Recent Book Activity

The illustration above (which to see properly you now have to click on...) is by Max and was published in El País on 21st March '08.


My signing up to the bookray "Letter from America" by Alistair Cooke is inspired not only by my listening to him on the radio, but by the fact I went to the USA for the first time summer '07 (400 years after an ancestor first arrived in Maine...!) Having already, thanks to bookcrossing, read two other books of his, I've joined Qalaat's bookray for "Sur ma mère" by Tahar ben Jelloun. Likewise, I'm intrigued by "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama (Ulrike's bookring) about which I've heard very good things. I'm signed up to Annimanni's bookring "Al-Naqba" by Barbara Goldscheider, an interesting-sounding first novel. For it's links to Spain, or rather the Basque Country, I've joined the bookray for "Etxemendi" by Florence Delay. I've begun to read books related to the music world, so "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks sound interesting. I'm involved in the London Quebec Culture Festival and so am also looking forward to this Canadian author's book: "L'autruche céleste" by Iléana Doclin. Finally, as I heard it being recommended on the radio, I've accepted MaryZee's invitation to join her bookray for the graphic novel "Maus!" by Art Spiegelman. I do hope they don't all arrive at the same time!

Following on from my discovery of George Borrow, I've recently read about the writer Matéo Maximoff and am looking out for any of his novels in their original French. So too on the look out for a copy of Charles Kingsley's "Westward Ho!" and Quentin Crewe's "A Curse of Blossom".

Of the 103 books that I've released into the wild, in 6 different countries, just 14 have been caught (my most recent wild catch was in a pub).

Currently reading "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens.

Books read in 2012:

"A Time of Gifts" by Patrick Leigh Fermor (a bookring)
"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne
"Lhomme qui était tombé dans une flaque" by Igal Sarnal (a bookray)
"Le coeur cousu" by Carole Martinez (a bookring)
"Lady Sings the Blues" by Billie Holiday & William Dufty (a bookray)
"Volkswagen Blues" by Jacques Poulin (a bookring)
"Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" by Paul Torday
"44 Scotland Street" by Alexander McCall Smith
"Tom, petit Tom, tout petit homme, Tom" by Barbara Constantine (a bookring)

Books read in 2011:

"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
"Soldados de Salamina" by Javier Cercas
"Dave Barry Does Japan" by Dave Barry
"The Pursuit of Love" by Nancy Mitford (a bookray)
"Le Charme des après-midi sans fin" by Dany Laferrière (a bookring)
"Money in the Bank" by P. G. Wodehouse
"The Lambs of London" by Peter Ackroyd
"La chute" by Albert Camus
"Surviving Galeras" by Stanley Williams and Fen Montaigne (a bookray)
"The Extinction Club" by Jeffrey Moore
"Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson (a bookray)
Denis Côté's adaptation of "L'amélanchier" by Jacques Ferron
"El invierno en Lisboa" by Antonio Muñoz Molina
"Kamouraska" by Anne Hébert
"Faith, Hope and Charity" by Odön von Horváth
"Bonheur d'occasion" by Gabrielle Roy (now travelling as a bookray)
"In the Country of Men" by Hisham Matar
"Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids" by Kenzaburo Oe (a bookray)
"La grand-mère de Jade" by Frédérique Deghelt (a bookring)
"St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" by Karen Russell
"In the Company of Cheerful Ladies" by Alexander McCall Smith
"The Highly Sensitive Person" by Elaine N. Aron
"Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert
"The Last Lighthouse Keeper" by Alan Titchmarsh
"Moon Tiger" by Penelope Lively
"Le collier d'Hélène" by Carole Fréchette
"Sixties London" by Dorothy Bohm
"Le serment des barbares" by Boualem Sansal
"Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia" by Roberto Saviano

Books read in 2010:

"A Stranger in Spain" by H. V. Morton
"Confessions of a Yakuza" by Junichi Saga (a bookring)
"People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks (a bookring)
"The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" by Gertrude Stein (a bookring)
"Carmen et autres nouvelles" by Prosper Mérimée
"Wildlife Travel: Scottish Islands" by Richard Rowe (a bookring)
"Pearls and Men" by Louis Kornitzer
"Désert" by J. M. G. Le Clézio
"The Tears of Sheba" by Khadija Al-Salami
"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie (a bookring)
"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (a bookray)
"The Chimney Sweeper's Boy" by Barbara Vine
"Candide" by Voltaire (a bookray)
"Star Gazing" by Linda Gillard (a bookray)
"Coyotes" by Ted Conover (a bookring)
"La sombra del viento" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (now travelling as a bookring)
"The Corpse Walker" by Liao Yiwu (a bookray)
"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
"Annie John" by Jamaica Kincaid (a bookray)
"Steaming" by Nell Dunn
"L'élégance du hérisson" by Muriel Barbery (a bookring)
"The Writing on my Forehead" by Nafisa Haji (a bookring)
"Death on the Ice" by Cassie Brown (a bookray)
"What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Haruki Murakami (a bookray)
"Burnt Shadows" by Kamila Shamsie (a bookray)
"Guernica" by Dave Boling (a bookring)
"Le rapport de Brodeck" by Philippe Claudel (a bookring)
"Word Whirls and Other Shape Poems" Collected by John Foster
"The Big Wave" by Pearl S. Buck (a bookray)
"Une année chez les Français" by Fouad Laroui (a bookring)
"One Day" by David Nicholls (a bookray)
"Raggle Taggle" by Walter Starkie
"L'enfant multiple" by Andrée Chedid (a bookring)
"All She Was Worth" by Miyuki Miyabe (a bookray)
"The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo" by Germano Almeida (a bookray)


Books read in 2009:

"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac (a bookring)
"The Mapmaker's Opera" by Béa Gonzalez (a bookray)
"Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" by Winifred Watson (a bookray)
"A Night out with Robert Burns" arranged by Andrew O'Hagan
"The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad (a bookray)
"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet Jacobs (a bookray)
"A Brief Guide to Charles Darwin, his Life and Times" by Cyril Aydon (a bookring)
"Sayyîdî Milady" by Nadine R. L. Touma
"Andrée's Story" with an introduction by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (a bookray)
"La Novia de Matisse" by Manuel Vicent
"Letters Home" by Fergal Keane (a bookray)
"Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad
"Lutetia" by Pierre Assouline (a bookring)
"Eldorado" by Laurent Gaudé (a bookring)
"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid (a bookray)
"On Reading" by André Kértesz
"LE DESERT, ET APRES suivi de LE GARDIEN" by Habib Ayyoub
"Le silence des Chagos" by Shenaz Patel (a bookring)
"Les petits garçons naissent aussi des étoiles" by Emmanuel B. Dongala (a bookring)
"L'allumeur de rêves berbères" by Fellag (a bookring)
"Chang, The Life Story of a Pekingese" by Joyce Godfrey Batten
"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe (a bookray)
"Le message" by Andrée Chedid (a bookring)
"The Lonely Londoners" by Sam Selvon (a bookring)
"Où est la terre des promesses?" by Annemarie Schwarzenbach (a bookring)
"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway (a bookray)
"Theatres of Glass" by Rebecca Stott
"Desert Flower" by Waris Dirie
"Three Plays" by Anton Tchehov
"Retazos de un bastardo" by Oscar Nóbregas (a bookring)
"Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini (a bookring)
"Mao et Moi" by Chen Jiang Hong
"Le cri" by Laurent Graff (a bookring)
"Les gitans" by Lucien Clergue
"El camino del círculo" by James R. Vollbracht
"Journal d'une femme de chambre" by Octave Mirbeau (a bookray)
"Amores eternos: Una momia en Rosario" by Pablo Gavazza
"Jogging Round Majorca" by Gordon West
"Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys (a bookray)
"Flamencos de ganania" by Estela Zatania
"The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai
"The Scoops" by Miriam Moss
"Puccini's Ghosts" by Morag Joss
"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen (a bookray)
"Giotto's Hand" by Iain Pears
"Treat it Gentle" by Sidney Bechet
"La relieuse du gué" by Anne Delaflotte Medhevi (a bookring)
"Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne and James Houston (a bookring)
"The World at Night" by Alan Furst
"Sarinagara" by Philippe Forest (a bookring)
"The Cellist of Sarajevo" by Steven Galloway
"The Victorians" by A. N. Wilson


Books read in 2008:

"Prospero's Cell" by Lawrence Durrell
"Polar Gleams" by Helen Peel, a passenger on a trip to Siberia by sea (1893), organised by my Great great uncle.
"Embroideries" by Marjane Satrapi (SqueakyChu's bookray - my first!)
"Lavengro" by George Borrow
"Imágenes gitanas" by Ramón Zabalza
"Méharées" by Théodore Monod (TaLyDream's bookring - my first!)
"Mirage" by Rochelle L. Holt (crossed the world and back as a nonetheless short bookring)
"Castillos de cartón" by Almudena Grandes
"Dans la nuit Mozambique" by Laurent Gaudé
"Dance of the Ariadnes" by Sharon Spencer (now travelling as a bookray)
"The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt" by Mary Russell (now travelling as a bookring)
"Las edades de Lulú" by Almudena Grandes
"The Yacoubian Building" by Alaa Al Aswany
"Oasis interdites" by Ella Maillart
"Burning Bright" by Helen Dunmore
"The Land of the Sherpas" by Ella Maillart
"Noticias del extranjero" by Alberto Manguel
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
"In Siberia" by Colin Thubron
"Cosmétique de l'ennemie" by Amélie Nothomb
"The Sword and the Cross" by Fergus Fleming
"Bonjour tristesse" by Françoise Sagan
"Cruzar la muralla" by Joaquín Doldán
"The Last Life" by Claire Messud
"Love in a Dark Time" by Colm Tóibín
"A History of Reading" by Alberto Manguel (a bookray)
"L'empire des signes" by Roland Barthes (a bookray)
"La femme de Gilles" by Madeleine Bourdouxhe
"Street & Studio" by Ute Eskildsen
"Partir" by Tahar Ben Jelloun (a bookring)
"Foreign Correspondence" by Geraldine Brooks (a bookray)
"Un désir d'Orient" by Edmonde Charles-Roux
"The City Under the Desert Sands" by Herbert Kaufmann
"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
"Two Days in Tehran" by Michael J. Hunt (a bookring)
"Mrs Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf
"Eleni" by Nicholas Gage (a bookring)
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini (a replacement for this bookring)
"Jour de silence à Tanger" by Tahar Ben Jelloun
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

Books I read in 2007:

"Visages de L'Algérie" by Catherine & Bernard Desjeux
"Mémoire algérienne" by Henri Alleg
"Zidane de Yazou à Zizou" by Patrick Fert & Jean Philippe
"Suite française" by Irène Némirovsky
"The Rings of Saturn" by W.G.Sebald
"Inside Algeria" by Michael von Graffenried
"La Prisonnière" by Malika Oufkir & Michèle Fitoussi
"The Brooklyn Follies" by Paul Auster
"La baie d'Alger" by Louis Gardel (travelled as a bookring and now back home)
"English Passengers" by Matthew Kneale
"Les Algériens en guerre" by Dominique Darbois & Philippe Vigneau

The list of books on my wishlist is becoming longer than I ever thought it would be. Reading one book often leads me towards others that I'd like to track down, and so my wishlist is more than anything else my means of keeping track of those I wish to read one day.

I don't really like the title "Friends list" (too reminiscent of primary school), and think of it rather as a "Thank you list" and will keep it as a record of the several people who have generously agreed to pass their book onto me, and for which I am most grateful.