Sunday, June 22, 2008

Doctor Fischer of Geneva OR the Bomb Party

Graham Greene

I already read this book twice before, but it was in Hebrew. Besides, I didn't remember quite how it ended. I wanted to see if I would still like it, and what its like in its original language. I wasn't disappointed. Just like the other times it was captivating, and so I finished it fairly quickly.
Now, so I won't be so consumed by reading, I just started a book that will be much easier for me to lay down and go and do something else...

Thursday, June 19, 2008

A Thousand Splendid Suns [Hebrew]

By Khaled Hosseini

An interesting story about two women in Afghanistan as their lives change and merge with the historical changes that occur their from the '70s to just a couple of years ago.
I found myself wanting to come home early from work to finish the book. It was tense at times, and had scenes that I absolutely would not want to see in a movie. Books are so much better in this regard - I can take a lot more when I don't have to see it (and can use my imagination to make it less horrible, I guess).

Thursday, June 12, 2008

World Cup Wishes (Mish'ala Achat Yamina) - Hebrew

by Eshkol Nevo

A really interesting story about friendship between four guys and how it changes over time from one world cup soccer championship to another, as told by one of the friends. Set in Israel during the second Intifada but also looks back to the first one.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

The Jewish Dog (Hakelev Hayehudi) - Hebrew

by Asher Kravitz

There was a time when I wanted to write a book from the point of view of a dog. "A dog's life" I thought I'd call it. But then Paul Auster (Timboktu) and Asher Kravitz beat me up to it. The difference between their books and mine, however, would be that theirs are mostly sad. I wanted mine to be funny.
This book tells the story of the Jewish haulocost and world war II through the eyes of a dog who grew up in a Jewish family, and despite many fate turnovers, he always felt like a jew. Even when he had to bit up jews as the pet of the son of a Nazi officer. Even when he was stationed in Treblinka in the service of the Nazis.
It was mostly sad, but interesting.

Monday, June 2, 2008

The Poisonwood Bible

By Barbara Kingsolver

What a masterpiece! Reminded me of "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth, in that it told the story of a nation through the story of a family, with a lot of parallels. It also boggles my mind to see more evidence to the horrible behavior of US government all throughout the last few decades, all because of some fear of communism. A behavior that cost many lives and left most of the developing countries under-developed. It's really infuriating.
Anyway, when I got the book (from the same store I got B. Kingsolver's other book, because of the cat) I thought it would be like her two other books I read (the second, without my knowing, turned out to be a sequel of the first) which I really liked. It was different but I wasn't disappointed at all! Seemed to be more complex, but just as easily read and fascinating as the others.