I didn't know the Gill Sims blog before I started reading this book. I just bought it before the Greek holiday to have a lighter read at hand, because I knew I'll try to tackle The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, which had me scared by its sheer volume. As you can expect from the title …
Hmmm, it's one of the ancient Kindle Daily Deals buys. I've got back then a few books by Charlotte and Aaron Elkins and now from time to time, I bump into them. As I tend to be a stubborn creature, once I start reading them I usually finish. Thankfully they are not overly long, so …
Continue reading A Dangerous Talent – Charlotte Elkins, Aaron Elkins
The reason I decided to write about her in À la recherche du temps perdu is because she is the only person I know who really understands time. Old Jiko is supercareful with her time. She does everything really really slowly, even when she’s just sitting on the veranda, looking out at the dragonflies spinning …
Continue reading A Tale for the Time Being – Ruth Ozeki – Quotes
This book lingered on my Kidle for a long time, definitely since before I started blogging in 2015. Somehow first I could not get drawn to it and then once I started blogging and moved to reading a lot more paperback it really got stuck in the back shelf. But as it happens the last …
Most of us know at least the gist of the story of the Trojan war. But how much do we really know about the men and heroes who took part in it? Madeline Miller, jus tas in Circe, gives here the voice to a side character, but one who is at the heart of the …
it was easy to agree with the German poet Heinrich Heine, who allegedly said that if a war ever broke out he would head straight for the Netherlands, because 'everything happens fifty years later there'. Initially, I had been under the vague impression that it was one of those eco-friendly countries where environmental protection was …
Continue reading Why the Dutch are Different – Ben Coates – Quotes
I rarely, or never write here about politics. But this time I need to briefly mention Brexit to explain how I came about this book. In October with my Bigger Half we were going for a vacation in Crete. At that time the Brexit deadline was, very appropriately, Halloween. Understandably we had multiple discussions where …
Oh wow! What a book!...and yes, I am being completely, over the top, sarcastic about it. How lucky you are that it will probably never be translated into English. It truly is a feast of graphomania. At just over 500 pages, I think the editor gouged their eyes somewhere around page 200 (till then with …
Some people acquire the travel bug. Others are born with it. My affliction, if that’s what it is, went into remission for many years following my aborted expedition with Drew. It resurfaced after college with renewed fury. I desperately wanted to see the world, preferably on someone else’s dime. But how? I had no marketable …
Continue reading The Geography of Bliss – Eric Weiner – Quotes
I heard about this book in a bit unusual way. While I was at a Lean training in my corporate job, someone mentioned their friend reading it. The topic caught my interest: to travel the world in search of the happiest country an to understand what actually makes it so. Dutifully I acquired this book …
bookskeptic.com 