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Showing posts from July, 2020

Out of the Silence: After the Crash by Eduardo Strauch Urioste: book review

Out of the Silence: After the Crash (2012, English version 2019) is the memoir of a survivor of the 1972 Andes Mountains plane crash with 45 people on board, including the Uruguay rugby team. Thirty-three people survived the initial crash of the flight that left Montevideo bound for Chile. This is the truth of the 72 days on the mountain after the crash, and what the survivors have to do to continue living—at 3,500 metres (11,700 feet) in freezing, treacherous conditions. The silence refers to the author’s long silence in talking about it. It also refers to the first silence, straight after the crash, before the moaning and acknowledgement of survivors. It also refers to the silence of death. A mountain climber finds Eduardo Strauch Urioste’s wallet near the crash site in 2005 and returns it to him. This is the impetus for Strauch, who was twenty-five at time of the crash, to break his silence and write about the tragedy, and the rescue, and how i...

Sunflowers in Paris

MARTINA NICOLLS Website Martinasblogs Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

A violet Paris morning

Your Perfect Year by Charlotte Lucas: book review

Your Perfect Year (2019) is set in Hamburg, Germany. Regimented, punctual, routine-fixated 42-year-old divorced publishing figurehead Jonathan N. Grief is easily annoyed. He begins the first day of January at the gym, but someone—named H—has left their Filofax planner journal in the gym. The planner has the hand-written title ‘Your Perfect Year.’ In trying to find the owner, Jonathan begins to read the proverbs and inspirational comments in the journal. He begins to undertake the activities planned in H’s journal. There are suggested movies to watch and places to go. H is actually Hannah Marx who had given the planner to her boyfriend Simon with notes on achieving happiness. Hannah had planned for Simon to write gratitude statements, and now Jonathan wrote one—his very first entry. Hannah had planned for Simon to invite a friend to stay in the spare room. Okay, Jonathan thought he would invite Leopold to stay for awhile. Hanna...

Sunday Walk: rue des Saints-Saint Pères, Paris

The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov: book review

The Physics of Sorrow (2011, English version 2015) is the semi-structured memoir of Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov. He calls it a ‘time capsule’ which is quite appropriate. Using Greek mythology and the Minotaur half-man half-bull theme throughout, this is a collection of family stories, but not in a linear way, except that it starts with birth and ends with death. In between, it moves randomly from generation to generation, un-born to aged, and from various viewpoints to singular viewpoints, and into the future. For example, Gospodinov mentions 4 June 2022 with the news headline: Strange Epidemic of Amnesia. The story ‘Bread of Sorrow’ is about his grandfather, also called Georgi, whom his mother tried to abandon in 1917 when he was three years old. She is referred to as Granny Calla, or Witch Calla, with eight children, who left Georgi, the youngest, in an old mill. It was his eldest 13-year-old sister Dana who went back to the mill to rescu...