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Category Archives: Tale

Memoirs, tales and short stories: mini-reviews from October’16 Readathon

24 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Isi in Autobiography, Books, Drama, Historical fiction, Literary fiction, Memoir, Non-fiction, Short stories, Tale, World War II

≈ 1 Comment

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Anna Gavalda, Marga Minco, Sjón

As I told you, I chose short books for the Readathon, and that was the best idea I ever had: I read five books during the event! And, this is remarkable, all of them were interesting and enjoyable reads. This was a surprise because I just browsed the library and borrowed books based entirely on their number of pages, without any further information about them but the synopsis on the back cover.

I read almost all of them in Spanish, but I have seen they have also been translated into English, so I am free to recommend them here on my blog  🙂

Bitter Herbs: The Vivid Memories of a Fugitive Jewish Girl in Nazi Occupied Holland (Marga Minco)

bitter-herbs-marga-mincoThis is a memoir of the author, and I think it is considered a classic in some Northern European countries, like The diary of Anne Frank.

The story starts when the German soldiers enter Marga’s town and, when she asks her father if they are going to deport the Jews, like they were doing in Germany, he says that ‘Something like that could never happen here‘. Her family didn’t want to leave the country and none of them survived except Marga.

It is a terrible story, of course, but the author doesn’t put any sentimentalism on the text; she just gives us her memories as facts for us to cover the passages with the fear and pain Marga must have felt in her youth.

Book on Goodreads.

The blue fox (Sjón)

the-blue-fox-sjonThis is a short tale set in the middle of the Nineteenth Century in Iceland. I thought I was going to read a story of men against nature, but I was very wrong.

The story starts with a priest chasing a fox for its fur but, as they move towards the mountains through the snow, the narration is interrupted to tell us what has happened those days in the village. There has been a death, and thanks to the preparations for her funeral, we are going to know the story of a girl who was “different”.

This is that kind of book you don’t want to talk about so much, for the prospective readers to discover the story by themselves. It is thought-provoking, sad and beautiful.

Book on Goodreads.

I wish someone were waiting for me somewhere (Anna Gavalda)

i-wish-someone-were-waiting-for-me-somewhereThis is a collection of short stories and, even though it is not a genre of my liking, I have to recommend it, because most of the stories are shocking, affecting the reader in one way or another.

What they have in common is the impact of one single event that, in less than a minute, changes everything. Apart from this, there are different genres, characters, situations, etc.

I specially liked three of them: a humorous story about two rich boys who take their father’s car without permission; one about a female veterinarian who has trouble making herself a place in a small village; and one about a salesman whose life has been destroyed by himself alone.

Book on Goodreads.

The snow child, by Eowyn Ivey

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Isi in Books, Tale

≈ 24 Comments

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Eowyn Ivey

the snow child copia

I can’t help feeling surprised every time I go to the public library and I discover that they have a certain book I want to read, and I am more than astonished when one of those books is in the English section. They are purchasing a lot of books that have been published more or less recently, and despite all the books that I have in my “to be read” pile, I always get one book or two in English when I visit the library.

I knew The snow child because Leander wrote that kind of review that makes you need to read the book, and it has been a great recommendation because this tale is a special one that makes you live for a while in another world.

I take photographs to the books for my Spanish blog, and this is the one I chose.

I take photographs to the books for my Spanish blog, and this is the one I chose for The snow child

Mabel and Jack are a middle-aged couple that have decided to earn a living in Alaska in the 1920s. They don’t have any children and don’t know anybody there, so they try to work alone that hard and cold land unsuccessfully before realizing that there are other people living there that are keen to help each other. Perhaps Jack and Mabel have been so lonely all their lives that they haven’t got to know that winter is not so cold when you can share the hard work in the forest, and also the hot meal at the end of the day; that’s totally new for them but it changes their lives.

One night after visiting their neighbours (a neighbor there meant that they live a few miles away from them), it starts snowing and the couple make a beautiful snow girl in their yard, to discover the next morning that the snow girl is gone but a little child has appeared in the forest. She visits them from time to time, getting some animals and fruits for them as presents, and even though they are very worried about her being alone in the winter, the girl never stops for a long time in their cabin and seems to know the forest as well as the palm of her hand. But this child only appears when they both are alone and their neighbours think they are getting some kind of sickness in that isolated place.

This is a little tale in which the reader just doesn’t know if the child is real or not, but it doesn’t really matter because you see that the main characters, Jack and Mabel, find a new beginning just by loving that child as if she were their own, thinking that they are not alone in this world. And this is a relief, because in the first chapter of the book Mabel is about to commit suicide in the river near their lands.

Besides these few charming characters, the location is also important in the story since the author creates a unique atmosphere there in Alaska with small villages where the pioneers tried to get a new beginning far away from their homes; a place where everything is possible, even to create a child of the first snow of the year. And you won’t believe it, but when I was reading the book in my village, the weather changed and was quite cold for a couple of days, making me wonder if Mabel, Jack and the child would appear there in the mountains.

The snow child is an emotional story you will love.

rakin5

Other reviews of this book:

  • Rebecca’s review
  • Charlie’s review
  • Lucy’s review
  • Heavenali’s review
  • Jennifer’s reaction
Book on Goodreads
Keep calm and read 20 books in English: 14/20

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