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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

Friday Finds -- Apr 09, 2010

Friday Finds

This meme is hosted by MizB at Should be reading. What great books did you hear about/discover this past week?

This post was supposed to have gone up last week. But for some unearthly reason that I can't quite fathom, it didn't. I think it has to do with using Blogger Draft, which did that to me twice! So instead I'm putting up that same post.

My finds

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

I found this book in Oprah online. It got me interested enough to walk to the library today, but because of the steadily pouring rain, I gave up. I'll probably head back there tomorrow. Only 107 pages!

This recording is the only one ever made with Dylan Thomas as part of the cast of "Under Milk Wood", his final work--newly repackaged by Caedmon. It is an inspired and irreverent account of life and love one spring day in a small Welsh coastal village. Full of raucous energy and lyrical passion, it is the most complete expression of Thomas's unique perspective on the human condition.

 
In This Way I Was Saved by Brian DeLeeuw

I saw this book in one of my Goodreads groups. The synopsis sounded very intense to me, and you all know I love intense books, even if they give me a headache later! Have any of you read this one?

On a chilly November afternoon, six-year-old Luke Nightingale's life changes forever. On the playground across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he encounters Daniel. Soon the boys are hiding from dinosaurs and shooting sniper rifles. Within hours, Luke and his mother, Claire, are welcoming Daniel into their Upper East Side apartment -- and their lives.

Daniel and Luke are soon inseparable. With his parents divorcing, Luke takes comfort in having a near-constant playmate. But there's something strange about Daniel, who is more than happy to bind himself to the Nightingales. The divorce has cut Luke's father out of the picture, and as his increasingly fragile mother struggles with the insidious family depression, Daniel -- shrewd, adventurous, and insightful -- provides Luke both recreation and refuge.

As Luke grows from a child to an adolescent to a young man, he realizes that as much as his mother needs him, Daniel needs him more. Jealous of Luke's other attachments, Daniel moves from gestures of friendship into increasingly sinister manipulations. In the end, Luke finds himself in a daily battle for control of his own life -- wondering whether he or Daniel will emerge victorious.


Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Color Online reviewed this impressive-sounding book last week. This is another one added to my bloated TBR.

Purple Hibiscus, Nigerian-born writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's debut, begins like many novels set in regions considered exotic by the western reader: the politics, climate, social customs, and, above all, food of Nigeria (balls of fufu rolled between the fingers, okpa bought from roadside vendors) unfold like the purple hibiscus of the title, rare and fascinating. But within a few pages, these details, however vividly rendered, melt into the background of a larger, more compelling story of a joyless family. Fifteen-year-old Kambili is the dutiful and self-effacing daughter of a rich man, a religious fanatic and domestic tyrant whose public image is of a politically courageous newspaper publisher and philanthropist. No one in Papa's ancestral village, where he is titled "Omelora" (One Who Does For the Community), knows why Kambili's brother cannot move one of his fingers, nor why her mother keeps losing her pregnancies. When a widowed aunt takes an interest in Kambili, her family begins to unravel and re-form itself in unpredictable ways.

Comments

Cat said…
The last two both sound really good - checked my library catalogue and they have them both so on the TBR they go.

Thanks :-)
great picks....I LOVED Purple Hibiscus, and have In This Way I Was Saved )still unread). I hope you get a lot of time to read this weekend :)
bermudaonion said…
I haven't heard of any of those, but they all look good to me! I hope it's nice enough today for you to walk to the library.
Unknown said…
These are all great finds. They sounds really interesting. You can check out my find here:

http://bookventuresbookclub.blogspot.com/2010/04/friday-finds.html
Tales of Whimsy said…
The smoke and shoes cover catches me every time!
In This Way does look SO good!
Carina said…
Purple Hibiscus looks so good - I'm adding it to my TBR list!

My post is here.
Literary Feline said…
I have a copy of Purple Hibiscus and need to read it. I really liked Half a Yellow Sun by the same author.
Anne Pages said…
I love the last two. I will surely look for them.