false 24 159 103 true 5628723 read 1 true 3148932 currently-reading 55 true 3148931 to-read <![CDATA[Vicky added 'My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78030153 to: My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq (Hardcover) by Ariel Sabar
This book was recommended to me by one of my customers and I was not sure if I want to read it at all. I am glad that I did. It is not an ordinary biography; this book is a window into the world that does not exist anymore. Imagine a "Lost tribe of Israel" left to live peacefully in the midst of an Arab world. Imagine people who were so cut from the modern world that they spoke the Ancient Aramaic in the 20th century, while scholars pronounced this language dead for hundreds of years. It was the language of Jesus, the language used by Assyrian and Persian empires. Isolated and surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria the Kurdish Jews kept their culture intact for nearly 3000 years. When they had to leave Iraq for Israel after the 1949 their Arab neighbours cried and mourned their departure. In Israel they were looked upon as barbarians and dimwits without any prospects. Here is a book about the life in exile, about the drama of integration into the new culture and the gap between the fathers and sons. And the most important this book is about the power of language and the past that can destroy the family or bring it together. ]]> <![CDATA[new comment from Vicky]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77410873 Lyn's review of Tokyo Fiancée
by Amélie Nothomb

Lyn, you have to read the "Fear and trembling". There is a movie based on it as well. It was my first book by Nothomb that made me interested in her writing. ]]> <![CDATA[Vicky added 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76874867 to: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium, #3) by Stieg Larsson
The last book did not disappoint me. It was dynamic and complex, sometimes difficult to follow, but I did not want it to stop. In many ways the book is a shocking revelation of the systems that control the government, security of its citizens and democracy as a whole. The main character as before is a superwoman, the glimpses into the digital world and its possible effects are scary, the good guys are on the top and the bad guys are all punished. It is the same old story about the fight between the good and evil and we never will have enough of it. ]]> <![CDATA[Vicky added 'The Red Tent']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76957722 to: The Red Tent (Hardcover) by Anita Diamant
Another great read from many years ago. ]]> <![CDATA[Vicky added 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76957435 to: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Paperback) by Haruki Murakami
I read it many years ago and see it as one of the best book I ever read. ]]> <![CDATA[Vicky added 'Freud and Man's Soul: An Important Re-Interpretation of Freudian Theory']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76636995 Freud and Man's Soul: An Important Re-Interpretation of Freudian Theory (Paperback) by Bruno Bettelheim
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> <![CDATA[Vicky is on page 81 of Freud and Man's Soul... ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76636995 Vicky is on page 81 of 128 of Freud and Man's Soul: An Important Re-Interpretation of Freudian Theory ]]> <![CDATA[Vicky added 'Gourmet Rhapsody']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76420130 to: Gourmet Rhapsody (Paperback) by Muriel Barbery
I loved "The elegance of Hedgehog"; I even read somewhere that the book had been prescribed for some patients of psychoanalysis instead of medication. I can not compare the two books ("Rhapsody" was the first one published by Barbery), they are completely different. This book is a poem, a song dedicated to food. It is a hymn of odaration for the delights and pleasures of eating. The story makes you dismiss any concept of diets and enjoy the butter, cream and rich cakes, to crave fresh bread and fried meat. The book is about family, language and the obsession with food. It may be a typical French way of eating, but you'll feel sorry for yourself. Even the dog in the story is "obsessive bulimic" with "irrepressible passion for eating". The author now lives in Japan and I hope that her next book will be another delight to the senses. ]]> <![CDATA[Vicky added 'The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73690313 to: The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (Hardcover) by Gregory Cochran
Here is a book about human evolution, based on the latest researches in molecular biology. The authors strongly believe that natural selection did not stop around 40.000 to 50.000 years ago, but in fact is going on today. They discuss the recent genetic changes such as adult milk tolerance or IQ scores of Ashkenazi Jews as a result of change in their biology with the change of socio-economic factors. ]]> <![CDATA[Vicky added 'The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76171103 The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession (Hardcover) by Allison Hoover Bartlett
bookshelves: to-read
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