did a excellent job keeping the rat an animal and relying on his animal instincts. But there where some major flaws to the book as well. Everyone once in a while the author would switch from the rats point of view to saying "you do...so and so..." I really didn't understand that. I suppose that was trying to put yourself in the rats point of view but to me it read like some sort of awkward mistranslation. It just didn't sit well with me, and secondly the plot was just too repeative. It could have been cut down into even fewer pages that it is...it was always mate with this rat, fight with this rat, jump on this ship...and back again. Still when things got really harsh for this rat I did have a hard time reading simply becuse it was so cruel and heartbreaking to read. But the last few pages I did have to struggle though as I did find myself getting bored with the story.

Well, I am off to message the next person, and hope to send it on its way within a week or so. :) Thank you for this book!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On it's way, enjoy! :)

Received today !

I should start it by the end of the week.

Thanks for sharing !

\o/

A really compelling book now on its way to UK...

Postman delivered it this morning (not bad timing considering all the postal strikes over here). It looks good, thank you SqueakyChu for hosting the ring. Thank you bilbi for sending it on so quickly and for the bookmark and the photo :), I will be starting this book today.

EDITED 4th Nov - All finished, unfortunately missed the post office opening times today (shortened hours on a Wednesday), but I will be posting it out tomorrow.

Review (***Contains Spoilers***)
Enjoyed this book to start with and found the 1st and 2nd person narrative switches an interesting touch. However the last 3rd of the book consists of travelling from city to city, boat to boat in a dream-like delusional state; here the author repeated himself a little too often for my liking, trying to include political occasions into the text (ie. entering warzones) and continually overworking the 'light' imagery throughout. He tried too hard in my opinion, non-the-less it was an interesting read and I have new found respect for wild female rats after reading exactly what its like to continually churn out litter after litter!!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent off today - hope you enjoy.

recieved today - thankyou!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

posted on to the next reader - thankyou for sharing

Arrived here yesterday, the package was damaged but the book is okay :)
Thanks Vekiki for sending and SqueakyChu for organizing the ray!
Looking forward to read it. Rats are so cute, had a little albino one years ago ^-^

Hi, just wanted to let you know that I'm about 3/4 into the book, and I should be able to finish it this week :) (december was a rather busy month so haven't done much reading..) I have already PMed dutch-book for her address.

Edit 11/01/2010: Finished the book a couple of days ago. It was a strange, but enjoyable read. And quite interesting to see everything through a rat's eyes.. though it was rather harsh sometimes (especially the part with the eyes near the end *shudder*), but I guess that's how a wild rat's life is. The only thing was that sometimes it felt like the author was repeating himself. Hmmm.. and I thought he sort of referred to a sort of fairy tale, The Rat Catcher of Hamelin/Hameln? (the man with the flute).. or maybe not :p

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Now travelling to dutch-book
(sorry for keeping it so long)

Happy Bookcrossing :)

There it is. Looks like an interesting read.

And I've finally read it. It was a quick read. I didn't know what I found more horrible. The rats treating the other rats, the rats treating humans, the humans treating other humans or the humans treating rats. I'll send hakkalina a PM.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On it's way to the next reader.

The "Rat" arrived safely to Budapest! Thanks dutch-book the sending. This book looks so Weird :))

Update: 2010.04.06.
This story is horror.
I progressed slowly, since I couldn't read too much at once. I had read only the first half of it but often I was so shocked, disgusted. The rat's life is so brutal, agressive full with blood. Sometimes it is very useful that I do not understand every word... Slowly I was fed up with killing... I turned the pages of the second half ... escape, fight, dull, blood, attacks, fears, merciless... I only read the last pages, which was also a very hard reading, about the agony... I must let fresh air in my head now.

Updtae: 2010.04.07.
Sfogs asked to be skipped.
I wrote a PM to liz-z. Second trial on 04.12.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Finally the book continues its travelling, this time to USA. I hope it will travel safe, and now the flights have already gone, the dust of the vulcano won't effect their journey.

Got it! Will be starting this one soon! Thanks for sharing!

Sending this book off to the next reader. Sorry for the delay, I kept trying to read this book but just couldn't get into it. I ended up giving up on it.

yay! I finally managed to journal this book! SqueakyChu, I think I am still not used to this new website format and it requires the "-" in the BCID when you are trying to journal. Now I got it. I started reading it last night, and will write a new journal entry once I am done. I am very excited because thi sbook will serve as my Z author for this year's A-Z challenge. Thank you for sharing!