Top 5 Tuesday ~ Yellow

  

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

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This week’s topic is Yellow. Meeghan says: "The first of May is Beltane and one of my fave Celtic celebrations. Beltane is generally celebrated with yellow flowers, and so we are doing our top 5 yellow books!"

I already did Top Ten Tuesday yesterday, so I moved this one to Wednesday.

While yellow is not my favourite colour (that would be green), I do like it. It's so fresh and friendly. And I had no problem, finding lots of yellow covers. I have tried to use those that are more yellow than anything else. Enjoy.

Büchner, Georg "Woyzeck" (GE: Woyzeck)- 1879
Part of a stage play, unfinished, incomplete, published posthumously but became one of the most performed and influential plays in the German theatre repertory.
All the elements of a great story. Modelled after a real life figure, Woyzeck is a man with lots of problems, a "common" man, a low grade soldier with all the disadvantages the working man had at the time.

Paull, Laline "The Bees" - 2014
The story about a bee who does not conform with what she is supposed to be doing, she is smarter than other bees from her status, she is "above her class".
This book has given me a lot to think about.

Seth, Vikram "An Equal Music" - 1999
The story of a violonist and his problems with love, his job, his parents, but mainly love.

Vargas, Jose Antonio "Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen" - 2018
This is such an interesting book that puts a face to all those "illegal immigrants".

Yu, Hua (余華/Yú Huá) "China in Ten Words" (十個詞彙裡的中國/Shi ge cihui li de Zhongguo) - 2012
The book teaches us a lot about life in China during the lifetime of the author (born 1960) so far as well as about the author himself.

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🟨🟡Happy Reading!🟡🟨

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Top Ten Tuesday ~ May Flowers

       

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

May is the month of flowers, so I was not surprised about this week's topic.

May Flowers - Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt (books with flowers on the cover, flower names in the title, characters whose names are flower names, stories involving flowers/gardeners).

I have done challenges with tulips quite often, so this time I thought, I'll choose some books that are not about flowers but have a picture of them on the cover. And I chose five different kind of flowers. It was fun.

Barbery, Muriel "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" (F: L’Elégance du hérisson) - 2006
Morrison, Toni "Beloved" - 1987
Shakespeare, William "Romeo and Juliet" - 1597
Stroyar, J.N. "Becoming Them" (The Children's War #3) - 2017
Urquhart, Jane "The Underpainter" - 1997 (not my favourite by this author)

📚 Happy Reading! 📚

Tsumura, Kikuko "There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job"

Tsumura, Kikuko "There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job" (Konoyoni tayasui shigoto wa na/この世にたやすい仕事はない) - 2015

This was our international online book club book for April 2024.

My first impression was, this is a weird book that talks about weird jobs. Some that I never heard about it. A young woman goes from one of them to the next. Jobs that don't seem to require any special experience or talents.

Or is that so? The more we get to know the protagonist, we get to recognize that she has a lot of talents and uses them well to go through her various tasks.

I doubt I would have picked up this novel if I had just come across it in a book shop. And even if I had, despite a pink cover, I don't think the description would have convinced me that this would be a book for me.

But, since it was a book club book, I started and finished it and I can honestly say, it was a nice read.

And - the title is correct, there is no such thing as an easy job.

From the back cover:

"A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing - and ideally, very little thinking.

She is sent to a nondescript office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods. But observing someone for hours on end can be so inconvenient and tiresome. How will she stay awake? When can she take delivery of her favourite brand of tea? And, perhaps more importantly - how did she find herself in this situation in the first place?

As she moves from job to job, writing bus adverts for shops that mysteriously disappear, and composing advice for rice cracker wrappers that generate thousands of devoted followers, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful..."

One of our members recommended this essay: "The Absurdity of Labor in There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job"

Six Degrees of Separation ~ From The Anniversary to Driving by Moonlight

#6Degrees of Separation:
from The Anniversary (Goodreads) to Driving by Moonlight

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here.

The starter book this month is "The Anniversary" by Stephanie Bishop.

I have not read it, so there is no link to that book, but here is the description:

"Novelist J.B. Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband, Patrick, to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Her former professor, film director, and cult figure, Patrick is much older than J.B.. When they met, he seemed somehow ageless, as all gods appear in the eyes of those who worship them. But now his success is starting to wane and J.B. is on the cusp of winning a major literary prize. Her art has been forever overseen by him, now it may overshadow his.

For days they sail in the sun, nothing but dark water all around them. Then a storm hits and Patrick falls from the ship. J.B. is left alone, as the search for what happened to Patrick - and the truth about their marriage - begins.

Propulsive and fiercely intelligent, The Anniversary is exquisitely written with a swift and addictive plot. It’s a novel that asks: how legible, in the mind of the writer, is the line between reality and plot? How do we refuse the people we desire? And what is the cost, to ourselves, to others and to our art, if we don’t?"

Whenever I hear the word "Anniversary", I think about "Wedding" and that is going to be my next link. After that, I will use a word in the title from one book and find another book with that same word in the title. The first word is Wedding.

And since we are on a trip already, I have decided to carry on like that this month and take you on a tour through two continents but lots of different countries.

Benali, Abdelkader "Wedding by the Sea" (NL: Bruiloft aan zee) - 1996

Allende, Isabel "Island Beneath the Sea" (E: La isla bajo el mar) - 2010

Şafak, Elif "The Island of Missing Trees" - 2021

Tolan, Sandy "The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East" - 2006

Stewart, Chris "Driving over Lemons" - 1999

Henderson, Kristin "Driving by Moonlight: A Journey Through Love, War, and Infertility" - 2003

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Honestly, the last book was not one that I particularly liked but I doubt I would like the starter book, so maybe that's what they have in common.

Spell the Month in Books ~ May

          
Reviews from the Stacks

I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Books are the New Black who found it at One Book More. It was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles.

May: Nature

I'm not the biggest nature lover but I absolutely love trees. So, I tried to find some that have the word tree in the title. Unfortunately, I haven't read a book called "Yew Tree", so I had to use a cover that shows trees on it.

MAY

M
Montefiore, Santa "Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree" - 2002
The descriptions about life in South America, Argentina, in this case, are not bad but the whole story is mainly a cheesy love story.


A
Grjasnowa, Olga "All Russians Love Birch Trees" (GE: Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt) - 2012
The protagonist is a young Jewish woman who grew up in Azerbaijan and speaks several languages. She goes from Germany to Israel where she tries to settle. Her home could be everywhere, yet, she finds it is nowhere.

Y
Scott, Mary "Yes, Darling" - 1967
Mary Scott was one of my favourite authors in my teenage years. The stories were written in the fifties/sixties and times have changed, hopefully. Margaret, the heroine of our story, lets herself being bullied all her life. First by her father, then her husband and in the end by her husband's daughter and nieces. I think this might actually be a good book to discuss feminism and how it shouldn't be.

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I definitely recommend the Birch Tree book.

Happy Reading!

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#ThrowbackThursday. Fateless

 

Kertész, Imre "Fateless or "Fatelessness" (Hungarian: Sorstalanság) - 1975

The author is a Holocaust survivor, in fact he was in two of the major concentration camps and as such has a lot to tell about his history. He tells the life of a fifteen year old boy who grows up in Hungary during World War II. We see the Nazi regime and the concentration camps through the eyes of a child who doesn't know anything else. This is his life.

Read my original review here.

Happy May!

  Happy May to all my friends and readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Frank Koebsch

"Frühling an der Steilküste von Klein Zicker"
"Spring on the Cliffs in Klein Zicker"

Frank says to this picture:
"It's always exciting to paint landscapes on the Baltic Sea in plein air, to feel the wind and the sun on your skin and to experience how the Baltic Sea waves crash onto the beach."
"Es ist immer wieder spannend Landschaften an der Ostsee plein air zu malen, den Wind und die Sonne auf der Haut zu spüren und zu erleben, wie die Ostseewellen an den Strand laufen."

Read more on their website here. *

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There is a German folk song called "Der May ist gekommen". (May has arrived/come.) It tells us more or less to not stay at home with worries because the treses are budding and the world is wonderful.

If you are interested, here is the song on Wikipedia.

 

And most Germans take that song to heart and go on a "Maitour", a walk or a bike tour on the first of May which also happens to be a bank holiday. Tag der Arbeit = Labour Day.

 
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We had an early excursion, we went to Bremerhaven with my brothers and their wives. We try to do a siblings outing once a year and have seen many interesting places so far. Here is a picture:

Bremerhaven is not too far from us. It is located at the Weser estuary and belongs to the city-state of Bremen. With 115,000 inhabitants it is only #69 of the largest cities in Germany but it is one of the busiest ports in the country.

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The old German word for April is Winnemond. "Winne" was the name given to driving the cattle out to pasture.

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* You can also have a look under my labels Artist: Frank Koebsch and Artist: Hanka Koebsch where you can find all my posts about the two artists. 

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🌳🌳 I wish you all a Happy May!🌳🌳