Widow for One Year finished

This is the third time I am writting this post, so I am going to keep it short.

This was the last of my winter stack challenge, so I successfully finished my first reading challenge. As usual I enjoyed Irving's disfunctional family and the way they dealt with life and each other. The last part of the book was actually quite a bit of a turn off as all the ends tied up too neatly and it was just too much happy end. Luckily I was in the mood for a happy end otherwise it would have pissed me of quite a lot.

I am happy to have this heavy hardcover out of my bag as carrying it to and from work weighted me down quite a bit. I will happily stay with my paperbacks. I have started Das Buch vom Salz, a ficitional report from Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas cook in Paris. Despite this being in my mother tongue it is not an easy read so far, I need to get the rythm of the writing that is quite different from Irving. This book was a christmas gift from MyGuy and I am sure he will be happy to see me read it. It always makes him unsure if he got the right thing if I do not read it right away. Besides it will be a nice change before I dive in the classics for the classics challenge as well as the Knit the Classics.

Blind Assassin

This was my fourth book for the Winter Stack Challenge and I finally finished it yesterday. This book was just what I have come to expect from Atwood: dark and multidimensional. This time there were 3 lines to follow plus some newspaper extracts. The present day line, the life line and the book line were interwoven. If you do not enjoy jumping back and forth you might find this book off putting, but I always enjoy it. I could sympathize with the main characters wish to see herself in a positive light as she is aware of it. Though on occasion I got upset with her for being such a "drifter" in life.

Quite a few people are reading a book by Atwood for the tbr challenge and I am wondering if anyone would be interested in reading her at the same time, for example in April? I have Edible Woman and Penelopeide to read and Handmaid to reread, I also want to read Surfacing.

I am now reading John Irving's Widow for one Year. The main reason this has been on my tbr stack for ages is that this is a hardcover and therefore not easily tugged in a purse or coat pocket. It was bought when I still lived in Giessen, so at the very latest in 1997. 10 years later I am finally reading it. So far it is a good read. Though Irving is not exactly a light weight either compared to Atwood it's less work (so far). I am considering to rebuy this in paperback as I want to keep it for my Irving collection and the hardcover has to go as it takes up too much room. So if anyone wants it in February, let me know.

Catch-22 done

I have finished the third book from my Winter Stack Challenge: Catch-22. This is a book that I meant to read for quite some time and I actually enjoyed most of it. I liked the catch that if you are asking not to fly you are sane and have to fly. The deaths were sometimes gruesome but made it all the more believeable that Yossarian would not want to fly.

I decided to read this book after reading Beginner's Luck where it is mentioned. I do this quite a bit, read a book that I came across in another one. Does anyone else do this?

Because both my other stack books are heavy, I have snuck in a small one, I got the new Daisy Dalrymple mystery Death of a Philanderer and am looking forward to see Daisy and gang at the seashore. This is a favorite series of mine.

Pat Barker's Another World

This is the first of my books that I wanted to read in November to remember WWI and WWII. I had read Barker's Regeneration Triology, but while Another World is an interesting book it is not as intense as the triology.

Nick is a man with a patchwork family and a pregnant wife as well as a sick grandfather who is while approaching death relives the horrors of WWI. While I liked the basic story and the voice of the book, I feel it fell short of what it could have been. There was a bit about Nick and his family's disfunctionalities reflected in the earlier owners of their house and a bit of the horror of Somme reflected in Geordie's story, but it remained superficial and none of the stories really drew me in.

But at least it is out of my stack now.