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...
I had two books come in this week. Both of which I'm really looking forward to reading! Both of which are based in India. Lately, I had been ruing the fact that only a very small portion of my reads are based in India, despite the many wonderful Indian authors. It actually has to do with a fear that the books won't live up to my expectations (and I do set different expectations for books from my native country, quite subconsciously). I went to the independent bookstore, Little Dickens and Givens books, near my apartment yesterday, and came across Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts on one of the used books shelves. Just look at that cover! I'm glad that it is this particular cover that I own and not this more ubiquitous blue and green cover. This mostly-autobiographical novel about a man who escapes from an Australian prison only to arrive in India, with illegal papers. He goes on to help slum-dwellers (I think). At 936 pages, Shantaram is on my PIE list to tackle this year, and considering its size, I'm glad I bought it this early in the year! Since I definitely plan to read this book this year, I could also do it as a readalong or a buddy-read with any of you who is just as interested. Just let me know in the comments below!
The other book I received this week is for the wonderful TLC book tour - Someone Else's Garden by Dipika Rai. Touted as "an epic tale of mothers and daughters, it sounds highly intriguing to me. The protagonist has a very hard life - as a female in rural India, with a terrible arranged marriage that causes her to flee home. Typed in small-print and at almost 400 pages - I better start reading it soon, if I want to avoid cramming it on the day before my review is due!
I must have told this twice at least - about the books I picked at the library last week. No? Well, here goes again!
Two middle-grade books - Diary of a Wimpy Kid #2 and #3 by Jeff Kinney! What? Oh, were you asking who the middle-grade kid is? Well,... that's me, LOL! Well, having discovered this series last month, I had to finish it all before I moved on to my books! I devoured one (book #2) right away, but have been holding off the other one, to make the excitement last longer.
The third book I picked from my library is This Bitter Earth by Bernice McFadden. This is an author whose writing I really enjoy. Her prose is so beautiful, that I read each sentence at a slow pace to fully appreciate the context and content. I read the prequel, Sugar last year in April, and have been thinking of reading This Bitter Earth since then. Now that I do have the book, I plan to read it soon, except that I may have to reread Sugar once again, just to recollect the finer points that I've forgotten.
I also downloaded Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin from my library's overdrive. I'm not exactly sure when I can read this, since right now, my plate looks full, but optimism has always been us book-blogger's strongest trait, right? So, I'm going to keep my hopes up that next week, we'll get a blizzard that will wonderfully keep us home from office. (I hope the weather-god's listening!)Those are all the books in my bag this week - have you read any of these or have any of them in your wishlist? (Don't forget to let me know if you wish to read Shantaram with me.)
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