Kate’s 2¢: “Blindness” by José Saramago
Translated by Giovanni Pontiero
“Blindness” by José Saramago
Translated by Giovanni Pontiero
Terence Aselford did a good job of narrating Giovanni Pontiero translation of this book by a Portuguese author. I suppose this is similar to “Animal Farm” and other stories that show how a community can fall into chaos, panic, and turmoil. I thought there were a lot of stereotypes that were explored and exploited.
It would be nice, if in real life, the blind really did regain their sight.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Sousa and the second or paternal family name is Saramago.
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago GColSE GColCa (Portuguese: [ʒuˈzɛ ðɨ ˈsozɐ sɐɾɐˈmaɣu]; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his “parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality.”[1] His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as “the most gifted novelist alive in the world today”[2] and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be “a permanent part of the Western canon”,[3] while James Wood praises “the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant.”[4]
More than two million copies of Saramago’s books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages.[5][6] A proponent of libertarian communism,[7] Saramago criticized institutions such as the Catholic Church, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. An atheist, he defended love as an instrument to improve the human condition. In 1992, the Government of Portugal under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva ordered the removal of one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from the Aristeion Prize’s shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Disheartened by this political censorship of his work,[8] Saramago went into exile on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where he lived alongside his Spanish wife Pilar del Río until his death in 2010.[9][10]
Saramago was a founding member of the National Front for the Defense of Culture in Lisbon in 1992.
Biography[edit
Saramago was born in 1922 into a family of very poor landless peasants in Azinhaga, Portugal, a small village in Ribatejo Province, some one hundred kilometres northeast of Lisbon.[9] His parents were José de Sousa and Maria da Piedade. “Saramago”, the Portuguese word for Raphanus raphanistrum (wild radish), was the insulting nickname given to his father, and was accidentally incorporated into his name by the village clerk upon registration of his birth.[9]
In 1924, Saramago’s family moved to Lisbon, where his father started working as a policeman. A few months after the family moved to the capital, his brother Francisco, older by two years, died. He spent vacations with his grandparents in Azinhaga. When his grandfather suffered a stroke and was to be taken to Lisbon for treatment, Saramago recalled, “He went into the yard of his house, where there were a few trees, fig-trees, olive trees. And he went one by one, embracing the trees and crying, saying goodbye to them because he knew he would not return. To see this, to live this, if that doesn’t mark you for the rest of your life,” Saramago said, “you have no feeling.”[11] Although Saramago was a good pupil, his parents were unable to afford to keep him in grammar school, and instead moved him to a technical school at age 12.
After graduating as a lathe operator, he worked as a car mechanic for two years. At this time Saramago had acquired a taste for reading and started to frequent a public library in Lisbon in his free time. He married Ilda Reis, a typist and later artist, in 1944 (they divorced in 1970). Their only daughter, Violante, was born in 1947.[9] By this time he was working in the Social Welfare Service as a civil servant. Later he worked at the publishing company Estúdios Cor as an editor and translator, and then as a journalist. By that time, in 1968, he met and became lover of writer Isabel da Nóbrega, the longtime partner of author and critic João Gaspar Simões. Nóbrega became Saramago’s devoted literary mentor, to whom he would later dedicate Memorial do Convento and O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis.
After the democratic revolution in 1974, on 9 April 1975, during the rule of Vasco Gonçalves, Saramago became the assistant director of the newspaper Diário de Notícias, and the editorial line became clearly pro-communist. A group of 30 journalists – half the editorial staff – handed the board a petition calling for the editorial line to be revised and for it to be published. A plenary was called and, following an angry intervention by Saramago, 24 journalists were expelled, accused of being right-wingers. After the Coup of 25 November 1975 that put an end to the communist PREC, Saramago, in turn, was fired from the newspaper.[12]
Saramago published his first novel, Land of Sin, in 1947. It remained his only published literary work until a poetry book, Possible Poems, was published in 1966. It was followed by another book of poems, Probably Joy, in 1970, three collections of newspaper articles in 1971, 1973 and 1974 respectively, and the long poem The Year of 1993 in 1975. A collection of political writing was published in 1976 under the title Notes. After his dismissal from Diário de Notícias in 1975, Saramago embraced his writing more seriously and in following years he published a series of important works including Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia (1977), Objecto Quase (1978), Levantado do Chão (1980) and Viagem a Portugal (1981).
Later life and international acclaim[edit]
Saramago did not achieve widespread recognition and acclaim until he was sixty, with the publication of his fourth novel, Memorial do Convento (1982). A baroque tale set during the Inquisition in 18th-century Lisbon, it tells of the love between a maimed soldier and a young clairvoyant, and of a renegade priest’s heretical dream of flight.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Blindness DB46904
Saramago, José; Pontiero, Giovanni. Reading time: 11 hours, 38 minutes.
Read by Terence Aselford.
Psychological Fiction
Written by the Nobel Prize- winning Portuguese author. Without cause people are suddenly becoming blind. A doctor’s wife is spared but pretends she is blind to remain with her husband. Quarantined by the government in an abandoned mental hospital, the blinded citizens create a reign of terror. Some strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The Blue Guitar” by John Banville
Kate’s 2¢: “The Blue Guitar” by John Banville
“The Blue Guitar” by John Banville
“The Blue Guitar” by John Banville NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares her thoughts about what she reads. Inho…
Jeremy Gage did a nice job of narrating the run-on reminiscences that comprise this story. The revelations at the end is an unexpected twist and ‘poetic’ justice.
A few take-aways:
–I do not steal for profit.
-The days smeared all over with sunlight dense and shiny as apricot jam.
–Orme made sure he had a good view of the two widows.
–The world, and women, are what they always were and will be.
–Polly was the lover. Gloria was his wife, who took him back.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter.[2] Though he has been described as “the heir to Proust, via Nabokov”, Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry James are the two real influences on his work.[3][1]
Banville has won the 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2003 International Nonino Prize, the 2005 Booker Prize, the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature.[4] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. Italy made him a Cavaliere of the Ordine della Stella d’Italia (essentially a knighthood) in 2017.[5] He is a former member of Aosdána, having voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer.[6]
Banville was born and grew up in Wexford town in south-east Ireland. He published his first novel, Nightspawn, in 1971. A second, Birchwood, followed two years later. “The Revolutions Trilogy”, published between 1976 and 1982, comprises three works, each named in reference to a renowned scientist: Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter. His next work, Mefisto, had a mathematical theme. His 1989 novel The Book of Evidence, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of that year’s Guinness Peat Aviation award, heralded a second trilogy, three works which deal in common with the work of art. “The Frames Trilogy” is completed by Ghosts and Athena, both published during the 1990s. Banville’s thirteenth novel, The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005. In addition, he publishes crime novels as Benjamin Black — most of these feature the character of Quirke, an Irish pathologist based in Dublin.
Banville is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[7][8] He lives in Dublin.[1]
Early life and family[edit]
William John Banville was born to Agnes (née Doran) and Martin Banville, a garage clerk, in Wexford, Ireland. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Anne Veronica “Vonnie” Banville-Evans[9] has written both a children’s novel and a memoir of growing up in Wexford.[10] Banville stole a collection of Dylan Thomas’s poetry from Wexford County Library while in his teens.[11]
Banville was educated at CBS Primary, Wexford, a Christian Brothers school, and at St Peter’s College, Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect, he did not attend university.[12] Banville has described this as “A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free.”[13] Alternately he has stated that college would have had little benefit for him: “I don’t think I would have learned much more, and I don’t think I would have had the nerve to tackle some of the things I tackled as a young writer if I had been to university – I would have been beaten into submission by my lecturers.”[14]
After school, Banville worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus, which allowed him to travel at deeply discounted rates. He took advantage of these rates to travel to Greece and Italy. On his return to Ireland, he became a sub-editor at The Irish Press, eventually becoming chief sub-editor.[citation needed] before The Irish Press collapsed in 1995,[15] Banville became a sub-editor at The Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, endured financial troubles, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left.
Banville has two sons from a marriage to the American textile artist Janet Dunham, whom he met in the United States during the 1960s. Asked in 2012 about the breakdown of that marriage, Banville’s immediate thoughts focused on the effect it had on his children; “It was hard on them”, he said.[16] Banville later went on to have two daughters from another relationship.[16] He lives in Dublin.[1]
Writing[edit]
Banville published his first book, a collection of short stories titled Long Lankin, in 1970. He has disowned his first published novel, Nightspawn, describing it as “crotchety, posturing, absurdly pretentious”.[17]
As an unknown writer in the 1980s, he toured Dublin’s bookshops — “and we had a lot of bookshops back then” — around the time of the publication of his novel Kepler “and there wasn’t a single one of any of my books anywhere”. But, he noted in 2012, “I didn’t feel badly about it because I was writing the kinds of books I wanted to write. And I had no one but myself to blame if I wasn’t making money, that wasn’t anybody’s fault. Nobody was obliged to buy my books”.[16]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
The blue guitar DB83729
Banville, John. Reading time: 9 hours, 39 minutes.
Read by Jeremy Gage.
Psychological Fiction
Artist and petty thief Oliver Orme returns to his hometown. Olly is suffering a mid-life crisis after his affair with his best friend’s wife is discovered, and he decides to quit painting. He tries to figure out where his life went wrong. Some descriptions of sex. 2015.
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Kate’s 2¢: “Seventeen” by Kimiko Guthrie
The story bounces back and forth from 1939 and 2012, so you can keep track of which time-line yu’re in. Natalie Naudus did a good job of narrating this story that chronicles some of the tribulations the Japanese living in America experienced while in the camps during the war and how those experiences haunt people today. This is an engrossing story that finally comes together with a few surprises.
A few take-aways:
–Memories are random.
–The walnut orchard used to be a strawberry field.
–I wasn’t sure if I was running away from the fire or rushing to something.
–The antlers were gone too, but they weren’t.
–What burglar takes the time to arrange random objects in such a way?
–His suspicions that someone from his work was rummaging through our apartment, hoping to find evidence against him…He was secretly videoing his co-workers.
–Apart from being a funny shade of purple, her baby brother looks peacefully asleep
–I found myself mor exhausted than usual.
http://kimikoguthrie.com/Bio
Kimiko Guthrie grew up in Berkeley, California, dancing like her mother and writing like her father.
Kimiko Guthrie is the cofounder of Dandelion Dance theater and a lecturer at Cal State East Bay. She holds an MFA in choreography from Mills College. Her work has been presented internationally and has received numerous grants and awards. Block Seventeen is her first book.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Block Seventeen DB101840
Guthrie, Kimiko. Reading time: 10 hours, 0 minutes.
Read by Natalie Naudus.
Psychological Fiction
After working hard to build a quiet, stable life in San Francisco, Akiko “Jane” Thompson’s life falls apart. Her fiancé Shiro risks his job with the TSA to reveal misdeeds and her mother disappears. As Jane searches, she uncovers her family’s history in America. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2020.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The Great Man” by Kate Christensen
Kate’s 2¢: “The Great Man” by Kate Christensen
“The Great Man” by Kate Christensen
NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares her thoughts about what she reads. Inho…
Martha Harmon Pardee is one of my all-time favorite narrators, so I enjoyed listening to her read this interesting story.
A few take-aways:
–Women are the mystery of life.
–The eye of the beholder is a fickle thing, when the beholder is also the maker.
–If you were a woman, you could never have everything.
–Dragged from the world of painting back into the world of life, was as difficult as forcing herself from the world of life back into the world of painting.
–burke’s portrayal of Feldman is a larger than life, amoral artist.
–Washinton’s Oscar is executed in the primary colors of a Disney cartoon.
–The biographers agree that Feldman had the good sense to be surrounded by women as interesting as he was.
–He couldn’t live without a woman around. They were like water to a plant.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kate Christensen (born August 22, 1962) is an American novelist. She won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her fourth novel, The Great Man, about a painter and the three women in his life.[1] Her previous novels are In the Drink (1999), Jeremy Thrane (2001), and The Epicure’s Lament (2004). Her fifth novel, Trouble (2009), was released in paperback by Vintage/Anchor in June 2010. Her sixth novel, The Astral, was published in hardcover by Doubleday in June 2011. She is also the author of two food-related memoirs, Blue Plate Special (Doubleday, 2013) and How to Cook a Moose (Islandport Press, 2015), the latter of which won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for memoir.[2][dead link]
She is a graduate of Reed College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her essays, articles, reviews, and stories have appeared in many anthologies and periodicals, including The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Elle, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Food & Wine, Cherry Bombe, and The Jewish Daily Forward.[2]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
The great man: a novel DB67289
Christensen, Kate. Reading time: 9 hours, 18 minutes.
Read by Martha Harmon Pardee. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
Psychological Fiction
The death of New York City painter Oscar Feldman–famous for his female nudes–sends rival biographers Henry Burke and Ralph Washington racing to cover Oscar’s life. Both writers interview Oscar’s three loves–wife, sister, and mistress–who recall complicated relationships with him. Strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex. PEN/Faulkner Award. 2007.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Blinding Light” by Paul Theroux
Kate’s 2¢: “Blinding Light” by Paul Theroux
“Blinding Light” by Paul Theroux
The descriptions of the flora and fauna in this story is remarkable. It is interesting how, when blind-folded to go down the river in a canoe, his senses were heightened.
While I didn’t care for the erotica in this work of fiction, I thought the observations of other people seeing the blind man and then, the actual blind man’s feelings were spot on.
Spoiler alert: I kept reading this story to find out how it ended, only to feel deceived by having the whole thing a drug induced. dream.
Paul Theroux (‘The world’s most perceptive travel writer’–Daily Mail) is the author of many highly acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), The Mosquito Coast (1981) Riding the Iron Rooster (1983), and Mr. Bones: Twenty Stories (2014). In 2015, Paul Theroux was awarded a Royal Medal from the Royal Geographical Society for “the encouragement of geographical discovery through travel writing.” This award, approved by the Queen, is the highest award attainable for a traveler, and Theroux joins the ranks of recipients including Sir Edmund Hillary, Admiral Richard Byrd and Dr. Thor Heyerdahl. His other awards include the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters Award for literature; the Whitbread Prize for his novel, Picture Palace; and the James Tait Black Award for The Mosquito Coast. His travelogue, The Old Patagonian Express: By Train through the Americas, and The Mosquito Coast were both nominated for the American Book Award. His novels Saint Jack, The Mosquito Coast, Doctor Slaughter and Half Moon Street have been made into films and his short-story collection London Embassy was adapted for a British mini-series in 1987. Theroux holds honorary doctorates from three American universities and remains a highly sought-after speaker nationwide.
In The New York Times Book Review, Francine Prose called his story collection Mr. Bones “a series of characteristically dark and sharply focused snapshots from the world that Theroux has observed–and invented.” Theroux’s book Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads (2015), was described by Kirkus Reviews in a starred review as “an epically compelling travel memoir,” and a Publishers Weekly starred review called it “Theroux’s best outing in years.” In a starred review, Publishers Weekly describes the essay collection Figures in a Landscape (2018) as “a magisterial grouping of intimate remembrances, globe-trotting adventures, and incisive literary critiques.”
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Blinding light DB61580
Theroux, Paul. Reading time: 17 hours, 39 minutes.
Read by Gregory Gorton.
Disability
Psychological Fiction
Fifty-year-old Slade Steadman, a one-time bestselling author, becomes addicted to an Ecuadorian drug that temporarily blinds him but provides illuminary vision to write another book. When the blindness prevails, Steadman loses his cocky attitude. Explicit descriptions of sex, some violence, and some strong language. 2005.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Holler, child: stories” by LaToya Watkins
Kate’s 2¢: “Holler, child: stories” by LaToya Watkins
“Holler, child: stories” by LaToya Watkins
These stories were ably read by various narrators, which added their original ethnic voices to enhance the authenticity of the story’s under-lying theme. Although, I didn’t appreciate the Ebonics, bad grammar, and poor English, these stories highlight how we all have human frailties and bleed red blood.
This was a story included on the NLS cartridge automatically sent to me with books NLS have chosen.
From www.LaToya Watkins.com:
LaToya Watkins’ writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, Kweli Journal, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere.She is a Kimibilo fellow and has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, MacDowell, OMI: Arts, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Camargo Foundation. She is the author of Perish and Holler, Child.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Holler, child: stories DB116449
Watkins, LaToya Reading time: 7 hours, 7 minutes.
Joniece Abbott-Pratt; De’Onna Prince; Lisa Renee Pitts; Kacie Rogers; JD Jackson; Aaron Goodson
Short Stories
Family
“In Holler, Child’s eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom. In “Cutting Horse,” the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In “Holler, Child,” a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows too well from the other side. And “Time After” shows us the unshakable bonds of family as a sister journeys to find her estranged brother—the one who saved her many times over. Throughout Holler, Child, we see love lost and gained, and grief turned to hope. Much like LaToya Watkins’s acclaimed debut novel, Perish, this collection peers deeply into lives of women and men experiencing intimate and magnificent reckonings—exploring how race, power, and inequality map on the individual, and demonstrating the mythic proportions of everyday life.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: ”I’m A Fan: a novel” by Sheena Patel
Kate’s 2¢: ”I’m A Fan: a novel” by Sheena Patel
”I’m A Fan: a novel” by Sheena Patel
Cintra Godfrey did a good job of narrating this critique of culture using a mocking voice.
–The character maintains that she is not a main character in this ensemble, rom-com of betrayal, she is a supporting act.
–She is a fan and because of that, she can be cut out.
–Second generation immigrants have the privilege of self-actualization
–I want to be rescued, so I retreat into delutions.
–I want the illustion, rather than my self-respect.
Fans pick their heros and make them part of the identity.
—
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sheena Patel is a writer and assistant director for film and TV12. She was born and raised in North West London12. She is part of the 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE collective and has been published in 4BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE (Rough Trade Books) and a poetry collection of the same name (FEM Press)1. Her debut novel, I’m A Fan, will be published by Rough Trade Books on 5 May 20222. Sheena is also among The Observer’s 10 best debut novelists of 20222.
Early life[edit]
Patel is a second-generation immigrant[9] with a Kenyan-Indian father and a Mauritian mother. She was born in northwest London[10] and was a voracious reader from early in life, reading what she describes as a large amount of “filthy books” for her young age.[9]
She studied English literature at Queen Mary University alongside Sharan Hunjan[11] and Rosh Goyate. The three women, along with Sunnah Khan, formed 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE in 2017.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
I’m a fan: a novel DBC29749
Patel, Sheena. Reading time: 6 hours, 15 minutes.
Read by Cintra Godfrey.
Psychological Fiction
A debut novel about a young British woman, power, intimacy, and the internet. Sheena Patel’s incandescent first novel begins with the unnamed narrator describing her involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, she dissects the behavior of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world. I’m a Fan offers a devastating critique of class, social media, patriarchy’s hold on us, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed. Adult. Descriptions of sex. Strong language. Violence.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Grasshopper: A Novel” by Barbara Vine
Kate’s 2¢: “Grasshopper: A Novel” by Barbara Vine
“Grasshopper: A Novel” by Barbara Vine
Kristin Allison did a good job of narrating this absorbing tale. The author had an interesting way of using flashbacks to fill in the back-story, but the ending is still a surprise.
I enjoyed this unique story.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE (née Grasemann; 17 February 1930 – 2 May 2015) was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.[1]
Rendell is best known for creating Chief Inspector Wexford.[2] A second string of works was a series of unrelated crime novels that explored the psychological background of criminals and their victims. This theme was developed further in a third series of novels, published under the pseudonym Barbara Vine.
Early life[edit]
Rendell was born as Ruth Barbara Grasemann in 1930, in South Woodford, Essex (now Greater London).[3] Her parents were teachers. Her mother, Ebba Kruse, was born in Sweden to Danish parents and brought up in Denmark; her father, Arthur Grasemann, was English. As a result of spending Christmas and other holidays in Scandinavia, Rendell learned Swedish and Danish.[4] Rendell was educated at the County High School for Girls in Loughton, Essex,[3] the town to which the family moved during her childhood.
After high school, she became a feature writer for her local Essex paper, the Chigwell Times. She was forced to resign after filing a story about a local sports club dinner she had not attended and failing to report that the after-dinner speaker had died midway through the speech.[5]
Personal life[edit]
Rendell met her husband Don Rendell when she was working as a newswriter.[3] They married when she was 20, and in 1953 had a son, Simon,[6] now a psychiatric social worker who lives in the U.S. state of Colorado. The couple divorced in 1975 but remarried two years later.[7] Don Rendell died in 1999 from prostate cancer.[6]
She made the county of Suffolk her home for many years, using the settings in several of her novels. She lived in the villages of Polstead and later Groton, both east of Sudbury. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1996 Birthday Honours[8] and a life peer as Baroness Rendell of Babergh, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk, on 24 October 1997.[9] She sat in the House of Lords for the Labour Party. In 1998, Rendell was named in a list of the party’s biggest private financial donors.[10] She introduced into the Lords the bill that would later become the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 (the intent was to prevent the practice).
In August 2014, Rendell was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September’s referendum on that issue.[11]
Rendell was a vegetarian who was described as living mostly on fruit.[12] She described herself as “slightly agoraphobic” and slept in a specially made four-poster bed because “I like to feel enclosed.”[12]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Grasshopper: a novel DB52427
Vine, Barbara. Reading time: 16 hours, 17 minutes.
Read by Kristin Allison. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
Suspense Fiction
Mystery and Detective Stories
Psychological Fiction
Young Clodagh Brown loves heights but suffers from claustrophobia. As a teenager she climbed electrical pylons until an accident claimed her boyfriend’s life. While in London, Clodagh joins a group of eccentrics who enjoy climbing rooftops. But tragedy strikes again. Some violence and some strong language. 2000.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The waters: A Novel” by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Kate’s 2¢: “The waters: A Novel” by Bonnie Jo Campbell
“The waters: A Novel” by Bonnie Jo Campbell
I really enjoyed the intricacies of this story, ably read by Lili Taylor. The family dynamics of this family will resonate with many a reader.
Copilot GPTs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bonnie Jo Campbell (born September 14, 1962 in Kalamazoo, Michigan) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her most recent work is The Waters, published with W.W. Norton and Company.
Life and work[edit]
Campbell attended Comstock High School (from which she graduated in 1980), and received a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1984. From Western Michigan University, she received an MA in mathematics in 1995 and an MFA in creative writing in 1998. She has traveled with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, and has organized adventure bicycle tours in Eastern Europe and Russia.[1]
Campbell teaches fiction at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, in the low-residency MFA program.[2] Campbell lives outside Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, Christopher Magson. [3]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
The waters: a novel DB119489
Campbell, Bonnie Jo. Reading time: 14 hours, 43 minutes.
Read by Lili Taylor.
Human Relations
Family
“On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp an area known as “The Waters” to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan herbalist and eccentric Hermine “Herself” Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three estranged daughters. The youngest the beautiful, inscrutable, and lazy Rose Thorn has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy “Donkey” Zook, to grow up wild. Donkey spends her days searching for truths in the lush landscape and in her math books, waiting for her wayward mother and longing for a father, unaware that family secrets, passionate love, and violent men will flood through the swamp and upend her idyllic childhood. Rage simmers below the surface of this divided community, and those on both sides of the divide have closed their doors against the enemy. The only bridge across the waters is Rose Thorn.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The Book of Dreams”, by Nina George translated by Simon Pare“The Book of Dreams” by Nina George
Kate’s 2¢: “The Book of Dreams”, by Nina George translated by Simon Pare“The Book of Dreams” by Nina George
“The Book of Dreams”, by Nina George
translated by Simon Pare
“The Book of Dreams” by Nina George
Xalvador Tin-Bradbury did a good job of narrating this story. The intricacies of the various relationships were fascinating. The son is a remarkable young man. I actually like the ending.
George writes also under three pen names. She writes non-fiction about issues of love, sexuality and eroticism, under the pseudonym Anne West. Under her married name Nina Kramer she wrote a thriller in 2008. She also wrote detective novels with her husband and co-writer Jo Kramer, their pseudonym being Jean Bagnol.
In 2012 and 2013 she won the DeLiA and the Glauser Prize. Her first bestselling novel was The Little Paris Bookshop (first published in German as Das Lavendelzimmer on May 2, 2013). She moved to Concarneau in France, where she now lives with her husband Jo Kramer.
George is a member of the administrative board of the Collective Management Organisation VG Wort. She is chairwoman of the VG-Wort ‘e-Book’ working group.[2]
Life and work
Nina George was born in Bielefeld. She dropped out of school before finishing high school and worked in various catering establishments from the age of fourteen. She began in 1993 writing as a freelance journalist and columnist for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Penthouse, TV Movie, and Frau im Trend. In 1997, she wrote the book Good girls do it in bed, bad ones everywhere under the pseudonym Anne West. She lived in Hamburg. In 2008, she appeared under the name Nina Kramer in ‘Thriller A Life Without Me’ about women’s reproductive health.
George is Member to PEN, Das Syndikat (association of German-language crime writers), the Association of German Authors (VS), the Hamburg Authors’ Association (HAV), BücherFrauen (Women in Publishing), the IACW/AIEP (International Association of Crime Writers), the GEDOK (Association of female artists in Germany), PRO QUOTE and Lean In. Nina George sits on the board of the Three Seas Writers’ and Translators’ Council (TSWTC), whose members come from 16 different countries.
Stop floating
Simon Pare Date of birth: 25 July 1972 Im Dörfli 13, 8615 Freudwil, Switzerland Nationality: British Tel. (+41) (0)44 940 2906 Mob. (+41) (0)77 485 2049 Email: mail@simonpare.net Literary translator (French and German into English) Member of the Society of Authors and the Translators’ Association (UK)
Translator, French, German. Simon Pare is British, lives in Paris and translates literature, non-fiction and film from German and French. His published translations include works by the Austrian author Christoph …
FromNLS/BARD/LOC:
The book of dreams DB94562
George, Nina; Pare, Simon. Reading time: 10 hours, 12 minutes.
Read by Xalvador Tin-Bradbury.
Human Relations
Psychological Fiction
On the way to see his son Sam for the first time in years, Henri is involved in an accident and winds up in a coma. Thirteen-year-old Sam and Henri’s former lover, Eddie, wait by his bedside while Henri floats in dreams. Translated from the 2016 original German. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2019.
Downloaded: April 3, 2024
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