In my quest to read books from every country that are meaningful to those countries, I got - with difficulty - my hands on the selected works of Turkmenistan's national poet, Magtymguly Pyragy, an 18th-century Sufi. This is not the tagged book, but it's probably quite similar - it's a re-edition of the 1975 UNESCO translation.

Photo of a USSR stamp with the poet's face from Wikipedia

I bought this book thinking it was the novel My Altay, by Li Juan, but it isn't - it's a collection of short stories / diary entries. They're a bit rough around the edges, but very evocative. They're about the author's, her mother's and grandmother's lives as itinerant seamstresses/shopkeepers - Han Chinese women living among nomadic or semi-nomadic Kazakhs in the far North West of #China.

Altay landscape by Fanghong, via Wikimedia Commons

Probably of limited interest to non-French people, but the baccalaureate philosophy exam started at 8 this morning, and the essay questions are now out:

Vocational stream
Is Nature hostile to Man
Is the artist master of their own work

Academic stream
Can science satisfy our need for truth
Does the State owe us anything

Inspired or not?

Thinking of all those teenagers sweating on their exam papers in many different parts of the world...

When the wheat is under the hail
Who but a fool would
Quibble and
Think of his little quarrels
In the middle of common combat?

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn‘t
From the height of the citadel
The sentinel shoots twice

One staggers
The other falls
The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn‘t

Now in prison
Which gets the worse cot
Which freezes more
Which likes the rats more?

After a busy start to the day (farmer's market, lots of cooking, Eid lunch, IT troubleshooting for the elderly, and an hour's work) it's time to relax with a cup of lemon verbena tea, leftover cheesecake & some lovely raspberries . And the tagged book.

The poems I read come from a collection titled To Bleed Straight, and not from the tagged book, but it'll have to do. I liked some of the poems, but felt a lot more dubious about others (namely Arabia, which annoyed me).

ETA: also, you've got to love a poem that mentions both Anne Frank and the Moomins 😄

#FoodandLit #Iceland
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

The political situation being what it is in France right now, I find it hard to concentrate on books, but I did finish Epilogue of the Raindrops (although I probably was too distracted to really take it all in) and a small collection of poems by Sigurbjörg Þrastardóttir. I am starting Blackout Island.
#FoodandLit #Iceland
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Skyr ice-cream flavoured with lemon and honey, served with baked rhubarb and strawberries, inspired by one of the recipes in the tagged book. Lovely! They should have gone into meringue nests, but I couldn't be bothered to make them...

#FoodandLit #Iceland
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

My version of blue ling in mustard cream sauce (blálanga í sinnepssósu), p 95 of the cookbook, with new potatoes. Very nice, and a lot less scary than some of the other recipes in the book 😁

#FoodandLit #Iceland
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

We missed Seamen‘s Day last Sunday 🙄
#FoodandLit #Iceland
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Sun coffee celebrations are something I can get behind!
#FoodandLit #Iceland
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Unusual powder-pink paper - I feel like I'm reading the Financial Times 😂
There should be more pink tomorrow - I am planning on serving skyr icecream with rhubarb and strawberries 😃
#FoodandLit #Iceland
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

A fantastic study of far-right voters in South-East France. Next to voting material for tomorrow‘s European elections, with the animalist party‘s pamphlet on top because kitty cat 😻 and because it‘s less anxiety-inducing than all the ultra-, far-right and far-right-adjacent party stuff...

Poetic, with a sense of place (just as well, given I read it for #FoodandLit #Iceland) but there's 1 thing that's niggling at me. The English version is about a blue fox, and the French translation, about a red fox/vixen. Looking at the Wikipedia pages for the arctic fox in both languages, I think the English is correct.

@Catsandbooks @Texreader

pic of arctic fox from Jonathen Pie @r3dmax" rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://unsplash.com/@r3dmax via wikimedia

My books for #FoodandLit #Iceland: The Blue Fox from the library and 2 cookbooks from my shelves 😁
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

The programme agreed on in secret in 1944, towards the end of the war, by the Conseil National de la Résistance, uniting the political parties & trade unions on the side of the Résistance, from nationalist right to communists & anarcho-syndicalists. It outlines their plans/goals to help win the war & rebuild the country afterwards. It sows the seeds of the postwar welfare state & democracy, but I thought it would be more detailed than it was.

The 1st 3 books bought with my birthday money 😁 📚
Hoping they'll offer for some positivity and insights to offset my anxiety at the current political situation in Europe and the world...

My first Audre Lorde apart from the odd poem or extract in an anthology: a bilingual poetry collection newly-acquired by my library 😃 Clearly a labour of love: the poems were translated by a collective.

I was looking for a short book on my shelves to plug the gap before I can get my library hold, and found this, which my mother bought before she lapsed in her 20s, but still kept all her life. And thought, why not? I need books from Vatican for my Global Challenge. I have been thinking about birth control recently b/c the topic is in the news again (unfortunately), and I have just finished a novel by Marguerite Duras who was a pro-choice activist.

Can I gripe about the font size in this book? 1 mm for vowels! I really wanted to read La vie tranquille (Easy Life) and since this novel is only available in my local library in the Pléiade omnibus, I have to contend with the thinnest, most transparent sheets of paper, printed in the smallest fonts ever. 😫

Romance written in the 12-13th cent.
Silence is a girl brought up disguised as a boy so she could be her parents' heir. Of course, they are the most valiant, accomplished & virtuous person ever 😁
The King of England likes & values them, but after they reject the Queen's advances, she turns against them & tribulations start.
I thought their gender of birth would be uncovered in battle, as per trope, but no: something stranger & funnier happens 👏

A book that perfectly matches my knitting, colourwise! I have finished this anthology of writings about Afghanistan at last. The knitting is still ongoing and might not go anywhere ☺

So far:
- Hébain married the King of Norway's daughter
- Cador slayed the dragon terrorising Winchester, and earned the right to marry the maid of his choosing
- Eufémie cured Cador's illness and earned the right to marry the man of her choosing
- You guessed it: Cador and Eufémie married each other
- Eufémie gave birth to a girl, but they announced a boy - and therefore heir - to the world
Medieval romances FTW!
I'll stop bc spoilers 😋

Another book set in #Dordogne (and Charente) : a graphic work about a still owner who travels from farm to farm to turn his customers' fruit into brandy. There weren't many of them left in 1999-2000 which is when the book is set, but there are even fewer now, both because life has changed and because hardly anybody is allowed a tax exemption on their first liters of alcohol, as it cannot be passed down the generations anymore.

I finished A Heart so White on Friday. It wasn't bad by any stretch, but it didn't speak to me. A shame because the main character is an interpreter & I love reading about linguists 😑
Today, I made fideuà, a Catalan dish similar to paella, but with pasta instead of rice. I first ate it on holiday in Sitges, and have been making it from time to time ever since: it's a good Sunday lunch option for us!

#FoodandLit #Spain
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Look what I found for €1 at the library sale! A book and CD of Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan nursery rhymes in different languages from the subcontinent, with the words in the original language, in translation, and in phonetics. Some of the illustrations are a bit cliché, but I'm still very happy with my purchase. I hope the CD is still playable 😻

My lovely greengrocer gave me a punnet of a sprouting plant called Atsina® Cress. All I found about this mystery plant is: “This cress is named after an old North American tribe, the Atsina Indians. They used the leaves of this plant to make a warm sweet drink to ease the pain when they had a sore throat“ https://www.koppertcress.com/en/products/atsina-r-cress and no mention of the plant's common or latin name. Any idea what this is?

#Naturalitsy

A bit early in the day for #hyggehour but I really wanted tea & cake (my 1st since Easter & I'm going to regret making it in a mug come washing-up time)!
Here's my #Spain #FoodandLit reading list: A Heart So White by Javier Marías, and 2 cookbooks from my shelves: 1080 Recipes by Simone & Inès Ortega (a classic!) and The Best 100 Spanish Recipes.

@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Waste Tide is set in the near future in a Chinese island where waste is dumped and sorted by poor & despised workers brought from the mainland's countryside. Native islanders are better off, but pollution is horrendous for all. 3 local family clans - or mafias if you want to be blunt - unofficially rule the place. 100 pages in and I love it!

Photo by Jonathan McIntosh, via Wikimedia Commons, taken from the waste picker Wikipedia page

#SF #China

302 pages about a SUV salesman negotiating a worldwide pandemics impacting men's testosterone levels, & therefore their sense of self. Toxic masculinity & avocado (the testicular fruit 😂) consumption on the rise. I found the art hard to follow, & I realised v. quickly that I wasn't the intended audience. Not my type of humour, but its heart is in the right place. It's read now and I can return it.

Avocado tastefully placed to hide a NSFW bit.

About to start this graphic novel about a future where men's testosterone levels drop. Was slightly embarrassed by the cover when the librarian handed the book to me 😅

Just finished Iphigenia, & I'm a tiny bit upset, due to spoilery reasons 😂 All I can say is my inner romantic is unhappy, but the ending makes sense & I would have rolled my eyes had it been any different.
There is a definite 1920s/30s flavour to the novel (think Mitford, Cold Comfort Farm, etc.)

Warning for offhand racist, classist, colorist and antisemitic remarks, mainly from the mouths of foolish characters

#FoodandLit
#Venezuela

Happy #WorldBookDay (or 1 of them) / #SantJordi / #DayofBooksandRoses / #SaintGeorgesDay everyone! It is celebrated on this day because it is the anniversary of the death of Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, but as it happens, the author I am reading right now - Teresa de la Parra - also died on April, 23rd.

I find Maria Eugenia (the Iphigenia of the title) deeply irritating but also lovable. I can't think of many early 20th-c. novels that show the mind of a teenage girl in such detail. She is bright but naive, superficial but thoughtful, bold but shy. And v. volatile. It's clear she is/will be used as a pawn by her family, at the v. least to maintain their status, but v. probably for money too. Impending doom 😬

#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader

Very happy about my haul of second-hand books:
The Pear Field (tagged)
Papa, maman écoutez-moi vraiment (parenting/child psychology)
Austral (Costarican author)
Le héro qui pissait dans son froc (Vietnamese short story anthology)

Sister Deborah is a healer and prophetess in an early 20th c. African-American charismatic cult that traveled to Rwanda to await the Second Coming. She could well be the “reincarnation“ of a famous queen and witch. We explore her life and others' through 2 POVs. The author based her novel on local history, mythology and stories, so that's another rabbit-hole to fall into. BTW, I loved the ending!

Pic of Lake Kivu: Adam Jones via Wikimedia Commons

Maryse Condé died last week. To honour her memory, I read one of her novels I hadn't yet read. It tells the story of Rosélie, a Black Guadeloupean woman living in Cape Town, and whose white husband was mysteriously killed while on an errand in the middle of the night. Moving & insightful but requires close reading to get the most of it.

Pic of Cape Town's Malay Quarter (Octagon via Wikimedia), only mentioned in passing in the book, but so pretty

I made arepas, carne mechada (shredded beef) and caraotas negras (black beans), served with lettuce, cheese and avocado. Easy and tasty. I was really tempted to up the spice level, but didn't bc I wanted to keep the food authentic, at least for my 1st try. Can't swear I won't next time 😚
#Venezuela #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader

My plan for the weekend: make arepas. Unexpectedly, I found the proper flour for them locally 😁Wish me luck for my 1st attempt...
Possibly also start on the tagged novel (a Venezuelan classic), if the book I ordered at the library doesn't turn up.

#Venezuela #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader

A essay about friendship, how undervalued it is in our society, and its potential for making society more open & egalitarian, & less family-centered. Based on his deep, cultivated friendship with ÉdouardLouis and Didier Éribon. With quotes from Barthes, Foucault, Wilhelm Reich, etc. Can't say I agree with everything, but it is thought-provoking & pleasant to read.

#LGBTQI+

I can't help but think of Mrs Coulter in His Dark Material when I look at this page!
(Camille Alaphilippe - Woman with a monkey, 1908 and Janis Rozentāls, Princess with a monkey, 1913)

WWII hero Issak Manouchian's poems were republished earlier this year, right after his and his wife Melinée's remains were moved to the Pantheon. They are the 1st non-French nationals to be honoured in this way (Josephine Baker & Marie Curie were both naturalised French, whereas Manouchian was refused naturalisation in the 30s).
His poems are heavily influenced by Baudelaire & Verlaine (he sat in on lit classes at the Sorbonne w/ taking exams).

Maryse Condé died yesterday. She won the New Academy Prize (the alternative to the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded in 2018, when the Nobel Academy was on hiatus).
I read my 1st book by her when I was 11 - it was a middle-school novel called Haiti chérie. I had no idea she was a renowned writer then. I've been meaning to read her latest - The Gospel According to the New World. I should now.

My final book in my virtual Baltic trip: a huge coffee-table book about the Symbolism art movement in Baltic countries. Very enjoyable!

Beautiful writing, but I can't say I understood everything. You'd probably have to be an Estonian of the right generation to get the most out of it - which is OK: writers don't have to cater to everyone, and in any case, cryptic speech is central to the “plot“ (to get around surveillance) - hence the photo featuring examples of surreal WW2 coded messages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Fran%C3%A7ais_parlent_aux_Fran%C3%A7aishickleb...

Started this very poetic and slightly surreal, but so far very confusing novel, written by an Estonian author about an Estonian young woman, but set in Riga (Latvia). I got this much from the back cover - the 1st pages of the book itself are far from clear 😊
There is a sentence about The Lord who did not order His angel to put sticks (or penises - the French translation is ambiguous 😮) in salt for the main character?
I so wish for footnotes...

I thought this book would be about soft power & the way Western hegemony is reshaping 3rd world people's cultures. It is not. It's a political pamphlet against the IMF's & other international organisations' collusion with Western companies & local politicians. A bit disjointed & self-centered. Still v. interesting.
The picture shows how politicians tend to give up on trying to do something about their country's debt, as they climb up the ladder.

I am learning a lot about Baltic countries, but I am rather put off by the book's positive view of colonisation, with (what I think is) misplaced pride about the Duchy of Courland's (now part of Latvia) former colonial empire (Tobago and the area around the mouth of the Gambia river), and Kazys Pakštas's plan to create a new Lithuania in Angola, Rhodesia-style.

It looks like Zerocalcare is not a fan of cumin (the writing on the collection box says “Do something against cumin - Campaign against disgusting spices“). Funny how cumin and coriander/cilantro are so divisive...
A page of light relief in a rather depressing book 😂 This is NOT your usual feel-good Christmas story!

Highly-strung, very silly, very cringy. Possibly the first example of (non-explicit) slash “erotica“ written by a virgin young woman with access to a stash of “forbidden books“, but definitely not the last 😂
The politics are muddled but interesting. There is a lot of internalised classism and sexism, as should be expected in a 1884 book.

I'll read a more mature work from this author before passing judgment on her.