Book Bingo - Round 9 #BookBingo2019

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 

This week I have chosen the category 'A Novel that has 500 pages or more."

 

A novel with 500 pages or more

I tend to be a little scared off by big books. Anything over 400 pages always manages to be placed at the bottom of the pile and at 624 pages The Butterfly Room looked like it might be a challenge however the pages flew by and it took me no time at all to finish it. The story was all engrossing and the secrets and mysteries kept my enthralled.

You can read my full review of The Butterfly Room here

 #BookBingo2019 

 

Book Bingo - Round 8 #BookBingo2019

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 
This week I have chosen the category 'A book set in the Australian Outback'

A book set in the Australian Outback:

Home At Last was my first medical based romance and also my first book about the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I really enjoyed all the details about the different cases they are called to and the difficulties with medical help in really remote areas. The RFDS is a valuable life saving service and Appleyard brings to the fore some areas we don’t often think about such as the difficulties of shift working, the long shifts and the lack of adequate staff. 
I loved this story and it really highlighted for me the remoteness of the Australian outback.

 You can read my full review of Home At Last here

#BookBingo2019 


 

Book Bingo - Round 7 #BookBingo2019

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 

This week I have chosen the category 'Written by an Australian Male'.

Written by an Australian male:

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham. Robotham's foray into the contemporary women's fiction market  didn't really hit the mark with me. It is a story of obsession. A woman starts to stalk a stranger because she seems to have the perfect life, the life she has always wanted. She soon befriends her and everything spirals out of control, in both their lives, from here.   
I have enjoyed Robotham's previous books and one of my favourites was Bombproof, a humorous satire about a young guy who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and how a situation can spiral out of control so quickly. 

You can read my review of The Secrets She Keeps  here

#BookBingo2019

Book Bingo - Round 6 #bookbingo2019

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 

Well here it is book bingo Saturday again. This week I will be marking off the 'author under 35' and 'themes of fantasy' categories.

Written by an author under the age of 35:

For this  category I have gone beyond my usual reading genres and read Baby, a book that was a little out there, quite dark and strange but at the same time compelling.

You can read my review here

Themes of Fantasy:

I love fantasy and I was eager to read The Ruin of Kings, the start of a new fantasy series.  The world building was huge, the characters well drawn and the action was non stop in this epic fantasy.

You can read my review here

#BookBingo2019 

Book Bingo - Round 5

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 

As there are 30 categories and only 26 rounds I will need to complete a few double category posts and I'm happy this round to be crossing off two from my bingo card.

Crime genre:

I really enjoyed Death of an Old Girl a cozy murder mystery written in the 1960's which gave it an old world charm.

My review can be found here

Written by an author you've never read: 

This was an easy category for me to fill because I am always reading new to me authors. I read Louis and Louise by Julie Cohen. The book had a very interesting and original concept and I'd be happy to read more from this author.

My review can be found here

#BookBingo2019 

Book Bingo - Round 4

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 

I can't believe how fast these Bingo Saturdays come around. I'm pleased to say this week I can cross two categories from my bingo card.

 

Book set in an exotic location:

The Christmas Lights is set on the scenic fjords of Norway. Swan's atmospheric descriptions of the isolated cliff farms, the waterfalls and snow laden mountains made this a story to remember.

My review can be found here 

Romance:

The Secret Son’s Homecoming is the perfect romance read full of tension, misunderstandings, angst and a happily ever after is always guaranteed. 

My review  can be found here

 

#BookBingo2019

 

Book Review: Bridge of Clay (Literary Fiction)

Book Bingo 2019 #3 'Literary Fiction'

Book Bingo is a reading challenge is hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 

 

Bridge of Clay 

by

Markus Zusak

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Publication date: 9th October 2018

Pages: 592

RRP: $32.99

Format Read: uncorrected paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 

 Bridge of Clay is about a boy who is caught in the current - of destroying everything he has, to become all he needs to be. He's a boy in search of greatness, as a cure for memory and tragedy. He builds a bridge to save his family, but also to save himself. It's an attempt to transcend humanness, to make a single, glorious moment:

A miracle and nothing less.

Markus Zusak makes his long-awaited return with a profoundly heartfelt and inventive novel about a family held together by stories, and a young life caught in the current: a boy in search of greatness, as a cure for a painful past.

 

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak was ten years in the making so I was expecting big things from this story and I wasn’t disappointed.

The story opens with Matthew, the oldest Dunbar boy, bringing home the old TW, the typewriter of a Grandmother they never knew.

Let me tell you about our brother.

The fourth Dunbar boy named Clay.

Everything happened to him.

We were all of us changed through him.

This is Clay’s story as told by Matthew in an omniscient point of view. Whilst Matthew insists this is Clay’s story it is in fact a story of the Dunbar family and how they came to be. This is Penelope Lesciuszko’s story, Michael Dunbar’s story and also their combined story with the lead up of what was to come and what it is now; a family of ramshackle tragedy.

Zusak’s short sentences read like poetry and you often need to stop and take in the meaning behind the words.

Both parents were readers, for their mother it was The Iliad and the Odyssey, for their father it was the Quarryman. The books are mentioned often and have great significance in the parents’ lives and that of the Dunbar boys. They were also great storytellers passing down to the boys not only their love of books but the stories of their own lives.

As much as you would think a story of five boys bringing themselves up would be rambunctious and unruly it is in fact tender, loving and intimate. That’s not to say the boys don’t bicker, fight and sometimes drink too much.

The story jumps around in time however the authors phrasing at the start of each new chapter makes it easy to tell exactly where you are in time.

This is a story of love, heartbreak, togetherness, family, despair, life, death, forgiveness and reconciliation. A family saga without all the unnecessary words.

I cried all the way through the second half of the book. Some 300 pages read through blurry tear filled eyes. Maybe being the mother of four sons brought a deeper connection. A felt I knew these boys and all their different personalities.

I think I’ve just read my best book of 2019. I’m not sure anything can top Bridge of Clay. Even before I’d finished the book I wanted to go back and read all those beautiful words again.

My Rating   5/5   ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

*This review is: 

Book 'B' in the AtoZ challenge 

and part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

#bookbingo2019 

 

Photo credit: Goodreads

Markus Zusak is the author of five books, including the international bestseller, The Book Thief , which spent more than a decade on the New York Times bestseller list, and is translated into more than forty languages – establishing Zusak as one of the most successful authors to come out of Australia.

To date, Zusak has held the number one position at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, the New York Times bestseller list, as well as in countries across South America, Europe and Asia.

His books, The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, When Dogs Cry (also titled Getting the Girl ), The Messenger (or I am the Messenger ) and The Book Thief have been awarded numerous honours ranging from literary prizes to readers choice awards to prizes voted on by booksellers.

In a statement about his latest novel, Zusak said:"Clay Dunbar builds a bridge for a multitude of reasons:for his brothers and to honour his parents...but it's also an attempt at greatness. He builds a bridge to save himself, and to make a single beautiful moment: a miracle and nothing less."

Markus Zusak grew up in Sydney, Australia and still lives there with his wife and two children.

 

Book Review: The Librarian of Auschwitz (Historical Fiction)

Book Bingo 2019 #2 'A book with themes of inequality'

 

The Librarian of Auschwitz

by

Antonio Iturbe

 

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Publication date: 27th November 2018

Pages: 423

RRP: $18.99

Format Read: Paperback

Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 

Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.

Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz.

Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope

 

The Librarian of Auschwitz is based on the true story of Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus. It is a story born of Dita’s experiences and the rich imagination of the author.

The story is set in the family camp at Auschwitz. The family camp was a cover the Germans concocted to deceive the world as to what was really happening in Auschwitz. While parents laboured during the day the children were gathered in Block 31. The aim was for them to play games, sports and sing songs. Learning was prohibited. Dita Adler, 14 years old, was the caretaker of the clandestine children’s library consisting of eight books. If the Germans ever found out about these books it would mean instant death.

The main theme of the story is how books and reading are something to be cherished and our right to read is something to risk death over. Dita protected these books with her life, lovingly restoring them and handing them out to the teachers each day.

The story follows Dita and her mother, Liesl, as they are taken to Auschwitz and the daily life in the family camp through sickness, death, hunger and fear as thousands of prisoners come and go in the camps around them.

The true violence of Auschwitz is very low key in this story which makes me feel it would be suited to a younger audience as a first introduction to the atrocities of the time, 13 years +. That’s not to say there is no violence, a prisoner is hung and a girl beaten.

The story had a lot of telling which caused it to lack emotion and I felt distanced from the suffering until the last 100 pages of the book where it became so much more immersive.

The Librarian of Auschwitz is impeccably translated to English by Lilit Zekulin Thwaites.

Iturbe includes a moving postscript which explains his reason for writing the book and his meeting with the woman that inspired this story, Dita herself, who is still as strong, outspoken and passionate in her eighties as she was as a young girl.

You can never, ever read too many stories about Auschwitz.

My Rating 3.5/5 ⭐⭐⭐½    

*This review is: 

Book 'L' in the AtoZ challenge 

and part of  #BookBingo2019 with Mrs B's Book Reviews & Theresa Smith Writes

 

Antonio Iturbe lives in Spain, where he is both a novelist and a journalist.

About the translator:

Lilit Zekulin Thwaites is an award-winning literary translator. After thirty years as an academic at La Trobe University in Australia, she retired from teaching and now focuses primarily on her ongoing translation and research projects.