Time for a commercial break

My reading is not going very fast at the moment. I am reading Geert Mak’s In Europe, which at 1100+ pages will keep me busy for a while. I am reading one chapter a day, over breakfast in bed in the morning. At this pace I will finish it at the end of December. I am about 150 pages in, but I am already thoroughly enjoying the book. It’s well-written, informative, and very readable. It may well end up among my favorite reads of this year. Apart from that I am reading Lev Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. Despite the Dutch translation being rather old-fashioned (it was done in the 1960s if I’m not mistaken), once again I am amazed at how readable Tolstoy actually is. I remember that from reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina and his Caucasus-based stories years ago, but I find it true once again.

I do have some old reviews to finish and post, but instead I decided to do some advertizing here. There are two recently published books that I think deserve more attention. I didn’t realize until writing this post, that they have some things in common: they are both set during World War II and in both the main character is female and involved in the resistance movement against the Germans. Though, my guess is that may be where the similarities end (I have only read one of the books yet).

The one I haven’t read yet, but will get a copy of next month, is Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard by Deborah Rey. I found Deborah’s short stories online in early 2008 and wrote about them here. At that time her first novel Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard was supposed to be published in spring, but due to circumstances that didn’t happen. Fortunately, Deborah’s novel was eventually published by Merilang last September. I wrote a long post about Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard here, so I’ll just refer you to that. A video introducing the book is here.

One warning, most of the links I mentioned in my earlier blogposts don’t work anymore, but Deborah’s website is here. She has posted some of her poetry and short stories there as well.

You can buy Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard online here and here.

Reviews of Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard are at (be aware that most were posted in the spring of 2008, when the book was initially supposed to be published):
Belinda Subraman Presents
First Draft
Patricia Debney
Caroline Smailes
Wired Karisma
Sue Guiney: Writing Life

The other book I want to mention was already published over the summer. I was approached by author Libby Cone way back in 2008 if I was interested in reviewing her then self-published novel War on the Margins. I was, so a copy was duly sent my way. I enjoyed the book a lot; you can read my review here. War on the Margins received a lot of positive attention from bookbloggers at the time. At least partly as a result of this, the book was picked up by Duckworth Publishers and it was published this summer. I received a proof copy, which I just wanted to flip through and read parts to find out if the story and text had changed much. But I ended up reading the book front to cover again and enjoying the story once more.

Interviews with Libby Cone are here and here.

You can buy War on the Margins online here.

Here are some other reviews of the book:
Dovegreyreader
Rob Around Books
Letters from a Hill Farm
Random Distractions
Literary License
Bookgeeks
Rainbow Reviews
60 going on 16
The Literary Housewife Review