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336 pages, Paperback
First published September 24, 2013
Διαβάστε και την ελληνική κριτική στις βιβλιοαλχημείες.
I'm a visual, not an auditory type (of learner). I need to see the words, the images, the maps, the infographics, the anything, to be able to understand a certain topic. Or else I'll have a hard time to grasp it and remember it later.
That's why I never listen to audiobooks on their own. The few occasions I used audiobooks were when I needed an extra push, because the text was tough: Ulysses, Mrs. Dalloway, and Heart of Darkness are some examples.
But thanks to the quarantine and the absence of books on my TBR, and thanks also to a friend that suggested we buddy-listen to this audiobook, I finally listened to my first audiobook on the rocks.
The English title is With a Faber Number Two Pencil and it's precisely what the title says: memoirs written by the author while a young girl with a Faber-Castell Pencil No 2 (HB)
Alki Zei (the author) was one of the first to leave us this year. One of the many People of Letters from Greece to die in this nasty year.
In this book she narrates her life from her birth (1925) until her early adult years during the Nazi Occupation of Athens and ends during the bitter civil war just after the end of the WWII.
Many of her books are required readings for students in Greece and Cyprus.
One of them, Petros' War, was my first required reading in Middle School and even though we studied it I never actually finished it.
But I'm glad I didn't because I will read it having in mind Zei's experiences during the war. A child's view of Nazi occupation of Athens which is similar with Petros' in the novel, a book I'll eventually read this October (28th)
I will, in other words, read Petros' War having first experienced Zei's war and will be able to recognise events that happened in her own life.
It's a pity I discovered this author the year of her death, but better late than never. She will forever live through her books and through our readings of them.