so-soThe story of a girl who experiences the 1962 North Sea flood and grapples with her parents‘ actions during World War Two. There is some didactic merit here, but stylistically this feels like a bit of a mess. The constant repetition of the protagonist‘s thoughts gets tiring very quickly. Not sure yet if I will use this for teaching.
pickA story of loss, regret and redemption, told in loosely connected chapters that each focus on different characters. I smiled, I chuckled, I pondered my own life‘s decisions. Despite making some questionable stylistic choices, Hansen excels at creating deep and ambiguous characters, the kind that could easily exist somewhere out there. I‘m excited to read her other two novels.
Thoughts on these for the next #lmpbc round?
📚 Red Joan is based on a true story.
📚 A Most Wanted Man — read it and would love 💗 to read it again!
I forgot to tag you! @Pogue @TheBookHippie
pickEngrossing once you get into it. I had had two "false starts" with this one but glad i finished it this time. Three very different characters - a seasoned banker looking for an awakening, a driven young lawyer looking for redemption and a shambolic intell agent looking for a breakthrough - all brought together by an illegal half-Chechen immigrant who arrived in Germany holding a mysterious "key". Ending not too surprising but still a good read...
pickOne of my patients recommended this book. It is historical fiction about the time immediately at the end of WWII in Germany. The structure of the story reminds me of Fannie Flag‘s fried green tomatoes with an older person sharing memories from a retirement home. I delayed reading the end because I knew the twists would be delightful and charming. What a special little book! 🌭 🇩🇪 🥘
pickThis was another one from the bottom of my TBR list, and it was a good read. It takes place in Germany just after WWII, and is understandably grim. It was very interesting though to examine each person‘s reactions to the terrible conditions and to imagine how I would have fared. A good book to read on a cold, dark January day.
We had an amazing bookclub session earlier today. Average rating of 2.95⭐️ but we spent 1.5 hours discussing war guilt, how Germany dealt with it vs Japan; women‘s role in the 80s; etc.
I recommend reading the tagged book as a follow up to Kempowski‘s “All For Nothing.”
pick3⭐️ The year is 1988 and three West Germans go touring to East Prussia. The novel is a historical memory, with the protagonist looking back at the paths and the damages of the WWII. “… the suffering of all creatures, the flesh lashed to the stake, the calf he had seen bound and gagged, the torture chamber in the Marienburg, the shuffling procession of mankind beneath the condemning sky. It‘s all for nothing…. And: Who‘s to blame?” 👇🏻
In memoriam John le Carré. This book is terrific (as all le Carré I've read), and the film almost does the novel justice.
pick4 out of 5 ⭐️
Very much a le Carré spy thriller. If you have read any of his previous work—my favorite being The Spy Who Came In From The Cold—then A Most Wanted Man offers few surprises or deviations from his formula. Do not mistake this comment as a derisive statement about le Carré‘s writing style. I enjoyed this book very much, but just as geopolitics is never a neat and tidy ending, neither is this story—a most enjoyable book nonetheless.
