en-US Sun, 13 Apr 2025 10:11:44 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 222827880

Tristul tigru este încercarea neobosită a lui Neige Sinno de a găsi adevărul, de a se face auzită, de a-ș�� limpezi memoria de o amintire care le-a murdărit pe toate celelalte: abuzul sexual la care a supus-o tatăl ei vitreg în copilărie. La douăzeci ș�� unu de ani ea se hotărăște să nu mai sufere în tăcere ș�� îș�� denunță agresorul. Urmează un proces, tatăl vitreg e condamnat, iar ea pleacă în Mexic pentru a-ș�� construi o nouă viață. De-a lungul unei narațiuni fragmentate, Neige Sinno îș�� explorează memoria, a ei, a mamei, mai mult, a tatălui abuziv, iar povestea se întrețese cu reflecții pe marginea unor lecturi din Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Christine Angot. Tristul tigru, cu un titlu inspirat de poemul „The Tyger�� al lui William Blake, este o explorare literară a modului în care se poate vorbi despre ceea ce e de nespus, o capodoperă izbitoare, șocantă, însă necesară.


„Să citești Tristul tigru e ca ș�� cum ai coborî în abis cu ochii deschiș��. Te obligă să vezi, să vezi cu adevărat...�� - Annie Ernaux


„Tristul tigru e o carte mare. O carte nici frumoasă, nici tandră, nici bulversantă. Cuvintele lui Neige Sinno taie până la os... sunt o luptă între ea ș�� tăcere, viața ș�� moartea se bat în rândurile ei.�� - Le Figaro


„Pe cât de sensibilă, pe atât de brutală, această carte, o adevărată provocare literară, este de o inteligență excepțională.�� - L�� Obs


„Neige Sinno a reuș��t un miracol: a găsit tonul... un amestec perfect de delicatețe, violență ș�� emoție. Un text singular, ș�� pentru că este atât de uman, atât de adevărat.�� - Le Point


„Impresionantă, de o mare profunzime, această carte alternează între dulceață, chin, mânie ș�� împăcare.�� - Télérama


Neige Sinno s-a născut în 1977 în departamentul Hautes-Alpes, Franța. A studiat literatura americană ș�� a debutat în 2007 cu antologia de proze La vie des rats. Le Camion (2018), o metaforă a dorinței de evadare, este primul ei roman. Tristul tigru (Triste tigre, 2023), cea mai recentă carte, a devenit rapid bestseller în Franța ș�� fenomen literar internațional, câștigând rapid numeroase distincții literare, printre care Prix Femina ș�� Prix littéraire Le Monde. După mulți ani petrecuți în Mexic, ea locuiește în prezent în Țara Bascilor.]]> 272 Neige Sinno 6064024704 Ema 0 4.32 2023
author: Neige Sinno
name: Ema
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: currently-reading, non-fiction, female-authors, france
review:

]]> 20814970
Asezata in fata unui barbat mult mai tanar decat ea, Anna isi istoriseste viata, amestecand amintirile despre tinutul natal, despre sotul ei Nino sau despre Terry, prietena care ii este mereu alaturi in diferite imprejurari, cu detalii amuzante privitoare la lumea literara a anilor ��70, dar si cu personaje si intamplari de mai tarziu. Rezultatul este o poveste densa, in mare masura autobiografica.

„Am observat ca hartia pe care scrii este cea mai perfecta lada de gunoi, tot ce se aduna in exces acolo in creier si incepe sa doara trebuie desertat. Si iubirile dau primele semnalul, eu sunt un balon, un mic dirijabil, cand sacii de nisip ma tin pe loc, ii arunc pe rand si ma inalt.�� - Nora Iuga]]> 204 Nora Iuga 9734624032 Ema 0 3.79 2000
author: Nora Iuga
name: Ema
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: female-authors, romania, on-hold, my-library
review:

]]> 214939849 Dan Croitoru()

�� Roman nominalizat la Pulitzer Prize şi la National Book Award

�� Primul volum din seria Zuckerman înlănţuit

Scriitorul fantomă este primul roman al lui Philip Roth narat de Nathan Zuckerman, unul dintre alter egourile ficţionale ale autorului, şi cel care inaugurează seria Zuckerman înlănţuit. Î�� anii 1950, Nathan Zuckerman, scriitor în devenire îndrăgostit de Marile Cărţi ale omenirii, dar care şi‑a dezamăgit deja familia din cauza detaliilor autobiografice din scrisul său, îşi vizitează idolul, pe E.I. Lonoff, scriitor de origine rusă şi maestrul absolut al literaturii americane, în viziunea lui, retras acum la ferma sa din New England. Aici Zuckerman o cunoaşte pe Amy Bellette, o tânără fermecătoare refugiată din Europa care se dovedeşte a fi o fostă studentă şi posibil amantă a lui Lonoff. Cu imaginaţia sa debordantă, Zuckerman se întreabă dacă tânăra nu cumva este chiar victima exemplară a persecuţiilor regimului nazist. O posibilitate care i-ar putea schimba definitiv viaţa.

„Iată încă o dovadă că Roth poate să facă orice cu literatura. Forţa lui narativă �� capacitatea de-a încânta cititorul atât prin poveste, cât şi prin felul în care spune povestea �� e impresionantă.�� (The Washington Post)

„N-a fost nevoie să citesc decât două fraze la începutul cărţii ca să-mi dau seama că mă aflu încă o dată pe mâna unui scriitor extraordinar de înzestrat.�� (The New York Review of Books)

„Opera variată şi incitantă a lui Philip Roth îşi păstrează locul prestigios în literatura contemporană a lumii.�� (Norman Manea)]]> 256 Philip Roth 9734699431 Ema 0 on-hold 3.91 1979
author: Philip Roth
name: Ema
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: on-hold
review:

]]> 13612865 288 Marius Chivu 9735054566 Ema 4 4.35 2012
author: Marius Chivu
name: Ema
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: romania, non-fiction, travel, my-library
review:

]]> 9284082 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

WINNER OF THE 2010 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined.
From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siecle Paris, from occupied Vienna to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century.]]> 354 Edmund de Waal 0099539551 Ema 0 3.90 2010
author: Edmund de Waal
name: Ema
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: non-fiction, memoir, british, on-hold
review:

]]> 36098957 Die, My Love faces all this with a raw intensity.

It's not a question of if a breaking point will be reached, but rather when and how violent a form will it take?]]> 128 Ariana Harwicz 1999722787 Ema 0 3.62 2012
author: Ariana Harwicz
name: Ema
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: female-authors, argentina, on-hold
review:

]]> 22825631
When Peggy finds a pair of boots in the forest and begins a search for their owner, she unwittingly begins to unravel the series of events that brought her to the woods and, in doing so, discovers the strength she needs to go back to the home and mother she thought she’d lost.

After Peggy's return to civilization, her mother learns the truth of her escape, of what happened to James on the last night out in the woods, and of the secret that Peggy has carried with her ever since.]]> 394 Claire Fuller 1941040012 Ema 0 3.65 2015
author: Claire Fuller
name: Ema
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: wishful-thinking, british, female-authors, on-hold
review:

]]> 12555
In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker, a shocking series of events are set in motion–all of which lead back to Ruth and LuLing in modern San Francisco. The truth that Ruth learns from her mother’s past will forever change her perception of family, love, and forgiveness.]]> 387 Amy Tan 0345457374 Ema 0 4.00 2001
author: Amy Tan
name: Ema
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: china, female-authors, america, on-hold
review:

]]> 14896694
Guy Delisle expertly lays the groundwork for a cultural road map of contemporary Jerusalem, utilizing the classic stranger in a strange land point of view that made his Pyongyang, Shenzhen, and Burma chronicles required reading for understanding what daily life is like in cities few are able to travel to. In Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, Delisle explores the complexities of a city that represents so much to so many. He eloquently examines the impact of the conflict on the lives of people on both sides of the wall while drolly recounting the quotidian: checkpoints, traffic jams, and holidays.

When observing the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations that call Jerusalem home, Delisle’s drawn line is both sensitive and fair, assuming nothing and drawing everything. Jerusalem showcases once more Delisle’s mastery of the travelogue.]]> 336 Guy Delisle Ema 0 4.18 2011
author: Guy Delisle
name: Ema
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: graphic, canada, israel, on-hold
review:

]]> 248596 Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.]]> 293 Ray Bradbury 0380729407 Ema 0 america, fantasy, on-hold 3.92 1962
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Ema
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: america, fantasy, on-hold
review:

]]> 229232805 184 Glendon Swarthout 6060975321 Ema 4 4.00 1970
author: Glendon Swarthout
name: Ema
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1970
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: favs, america, adventure, 2025, children
review:

]]> 10186005 163 Helen Garner 0143180045 Ema 0 currently-reading 3.17 1984
author: Helen Garner
name: Ema
average rating: 3.17
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 222565601 Leagănul respiraţiei este un mare roman despre umanitate ș�� fragilitatea ei, inspirat de adevărul dureros al experienţei personale pe care în primul rând poetul Oskar Pastior i l-a încredinţat Hertei Müller.]]> 292 Herta Müller 6060974295 Ema 4 4.00 2009
author: Herta Müller
name: Ema
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: romania, female-authors, my-bookshelf, omg-writing, favs, 2025, my-library
review:

]]> 221789548 357 Dubravka Ugrešić 973469989X Ema 4 3.55 2007
author: Dubravka Ugrešić
name: Ema
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: female-authors, croatia, 2025, favs, humor, bibliobibuli, my-library
review:

]]> 53879204
Don DeLillo completed this novel just weeks before the advent of Covid-19. The Silence is the story of a different catastrophic event. Its resonances offer a mysterious solace.

It is Super Bowl Sunday in the year 2022. Five people, dinner, an apartment on the east side of Manhattan. The retired physics professor and her husband and her former student waiting for the couple who will join them from what becomes a dramatic flight from Paris. The conversation ranges from a survey telescope in North-central Chile to a favorite brand of bourbon to Einstein's 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity.

Then something happens and the digital connections that have transformed our lives are severed.

What follows is a dazzling and profoundly moving conversation about what makes us human. Never has the art of fiction been such an immediate guide to our navigation of a bewildering world. Never have DeLillo's prescience, imagination, and language been more illuminating and essential.]]> 117 Don DeLillo 1982164557 Ema 3 2.66 2020
author: Don DeLillo
name: Ema
average rating: 2.66
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: america, 2025, dystopia, ebook
review:

]]> 62060431
Când înduioșătoare, când amuzantă, Raraou, personajul central al acestei cărți, se prezintă dinaintea noastră ș�� ne spune o poveste. E povestea propriei vieți, o viață măruntă care se intersectează cu alte destine, la fel de mărunte, toate prinse în vârtejul unei istorii necruțătoare.]]> 288 Pavlos Matesis 6064412453 Ema 5 4.15 1990
author: Pavlos Matesis
name: Ema
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: greece, humor, wwii, war, favs, 2025, bibliobibuli, my-library
review:

]]> 43208407 ‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed��

Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before.

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.]]> 188 Jacqueline Harpman 152911179X Ema 5 4.24 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Ema
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: favs, dystopia, female-authors, belgium, 2025, bibliobibuli, my-library
review:

]]> 219219452
Trei actori ai aceleiaș�� drame ș��, la sfârș��t, un raisonneur neașteptat îș�� spun poveștile-confesiuni ca pe niște roluri prinse într-un joc de oglinzi. Pe fundal, Dunărea, maiestuoasă ori măturând resturile asediului, saloanele budapestane interbelice, o operă de Wagner. Î�� decor, o panglică mov. Sándor Márai pătrunde până în crevasele fine ale sufletului omenesc ș�� surprinde atât antagonismele de clasă ale unei lumi la asfințit, cât ș�� agonia adevărului crunt, aflat în răstimpul dintre două clipiri.]]> 400 Sándor Márai 6064416912 Ema 5 4.11 1941
author: Sándor Márai
name: Ema
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1941
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: favs, hungary, 2025, bibliobibuli, my-library
review:

]]> 12091232 148 Banana Yoshimoto 9735007584 Ema 4
So...One day I finally found it in a second-hand bookstore and grabbed it eagerly from the shelf. The previous owner had scribbled some malicious side notes (mainly adding sentences) but eventually got tired (or bored) and stopped at the 15th page. Thank goodness, because the notes were really distracting, as I couldn't help but read them.

My small obsession was satisfied, as I really liked this book. It's not a masterpiece, but seeing that it was Banana's (so funny!) debut novel, published when she was 23, I think it's a very well written, powerful story. Stories, to be precise, as there are two of them in the book - besides Kitchen, there is also a short story, Moonlight Shadow. I liked them both. I can't say "enjoyed", because they speak of death, sadness and loneliness. It may sound like a depressing novel, yet it is not. Somehow, Banana's way of narrating left my soul undamaged, I didn't feel sad or depressed. She made me consider my unhappy moments from the near past and see them in a new light (at least while I was reading the book). She had this power over me, although the writing style of the novel is rather simple. I can't guarantee that it will have the same effect on everybody, though. :)

Now, about the name: Banana is a pseudonym, of course. Wikipedia says that she took it during college because of her love of banana flowers, a name she recognizes as both "cute" and "purposefully androgynous". My Romanian edition has a different opinion on that - it says the pseudonym was taken as a tribute to the Japanese poet Bashō, whose name means "banana" in old Japanese.]]> 3.76 1988
author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: Ema
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: japan, female-authors, my-library, read-in-2012, 2025
review:
I had developed a small obsession for this book, for no particular reason, except I couldn't find it neither in bookstores nor in a library. I guess I liked the title and the author's name, which sounded very playful. And the reviews on ŷ������ indicated that it was a good novel.

So...One day I finally found it in a second-hand bookstore and grabbed it eagerly from the shelf. The previous owner had scribbled some malicious side notes (mainly adding sentences) but eventually got tired (or bored) and stopped at the 15th page. Thank goodness, because the notes were really distracting, as I couldn't help but read them.

My small obsession was satisfied, as I really liked this book. It's not a masterpiece, but seeing that it was Banana's (so funny!) debut novel, published when she was 23, I think it's a very well written, powerful story. Stories, to be precise, as there are two of them in the book - besides Kitchen, there is also a short story, Moonlight Shadow. I liked them both. I can't say "enjoyed", because they speak of death, sadness and loneliness. It may sound like a depressing novel, yet it is not. Somehow, Banana's way of narrating left my soul undamaged, I didn't feel sad or depressed. She made me consider my unhappy moments from the near past and see them in a new light (at least while I was reading the book). She had this power over me, although the writing style of the novel is rather simple. I can't guarantee that it will have the same effect on everybody, though. :)

Now, about the name: Banana is a pseudonym, of course. Wikipedia says that she took it during college because of her love of banana flowers, a name she recognizes as both "cute" and "purposefully androgynous". My Romanian edition has a different opinion on that - it says the pseudonym was taken as a tribute to the Japanese poet Bashō, whose name means "banana" in old Japanese.
]]> 209192695 From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.]]> 449 Haruki Murakami 0593801970 Ema 0 currently-reading 3.72 2023
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Ema
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 158875813
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and Eilish can only watch helplessly as the world she knew disappears. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanish, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society.

How far will she go to save her family? And what �� or who �� is she willing to leave behind?

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.]]> 259 Paul Lynch Ema 0 currently-reading 4.03 2023
author: Paul Lynch
name: Ema
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 15840135 Casa Matrionei, una dintre cele mai frumoase şi mai emoţionante proze ale lui Soljenitîn, este povestea unui profesor de matematică exilat în propria patrie, care porneşte în căutarea Rusiei profunde, idealizate, acea Rusie încă pătrunsă de fiorul creştin pe care regimul stalinist n-a reuşit să-l înăbuşe. La capătul călătoriei sale, profesorul găseşte adăpost în izba Matrionei, o femeie simplă, graţie căreia descoperim noi faţete ale sufletului slav, atât de drag autorului.
Î�� Incident la gara din Kocetovka, adjunctul unui şef de gară dintr-o localitate uitată de lume, care a îmbrăţişat cu entuziasm şi candoare cauza comunistă, este nevoit să hotărască soarta unui om şi cade pradă scepticismului, ruşinii şi îndoielilor.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Ema 0 friends-library, russia 3.75 1963
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Ema
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: friends-library, russia
review:

]]> 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Ema 5 4.14 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Ema
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 1354416 119 Ray Loriga 0312169477 Ema 0 my-bookshelf, spain 3.64 1995
author: Ray Loriga
name: Ema
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: my-bookshelf, spain
review:

]]> 12058888 Віра і релігія, кохання й секс, зброя і домашнє насилля, вбивство за переконанням і суїцид, втрата себе й духовна прірва між поколіннями батьків і дітей - усе це майстерно переплетено у детективному сюжеті роману, де події відбуваються у двох паралельних реальностях: Токіо 1984-го і Токіо, за висловлюванням головної героїні Аомаме, "незрозуміло якого (1Q84)" року.
До видання увійшла перша книга роману Харукі Муракамі "1Q84".]]> 400 Haruki Murakami 9734620061 Ema 5 4.22 2009
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Ema
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 7723 The Metamorphosis,�� a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. ��The Judgment,�� which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and ��The Stoker,�� which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with ��The Metamorphosis,�� form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,�� and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.

Also included are ��In the Penal Colony,�� a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and ��A Hunger Artist,�� about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.]]> 224 Franz Kafka 1593080298 Ema 0 4.08 1915
author: Franz Kafka
name: Ema
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: czech, short-stories, to-read, re-read, trn, classics
review:

]]> 223455 487 Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1564783790 Ema 0 cuba, my-bookshelf 3.96 2008
author: Guillermo Cabrera Infante
name: Ema
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: cuba, my-bookshelf
review:

]]> 4576801 224 Mario Vargas Llosa 9732803134 Ema 0 my-bookshelf, peru 3.85 1987
author: Mario Vargas Llosa
name: Ema
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves: my-bookshelf, peru
review:

]]> 1215142 335 Martin Cruz Smith 033026673X Ema 0 3.74 1981
author: Martin Cruz Smith
name: Ema
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: my-bookshelf, america, russia, mistery-thriller
review:

]]> 25775961
Jean-Paul Clébert was a boy from a respectable middle-class family who ran away from school, joined the French Resistance, and never looked back. Making his way to Paris at the end of World War II, Clébert took to living on the streets, and in Paris Vagabond, a so-called “aleatory novel�� assembled out of sketches he jotted down at the time, he tells what it was like. His “gallery of faces and cityscapes on the road to extinction�� is an astonishing depiction of a world apart—a Paris, long since vanished, of the poor, the criminal, and the outcast—and a no less astonishing feat of literary improvisation: Its long looping breathless sentences, streetwise, profane, lyrical, incantatory, are an adventure in their own right. Praised on publication by the great novelist and poet Blaise Cendrars, and embraced by the young Situationists as a kind of manual for living off the grid, Paris Vagabond—here published with the starkly striking photographs of Clébert’s friend Patrice Molinard—is a raw and celebratory evocation of the life of a city and the underside of life.]]> 327 Jean-Paul Clébert 1590179587 Ema 0 wish-a-wish 3.85 1952
author: Jean-Paul Clébert
name: Ema
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: wish-a-wish
review:

]]> 17159333 344 Mary Karr 1101650737 Ema 0 to-read 3.96 1995
author: Mary Karr
name: Ema
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19812687 386 Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor 0307961214 Ema 0 to-read, kenya, trs 3.92 2013
author: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
name: Ema
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read, kenya, trs
review:

]]> 18979830 ]]> 277 Anaïs Nin 054754023X Ema 0 friends-library 3.94 1986
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Ema
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: friends-library
review:

]]> 30812740 A blazingly intelligent first book of essays from the award-winning author of Open City and Every Day Is for the Thief
��
With this collection of more than fifty pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today’s most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram. Cole brings us new considerations of James Baldwin in the age of Black Lives Matter; the African American photographer Roy DeCarava, who, forced to shoot with film calibrated exclusively for white skin tones, found his way to a startling and true depiction of black subjects; and (in an essay that inspired both praise and pushback��when it first appeared) the White Savior Industrial Complex, the system by which African nations are sentimentally aided by an America “developed on pillage.��
��
Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole’s wide-ranging enthusiasms, curiosities, and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and affecting new frames.
��
Advance praise for Known and Strange Things
��
“A bold, honest, and controversially necessary read.����Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[Teju] Cole is a literary performance artist, his words meticulously chosen and deployed with elegance and force. To read, see, and travel with him is to be changed by the questions that challenge him.����Publishers Weekly

“The forms of resistance depend on the culture they resist, and in our era of generalizations and approximations and sloppiness, Teju Cole’s precise and vivid observation and description are an antidote and a joy. This is a book written with a scalpel, a microscope, and walking shoes, full of telling details and sometimes big surprises.��—Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me


From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 375 Teju Cole 0812989791 Ema 0 wishful-thinking, to-read 4.08 2016
author: Teju Cole
name: Ema
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: wishful-thinking, to-read
review:

]]> 44078179 Birthday is among the very best of Aira—it will surprise readers new to his work, and will deeply satisfy his many fans

Soon enough you realize that you are no longer twenty years old, because right away you are no longer young ... and by the way, while you were thinking about other things, the world was also changing. And then, just as suddenly, you are fifty years old. Aira had anticipated his�� fiftieth—a time when he would not so much recall years past as look forward to what lies ahead—and yet that birthday came and went without much ado. It was only months later, while having a somewhat banal conversation with his wife about the phases of the moon, that he realized how little he really knows about his life. This book consists of a series of short chapters in which Aira searches for and meditates on the events that were significant to him during his first fifty years. Between anecdotes, and memories, the author ponders the origins of his personal truths, and wonders about literature meant as much for the writer as for the reader, about ignorance, knowledge, and death. Finally, Birthday is a little sad, in a serene, crystal-clear kind of way, which makes it even more irresistible.]]> 59 César Aira 0811229068 Ema 0 to-read, trs 3.52 2001
author: César Aira
name: Ema
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: to-read, trs
review:

]]> 34331780 Caiet de cenzor are ca punct de plecare corespondenta fictiva dintre autoare si sefa Biroului Documente Secrete din temuta Directie Generala a Presei si Tipariturilor (Cenzura), care in anii ��70 mergea personal la fabrica de hirtie sa ateste arderea sau tocarea caietelor de cenzori (considerate secrete de stat) si care, inainte sa fuga din tara in 1974, a sustras unul dintre aceste caiete. Acum, dupa patruzeci de ani, il pune la dispozitia cercetatoarei. Intreaga activitate a unui cenzor �� meserie ingrata, despre care era interzis sa vorbesti �� este rezumata in acest caiet-jurnal, ce dezvaluie nu doar structurile institutiei cenzurii, ci si viata de culise, cu framintarile, revoltele si culpabilizarile celor care decideau soarta cartilor. Sint doar cinci luni din viata cenzoritei Filofteia Moldovean, dar atit de dense, incit ne dau imaginea aproape completa a acestei institutii misterioase. De profesie cititori si vinatori de greseli ideologice, asaltati de sute de manuscrise, de termene drastice de predare si sanctiuni amenintatoare, cenzorii isi pierd identitatea si, macinati adesea de nevroze si alte boli, isi cauta vindecarea inclusiv prin scris. „Operele�� lor �� caietele de cenzor ��, autocenzurate sau nu, trebuiau obligatoriu sa dispara. Nu s-a pastrat niciun asemenea document in arhive, incit Caietul de cenzor al Lilianei Corobca este reconstituit din cenusa tuturor la un loc.]]> 360 Liliana Corobca 9734666142 Ema 0 wishlist-published-ro 3.75 2014
author: Liliana Corobca
name: Ema
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: wishlist-published-ro
review:

]]> 19435354
The first great twentieth-century novel of dictatorship, and the avowed inspiration for García Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch and Roa Bastos’s I, the Supreme, Tyrant Banderas is a dark and dazzling portrayal of a mythical Latin American republic in the grip of a monster. Ramón del Valle-Inclán, one of the masters of Spanish modernism, combines the splintered points of view of a cubist painting with the campy excesses of 19th-century serial fiction to paint an astonishing picture of a ruthless tyrant facing armed revolt.

������������ It is the Day of the Dead, and revolution has broken out, creating mayhem from Baby Roach’s Cathouse to the Harris Circus to the deep jungle of Tico Maipú. Tyrant Banderas steps forth, assuring all that he is in favor of freedom of assembly and democratic opposition. Mean­while, his secret police lock up, torture, and execute students and Indian peasants in a sinister castle by the sea where even the sharks have tired of a diet of revolutionary flesh. Then the opposition strikes back. They besiege the dictator’s citadel, hoping to bring justice to a downtrodden, starving populace.

�������������������� Peter Bush’s new translation of Valle-Inclán’s seminal novel, the first into English since 1929, reveals a writer whose tragic sense of humor is as memorably grotesque and disturbing as Goya’s in his The Disasters of War.]]> 224 Ramón María del Valle-Inclán 1590175166 Ema 0 3.18 1926
author: Ramón María del Valle-Inclán
name: Ema
average rating: 3.18
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: spain, to-read, trs, short, classics, wishful-thinking
review:

]]> 32439348
Written during the height of the 1970s Italian domestic terror, a cult novel, with distinct echoes of Lovecraft and Borges, makes its English-language debut.

In the spare wing of a church-run sanatorium, some zealous youths create "the Library," a space where lonely citizens can read one another’s personal diaries and connect with like-minded souls in "dialogues across the ether." But when their scribblings devolve into the ugliest confessions of the macabre, the Library’s users learn too late that a malicious force has consumed their privacy and their sanity. As the city of Turin suffers a twenty-day "phenomenon of collective psychosis" culminating in nightly massacres that hundreds of witnesses cannot explain, the Library is shut down and erased from history. That is, until a lonely salaryman decides to investigate these mysterious events, which the citizenry of Turin fear to mention. Inevitably drawn into the city’s occult netherworld, he unearths the stuff of modern what’s shared can never be unshared.

An allegory inspired by the grisly neo-fascist campaigns of its day, The Twenty Days of Turin has enjoyed a fervent cult following in Italy for forty years. Now, in a fretful new age of "lone-wolf" terrorism fueled by social media, we can find uncanny resonances in Giorgio De Maria’s vision of mass a mute, palpitating dread that seeps into every moment of daily existence. With its stunning anticipation of the Internet—and the apocalyptic repercussions of oversharing—this bleak, prescient story is more disturbingly pertinent than ever.

Brilliantly translated into English for the first time by Ramon Glazov, The Twenty Days of Turin establishes De Maria’s place among the literary ranks of Italo Calvino and beside classic horror masters such as Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Hauntingly imaginative, with visceral prose that chills to the marrow, the novel is an eerily clairvoyant magnum opus, long overdue but ever timely.]]> 213 Giorgio De Maria 1631492306 Ema 0 to-read, wishful-thinking 3.65 1977
author: Giorgio De Maria
name: Ema
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: to-read, wishful-thinking
review:

]]> 394836 ISBN 9781853260537 with 352 pages is here.

M. R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror.
As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M. R. James, 'Stories I Have Tried to Write', which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook'.
There are some authors one wishes one had never read in order to have the joy of reading them for the first time. For me, M. R. James is one of these. Ruth Rendall

Contents:
Canon Alberic's Scrapbook (1895)
Lost Hearts (1895)
The Mezzotint (1904)
The Ash-Tree (1904)
Number 13 (1904)
Count Magnus (1904)
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" (1904)
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1904)
A School Story (1911)
The Rose Garden (1911)
The Tractate Middoth (1911)
Casting the Runes (1911)
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral (1910)
Martin's Close (1911)
Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance (1911)
The Residence at Whitminster (1919)
The Diary of Mr. Poynter (1919)
An Episode of Cathedral History (1914)
The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance (1913)
Two Doctors (1919)
The Haunted Dolls' House (1923)
The Uncommon Prayer-Book (1925)
A Neighbour's Landmark (1924)
A View from a Hill (1925)
A Warning to the Curious (1925)
An Evening's Entertainment (1925)
There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard (1924)
Rats (1929)
After Dark in the Playing Fields (1924)
Wailing Well (1928)]]> 647 M.R. James Ema 5 Moonlight Walk (the original is not so magical as the cover, though).



I've always had a strong curiosity towards ghosts, mixed with apprehension and fright. Back at my parents' house, I had frequent nightmares involving unseen presences, mostly after my grandmother had died. One of them happened like this: in my dream, I was walking in the dark, past her bedroom door, that was slightly ajar. I tried to close the door, but an unseen hand snatched the doorknob from the other side and I was so startled that I woke up frightened and sweating. I came to believe that my grandmother's ghost was present in the house, so every time I went to the bathroom (that was near her former bedroom), I would glance fearfully at the door, waiting for something wicked to happen.

I'm not consciously admitting that ghosts exist, but my mind seems to think otherwise. One might laugh at me, but I was no longer a child when, sleeping in my old bedroom, I couldn't fall asleep and kept opening my eyes in the dark, searching for a strange form near my bed, materialising as a ghost. For many years, I couldn't walk on the hall at night unless I turned on most of the lights. So I do believe my unconscious is quite inclined towards supernatural and the existence of ghosts.

Over the years, the nightmares that I had at my parents' house diminished and then disappeared altoghether, but each time I go there I remember to bring my earplugs, in order to avoid hearing some strange noises at night. And every time I go to the bathroom I remember that dream.]]> 3.97 1931
author: M.R. James
name: Ema
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1931
rating: 5
read at: 1998/01/01
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: favs, thriller-horror, british, my-library, short-stories
review:
I read this book in English around the age of 18, when my mastering of the language was not so good. Yet, I remember being pinned to the couch, sweating and trembling, immersed in the gripping stories. I was in love with the cover, too; it was sort of magical and seemed to tell a story of its own. It's in fact a painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw, untitled Moonlight Walk (the original is not so magical as the cover, though).



I've always had a strong curiosity towards ghosts, mixed with apprehension and fright. Back at my parents' house, I had frequent nightmares involving unseen presences, mostly after my grandmother had died. One of them happened like this: in my dream, I was walking in the dark, past her bedroom door, that was slightly ajar. I tried to close the door, but an unseen hand snatched the doorknob from the other side and I was so startled that I woke up frightened and sweating. I came to believe that my grandmother's ghost was present in the house, so every time I went to the bathroom (that was near her former bedroom), I would glance fearfully at the door, waiting for something wicked to happen.

I'm not consciously admitting that ghosts exist, but my mind seems to think otherwise. One might laugh at me, but I was no longer a child when, sleeping in my old bedroom, I couldn't fall asleep and kept opening my eyes in the dark, searching for a strange form near my bed, materialising as a ghost. For many years, I couldn't walk on the hall at night unless I turned on most of the lights. So I do believe my unconscious is quite inclined towards supernatural and the existence of ghosts.

Over the years, the nightmares that I had at my parents' house diminished and then disappeared altoghether, but each time I go there I remember to bring my earplugs, in order to avoid hearing some strange noises at night. And every time I go to the bathroom I remember that dream.
]]> 20587324 ��
As we watch the two unlikely heroes of Kiran Nagarkar's acclaimed novel rocket out of the starting blocks of their lives, leaving earth-mothers and absentee fathers, cataclysms and rock ’n�� roll in their wake, we're compelled to sit up and take notice.
��
Recently selected by The Guardian as one of the ten best novels about Mumbai, Ravan and Eddie is a comic masterpiece about two larger- and truer-than-life characters and their bawdy, Rabelaisian adventures in postcolonial India. It is also a timeless journey of self-discovery, a quest for the meaning of guilt and responsibility, sin and sex, crime and punishment.]]> 330 Kiran Nagarkar 1590176510 Ema 0 to-read, trs, india 3.59 1994
author: Kiran Nagarkar
name: Ema
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: to-read, trs, india
review:

]]> 2793313 351 Octavio Paz 9681659708 Ema 0 4.08 1950
author: Octavio Paz
name: Ema
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: mexico, my-bookshelf, read-in-spanish
review:

]]> 20612302 240 Alexander Pushkin 9734641603 Ema 4
Unele povestiri îș�� fac simțită vârsta, însă majoritatea au un aer atemporal, rămânând la fel de interesante ș�� de captivante ș�� astăzi, la aproape două secole de la conceperea lor. Printre favoritele mele se numără Dubrovski, Dama de pică, Domnișoara țărăncuță, Căpitanul de poștă ș�� Dricarul, însă fiecare poveste are câte un subiect neobișnuit sau un final surprinzător, toate sunt presărate cu vorbe de duh ș�� cu umor, iar câteva au accente fantastice - o diversitate care a făcut lectura mult mai antrenantă ș�� mai satisfăcătoare decât mă așteptam la început.

Scriitura lui Pușkin este simplă, concisă ș�� lipsită de zorzoane, însă foarte plăcută, chiar dacă unele formulări sună cam pompos în vremurile noastre. După cum declară chiar autorul în câteva rânduri, el se sustrage tipicului romancierilor contemporani, respingând convențiile ș�� ferindu-se de dramatismele banale ș�� previzibile. O doză de romantism ș�� de sentimentalism pare însă inevitabilă, mai ales pentru eroinele lui Pușkin, care cunosc viața mai mult din romane ș��, în unele cazuri, trăiesc izolate pe moș��a părintească, iar cutumele vremii le obligă să se supună voinței părinților ș�� să îș�� înăbușe pornirile amoroase - însă nu ș�� imaginația.

Puteți citi aici recenzia mai lungă, scrisă pentru blog:

| | | |
]]> 3.86 1841
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Ema
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1841
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/09
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: russia, short-stories, classics, read-in-2016
review:
Poate că nu aș fi citit prea curând „Dama de pică ș�� alte povestiri�� de Aleksandr Pușkin dacă romanul „Frații Karamazov�� nu mi-ar fi trezit interesul pentru literatura clasică rusă. Chiar dacă la început am avut o oarecare reținere față de subiectele ș�� personajele atât de diferite de vremurile noastre, povestirile au început să-mi placă din ce în ce mai mult, pentru ca la final să-mi pară rău că s-au terminat.

Unele povestiri îș�� fac simțită vârsta, însă majoritatea au un aer atemporal, rămânând la fel de interesante ș�� de captivante ș�� astăzi, la aproape două secole de la conceperea lor. Printre favoritele mele se numără Dubrovski, Dama de pică, Domnișoara țărăncuță, Căpitanul de poștă ș�� Dricarul, însă fiecare poveste are câte un subiect neobișnuit sau un final surprinzător, toate sunt presărate cu vorbe de duh ș�� cu umor, iar câteva au accente fantastice - o diversitate care a făcut lectura mult mai antrenantă ș�� mai satisfăcătoare decât mă așteptam la început.

Scriitura lui Pușkin este simplă, concisă ș�� lipsită de zorzoane, însă foarte plăcută, chiar dacă unele formulări sună cam pompos în vremurile noastre. După cum declară chiar autorul în câteva rânduri, el se sustrage tipicului romancierilor contemporani, respingând convențiile ș�� ferindu-se de dramatismele banale ș�� previzibile. O doză de romantism ș�� de sentimentalism pare însă inevitabilă, mai ales pentru eroinele lui Pușkin, care cunosc viața mai mult din romane ș��, în unele cazuri, trăiesc izolate pe moș��a părintească, iar cutumele vremii le obligă să se supună voinței părinților ș�� să îș�� înăbușe pornirile amoroase - însă nu ș�� imaginația.

Puteți citi aici recenzia mai lungă, scrisă pentru blog:

| | | |

]]> 2696567 208 Barbara Pym 0060805110 Ema 0 3.78 1979
author: Barbara Pym
name: Ema
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: female-authors, short, trl, to-read
review:

]]> 227002 186 Barbara Pym 0330326481 Ema 0 3.90 1978
author: Barbara Pym
name: Ema
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: female-authors, short, trs, to-read
review:

]]> 28431067
Sin moverse de su diván, enfundado en un raído batín asiático, el héroe de esta novela es la personificación perfecta de la indolencia y la inactividad. Heredero terrateniente, eterno ausente de una hacienda fraudulentamente administrada, con una malograda carrera en el funcionariado y un retraimiento temprano de la vida social, Oblómov conocerá de pronto, al cabo de los años y a instancias de su gran amigo, el emprendedor Shtolz, un extraño renacer, una misteriosa sacudida que por un momento le hará creer en la posibilidad de otra clase de vida, en la que asoman insospechadamente la confianza y el amor.

Oblómov (1859) de Iván A. Goncharov es una de las obras centrales de la literatura rusa, una de las máximas ilustraciones del tipo del «hombre superfluo» que tanto preocupó, asimismo, a Pushkin o a Turguéniev. Diálogos y gestos puros, una perfecta organización dramática, un humor sostenido y elocuente y una narración distanciada y comprensiva a la vez son algunas de las claves de esta magnífica novela en la que todo despide vida y claridad.]]> 567 Ivan Goncharov Ema 0 friends-library 4.33 1859
author: Ivan Goncharov
name: Ema
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1859
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves: friends-library
review:

]]> 129257 This starkly beautiful novel examines the trials of an impoverished woman and her children living in a remote village in Iran after the unexplained disappearance of her husband, Soluch. Lyrical yet unsparing, the novel examines her life as she contends with the political corruption, authoritarianism, and poverty of the village. It follows her vacillation between love and anger at Soluch's absence, as she tries to raise her children without their father.
The novel critically evokes the unfulfilled aspirations of modern Iran--portraying a society caught between a past and a future that seems equally weighed down by injustice.
The Association of American Publishers' Freedom to Publish Committee joins in launching this book to support the publication of voices censored by the State Department's ban of books from the "Axis of Evil."]]> 507 Mahmoud Dowlatabadi 1933633115 Ema 0 iran, to-read, must 4.06 1979
author: Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
name: Ema
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/03
shelves: iran, to-read, must
review:

]]> 121537 Mystérieusement, toutes les pistes tournent court. Conspiration ? Malédiction ? Sur les traces de Languenhaert et de ses disciples, de Paris à Amsterdam, c'est peut-être et surtout au fond de lui-même que notre chercheur enquête, emportant avec lui le lecteur dans des vertiges hallucinants.]]> 121 Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt 2253140503 Ema 0 3.39 1994
author: Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
name: Ema
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/14
shelves: to-read, france, read-in-french
review:

]]> 52404765 Rănile bătrânului continent cartografiază pătrunzător realitatea complexă din spațiul central şi est-european postcomunist şi chestionează principalele cauze ce mențin, încă, deficitul de comunicare dintre vechile şi noile democrații europene. Asemenea lui Hamlet, Nádas investighează natura morală a lumii în care trăim ș��, întocmai ca personajul shakespearian, pune şi îşi pune întrebări, refuzând să se lase condus de certitudini. Menținându-se permanent la graniţa dintre experienţă şi imaginație, dintre realitate şi ficțiune, autorul maghiar pune în scenă un veritabil spectacol al ideilor. Puterea de seducţie a acestor scrieri constă în capacitatea autorului lor de a aborda o serie de aspecte dintre cele mai grave ale «infernalei comedii» ce se desfășoară zi de zi în spațiul postcomunist «ca şi când ar spune o poveste». Ficțiunile-eseu ale scriitorului maghiar pun în lumină versiuni adeseori concurente ale unei realități în permanentă mişcare.�� (Carmen Muşat)]]> 248 Péter Nádas 9736699722 Ema 0 my-bookshelf, hungary 4.25
author: Péter Nádas
name: Ema
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/18
shelves: my-bookshelf, hungary
review:

]]> 13792325 That Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim’s modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential novels written in Arabic since WWII. Composed after a five-year term in prison, the semi-autobiographical story follows a recently released political prisoner as he wanders through Cairo, adrift in his native city. Living under house arrest, he tries to write of his tortuous experience, but instead smokes, spies on the neighbors, visits old lovers, and marvels at Egypt’s new consumer culture. Published in 1966, That Smell was immediately banned and the print-run confiscated. The original, uncensored version did not appear in Egypt for another twenty years.


For this edition, translator Robyn Creswell has also included an annotated selection of the author’s Notes from Prison, Ibrahim’s prison diaries—a personal archive comprising hundreds of handwritten notes copied onto Bafra-brand cigarette papers and smuggled out of jail. These stark, intense writings shed unexpected light on the sources and motives of Ibrahim’s groundbreaking novel. Also included in this edition is Ibrahim’s celebrated essay about the writing and reception of That Smell.]]> 110 Sonallah Ibrahim 0811220362 Ema 0 egypt, to-read, trs 3.53 1966
author: Sonallah Ibrahim
name: Ema
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/24
shelves: egypt, to-read, trs
review:

]]> 83017 198 Dino Buzzati 1567923046 Ema 4 4.24 1940
author: Dino Buzzati
name: Ema
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1940
rating: 4
read at: 2017/05/22
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: italy, bookish-gems, weird-stuff, borrowed, read-in-2017, trw
review:

]]> 20548297 Raimundo Carrero Ema 0 friends-library 3.57 1995
author: Raimundo Carrero
name: Ema
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/10
shelves: friends-library
review:

]]> 153482 Cassandra speaks to us in a pressing monologue whose inner focal points are patriarchy and war. In the four accompanying pieces, which take the form of travel reports, journal entries, and a letter, Wolf describes the novel's genesis. Incisive and intelligent, the entire volume represents an urgent call to examine the past in order to insure a future.
]]> 320 Christa Wolf 0374519048 Ema 0 3.92 1983
author: Christa Wolf
name: Ema
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: wish-a-wish, female-authors, germany
review:

]]> 52934211 Meridianul ilustrează un mod de a vorbi despre poezie ce se substituie obiectului însuș��, unde strădania de a «descrie» un drum al creației se confundă cu creația, cea a cărei deschidere dialogică implicită «spațiilor indefinite» (Leerstellen) ș�� incompatibilă cu sentențiozitatea riguroasă, frizînd Definitivul, a expozeului «teoretic» emană dintr-un «joc cu mărgelele de sticlă» al limbajului. Preferînd speculației metaestetice despre poiein ș�� produsele sale empatia cu acestea din urmă, Celan încearcă s-o «transpună» într-un idiom aplecat asupra propriilor resurse de a accede către momentul, oricît de efemer, al coagulării virtuale, în limbaj, a «întîlnirii» cu Altul.
Am încercat să ținem seama în această întreprindere de transpunere în limba română a prozei lui Paul Celan de întreaga experiență acumulată de traducătorii care, în alte limbi ș�� culturi, au inițiat-o cu mult înaintea noastră. Ne-am confruntat cu aceleaș�� dificultăți ș�� dileme în a găsi un echivalent adecvat «densității» textelor, cumulată în paleta de registre ce glisează de la ceremonios la ironic ș�� de la emfatic la patetic, în reverberația intertextuală, în alternanța dintre «spus» ș�� «nespus», în preaplinul semantic ce emerge din travaliul de remodelare a materiei lexicale, ș�� nu numai...�� (Andrei Corbea)]]> 120 Paul Celan 9734680730 Ema 0 my-bookshelf, romania 3.69 1983
author: Paul Celan
name: Ema
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/24
shelves: my-bookshelf, romania
review:

]]> 17883761 266 Max Blecher 9731246878 Ema 0 my-bookshelf, romania 4.13 1936
author: Max Blecher
name: Ema
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/18
shelves: my-bookshelf, romania
review:

]]> 20525671
Ziua începe la 5 dimineaţa. Geamurile sunt căptuşite cu gheaţă de două degete grosime şi baraca e albită, pe dinăuntru, de promoroacă. Ivan Denisovici se trezeşte în sunetele unui ciocan lovit de o bucată de fier. Î��tre deşteptare şi stingere, viaţa e o continuă aventură: o serie de probe, de „munci�� pentru care ai nevoie de rezistenţă, de curaj şi de noroc. Dacă scapi de carceră, dacă nu te îmbolnăveşti, dacă reuşeşti să-ţi ascunzi câte o bucată de pâine sau câte o unealtă, dacă nu devii turnător şi nici „şacal��, ai trecut încercările. Ivan Denisovici trebuie să le treacă de 3 653 de ori...

Veţi citi cartea în câteva ore. Veţi trăi în ea. Veţi fi prizonieri o zi întreagă într-un lagăr din Siberia. Veţi supravieţui: va fi o zi senină, aproape fericită.]]> 168 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 9736896498 Ema 0 my-bookshelf, russia 4.03 1962
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Ema
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/29
shelves: my-bookshelf, russia
review:

]]> 26220936 From the author of The Door and Abigail and for fans of Elena Ferrante and Clarice Lispector, a newly translated novel about a theater star who is forced to reckon with her painful and tragic past.

In The Door, in Iza's Ballad, and in Abigail, Magda Szabó describes the complex relationships between women of different ages and backgrounds with an astute and unsparing eye. Eszter, the narrator and protagonist of The Fawn, may well be Szabó’s most fascinating creation.

Eszter, an only child, her father an eccentric aristocrat and steeply downwardly mobile flower breeder, her mother a harried music teacher failing to make ends meet, grows up poor and painfully aware of it in a provincial Hungarian town.

This is before World War II, and Eszter, as she tells her story of childhood loneliness and hunger, has forgotten no slight and forgiven nobody, least of all her beautiful classmate Angela, whose unforced kindness to her left the deepest wound.

And yet Eszter, post-war—which is when she has come to remember all these things—is a star of the stage, now settled in Budapest, where Angela, a devout Communist married to an esteemed scholar and translator of Shakespeare, also lives.

The Fawn unfolds as Eszter's confession, filled with the rage of a lifetime and born, we come to sense, of irreversible regret. It is a tale of childhood, of the theater, of the collateral damage of the riven twentieth century, of hatred, and, in the end, a tragic tale of love.]]> 357 Magda Szabó Ema 0 4.57 1959
author: Magda Szabó
name: Ema
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/18
shelves: my-bookshelf, hungary, female-authors
review:

]]> 34390247 Go, Went, Gone is the masterful new novel by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, “one of the most significant German-language novelists of her generation�� (The Millions). The novel tells the tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz. Curiosity turns to compassion and an inner transformation, as he visits their shelter, interviews them, and becomes embroiled in their harrowing fates. Go, Went, Gone is a scathing indictment of Western policy toward the European refugee crisis, but also a touching portrait of a man who finds he has more in common with the Africans than he realizes. Exquisitely translated by Susan Bernofsky, Go, Went, Gone addresses one of the most pivotal issues of our time, facing it head-on in a voice that is both nostalgic and frightening.]]> 286 Jenny Erpenbeck 0811225941 Ema 0 to-read, wishful-thinking 4.05 2015
author: Jenny Erpenbeck
name: Ema
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/06
shelves: to-read, wishful-thinking
review:

]]> 34002346 De la Franz Kafka pentru Felice Bauer
De la Francis Scott Fitzgerald pentru Zelda Fitzgerald
De la Napoleon Bonaparte către Joséphine
De la Frida Kahlo pentru Diego Rivera

Pe scena iubirii li se alătură ș�� alte celebrități: Voltaire, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt��

Dragoste de scrisori ș�� scrisori de dragoste, redescoperite în sertare ș�� arhive. Mărturii intime, scoase la lumină în epoca e-mailului ș�� a SMS-ului. Pentru cititorii împătimiți ș�� iubitorii de cuvinte, epistolele rămân irezistibile.

Strânse într-o carte pentru oamenii mileniului III, ele parcă ridică discret un colț de perdea, întrezărindu-se astfel încăperile trecute ale dragostei. Și o vedem în toată splendoarea ei: blândă ș�� pătimașă, curată ș�� obsesivă, sobră ș�� zglobie…]]> 256 David H. Lowenherz 6067588323 Ema 0 my-bookshelf 3.62 2002
author: David H. Lowenherz
name: Ema
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/17
shelves: my-bookshelf
review:

]]> 360987
This book is a stunningly evocative portrait of the revolutions that swept Communism from Eastern Europe in 1989 and whose aftereffects are still being felt today. As Garton Ash writes in an incisive new afterword, from the perspective of three decades “Freedom’s battle is never finally won. It must be fought anew in every generation.”]]> 167 Timothy Garton Ash 0679740481 Ema 0 to-read, prague 3.77 1990
author: Timothy Garton Ash
name: Ema
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves: to-read, prague
review:

]]> 3979476 214 L.J. Davis 1590173007 Ema 0 trs, to-read 3.60 1971
author: L.J. Davis
name: Ema
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves: trs, to-read
review:

]]> 838938 160 Lu Xun 9629960443 Ema 0 china, trs, to-read, classics 3.86 1922
author: Lu Xun
name: Ema
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1922
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves: china, trs, to-read, classics
review:

]]> 11424407 Premiul pentru Proza al revistei Observator cultural pe anul 2010

��Provizorat se va impune atit ca un mare roman al destinderii, cit si ca un roman al cuplurilor in totalitarism(e) si al imposibilei intimitati. O revenire in forta a unei prozatoare de virf si o carte de asezat pe acelasi raft cu Dimineata pierduta.�� (Paul Cernat)

„De neratat lectura acestui Provizorat, al doilea mare roman al Gabrielei Adamesteanu.�� (Daniel Cristea-Enache)

„Cel mai specific roman al prozatoarei, mai libera ca niciodata de a pune in toate ecuatiile posibile individualul si politicul, Provizorat probeaza faptul ca Gabriela Adamesteanu s-a intors definitiv la literatura si ca lucreaza in continuare la epopeea tulburatoare a infatisarii „omului subt vremi.�� (Alex Goldis)

„Prin realismul meticulos si valoarea documentara, prin coerenta tramei de o tristete sfisietoare, prin complexitatea personajelor, prin simplitatea stilistica, dar elocventa, punctata de rare mingiieri poetice, prin reusita transmiterii starilor de neliniste si nesiguranta, romanul Provizorat te (re)indragosteste intens de proza Gabrielei Adamesteanu, o autoare de raftul intii in biblioteca literaturii noastre postbelice.�� (Gabriela Gheorghisor)]]> 442 Gabriela Adameșteanu 9734617028 Ema 4 Note: There's an English translation below.

Am ajuns să citesc Provizorat din pură întâmplare, pentru că am vrut să împrumut Dimineaţă pierdută şi mi-a fost adus, în schimb, acest volum. Nu am regretat nicio clipă, deşi am amânat să-l citesc cât de mult am putut, cu proverbiala mea reticenţă pentru literatura românească (reticenţă care, încet-încet, începe să se dizolve).

Provizorat a fost o lectură surprinzător de plăcută şi fluidă. Am avut un sentiment straniu citind-o, ca şi cum eu şi cartea am fi putut continua să existăm alături pentru multă vreme, ca şi cum paginile se transformau, lin, din imaginar în real, prinzând o viaţă proprie, devenind un univers paralel pe care îl puteam vizita, la nevoie, o oră pe zi, pentru a mă pune la curent cu ce i s-a mai întâmplat Letiţiei, sau pentru a afla încă o dezvăluire din trecutul lui Sorin. O lume care putea curge la nesfârşit, fără ca eu să mă plictisesc - aceasta a fost senzaţia mea citind Provizorat.

Lumea romanului este, însă, o lume provizorie, în continuă schimbare. Î��tr-o ţară mişcătoare şi neaşezată, situaţiile se pot răsturna de la o zi la alta, favorurile de ieri devin amănunte incomode a doua zi, cuplurile se destramă fără explicaţii, pentru că unul dintre parteneri a şters-o peste graniţă, către o viaţă mai bună. O lume în care deciziile sunt amânate şi evitate, dintr-o teamă de răspundere care paralizează.

Letiţia, încă tânără la începutul romanului, trăieşte fără un scop precis. Tinereţea i se aşterne nesfârşită în faţă, iar viaţa ei poartă semnul improvizaţiei. Este un mod de ocolire al realităţii, de aşteptare pasivă a unei situaţii definitive. S-a căsătorit cu Petru din teama unui viitor neprevăzut, dar şi pentru a lăsa în spate "dosarul" familiei, pe care soţul i-l reproşează cu orice ocazie.

Sorin îşi duce şi el viaţa sub semnul provizoriului: trăieşte cu impresia că a nimerit în această viaţă din întâmplare, când, de fapt, el aparţine unei alte lumi, fără nicio legătură cu comunismul. Sorin intră în lumea suspendată a Letiţiei ca o barcă de salvare, ca o promisiune de stabilitate. Prin el se materializează, pentru o vreme, dorinţa ei de a găsi măcar o persoană de încredere în lumea ei de nisipuri mişcătoare. Prin el îşi poate retrăi amintirile, ca şi cum copilăria lor ar fi fost una comună.

Letiţia îşi scrie gândurile într-un caiet, ascuns sub saltea de ochii lui Petru. A publicat deja, iar Sorin este conştient că riscă prin destăinuirile pe care i le face, pentru că, la un moment dat, poate deveni chiar el personaj în romanul Letiţiei. Vai de familiile în care s-a născut un scriitor! spune Sorin. Î��să el nu îi mărturiseşte totul şi nici nu ar putea, pentru că, de fapt, nu îşi cunoaşte cu adevărat trecutul.

Letiţia îi banuieşte viaţa dublă, este conştientă că el recurge la o disimulare onestă, şi totuşi, relaţia lor continuă. Este o iubire înşelătoare, care naşte suspiciune, o iubire care nu poate părăsi spaţiul camerei provizorii în care se întâlnesc - cei doi sunt prinşi, fiecare, în vieţile lor, sunt constrânşi de împrejurări şi repercursiuni. Se mulţumesc cu porţia săptămânală de iubire şi de evadare iluzorie din falsitatea lumii care îi înconjoară. Deşi îndoielile sunt reciproce, Letiţia mimează încrederea în el, iar Sorin minte prin omisiune.

M-am regăsit un pic în această lume provizorie, chiar dacă evenimentele se petrec înainte de naşterea mea. M-am regăsit în fetiţa de la coadă, pipăită de o mână străină - deşi eu eram în autobuz, nu la coadă, şi, cu mintea mea încă necoaptă, am trăit câteva zile cu certitudinea că am rămas însărcinată. M-am regăsit şi pe coridoarele Casei Presei, unde am lucrat o vreme, de la geamurile căreia am privit adeseori, precum Letiţia, locul unde se afla, până în 1990, statuia lui Lenin. Statuie care apare, în acest roman, drept un punct fix, stabil, un centru în jurul căruia gravitează o mare parte din viaţa personajelor.

Cel mai dureros a fost să trăiesc, prin Letiţia, sentimentul alienării şi al nesiguranţei. Ce fel de viaţă este aceea în care nu poţi avea încredere deplină într-o persoană apropiată?
Dar o viaţă în care fiecare detaliu este suspect, la fel ca şi devotamentul excesiv?
Cine eşti tu, de fapt? Eşti doar atât cât te vede celălalt?
Ce vină au copiii pentru credinţele sau greşelile părinţilor? Î�� ciuda încercărilor celor din urmă de a falsifica trecutul, viaţa copiilor se aseamănă cu un castel din cărţi de joc, care poate fi năruit oricând, prin dezvăluirile celor care cunosc secretele din dosarul de familie.

Sunt foarte multe detalii din perioada 1940-1980 în acest roman, pe care le-am citit cu mare interes; am aflat multe lucruri pe care nu le ştiam despre istoria propriei ţări. Sunt, însă, şi foarte multe personaje, ale căror poveşti şi istorii se întretaie atât de strâns încât, la un moment dat, am ajuns să încurc familia lui Sorin cu cea a Letiţiei şi invers. Pentru astfel de situaţii a fost la îndemână tabelul cu personaje de la finalul cărţii, pe care m-aş bucura, de altfel, să-l pot găsi în fiecare roman.




I came to read Provisional state by pure chance, as I intended to borrow Wasted Morning and I was brought this novel instead. I didn't regret it for a minute, although I postponed reading it for months, with my proverbial reticent approach towards Romanian literature (reticence which is slowly beginning to dissipate).

Provisional state was a surprisingly pleasant and fluid novel. I had a strange feeling while reading it, as if me and the book could continue to exist together for a long time, as if the pages were slowly seeping from the imaginary realm, taking a life of its own, becoming a parallel universe which I could visit, when needed, an hour a day, to keep up with Letiţia's life or unfold another secret from Sorin's past. A world that could go on flowing endlessly, without me ever getting bored.

Yet, the world of this novel is a provisional one, a world altered by an ongoing change. In a country that is continually shifting and displaced, the situations can be overthrown from one day to the next, yesterday's favors become embarrassments to be hidden tomorrow, couples disintegrate without explanations, because one of the partners left the country in search of a better life. A world in which decisions are avoided and postponed, out of a paralyzing fear of responsibility.

Letiţia, still young at the beginning of the novel, lives without a concrete purpose. Youth spreads endlessly at her feet, while her life bears the mark of improvisation. It is a way of avoiding reality, a passive state of expecting a definitive situation. She married Petru out of fear for this unpredictable future, but also in an attempt to leave behind the tainted "file" of her family, which Petru never misses a chance to make reproaches for.

Sorin is also bearing his life under a provisional star: he has the impression of finding himself in this life by accident, when, in fact, he belongs to another world, one which has no connection to communism. Sorin enters Letiţia's world of shifting sands like a rescue boat, like a promise of stability. Through him, her wish of finding at least one person of trust materializes for a while. Through him, she can relive her memories, as if they were connected by a common childhood.

Letiţia writes her thoughts in a notebook she hides from prying eyes under the mattress. She has already published, which makes Sorin aware that he takes a risk by confessing to her; he may become a character one day, in Letiţia's novel. I pity the families in which a writer was born declaims Sorin, while he keeps some confessions to himself. He could not tell her everything even if he wanted, because there are things from his past which even he is not aware of.

Letiţia is suspicious of his double life, she is aware that he makes use of an honest dissimulation and yet, their relationship goes on. Their love is deceiving, giving birth to mistrust. It could never leave the provisional space of their meeting place, as the two of them are too deeply entangled in their lives, constrained by circumstances and repercussions. They are content with their weekly portion of love and illusory escape from the deceitful world that surrounds them. Although the doubts are reciprocal, Letiţia feigns trust in Sorin, while he lies by omission.

I've found pieces of myself in this provisional world, even if the events take place long before I was born. I saw myself in the little girl waiting in the queue, touched by an unknown hand - although I was in a bus and, with my unripe knowledge of the world, I was certain, for a couple of days, that I was pregnant. I also found myself on the corridors of the 'House of Press' where I worked for a while, from whose windows I used to watch, as Letiţia did so many times, towards the place where Lenin's statue stood until 1990. A statue that appears in this novel as a fixed, stable point, a center around which many of the events gravitate.

It was distressing to enact, through Letiţia, the feeling of alienation and uncertainty. What kind of life is that, in which you cannot completely trust anyone?
What about a life in which every detail is suspected, as well as an ardent devotion?
Who are you, really? Are you only as much as the others see you?
What blame hold the children for their parents' mistakes and beliefs? Despite the latter's attempts to falsify the past, their children's life resembles a castle built from playing cards, which can be easily torn down by those who know the secrets of the family file.

There are plenty of details from 1940s till 1980s in this novel, which I have read with great interest; I have learnt a lot of things about my own country's history. Yet, there is also a great deal of characters, whose lives and stories intersect and tangle to a point where I became to mix up Letiţia's and Sorin's families. For such moments of confusion, the list of characters at the end was of great help, a list that I would not mind finding in every novel that I read.
]]> 3.89 2010
author: Gabriela Adameșteanu
name: Ema
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2014/01/13
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: romania, female-authors, read-in-2014
review:
Note: There's an English translation below.

Am ajuns să citesc Provizorat din pură întâmplare, pentru că am vrut să împrumut Dimineaţă pierdută şi mi-a fost adus, în schimb, acest volum. Nu am regretat nicio clipă, deşi am amânat să-l citesc cât de mult am putut, cu proverbiala mea reticenţă pentru literatura românească (reticenţă care, încet-încet, începe să se dizolve).

Provizorat a fost o lectură surprinzător de plăcută şi fluidă. Am avut un sentiment straniu citind-o, ca şi cum eu şi cartea am fi putut continua să existăm alături pentru multă vreme, ca şi cum paginile se transformau, lin, din imaginar în real, prinzând o viaţă proprie, devenind un univers paralel pe care îl puteam vizita, la nevoie, o oră pe zi, pentru a mă pune la curent cu ce i s-a mai întâmplat Letiţiei, sau pentru a afla încă o dezvăluire din trecutul lui Sorin. O lume care putea curge la nesfârşit, fără ca eu să mă plictisesc - aceasta a fost senzaţia mea citind Provizorat.

Lumea romanului este, însă, o lume provizorie, în continuă schimbare. Î��tr-o ţară mişcătoare şi neaşezată, situaţiile se pot răsturna de la o zi la alta, favorurile de ieri devin amănunte incomode a doua zi, cuplurile se destramă fără explicaţii, pentru că unul dintre parteneri a şters-o peste graniţă, către o viaţă mai bună. O lume în care deciziile sunt amânate şi evitate, dintr-o teamă de răspundere care paralizează.

Letiţia, încă tânără la începutul romanului, trăieşte fără un scop precis. Tinereţea i se aşterne nesfârşită în faţă, iar viaţa ei poartă semnul improvizaţiei. Este un mod de ocolire al realităţii, de aşteptare pasivă a unei situaţii definitive. S-a căsătorit cu Petru din teama unui viitor neprevăzut, dar şi pentru a lăsa în spate "dosarul" familiei, pe care soţul i-l reproşează cu orice ocazie.

Sorin îşi duce şi el viaţa sub semnul provizoriului: trăieşte cu impresia că a nimerit în această viaţă din întâmplare, când, de fapt, el aparţine unei alte lumi, fără nicio legătură cu comunismul. Sorin intră în lumea suspendată a Letiţiei ca o barcă de salvare, ca o promisiune de stabilitate. Prin el se materializează, pentru o vreme, dorinţa ei de a găsi măcar o persoană de încredere în lumea ei de nisipuri mişcătoare. Prin el îşi poate retrăi amintirile, ca şi cum copilăria lor ar fi fost una comună.

Letiţia îşi scrie gândurile într-un caiet, ascuns sub saltea de ochii lui Petru. A publicat deja, iar Sorin este conştient că riscă prin destăinuirile pe care i le face, pentru că, la un moment dat, poate deveni chiar el personaj în romanul Letiţiei. Vai de familiile în care s-a născut un scriitor! spune Sorin. Î��să el nu îi mărturiseşte totul şi nici nu ar putea, pentru că, de fapt, nu îşi cunoaşte cu adevărat trecutul.

Letiţia îi banuieşte viaţa dublă, este conştientă că el recurge la o disimulare onestă, şi totuşi, relaţia lor continuă. Este o iubire înşelătoare, care naşte suspiciune, o iubire care nu poate părăsi spaţiul camerei provizorii în care se întâlnesc - cei doi sunt prinşi, fiecare, în vieţile lor, sunt constrânşi de împrejurări şi repercursiuni. Se mulţumesc cu porţia săptămânală de iubire şi de evadare iluzorie din falsitatea lumii care îi înconjoară. Deşi îndoielile sunt reciproce, Letiţia mimează încrederea în el, iar Sorin minte prin omisiune.

M-am regăsit un pic în această lume provizorie, chiar dacă evenimentele se petrec înainte de naşterea mea. M-am regăsit în fetiţa de la coadă, pipăită de o mână străină - deşi eu eram în autobuz, nu la coadă, şi, cu mintea mea încă necoaptă, am trăit câteva zile cu certitudinea că am rămas însărcinată. M-am regăsit şi pe coridoarele Casei Presei, unde am lucrat o vreme, de la geamurile căreia am privit adeseori, precum Letiţia, locul unde se afla, până în 1990, statuia lui Lenin. Statuie care apare, în acest roman, drept un punct fix, stabil, un centru în jurul căruia gravitează o mare parte din viaţa personajelor.

Cel mai dureros a fost să trăiesc, prin Letiţia, sentimentul alienării şi al nesiguranţei. Ce fel de viaţă este aceea în care nu poţi avea încredere deplină într-o persoană apropiată?
Dar o viaţă în care fiecare detaliu este suspect, la fel ca şi devotamentul excesiv?
Cine eşti tu, de fapt? Eşti doar atât cât te vede celălalt?
Ce vină au copiii pentru credinţele sau greşelile părinţilor? Î�� ciuda încercărilor celor din urmă de a falsifica trecutul, viaţa copiilor se aseamănă cu un castel din cărţi de joc, care poate fi năruit oricând, prin dezvăluirile celor care cunosc secretele din dosarul de familie.

Sunt foarte multe detalii din perioada 1940-1980 în acest roman, pe care le-am citit cu mare interes; am aflat multe lucruri pe care nu le ştiam despre istoria propriei ţări. Sunt, însă, şi foarte multe personaje, ale căror poveşti şi istorii se întretaie atât de strâns încât, la un moment dat, am ajuns să încurc familia lui Sorin cu cea a Letiţiei şi invers. Pentru astfel de situaţii a fost la îndemână tabelul cu personaje de la finalul cărţii, pe care m-aş bucura, de altfel, să-l pot găsi în fiecare roman.




I came to read Provisional state by pure chance, as I intended to borrow Wasted Morning and I was brought this novel instead. I didn't regret it for a minute, although I postponed reading it for months, with my proverbial reticent approach towards Romanian literature (reticence which is slowly beginning to dissipate).

Provisional state was a surprisingly pleasant and fluid novel. I had a strange feeling while reading it, as if me and the book could continue to exist together for a long time, as if the pages were slowly seeping from the imaginary realm, taking a life of its own, becoming a parallel universe which I could visit, when needed, an hour a day, to keep up with Letiţia's life or unfold another secret from Sorin's past. A world that could go on flowing endlessly, without me ever getting bored.

Yet, the world of this novel is a provisional one, a world altered by an ongoing change. In a country that is continually shifting and displaced, the situations can be overthrown from one day to the next, yesterday's favors become embarrassments to be hidden tomorrow, couples disintegrate without explanations, because one of the partners left the country in search of a better life. A world in which decisions are avoided and postponed, out of a paralyzing fear of responsibility.

Letiţia, still young at the beginning of the novel, lives without a concrete purpose. Youth spreads endlessly at her feet, while her life bears the mark of improvisation. It is a way of avoiding reality, a passive state of expecting a definitive situation. She married Petru out of fear for this unpredictable future, but also in an attempt to leave behind the tainted "file" of her family, which Petru never misses a chance to make reproaches for.

Sorin is also bearing his life under a provisional star: he has the impression of finding himself in this life by accident, when, in fact, he belongs to another world, one which has no connection to communism. Sorin enters Letiţia's world of shifting sands like a rescue boat, like a promise of stability. Through him, her wish of finding at least one person of trust materializes for a while. Through him, she can relive her memories, as if they were connected by a common childhood.

Letiţia writes her thoughts in a notebook she hides from prying eyes under the mattress. She has already published, which makes Sorin aware that he takes a risk by confessing to her; he may become a character one day, in Letiţia's novel. I pity the families in which a writer was born declaims Sorin, while he keeps some confessions to himself. He could not tell her everything even if he wanted, because there are things from his past which even he is not aware of.

Letiţia is suspicious of his double life, she is aware that he makes use of an honest dissimulation and yet, their relationship goes on. Their love is deceiving, giving birth to mistrust. It could never leave the provisional space of their meeting place, as the two of them are too deeply entangled in their lives, constrained by circumstances and repercussions. They are content with their weekly portion of love and illusory escape from the deceitful world that surrounds them. Although the doubts are reciprocal, Letiţia feigns trust in Sorin, while he lies by omission.

I've found pieces of myself in this provisional world, even if the events take place long before I was born. I saw myself in the little girl waiting in the queue, touched by an unknown hand - although I was in a bus and, with my unripe knowledge of the world, I was certain, for a couple of days, that I was pregnant. I also found myself on the corridors of the 'House of Press' where I worked for a while, from whose windows I used to watch, as Letiţia did so many times, towards the place where Lenin's statue stood until 1990. A statue that appears in this novel as a fixed, stable point, a center around which many of the events gravitate.

It was distressing to enact, through Letiţia, the feeling of alienation and uncertainty. What kind of life is that, in which you cannot completely trust anyone?
What about a life in which every detail is suspected, as well as an ardent devotion?
Who are you, really? Are you only as much as the others see you?
What blame hold the children for their parents' mistakes and beliefs? Despite the latter's attempts to falsify the past, their children's life resembles a castle built from playing cards, which can be easily torn down by those who know the secrets of the family file.

There are plenty of details from 1940s till 1980s in this novel, which I have read with great interest; I have learnt a lot of things about my own country's history. Yet, there is also a great deal of characters, whose lives and stories intersect and tangle to a point where I became to mix up Letiţia's and Sorin's families. For such moments of confusion, the list of characters at the end was of great help, a list that I would not mind finding in every novel that I read.

]]> 16052033 264 Ismail Kadare 9736895025 Ema 4
Dacă în Kostandin ș�� Doruntina autorul relata întâmplări petrecute în Albania medievală, în Spiritus mută acțiunea într-un timp mai recent, cel al sumbrei perioade comuniste. După căderea regimului, o echipă de cercetători străini sosește în Albania - ultima frontieră a imperiului - pentru a scormoni prin relicvele trecutului comunist, în căutarea unui fenomen unic, extraordinar, născut în circumstanțele cumplite ale terorii. Deș�� le sunt relatate tot felul de întâmplări cutremurătoare, acestora le lipsește acel ceva nedefinit pentru a deveni legende. Dar, într-o bună zi, află că, în orașul B., poliția secretă albaneză a reuș��t să captureze un suflet.

Astfel începe o investigație laborioasă în care sunt răscumpărate dosare din care lipsesc pagini (sau cuprind altele falsificate), în care ies la iveală niște casete misterioase, iar totul pare să se învârtă în jurul unei piese de teatru interzise, Pescărușul lui Cehov, ș�� a unei ședințe de spiritism (un fapt incredibil într-un „lagăr�� comunist), în care se încerca recuperarea unui mesaj de dincolo de moarte. Sub ochii cercetătorilor, o legendă este pe cale să se nască, căci întâmplarea misterioasă este în plin proces de formare al învelișul protector. La această prefacere în mit concură dorința de uitare a celor care au cunoscut adevărul ș�� dispariția unor piese importante ale puzzle-ului, care ar fi putut lipsi povestea de trăsăturile supranaturale.

Pe lângă detaliile din perioada comunistă (despre care nu știu cât de mult se bazează pe evenimente reale), Kadaré vorbește despre tradițiile ș�� limba albaneză, care are un mod al verbelor numit „al dorinței��, unic în familia de limbi indo-europene din care se trage. Scriitorul se învârte în acelaș�� spațiu familiar al anticei Iliria, pe teritoriul căreia a luat ființă Albania, o veche țară a legendelor pe care Ismail Kadaré o descompune ș�� o reconstruiește permanent, în mod strălucit, în romanele sale.


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]]> 3.84
author: Ismail Kadare
name: Ema
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2014/05/16
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves: albania, bookish-gems, read-in-2014
review:
Am regăsit în Spiritus aceeaș�� afinitate pentru mituri ș�� balade pe care am întâlnit-o în nuvela Kostandin ș�� Doruntina. Kadare pare să aibă un interes deosebit pentru mecanismul prin care iau naștere legendele, însă el vrea să cunoască ambele variante - cea reală, care este punctul de pornire al poveștii, precum ș�� cea intrată în folclor, care a spart barierele timpului ș�� a ajuns până la noi. După cum spune Ismail Kadaré, întâmplările extraordinare funcționează ca o spărtură în zidul acestei lumi, prin care putem privi dincolo, iar în jurul lor se creează un înveliș protector care le ajută să traverseze secolele.

Dacă în Kostandin ș�� Doruntina autorul relata întâmplări petrecute în Albania medievală, în Spiritus mută acțiunea într-un timp mai recent, cel al sumbrei perioade comuniste. După căderea regimului, o echipă de cercetători străini sosește în Albania - ultima frontieră a imperiului - pentru a scormoni prin relicvele trecutului comunist, în căutarea unui fenomen unic, extraordinar, născut în circumstanțele cumplite ale terorii. Deș�� le sunt relatate tot felul de întâmplări cutremurătoare, acestora le lipsește acel ceva nedefinit pentru a deveni legende. Dar, într-o bună zi, află că, în orașul B., poliția secretă albaneză a reuș��t să captureze un suflet.

Astfel începe o investigație laborioasă în care sunt răscumpărate dosare din care lipsesc pagini (sau cuprind altele falsificate), în care ies la iveală niște casete misterioase, iar totul pare să se învârtă în jurul unei piese de teatru interzise, Pescărușul lui Cehov, ș�� a unei ședințe de spiritism (un fapt incredibil într-un „lagăr�� comunist), în care se încerca recuperarea unui mesaj de dincolo de moarte. Sub ochii cercetătorilor, o legendă este pe cale să se nască, căci întâmplarea misterioasă este în plin proces de formare al învelișul protector. La această prefacere în mit concură dorința de uitare a celor care au cunoscut adevărul ș�� dispariția unor piese importante ale puzzle-ului, care ar fi putut lipsi povestea de trăsăturile supranaturale.

Pe lângă detaliile din perioada comunistă (despre care nu știu cât de mult se bazează pe evenimente reale), Kadaré vorbește despre tradițiile ș�� limba albaneză, care are un mod al verbelor numit „al dorinței��, unic în familia de limbi indo-europene din care se trage. Scriitorul se învârte în acelaș�� spațiu familiar al anticei Iliria, pe teritoriul căreia a luat ființă Albania, o veche țară a legendelor pe care Ismail Kadaré o descompune ș�� o reconstruiește permanent, în mod strălucit, în romanele sale.


Dacă aveți chef de citit mai mult decât atât, varianta lungă se află pe blog:


]]> 60364
When awkward and painfully shy sixteen-year-old Assaf is asked to find the owner of a stray yellow lab, he begins a quest that will bring him into contact with street kids and criminals, and a talented young singer, Tamar, engaged on her own mission: to rescue a teenage drug addict.

A runaway bestseller in Israel, in the words of the Christian Science Monitor: "It's time for Americans to fall in love with Someone to Run With."]]> 343 David Grossman 031242194X Ema 0 israel, my-bookshelf, trn 4.18 2000
author: David Grossman
name: Ema
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/23
shelves: israel, my-bookshelf, trn
review:

]]> 37903050 176 André Baillon 9993186775 Ema 0 my-bookshelf, france 5.00 1927
author: André Baillon
name: Ema
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1927
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/15
shelves: my-bookshelf, france
review:

]]> 57370706
La trei decenii după căderea comunismului, în timp ce investiga trecutul familiei sale, András Forgách descoperă un fapt îngrozitor. Mama lui, de care-l legase o iubire autentică, fusese informatoare a regimului Kádár; ea dăduse informații nu doar despre cunoștințe întâmplătoare, ci ș�� despre prieteni, rude ș�� chiar despre propriii copii. Î�� Dosarele mamei mele, András Forgách îi dă cuvântul mamei dispărute, lăsând-o să-ș�� asume trecutul, dar ș�� dând viață unor zone ale memoriei afective pe care politica ș�� istoria nu au reuș��t să le umbrească.

„Dosarele mamei mele este un basm cvasimitologic, pe care Forgách îl construiește sub forma unui amalgam de ficțiune, poezie ș�� jurnalism, o poveste ce-ș�� are rădăcinile în mâlurile Războiului Rece." Tim Adams, The Guardian

„Adevărul e că am multe lucruri pentru care să-i fiu recunoscător mamei. Dragostea pe care i-o purtam, ș�� pe care încă i-o port, a fost cea care mi-a dat puterea de a scrie această carte... Nu o judec. Dar sunt în povestea de față momente ruș��noase ș�� dureroase. Îmi vine de multe ori să plâng în numele ei. Le-a dat securiștilor numele meu, numele prietenilor mei. Dar cred că atunci când iubești un om îl vezi ca pe un tot, în întreaga lui complexitate. Altfel, cine ar mai scăpa de judecată?" András Forgách

András Forgách (n. 1952) este prozator, dramaturg, scenarist, eseist ș�� traducător maghiar. Î�� prezent, este profesor la Universitatea de Teatru ș�� Film din Budapesta. Forgách a publicat două romane cu un considerabil ecou (Aki nincs, 1999, ș�� Zehuze, 2007), precum ș�� mai multe volume de eseuri ș�� unul de teatru. Este autorul mai multor scenarii de film ș�� traducător în limba maghiară al unor piese aparținând lui Heinrich von Kleist, Tennessee Williams, Harold Pinter, Jean Genet, Frank Wedekind, Beaumarchais, Victor Hugo, Schiller ș.a. Pentru creația sa, András Forgách a fost recompensat cu distincții de mare prestigiu: Premiul Attila József, Premiul Mari Jászai, Premiul Béla Balázs ș�� Premiul Milán Füst.]]> 368 András Forgách 6069783581 Ema 3 3.07 2015
author: András Forgách
name: Ema
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2021/03/28
date added: 2023/07/04
shelves: non-fiction, hungary, my-library, jewish, read-in-2021
review:

]]> 13606350 Serafimul şi Zambezi (1951) până la Fugă de Crăciun (2000), povestirile lui Spark acoperă cinci decenii în care autoarea a trecut cu uşurinţă de la poveşti cu stafii la fantezii suprarealiste, de la thrillere psihologice la SF. Volumul de faţă este mărturia extraordinarului său talent, îmbinând umorul mereu actual al autoarei cu o viziune unică asupra naturii umane şi o economie de stil dusă la perfecţiune.

"Proza lui Spark este exemplară: elegantă, densă, riguroasă, chiar neliniştitoare, de un umor negru jucăuş, marcată de un interes de medic legist al autoarei în umanitate. Muriel Spark reuşeşte să acopere într-o frază terenul pe care alţi scriitori l-ar bâjbâi într-un paragraf." - A.L. Kennedy]]> 440 Muriel Spark 9731984690 Ema 0 3.91 1958
author: Muriel Spark
name: Ema
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/04
shelves: british, female-authors, short-stories, my-bookshelf
review:

]]> 15804774 Alexander Wedderburn, care se afla la Londra, incearca sa scrie o piesa despre Van Gogh, a carei arta devine leitmotivul romanului.

Natura moarta este cel de-al doilea volum din tetralogia Frederica, compusa din romanele The Virgin in the Garden (1978), Natura moarta (1985), Babel Tower (1996) si A Whistling Woman (2002). Cvartetul capteaza in detalii splendide viata unei familii britanice de la mijlocul secolului XX si o are ca personaj principal pe Frederica, o intelectuala rebela, una dintre primele femei care au studiat la Cambridge. Toate romanele seriei Frederica pot fi citite independent.]]> 704 A.S. Byatt 9731431276 Ema 0 3.40 1985
author: A.S. Byatt
name: Ema
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves: british, female-authors, my-bookshelf
review:

]]> 8051749 113 Kanoko Okamoto 1843918528 Ema 0 wish-a-wish, japan 3.60 1937
author: Kanoko Okamoto
name: Ema
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/14
shelves: wish-a-wish, japan
review:

]]> 32311657
Cuprins: Scrisoare catre un vecin savant �� O mie si una de patimi �� Viata in intrebari si exclamatii �� Triumful invingatorului �� Moartea unui slujbas �� Culmea culmilor �� Cameleonul �� Reguli pentru scriitorii incepatori �� Un roman cu un contrabas �� Criza de nervi �� O poveste banala]]> 551 Anton Chekhov 9736838269 Ema 0 my-bookshelf 4.25 1881
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Ema
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1881
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: my-bookshelf
review:

]]> 12481969
McCullers reușește să combine cu succes în opera sa oroarea cu umorul, într-o viziune tragicomică asupra vieții. Este un tip special de umor, care îș�� are rădăcinile în originile sudiste ale scriitoarei; de altfel, McCullers consideră că această viziune asupra vieții este comună literaturii sudiste ș�� celei ruse, "ieftinătatea vieții omenești" fiind atitudinea dominantă în ambele. Rezultatul acestei atitudini îl constituie cruzimea ș�� suferința care străbat literatura sudistă - o juxtapunere îndrăzneață ș�� aparent nemiloasă a tragicului cu comicul, a măreției cu banalitatea, a sacrului cu obscenul, a sufletului omului în totalitatea lui cu un detaliu material. Farsa ș�� tragedia se suprapun, iar efectele lor sunt simțite în mod simultan.

APRECIERI DESPRE POVESTIREA "BALADA TRISTEI CAFENELE":

"Una dintre cele mai frumoase povești scrise vreodată de un american." The New York Times
"O fabulă despre puterea dragostei de a transforma ș�� distruge, alegându-i pe cei care iubesc ș�� cei care sunt iubiți într-un mod capricios, bizar ș�� aparent răutăcios." Washington Post]]> 216 Carson McCullers 9731020624 Ema 0 friends-library 3.59 1951
author: Carson McCullers
name: Ema
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/18
shelves: friends-library
review:

]]> 31839698
Jego opowieść przeplata pisany pod koniec lat 80. dziennik zbuntowanej czeskiej nastolatki. Nancy mieszka w położonym przy granicy z Polską Jeseniku, gdzie jedynie dzięki radiowej Trójce można posłuchać przyzwoitej muzyki. To właśnie zespoły takie jak Sex Pistols, Die Toten Hosen, Dezerter, Moskwa czy Siekiera czynią jej życie bardziej znośnym i nie pozwalają zwariować.

W swojej najnowszej powieści Jaroslav Rudiš opowiada o dojrzewaniu w cieniu radioaktywnego absurdu, ślepych uliczkach samotności oraz próżni, w której rozpływa się bunt. Wyrusz w podróż do Helsinek i przekonaj się, czy właśnie tam skończył się punk��

PUNK EI OLE KUOLLUT!]]> 348 Jaroslav Rudiš 2366080026 Ema 0 to-read, read-in-french 4.00 2010
author: Jaroslav Rudiš
name: Ema
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/10
shelves: to-read, read-in-french
review:

]]> 13750446
This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.]]> 539 Hugh Howey 1469984202 Ema 4 I found the perfect setting, too: I switched off the lights, leaving only the Christmas tree blinking in the dark, I turned on my Kindle lamp and immersed myself in the strange world imagined by Hugh Howey.

Now, about the book: except for the first story, which stands on its own, the others are better suited as parts of a single novel, so I'm glad that I've chosen the Omnibus. I wouldn't have minded if it were 1000 pages long, as the writing was really good and the plot well-developed, not to mention the events which sometimes were so intense that I was almost biting my nails. Just when I though I might get a little bored, something unexpected happened and I was swept onto the crazy ride again. The ending is satisfying, although a bit abrupt, yet the story is far from being over. There are a lot of threads left open and I'm really anxious to read the next parts of the series.

The events take place in a post-apocalyptic future, when people live underground in a silo that extends 100-stories deep. There are no elevators, just a spiral staircase that leads from the bellows of the earth, where the Mechanical resides, to the top floor where the windows show the bleak, inhospitable world outside. The closed society is thoroughly organized and self-sufficient - there are farms, vegetable plots, nurseries, the silo has a mayor, a sheriff and deputies, IT and Supply departments. Yet people are kept in ignorance about their past and their purpose. There are rules and taboos (including that it's forbidden to talk about what's outside) and those who think on their own and revolt are put to "cleaning", which means they are sent outside in a protective suit, with enough oxygen to last for a short time. None of them has come back, yet everyone ends up cleaning the camera lenses that are located outside the silo. Nobody knows why they do that, seeing that they are about to die.

The first part focuses on the head sheriff who decides, on his own will, to be put to cleaning, just like his wife took the same strange decision three years ago. The things are not like he imagined them to be and the mystery deepens.
The second part follows the mayor on her long journey through the silo to the down deep of Mechanical, in search for a new sheriff. We get to know the structure of the silo and the destination of its levels. This part was a little bit boring at times, but it has its purpose in the plot development.
The third part focuses on Juliette (who from now on becomes the central character), the intelligent and hard-working girl who was chosen as head sheriff by the mayor. Until then she was fully absorbed in her work as a mechanic and she was oblivious to what happened on the higher levels. She wasn't a bit curious about the toxic world outside the silo. The situation changes when she finds out some things that are not quite right and becomes involved in a series of events that lead to tremendous discoveries.
I can't say anything about the last two parts without spoiling the story. Anyway, the book is a wild ride and it's worth embarking upon it.

If you are looking for a novel that will keep you on the edge of your seat, then that's the one. It's a well-written, action-packed SF, with credible events and strong characters. ]]> 4.26 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Ema
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/01/02
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: favs, science-fiction, america, read-in-2013, dystopia
review:
This book got me from 2012 to 2013. On New Year's Eve, I was so sick that I had to cancel my plans for the big night. Upset as I may have been, I found the perfect cure in this book. I was so utterly captivated by the story that I felt quite at peace with not celebrating along with my friends. How many times does a book have this impact?
I found the perfect setting, too: I switched off the lights, leaving only the Christmas tree blinking in the dark, I turned on my Kindle lamp and immersed myself in the strange world imagined by Hugh Howey.

Now, about the book: except for the first story, which stands on its own, the others are better suited as parts of a single novel, so I'm glad that I've chosen the Omnibus. I wouldn't have minded if it were 1000 pages long, as the writing was really good and the plot well-developed, not to mention the events which sometimes were so intense that I was almost biting my nails. Just when I though I might get a little bored, something unexpected happened and I was swept onto the crazy ride again. The ending is satisfying, although a bit abrupt, yet the story is far from being over. There are a lot of threads left open and I'm really anxious to read the next parts of the series.

The events take place in a post-apocalyptic future, when people live underground in a silo that extends 100-stories deep. There are no elevators, just a spiral staircase that leads from the bellows of the earth, where the Mechanical resides, to the top floor where the windows show the bleak, inhospitable world outside. The closed society is thoroughly organized and self-sufficient - there are farms, vegetable plots, nurseries, the silo has a mayor, a sheriff and deputies, IT and Supply departments. Yet people are kept in ignorance about their past and their purpose. There are rules and taboos (including that it's forbidden to talk about what's outside) and those who think on their own and revolt are put to "cleaning", which means they are sent outside in a protective suit, with enough oxygen to last for a short time. None of them has come back, yet everyone ends up cleaning the camera lenses that are located outside the silo. Nobody knows why they do that, seeing that they are about to die.

The first part focuses on the head sheriff who decides, on his own will, to be put to cleaning, just like his wife took the same strange decision three years ago. The things are not like he imagined them to be and the mystery deepens.
The second part follows the mayor on her long journey through the silo to the down deep of Mechanical, in search for a new sheriff. We get to know the structure of the silo and the destination of its levels. This part was a little bit boring at times, but it has its purpose in the plot development.
The third part focuses on Juliette (who from now on becomes the central character), the intelligent and hard-working girl who was chosen as head sheriff by the mayor. Until then she was fully absorbed in her work as a mechanic and she was oblivious to what happened on the higher levels. She wasn't a bit curious about the toxic world outside the silo. The situation changes when she finds out some things that are not quite right and becomes involved in a series of events that lead to tremendous discoveries.
I can't say anything about the last two parts without spoiling the story. Anyway, the book is a wild ride and it's worth embarking upon it.

If you are looking for a novel that will keep you on the edge of your seat, then that's the one. It's a well-written, action-packed SF, with credible events and strong characters.
]]> 36269325
With only her agoraphobic landlady and a troop of sarcastic ghostly saints to help, Maud must uncover what lies beneath Cathal's decades-old hostility, and the strange activities of the house itself. And if someone has hidden a secret there, how far will they go to ensure it remains buried?]]> 352 Jess Kidd 1782118497 Ema 0 to-read, readers_block 3.85 2018
author: Jess Kidd
name: Ema
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/22
shelves: to-read, readers_block
review:

]]> 17345209 369 Jo Nesbø 034580709X Ema 0 on-hold 3.43 1997
author: Jo Nesbø
name: Ema
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/16
shelves: on-hold
review:

]]> 12474332
As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time’s passing comes across through the seasons and the food and beverages they consume together. From warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms, the reader is enveloped by a keen sense of pathos and both characters�� keen loneliness.]]> 176 Hiromi Kawakami 1582435995 Ema 0 to-read, trs 3.80 2001
author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Ema
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/01
shelves: to-read, trs
review:

]]> 20569992
„Nu poti sa nu te intrebi cum ar fi scris Isaac Babel daca n-ar fi trait in vremuri atit de tulburate. Fara teroarea istoriei, am fi vorbit acum despre el, poate, cum vorbim despre orice alt celebru artist european.�� (The Guardian)

„Lectura lui Babel aminteste de tinarul Tolstoi, de Maupassant, Cehov, Stephen Crane si Salom Alehem. Cu toate acestea, Isaac Babel e diferit: el este un cronicar al situatiilor imposibile, ale caror claritate si precizie dau fictiunii intensitate lirica si luminozitate.�� (Kirkus Reviews)

„Lumea este pentru mine ca un spectacol urias, in fata caruia eu sint singurul spectator fara binoclu. Orchestra anunta preludiul celui de-al treilea act, scena este departe, ca intr-un vis, inima imi tresalta de placere �� n-ar fi pacat ca in fata unui asemenea spectacol sa fiu orbit de o banala pereche de lentile?�� (Isaac Babel)]]> 312 Isaac Babel Ema 0 3.56 1926
author: Isaac Babel
name: Ema
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/22
shelves: my-bookshelf, russia, short-stories
review:

]]> 17556525 112 Kafū Nagai 1935548379 Ema 0 3.60 1937
author: Kafū Nagai
name: Ema
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/07
shelves: to-read, japan, short, trs, classics
review:

]]> 7507497 Winner of The Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie International Dagger

Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is not like other policemen. His methods appear unorthodox in the extreme: he doesn't search for clues; he ignores obvious suspects and arrests people with cast-iron alibis; he appears permanently distracted. In spite of all this his colleagues are forced to admit that he is a born cop.

When strange blue chalk circles start appearing overnight on the pavements of Paris, only Adamsberg takes them - and the increasingly bizarre objects found within them - seriously. And when the body of a woman with her throat savagely cut is found in one, only Adamsberg realises that other murders will soon follow…]]> 256 Fred Vargas 0099488973 Ema 3 3.53 1991
author: Fred Vargas
name: Ema
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2013/08/30
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: detective-crime, female-authors, france, read-in-2013
review:

]]> 17279456
A Man in Love, the second part of Knausgaard's My Struggle cycle of novels, is at heart a love story - the story of Karl Ove falling in love with his present wife Linda and the long, dramatic period before they become a couple. But the novel also tells other stories - of the earth-shattering experience of becoming a father as well as of the more mundane struggles of family life, of ridiculously unsuccessful holidays, humiliating antenatal music classes, fights with quarrelsome neighbours, the emotional strains of childrens' birthday parties and of pushing a pram around Stockholm when one really wants to write a follow-up to an acclaimed debut novel.]]> 664 Karl Ove Knausgård 0099555174 Ema 0 my-bookshelf 4.29 2009
author: Karl Ove Knausgård
name: Ema
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/23
shelves: my-bookshelf
review:

]]> 15786509 Sur a Victoriei Ocampo, romanul Tunelul s-a bucurat de aprecierile elogioase ale unor mari scriitori ca Thomas Mann, Graham Greene şi Albert Camus, autorul fiind considerat un „clasic existenţialist��.

Roman tulburător şi captivant despre dragoste şi moarte, întemeiat pe o investigaţie existenţială a dramei determinate de imposibilitatea comunicării cu semenii, de solitudinea iremediabilă a individului şi mai cu seamă a artistului, de abisul halucinant dintre puritate şi nebunie, Tunelul este confesiunea pictorului Juan Pablo Castel. Din închisoare, acesta decide să relateze faptele şi să dezvăluie motivele obscure care l-au determnat s-o omoare pe María Iribarne.
Sondând cu rigoare magistrală condiţia tragică a omului contemporan, izvorâtă din credinţa excesivă în raţiune, Sabato descrie modul în care un artist sensibil şi talentat ajunge treptat, sub imperiul propriilor demoni lăuntrici, de la obsesia atotstăpânitoare pentru dragostea absolută la gelozie (auto)distrugătoare, apoi la nebunie şi crimă.]]> 192 Ernesto Sabato Ema 4 3.84 1948
author: Ernesto Sabato
name: Ema
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at: 2019/05/27
date added: 2022/03/05
shelves: argentina, my-library, read-in-2019, bibliobibuli, re-read
review:

]]> 50976677
Claudiu Groza



Unii îl consideră un Bulgakov al timpurilor noastre, alții un Murakami ucrainean�� Cu amestecul specific de realism ș�� fantastic, Grădinarul din Oceakov cu siguranță îș�� va încânta cititorii�� Kurkov combină detaliul mundan din Ucraina modernă (rutiere înghesuite, conserve de șprot ș�� sticle de țuică) cu elemente suprarealiste specifice thrillerelor sau narațiunilor SF: gangsteri cuțitari sau portaluri temporale găsite la miezul nopții în suburbii. Subiectul șerpuiește asemenea unui tramvai kievean, oprind periodic pentru vodkă, salam ș�� castraveți murați.

Phoebe Taplin, The Guardian]]> 296 Andrey Kurkov Ema 0 3.78 2010
author: Andrey Kurkov
name: Ema
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/28
shelves: wishlist-published-ro, ukraine
review:

]]> 25003000
Jon Kalman Stefansson, unul dintre cei mai importanti scriitori contemporani islandezi, s-a nascut la Reykjavik, in 1963. A debutat in 1988 cu un volum de poeme; unul dintre romanele sale, Sumarljos og svo kemur nottin (Lumina de vara, apoi se lasa noaptea), a primit Premiul Literar Islandez pentru fictiune. Opera sa a fost de trei ori nominalizata la Premiul pentru Literatura acordat de Consiliul Nordic, printre ai carui laureati se numara Tomas Tranströmer, Sofi Oksanen si Kim Leine. Intre cer si pamint este primul sau roman tradus in limba romana.]]> 240 Jón Kalman Stefánsson Ema 5 4.18 2007
author: Jón Kalman Stefánsson
name: Ema
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/02
date added: 2022/02/18
shelves: re-read, read-in-2017, favs, iceland, my-ebook-shelf
review:

]]> 13119746 A new edition of Clarice Lispector’s final masterpiece, now with a vivid introduction by Colm Tóibín.

Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life's unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Colas, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly and unloved. Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid the realization that for all her outward misery, Macabéa is inwardly free/She doesn't seem to know how unhappy she should be. Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator―edge of despair to edge of despair―and, working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader's preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love and the art of fiction. In her last book she takes readers close to the true mystery of life and leave us deep in Lispector territory indeed.]]> 128 Clarice Lispector Ema 0 4.00 1977
author: Clarice Lispector
name: Ema
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/07
shelves: to-read, brazil, trn, female-authors
review:

]]> 230525
Apesar de autónomos, os três romances formam um conjunto dotado de uma extrema e paradoxal unidade. Em A Prova, através do destino separado de Lucas e Claus, os gémeos de O Caderno Grande, e mais concretamente através do percurso do primeiro, Agota Kristof vem dizer-nos mais uma vez que, num universo totalitário, a generosidade e a solidariedade são por vezes mais mortíferas do que o crime.]]> 154 Ágota Kristóf 0802111122 Ema 5 hungary 4.18 1988
author: Ágota Kristóf
name: Ema
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/10/31
shelves: hungary
review:

]]> 1118615 183 Ágota Kristóf 080211024X Ema 5 hungary 4.17 1986
author: Ágota Kristóf
name: Ema
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/10/13
shelves: hungary
review:

]]> 50616973
Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell.

Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos �� grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble, Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood.

How these pianos travelled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decemberist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia is largely a story of music in this fascinating place, following Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of different instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful �� and peppered with pianos.]]> 448 Sophy Roberts 0802149286 Ema 0 wish-a-wish 3.95 2020
author: Sophy Roberts
name: Ema
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/30
shelves: wish-a-wish
review:

]]> 54412148
România pe care o descriu Carnetele de drum este cea a capitalelor de județ, dar ș�� a unor orașe mai mici, cu parcurile, piețele, muzeele ș�� monumentele lor mai bine sau mai prost întreținute ori renovate, a stațiunilor turistice vechi ș�� noi unde conservarea îș�� dă mîna cu inovația ș�� kitsch-ul, dar ș�� a parcărilor de pe autostradă sau a cîrciumilor ș�� magazinelor sătești de pe marginea șoselelor. O particularitate a acestor note de călătorie, care constituie de altfel ș�� farmecul lor, este că observațiile precise sînt deseori colorate de memoria afectivă, iar metoda obiectivă a cercetătorului se îmbină cu subiectivitatea asumată a călătorului ș�� scriitorului.]]> 320 Mirel Bănică 9734681605 Ema 5 4.40 2020
author: Mirel Bănică
name: Ema
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/07/16
date added: 2021/07/30
shelves: romania, travel, non-fiction, my-library, read-in-2021
review:

]]> 23620694
Dar, mai presus de toate, o carte cum e Rapsodia română a lui Dominique Fernandez ne vorbește nouă, românilor, prezentându-ne chipul pe care-l arătăm lumii, cu luminile ș�� umbrele lui. Depinde de noi dacă ne vom recunoșste sau nu în el.]]> 280 Dominique Fernandez 9735000474 Ema 0 wishlist-published-ro 3.50 1998
author: Dominique Fernandez
name: Ema
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/29
shelves: wishlist-published-ro
review:

]]> 58645826
Un roman fascinant, despre nevoia de a privi cu speranta spre viitor si de a trai cu inflacarare pana la final.]]> 384 Sandro Veronesi 6063373888 Ema 0 my-bookshelf 4.47 2019
author: Sandro Veronesi
name: Ema
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/28
shelves: my-bookshelf
review:

]]> 46041199 A fierce international bestseller that launched Korea’s new feminist movement, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rigid misogyny.

Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.

In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A thirtysomething-year-old “millennial everywoman,�� she has recently left her white-collar desk job—in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time—as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women—alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her discomfited husband sends her to a male psychiatrist.

In a chilling, eerily truncated third-person voice, Jiyoung’s entire life is recounted to the psychiatrist—a narrative infused with disparate elements of frustration, perseverance, and submission. Born in 1982 and given the most common name for Korean baby girls, Jiyoung quickly becomes the unfavored sister to her princeling little brother. Always, her behavior is policed by the male figures around her—from the elementary school teachers who enforce strict uniforms for girls, to the coworkers who install a hidden camera in the women’s restroom and post their photos online. In her father’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s fault that men harass her late at night; in her husband’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s duty to forsake her career to take care of him and their child—to put them first.

Jiyoung’s painfully common life is juxtaposed against a backdrop of an advancing Korea, as it abandons “family planning�� birth control policies and passes new legislation against gender discrimination. But can her doctor flawlessly, completely cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?

Rendered in minimalist yet lacerating prose, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 sits at the center of our global #MeToo movement and announces the arrival of writer of international significance]]> 163 Cho Nam-Joo 1631496700 Ema 4 4.17 2016
author: Cho Nam-Joo
name: Ema
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/17
date added: 2021/06/21
shelves: read-in-2021, bibliobibuli, south-korea, female-authors
review:

]]> 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Ema 0 to-read, light-reading 4.49 2021
author: Andy Weir
name: Ema
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/31
shelves: to-read, light-reading
review:

]]> 50845579
„Petrovid gripi küüsis" pälvis 2018. aastal ühe Vene tähtsaima kirjanduspreemia, nn Rahvusliku bestselleri auhinna ja on üks viimaste aastate kiidetumaid ja müüduimaid vene romaane.

Aleksei Salnikov on sündinud 1978. aastal Tartus ning tema lapsepõlv on möödunud Tartus ja Uuralites (Svinovodtšeskis, Nižni Tagilis ja Jekaterinburgis). Salnikov on õppinud põllumajanduskoolis ning Jekaterinburgis asuvas Uurali ülikoolis ühe semestri kirjandust. Ta on seni kirjutanud neli romaani ja luuletusi, raamatust „Petrovid gripi küüsis�� teeb praegu filmi tuntud režissöör Kirill Serebrennikov.]]> 303 Aleksei Salnikov 9949855926 Ema 0 wishlist-published-ro 3.82 2017
author: Aleksei Salnikov
name: Ema
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/31
shelves: wishlist-published-ro
review:

]]> 34927958 Hasan Ali Toptas exquisitely weaves an enigmatic, mystical tale of memory and identity, displacement and belonging

'I'm a barber,' he said. 'I come from afar. Across lands already forgotten��'

In an Anatolian village forgotten both by God and the government, the muhtar has been elected leader for the sixteenth successive year. When he staggers to bed that night, drunk on raki and his own well-deserved success, the village is prosperous. But when he is woken by his wife the next evening he discovers that Nuri, the barber, has disappeared without a trace in the dead of night, and the community begins to fracture.

In a nameless town far, far away, Nuri walks into a barbershop as if from a dream, not knowing how he has arrived. Try as he might, he cannot grasp the strands of his memory. The facts of his past life shift and evade him, and as other customers come and go, they too struggle to recall how they got there��

Blurring the lines of reality to terrific effect, Shadowless is both a compelling mystery and an enduring evocation of displacement from one of the finest, most exciting voices in Turkish literature today.]]> 313 Hasan Ali Toptaş Ema 0 to-read, trs 3.13 1995
author: Hasan Ali Toptaş
name: Ema
average rating: 3.13
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/05/31
shelves: to-read, trs
review:

]]> 55466369
„Cenușăreasa��, „Jack ș�� vrejul de fasole��, „Albă-ca-zăpada ș�� cei șapte pitici��, „Bucle de aur ș�� cei trei ursuleți��, „Scufița roș��e�� ș�� „Cei trei purceluș����, toate apar în Rime revoltătoare de Roald Dahl.

„Un adevărat geniu, Roald Dahl este eroul meu.��
David Walliams]]> 72 Roald Dahl 6067886782 Ema 4 4.42 1982
author: Roald Dahl
name: Ema
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2021/05/27
date added: 2021/05/31
shelves: youth-stuff, poetry-or-poetry-like, humor, read-in-2021, british
review:

]]> 29985006 Iuda repune în discuție, din perspectivă etică, politică ș�� istorică, figura trădătorului ș�� conceptul de tradare. O realizare literară de proporțiile unei simfonii, Iuda îmbină un subiect pasionant cu reflecții îndrăznețe asupra evenimentelor istorice care au determinat, pe de o parte, relațiile dintre evrei ș�� creștini ș��, pe de alta parte, cele dintre Israel ș�� lumea arabă.

Î�� decorul neprietenos al unui Ierusalim iernatic de la începutul anului 1960, tânărul Shmuel Asch înțelege ca viața lui are nevoie de o schimbare. Dezamăgit în urma unei povești de dragoste încheiate brusc ș�� sclav al unei vieți studențești lipsite de satisfacții, el hotaraște să se izoleze în casa veche a unui batrân intelectual infirm, a carui nora îl angajează pentru a-i ține acestuia companie câteva ore în fiecare zi. Ceea ce nu știe Shmuel este ca traiul între zidurile groase ale casei de la marginea orașului vechi, alaturi de doi oameni aparținând parca altor vremuri, nu face decât sa-l reconecteze la viața, pregătindu-l pentru ceea ce-l așteaptă cu adevărat. El descopera treptat toate fațetele iubirii ș�� ale sacrificiului, pe masură ce desface taina celor în casa cărora locuiește.]]> 296 Amos Oz 6067790238 Ema 4 3.99 2014
author: Amos Oz
name: Ema
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2021/05/16
date added: 2021/05/31
shelves: israel, bibliobibuli, read-in-2021
review:

]]> 12331363 176 Nikolay Nosov 9735026244 Ema 4 4.28 1953
author: Nikolay Nosov
name: Ema
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at: 1990/01/01
date added: 2021/05/27
shelves: youth-stuff, russia, my-library
review:
Cartea copilariei, ce pot spune mai mult despre ea? Pacat ca Habarnam nu este mai popular inspre vestul Europei, ar rivaliza in mod sigur cu alti eroi livresti din cartile pentru copii.
]]> 38348476
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny--it's a book that can make you laugh 'til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris's powers of observation have never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet--and it just might be his very best.]]> 272 David Sedaris 0316392359 Ema 4 4.11 2018
author: David Sedaris
name: Ema
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/05/09
date added: 2021/05/10
shelves: non-fiction, humor, memoir, america, read-in-2021
review:

]]> 125607 HE'S GOT THE BASEMENT BLUES!

"Don't do this! Watch out for that!" Marco's mom thinks the whole world is a danger zone. She won't even let Marco play softball.

But Marco just wants to have fun. So he sneaks off to a game. And that's when it happens. He gets hit in the head with a baseball bat.

Now things are getting really fuzzy. Really scary. Because when Marco gets home he gets the strangest call. From someone who says he lives in Marco's basement...]]> 128 R.L. Stine 0590399861 Ema 3 3.55 1997
author: R.L. Stine
name: Ema
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2021/04/30
date added: 2021/05/04
shelves: read-in-2021, youth-stuff, america
review:

]]> 23647561
„Von Bremzen ştie cum să spună o poveste �� e incisivă, amuzantă, mereu prezentă.��
Chicago Tribune

„Este privirea dulce-amară a unei inimi sensibile, îndreptată �� prin mâncare �� asupra istoriei sovietice.��
Los Angeles Times

„O saga despre cum e să creşti într-un stat-superputere, întotdeauna la limita înfometării�� e vie şi sfâşietoare.��
Time

„Genială�� O biografie cu suflet şi o reflexie a culturii sovietice (şi a celei americane).��
Philadelphia Inquirer

ANYA VON BREMZEN a crescut în Moscova, unde cânta la pian, făcea bişniţă la şcoală cu gumă de mestecat Juicy Fruit şi juca în filme sovietice. Î�� Statele Unite, după ce a obţinut o diplomă de master la Juilliard School, a devenit una dintre cele mai apreciate scriitoare pe teme culinare din generaţia ei: câştigătoare a trei premii James Beard; editor colaborator la revista Travel + Leisure; autoare a cinci cărţi de bucate întâmpinate cu entuziasm, printre care The New Spanish Table, The Greatest Dishes: Around the World in 80 Recipes şi Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook (în colaborare cu John Welchman). Anya colaborează constant la Food & Wine şi Saveur şi a scris pentru The New Yorker, Departures şi Los Angeles Times. Articolele publicate în reviste au fost incluse în câteva dintre cele mai bune antologii Best Food Writing. Anya von Bremzen vorbeşte curent patru limbi, trăieşte în Queens, New York, şi are un apartament în Istanbul.]]> 336 Anya von Bremzen 6065887684 Ema 0 4.34 2013
author: Anya von Bremzen
name: Ema
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/29
shelves: russia, female-authors, memoir, my-library, on-hold
review:

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