Journal Entry 1 by Hayes13 from Roma, Lazio Italy on Friday, December 17, 2010

This is going into my "VBB in English for the Italian forum".

Born in early-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age of nine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, more than twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own, painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him.

Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one’s past.

Journal Entry 2 by Hayes13 at -- via posta o passaggio a mano --, Emilia Romagna Italy on Sunday, April 10, 2011

Released 1 yr ago (4/12/2011 UTC) at -- via posta o passaggio a mano --, Emilia Romagna Italy

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

The prose was lovely; the story is told through a series of flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, spiraling forward ever so teasingly slowly. It is very well done and I loved the beginning of this book which talks about the main character's childhood in Shanghai. Then the parents disappear. And the story went on a little too long.

In any case very worthwhile.

On to the next reader! 

Journal Entry 3 by Gahan at Ziano Piacentino, Emilia Romagna Italy on Thursday, April 21, 2011

It arrived safely yesterday. Many thanks!