Starting my 1st Simenon ever, The Madman of Bergerac, as part of my 2024 Dordogne challenge. And since today (Nov, 29) is the day of juniper in the French revolutionary calendar, I am having juniper tea. I don't know why this berry is so underused these days: it's lovely and so fragrant!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar#Autu...
My last Canadian book: I'm now ready for Finland 😁
Amiante (Asbestos) is a poet's novel about a boy in 80s/90s Thetford Mines that punches you in the gut. I was surprised at how similar cultural references were to mine in France.
#FoodandLit #Canada
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Pic by Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/asbestos-bape-hearings-1.5386092
It's all in the title: Le nazi de ma famille : Enquête sur un SS français (The nazi in my family: investigating a French SS). Extremely well-constructed and finely-drawn, with constant backs-and-forths between then and now, family history and European history, today‘s nazis and yesterday‘s. Sensitive, empathetic and serious. A stand-out read for me.
Pic of Barnave, near the author's family home, from Wikipedia
@tournevis This is my attempt at pot-en-pot and I have the nagging feeling that I got it wrong, although it was perfectly nice to eat.
I am thinking that perhaps “big potatoes“ are bigger for the writer than for me because my dish looks stingey on the potato front.
I assumed the final stage was baking because we were told to layer the ingredients. So, I did it in a pyrex dish fitted with a lid.
#FoodandLit #Canada
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Here's my gâteau aux bleuets (blueberry cake). Nice but on the mushy side (there's quite a bit of milk) in it. I used a recipe from the tagged Acadian cookbook.
#FoodandLit #Canada
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From a fantastic poetry collection by Katherena Vermette, a Métis author. Found on Everand.
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Pic of St Theresa Point, Island Lake by Timkal, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24819273
This is the story of Elie, a young Innu convicted of murder & banned from his community who ends up homeless in Montréal (called Tiohti�:ke in Mohawk) - like many other First Nations men & women - before turning his life around. Not a masterpiece, but both moving & informative.
Written by a Mashteuiatsh Innu author
#FoodandLit #Canada
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The life of a young teacher in 30s Manitoba. Her pupils‘ poverty is incredible. Meanwhile, where I live, the fog outside is so thick right now it‘s like living in cotton wool...
#FoodandLit #Canada
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Cross-cultural fiction at its finest: a kid's chapter book about a young Korean girl who discovers Astrid Lindgren's books. They help her make sense of her life (her father is dead; her mother is sad, poor and has a short fuse), work through her emotions and relate to others. Maybe a bit too edifying for me, but I'm sure the child who connects with this book won't mind. I liked the sense of place and season.
#Korea
Since it is #Canada month and I'd never read it (it's not so well known in France), I thought now would be the time to see what the fuss is about 😋 I downloaded Anne of Green Gables from Project Gutenberg. 9% in: Matthew Cuthbert is thinking of keeping Anne. Oooh, what is going to happen? Will Marilla agree? 😂 😁
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A man in the final stages of cancer tries to reach his native #Montenegro to die. He is pursued in the forest and the mountains by a group 2 men soon to turn into a mob. This novella was a random find at the bookshop and I was bowled over.
#Serbia
Pic of Čvrsnica by Ante Perkovic, via Wikimedia bc I couldn't find one of Prekornica from a free source
Yesterday's poutine at a local Canadian-themed bar/restaurant. Followed by a very indifferent tea that did not taste at all of maple. The poutine was nice, though, and the portion was very generous. My toppings were smoked meat, onions, mushrooms and brown sauce. I felt full all day!
#FoodandLit #Canada
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I don't usually read murder mysteries, but I made an exception for this book because it the 1st time I came across a novel set in the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia. Only, the descriptions of the corpse & sea pollution combined with current news (the deadly freak storm in Spain and the US elections) to give me one hell of a nightmare, so I've been up since 3:45 AM & I am wary of picking the book up again.
Pic of Mekiro island by FRED, wikimedia
Today (November, 7) is International Inuit Day, a holiday established by the Inuit Circumpolar Council representing First Nations people living in Alaska, #Canada, Greenland and Chukotka.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Inuit_Day
And Sweetest Kulu is a lovely book for babies and young children written by an Inuk artist and writer from Nunavut.
#FoodandLit
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This is my haul from the SF convention I went to last weekend. I've been a good girl this year, partly because I did not manage to explore the bookshop thoroughly. It was either too crowded or I was running after an overexcited toddler. She's the one who found the 2 books with the graphic covers. She - and I - wanted all the books in this collection, but I whittled it to 2 😁. There is also 1 kids' book and 1 non-fiction ab. plurality in SF.
I thought I'd start #Canada Month with something quick & easy. This is a selection of Champlain's maps, drawings & writings about his travels to North America, reworked into a graphic work. Interesting as a teaser, but the lack of “meat“ and context is frustrating, despite the few pages of explanations tacked to the end. A giant wood & metal version toured Canada in 2008.
#FoodandLit
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A quirky, arty book pitched at younger children, with a female superhero whose trigger is chili pepper with whipped cream 😂
Selected by the grandchild once I'd managed to steer her to the bookshop's kids' corner in the SF convention we went to last weekend. Her first choices were all German adult novels with interesting geometric covers 😅
Tried and gave up on the tagged book - it wasn't for me.
Cooked seswaa (pulled beef) & Bogobe jwa lerotse, a porridge made with sorghum (or in my case, cornmeal, after I realised my sorghum meal had gone off 🙁) & lerotse melon, a cooking, non-sweet melon. Wholesome but I have to admit #Botswana's national dish was a bit too plain for my taste, which it might not be if you're using local Setswana ingredients😊
#FoodandLit
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This is the limit of what I'm prepared to do for #Halloween: felt pumpkins & mushrooms on a string, 1 book of vampire stories (Somadeva's Vetala Panchavimshati), 1 lovingly-drawn paper pumpkin to stick on the front door so that children know they can knock & ask for sweets. And that was enough for the curmudgeon in my life to roll his eyes... The seasonal fruit & veg are there... because they're in season 😁
Thank you https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Denizard for this article on Marie Denizard, a suffragist who, to make a point, ran for the 1913 presidential election at a time when women could not vote in France. It complements perfectly the book on the fights for political and personal rights I am reading. BTW, poor old Marie was committed to a psychiatric hospital for - I kid you not - “chronic delirium of political and social claims“.
A late & indulgent breakfast and a pop history book about civil rights gains. I am hoping they will cheer me up, given a) the current political climate; b) the grey, depressing whether we've been having; c) the fact that I have so much housework to do before the flat is decent for visitors.
Medieval Georgian epic poem with much adventure, fighting, passion and intense male friendship (see miniature above). All set further east than what I am used to: Arabia, India, Persia, Central Asia and Cathay (China). An international classic!
#Georgia #UnescoRepresentativeWork
public domain pic from Wikimedia
Yesterday's treat (a pistachio éclair). I needed extra fuel to compensate for all the effort it took me to read from right to left 😈
Not the easiest read (I thinks with some exceptions, my brain doesn't get on well with graphic works, compared with just text), but I still liked it and I can recognise its quality.
My 1st book from this year's #NobelPrize winner. I was impressed by the first half, but disappointed that the narrator's quiet & moving story was pushed aside for almost straight non-fiction, admittedly also moving, and about events in #Korea's history that needed telling. So the fiction ended up being an artificial framing device for near-journalistic work. I was happy to read it all & learned a lot, but with a slight sense of frustration 😊
After being 3rd in the library request queue for ages, I've now gotten hold of Shubeik Lubeik. I know what I'm doing tonight 😎 Reading this book from right to left, manga-style 🙃
Found in The Dark (issue 50): Who Will Clean Our Spirits When We‘re Gone?, a short story by the same author as the tagged book. A ghost (or spirit) story set in a university campus in #Botswana. Lacks polish but poetic & has potential.
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pic of Environmental Science Building at the University of Botswana in Gaborone by Iulus Ascanius, via Wikimedia Commons
This was a bit of a chore, which is why it took me 2 weeks to finish it... The translation is amateurish, which might colour my perception, but I don't think comparing the writer to Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe is warranted, despite similar themes of christianisation and colonisation. Still, I got enough out of this short novel that I never felt like giving up.
Pic: old palapye church https://www.botswanatourism.co.bw/explore/old-palapye
Photos from our Saturday walk. We picked chestnuts: not only were they pretty, shiny and pristine, with not a maggot in sight and hardly any mud on them, but they were also delicious.
And Little Witch Hazel is a fantastic book for children. Grandkid loves the stories & I like the underpinning “hippy“ outlook on life - kind, understanding and tolerant (including of leg hair on women 😅)
I went overboard at the charity shop's book sale but there was a lot more choice than usual on the English book shelves. I think someone (probably American) must have moved away.
I left all the autobiographies of US politicians and business people and all the romances for others....
I've inhaled the 1st 1/3 of this book partly set in the highlands of Jeju Island in 1 sitting. So glad the Nobel Prize spurred me to read Han Kang now rather than at an indefinite point in the future.
I love the pic of mountains in Jeju I got from Wikipedia. It's perfect for the current season where I live (although it's winter AND snowing in the book).
Literally, “Edwardian female poets“. I requested it from the library thinking - mistakenly - that it would be a poetry anthology. It isn't. It's a collection of academic papers, some more interesting and intelligible than others. Very interesting overall and useful for all the names of forgotten and half-forgotten female poets I can now explore.
It's raining & the sun is down. It's been colder than normal & I've been wrapping myself up in layers because the heating's not on yet. People have been complaining enough that management e-mailed us to say that it would be switched on “as soon as possible“. Let's hope that's not November. So, #hyggehour is a blanket, a (depressing) book & Greek yogurt with saffron syrup.
@TheBookHippie @jenniferw88 @Chrissyreadit @AllDebooks
Reading Botlhodi, a novel translated from #Botswana's official language Setswana into English, which I found on Everand.
Pictured dish is a chicken stew (onion, chicken thighs & drumsticks, chili, cumin, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and sweetcorn) with madombi (dumplings): https://ahungryafricanoriginal.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/mini-dumplings-in-stew/
#FoodandLit
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A couple of weeks ago, on the anniversary of Foucault's death, the garden of his family home was open to the public, as was his office, & 2 short plays, including the premiere of the 1 based on the tagged book, were given for free. I was there, but as photos were not allowed, there's no proof 😊. I enjoyed the play, and am now reading the book. It contains Herculine's own account of her life as an intersex person in the 19th century.
This collection of 16th-century Vietnamese tales is in UNESCO's list of representative works. They were written in Chinese (the language of scholars in #Vietnam at the time) by a retired civil servant. They are full of ghosts, gods, monsters & ghouls, and always have a moral. Despite the annotations, some of the cultural background went over my head but the stories have universal appeal - & they're perfect for spooky season.
A collection of 3 short stories by Alfred de Musset, best-known for his plays and poetry. Also for being George Sand's lover. He doesn't know whether to be condescending towards women and working-class people, or not. And so, I don't know whether to be annoyed or not 🙄. Soft pick.
1. Off the top of my head, I'd say my great-grandmother's cast-iron pot. It was a wedding present, and therefore is at least 120 years old. I still use it.
2. Les misérables. There are lengths and digressions, but the core stories still resonate with people today, and I have no doubt that that will also be the case in the next century.
Thank you for the #Two4Tuesday questions, @TheSpineView
Tagging anyone who wants to play...
A meandering, intricate novel set in Ipoh, home of white coffee. (One of the MCs owns a kopitiam, a coffee shop/greasy spoon/mini-food court). Quite liked it.
#FoodandLit #Malaysia
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pic of “Concubine Lane, one of the cultural and culinary hub in the city“ by Slleong from the Wikipedia page on Ipoh
The novel had been on my shelves for years, and I sort of had forgotten that I hadn't read it 😚. It's both sad and funny, but quite cruel in places. Tea is a Kotagiri Frost which has been on my shelves for over a year, probably. Maybe I should have drunk it Russian-style, with jam 😉
Today is #TalkLikeAPirateDay! Not necessarily a fan of pirates per se, but “pirate talk“ is both fun and ridiculous, and Treasure Island is a fantastic book that doesn't glamourise piracy. In any case, my pirate name is Cap'n Dora Bloodbeard 😎 What's yours?
Pirate name generator: http://gangstaname.com/names/pirate#.XYOY90ROk0M
Thank you @PageShifter and @TheSpineView!
1. Depends! I rarely change into a completely different outfit during the day but I typically wear comfortable trousers at home and will put something less embarrassing on when I go outside. And then, I'll add/remove layers, jumpers, warm socks, etc. as needed.
2. Tagged book is a retelling in modern times of the Paris Commune, which started with seamstresses. MC organises sewing workshops.
#Two4Tuesday
This novella packs a punch! And having just watched a documentary on the author, I couldn't help but spot similarities between her life and the main characters'.
Pic is of The Two Girls by Modigliani, reproduced on the cover of my book, although I don't think they actually look like the sisters portrayed in the novella (but I like the painting 😁)
Malagasy epic poetry about a legendary prince who stayed 10 years in the womb, killed both mother and father, and right now, is kicking everybody trying to approach! That is one difficult baby 😬
I am not reading the tagged book but an English version available online: https://web.archive.org/web/20110605051817/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Public/Ib...
I can't say I am fully convinced by the intro & translation of the tagged book: an anthology of Malay poetry, including pantuns (UNESCO intangible cultural heritage of Indonesia and Malaysia since 2020), but beggars can't be choosers: the culture isn't well served by Western publishers.
pic from https://artsequator.com/10-things-you-should-know-about-pantun/
#FoodandLit #Malaysia #UnescoRepresentativeWork
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See how happy the authors look on the inner flap photo!
As this A to Z of French Black culture is quite a doorstop, I thought it would take me for ever to get through, but it's so lively I finished it in no time! It's a good springboard for further exploration.
![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}
