Chris’s Comments (group member since Feb 01, 2011)

Chris’s comments from the Around the World in Books group.

Definately time for a lighter book (I made sure I was reading some Roald Dahl whilst reading about Cambodia to make sure I didn't get too depressed hehe).

I can't find any funny Danish books, but Tales of the Night by Peter Hoeg looks lighter. 8 unconnected short love stories all set on one night in 1929.

Hi Sue, we are rotating by letter of the alphabet now, so will have to wait a while for Canada I'm afraid!

Thanks for the suggestions - I know somebody who really likes Number the Stars, which is always a good sign.

Gotta love the top review in Smilla's Sense of Snow ... "Miss Smilla and her cast of characters were so quirky that after 100 pages I found all this quirk over the front of my shirt, all over the dining table (well, I call it a dining table) and stuck between the keys on my keyboard. Had to get it out with a Swiss Army knife, once it had dried."

(not to put anyone off or anything ;) )

Two books immediately spring to mind that I'd like to read:

1. By a famous Dane - The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales.

2. Shakespeare play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

The country we will be reading from in December is Denmark.

Please let me know any Danish books (or books about or set in Denmark) that you would like added to the poll.

I will set the poll up on the 24th November, so it would be great if you could get your suggestions in by then.

This month's books are from Cambodia. The joint winners of the poll are The Disappeared and When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge.

Please discuss them here!

We have another tie for the book to read next month. With 3 votes apiece are:

Fiction: The Disappeared by Kim Echlin
and
Non-fiction: WHEN BROKEN GLASS FLOATS by Chanrithy Him.

Did anybody have a favourite section? I have to say mine was probably the final third, 'At Sea'. Either that or when his boy was catching the fish. I don't think I've ever had whiter knuckles from gripping a book so hard!

The poll is now live. Voting ends on the 27th.

I went to see Midnight in Paris at the cinema last night. I didn't even know what it was about beforehand so was pleasantly surprised that one of the main characters was Ernest Hemingway! In the film he speaks exactly as he writes, and was probably my favourite character.

Amongst a host of artists and musicians, F Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and TS Eliot (briefly) appear. Good film :)

That wasn't half bad for an unfinished novel! I lost interest in the middle section a few times, but apart from that I was hooked.

A few personal accounts of the Cambodian genocide:

When Broken Glass Floats by Chanrithy Him

First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

Stay Alive, My Son by Pin Yathay

Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor

My first book by Hemingway too ... to me it feels like an adult version of the books I used to read as a boy (books like the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton). Really enjoying it!

Now that we have started reading October's book, let's get the ball rolling for November's.

Next month's book will be set in the first country alphabetically of the letter C - Cambodia.

I would like to suggest The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine by Somaly Mam.

I backpacked around SE Asia in 2007 when I was 18 and was taken aback at the sheer number of prostitutes that worked in every large town. While I knew, obviously, that they weren't doing this job for pleasure, it never occured to me that they were trafficked. So I am very interested in this book to have a glimpse into the life of a former prostitute.

Please suggest any books you would like to read, and we'll put them into a poll on the 20th October.

The group has voted for Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream as this month's book, from the Bahamas.

Feel free to talk about it here.

Hi Autumn, the poll ended today. The book for October will be Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway.

Who knew that Azerbaijan would be so interesting? I've now ordered The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life.

Also, if anybody is interested in this region I strongly recommend Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore. This account of Stalin's life pre-Russian Revolution definately reads more like a novel than a history, as Stalin at this stage was more a gung-ho gangster than a politician.

The picture Montefiore paints of Azerbaijan is dramatically different than in Ali and Nino: A Love Story. Baku is shown to be a disgusting, blackened oil town run by corrupt policemen and oil magnates, filled by permanent stench of rotting carcasses.

"Baku was a city of 'debauchery, despotism and extravagance' and a twilight zone of 'smoke and gloom'. Its own governor called it 'the most dangerous place in Russia'. For Stalin it was 'the Oil Kingdom' ... a melting pot of pitiful poverty and incredible wealth'."

I picked Ali and Nino this month. I really enjoyed it. I've always been interested in going to Turkey as it is famously the boundary between Europe and Asia, but I'd never even considered that other countries must be be caught between the two either.

This is essentially what Ali and Nino was about; the relationship between Ali - a native Muslim Azerbaijani, and Nino - a Christian from a Georgian family who has grown up in Azerbaijan.

I thought that this would be a basic culture-clash romance, but fortunately this was not the case. As they are both from high ranking families the plot involves much larger questions of patriotism, national duty and, perhaps most interestingly, the effects of a pervading European lifestyle on Muslim personal and state religion.

Perhaps above all this book is written so evocatively. I loved the way the author (whoever he/she/they are!) portrayed the two cultures so contrastedly, including everything from women's rights, to how to eat, to the landscapes, to thought processes, to architecture, etc etc. I suppose because this was so clear, really felt like I understood the helplessness of Ali's culture being eroded by European ways and likewise Nino's utter hatred of being a 'kept woman' in more traditional areas of that part of the world.

Would definitely recommend this book to anybody interested in the relationship Muslim and Western culture.

The poll is now live... I like the idea of travelling East geographically but do envisage problems (i.e. when to go North or South). I think Elizabeth's idea of going to C next then D etc would be most practical and interesting way of doing things.

I guess it doesn't really matter whichever way we do it. There are 196 countries in the world... that's 16 years' worth if we read one a month - plenty of time to decide how we are going to get through them all!

OK, two more days for book suggestions then I'll put the options into a poll.