Nonfiction November 2021: Book Pairings

Posted on November 8, 2021 by WordsAndPeace

#NonficNov
#nonfictionbookparty: Instagram Daily Challenge
Click on the logo to see the detailed schedule

Here is the topic for Week 2 (Nov. 8-12):
Book Pairings
hosted by Katie at Doing Dewey

This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.
It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!”
or just two titles that you think would go well together.
Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history
by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

Today, I’m offering you 3 novels paired with 3 nonfiction books I read this year

Click on the covers to get more details

BOOK PAIRING #1

RUSSIAN LITERATURE

And the Earth Will Sit on the Moon: Essential Stories
VERDICT: A good sample of strange and disorienting short stories of the Russian master in the genre.
The Nose is one of the stories studied and brilliantly presented by George Saunders – as part of his classes on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University.
And it is one of Gogol’s stories offered in this new collection.

BOOK PAIRING #2

INDIAN-ANGLO LITERATURE

Quichotte:
VERDICT: Brilliant take on Don Quixote. Tragicomedy on our society and where it’s going.
I finally discovered Salman Rushdie’s brilliant mind and writing last year.
So this year I decided to read this amazing collection of essays.
And in case you are interested, even though it’s not nonfiction, you might want to join us in our readalong of The Satanic Verses.

BOOK PAIRING #3

FRENCH LITERATURE

The Meursault Investigation:
I could obviously have paired it with the novel itself, The Stranger by Camus, which you probably all know.
But you may not know The Meursault Investigation:
A fascinating rereading of The Stranger by Camus, opening up to broader historico-social perspectives, and casting a harsh light on the events of yesterday and today.

HAVE YOU READ ANY OF THESE?
WOULD YOU HAVE OTHER BOOK PAIRINGS
RELATED TO THESE CATEGORIES?

2021: August wrap-up

Posted on September 1, 2021 by WordsAndPeace

AUGUST 2021 WRAP-UP

I published a recap post yesterday on my #20BooksofSummer21, which went really well this year.
Now is time for a shorter recap, just on the month of August. I thought this month zoomed by too quickly, but I did actually manage to read a lot.
At the beginning of the year, I was averaging almost 14 books a month (more than my usual numbers), and I thought it was just because I was listening to a lot of (short) books from the Bible (Old Testament).
Well, I didn’t listen to any Bible book in August (as a little break between Old and New Testament), and still managed to read 16 books, so I’m glad with the numbers.

August has now my best statistics for 2021 so far, as for number of pages read per day.

Another neat thing is that I finally caught up with all the reviews I needed to write for Netgalley books read in 2020! I just need now to write 3 reviews for Edelweiss Plus books read in 2020, and I will be up to date on these.

It was fun participating in #BoutofBooks.
And I announced an upcoming Read-along/ buddy-read (with Marianne at Let’s Read) on The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie.

📚 Here is what I read in August:

16 books:
10 in print
= with 3,035 pages, a daily average of 97 pages/day
6 in audio
= 41H01, a daily average of 1H19

12 in mystery:

The Labors of Hercules (Hercule Poirot #27), by Agatha Christie
The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories, by Agatha Christie
Taken at the Flood (Hercule Poirot #28), by Agatha Christie
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, by Agatha Christie
The Under Dog and Other Stories (Hercule Poirot #4), by Agatha Christie
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (Hercule Poirot #32), by Agatha Christie – these first 6 were as audiobooks, for The Classics Club
Un Trou dans la toile, by Luc Chomarat – French ebook
Tension extrême, by Sylvain Forge – French ebook
Bomber’s Moon, by Archer Mayor
A Fine Line, by Dan Burns
The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny
Le Village aux huit tombes, by Seishi Yokomizo – Japanese classic in French translation, for the Books in Translation Challenge and for The Classics Club

2 in nonfiction:

History in English Words, by Owen Barfield – for The Classics Club
Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic, by Alice Kaplan

1 in historical fiction: