07 November 2011

Read: October Books

source: strandbooks.com

E.M. Forster: Howard's End
Ben Hecht: 1001 Afternoons in Chicago
Jasper Fforde: One of our Tuesdays is Missing
Peter Carey: Parrot and Olivier in America

It was a pretty good reading month. There was some seriously good reading (Forster and Carey), some fun (Fforde), and a nice surprise (Hecht). Hecht's book is a collection of columns written for the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s. A thoughtful friend gave me the book this summer and since our shipment was delayed, it was the only book out of a box that I hadn't read yet. Lucky me – it was delightful. The character sketches in particular were really nice. The illustrations were also really neat with the title of the story worked into each illustration.

Last month, I became a member of the local library. Local is no exaggeration either, the library is two doors down from our front door. How's that for living downtown? They have a surprisingly large collection of English language novels for a university town in the Netherlands. Chapel Hill is a university town too, but their foreign language section pales in comparison. The same was true in Haarlem, so go Holland! I picked up Fforde and Carey there. It turns out that I can reserve books for free via their website, so with some luck, a few choice selections will be waiting for me this week.

source: Literatuurplein.nl

We read some good kids books this month as well. We read the Dutch versions, but two are translated from English and one (de Cock) is a book without words.

David Lucas: Hendrik Heilbot (originally Halibut Jackson)
Sjoerd Kuyper, Daan Remmerts de Vries: Sjaantje doet alsof
Martin Waddell and Jill Barton: Plons! (originally The Pig in the Pond)
Nicole de Cock: Aan de overkant
Peter Brouwers: Bertje Big

Peanut liked the two pig stories the best (Waddell and Brouwers) – at least those were the ones we read the most. When it came to returning books, though, the only one he wanted to keep was Hendrik Heilbot. I loved de Cock's Aan de overkant, which is a love/friendship story in beautiful spare images. Sjaantje doet alsof (more or less translates to “Sjaantje pretends”) is a tear-jerker about a little girl who spending a silly pretending afternoon with her grandfather. On the last page, we learn that her grandfather's already passed away. Cue the tears. I liked it, though.

Did you read anything interesting last month? How do you choose which books to read, for yourself or your little ones?

3 comments:

  1. This might be for a few years from now, but last summer we happened to start reading ALL the Little House on the Prairie books. I never read them as a girl (it was the 70's, I just turned on the TV to watch re-runs with my after-school snack), and was absolutely delighted to read them to my 4 1/2 year old. The timing was a perfect segue into watching the series on DVD on cold winter nights. It demonstrated excellent lessons of good vs. not-good behavior and a mutual respect, with a peek into American history and religion, and the realization for how much easier life is for us nowadays.

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  2. I've never watched the TV show, but still love the books. Read them this spring again, too. It's amazing how good they still are!

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  3. Hey, glad you enjoyed the book!

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