I decided long ago, that I wasn’t going to participate in any challenges any more, because they aren’t my thing. But the Women Unbound Challenge is one I cannot not join! The challenge has officially already started, but you can join in whenever you want. From the Women Unbound Challenge blog:

The challenge runs from November 1, 2009-November 30, 2010, but you may join in the fun whenever you wish! Participants are encouraged to read nonfiction and fiction books related to the rather broad idea of ‘women’s studies.’ The definition according to Merriam-Webster:

“the multidisciplinary study of the social status and societal contributions of women and the relationship between power and gender.”

For nonfiction, this would include books on feminism, history books focused on women, biographies of women, memoirs (or travelogues) by women, essays by women and cultural books focused on women (body image, motherhood, etc.). The topics I’ve listed aren’t mean to be exhaustive; if you come across a nonfiction book whose subject is female-related, it counts![...]

It’s trickier to say what is applicable as fiction. Obviously, any classic fiction written by a feminist is applicable. But where do we go from there? To speak generally, if the book takes a thoughtful look at the place of women in society, it will probably count. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to explain in your review why you chose this for the challenge and its connection to women’s studies.

There are three levels to choose from:
Philogynist: read at least two books, including at least one nonfiction one.
Bluestocking: read at least five books, including at least two nonfiction ones.
Suffragette: read at least eight books, including at least three nonfiction ones.

I’ll pick my books from this list (these are all books I already have on my shelves, but haven’t read yet):
Fiction:
Virginia Woolf – Mrs. Dalloway
Willa Cather – O Pioneers!
Jane Austen – Mansfield Park
Jane Austen – Emma
Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin
Harper Lee – To Kill a Mocking Bird
Thomas Hardy – Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Joyce Carol Oates – The Gravedigger’s Daughter
Ahdaf Soueif – The Map of Love

Nonfiction:
Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn – Half the Sky
Virginia Nicholson – Singled Out
Tina Chanter – Gender: Key Concepts in philosophy
Alice Sebold – Lucky
Mary Wollstonecraft – The Rights of Woman
Naomi Wolf – Promiscuities

I am not sure all of the books listed under fiction are suitable for the challenge (some definitely are). I might end up reading one from the list and afterwards decide that it doesn’t fit the challenge rules after all, then I obviously won’t count it. But even so, I still have plenty of books that do fit. It won’t be much of a surprise that I chose the Suffragette-level, so I’m planning to read at least eight books from this list.

The blog for the reading challenge is here.

Just like I am no fan of challenges, neither do I like memes. But I’ll be a good sport and answer the three questions to the Women Unbound Start of Challenge meme.

1. What does feminism mean to you? Does it have to do with the work sphere? The social sphere? How you dress? How you act?
For me feminism is about having a choice and, even more than that, having the freedom to choose: to marry or not to marry, to have children or not to have children, to work or not to work, to have sex before marriage or not, to dress the way you want, to study what you want to study. In short, the freedom to make life choices: the freedom and the opportunity to live and arrange your life the way you want to, not the way others (family, friends, husband/boyfriend, society) want you to live your life.

2. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not?
Yes. I guess I have been a feminist as long as I can remember. I am not sure I can even answer why, it is so much part of who I am, what is important to me and what I stand for. I guess I was raised a feminist, even though it was not labeled explicitly. But since I moved to Armenia, my feelings on the issue have definitely become more pronounced and explicit.

3. What do you consider the biggest obstacle women face in the world today? Has that obstacle changed over time, or does it basically remain the same?
I don’t know if there is one biggest obstacle women worldwide face. I think in general there are a couple of large obstacles, but the size of them varies by society, by country, by social layer. I can speak for the society I live in (and I am sure that it is similar in many other societies).

In Armenia I think that one of the biggest obstacles, if not the biggest, women face is the pressure of society to fit in, not to be different. This pressure comes from society as a whole, so from both men and women in that society, and it also applies to both sexes. In this society women (and men) are allowed to have a limited set of roles. These roles are not only continued, taught and propagated by men, but also by women themselves (and in large part, though not exclusively, by the mothers-in-law – but that’s a digressing storyline) in the way they raise their children. A huge importance is given to the opinion of others (“What will my family/neighbors/classmates/colleagues/… think of us/my daughter/wife/sister when I/she do(es) this or that?”).

In my life, I never felt judged differently or that people had different expectations of me because I am a woman. I always felt a human being first, and maybe a woman second. Until I came to Armenia almost ten years ago. In Armenia almost without exception I am judged as a woman first and only then as a human being, by strangers for sure, but also by many people who know me. Armenia is a very traditional, patriarchal society where women are not supposed to have sex before marriage (but men are), where unmarried women live with their parents and are not supposed to be out after dark (worst case) or after midnight (best case), where “what the neighbors say” is more important than whether you or your own child is happy, where women are judged first and foremost as wives and mothers, where getting married and having children is about the highest goal for women and where working and having a career as a way of self-development or gaining economic independence are not very much accepted for women.

I do not fit the set of roles women are supposed to fulfill in Armenian society: I am in my mid-thirties, unmarried (and not planning to any time soon) and single, it is highly unlikely I will ever have children, I have lived on my own for almost half my life and I moved on my own to a different country. Some people in Armenia probably think I am weird, but I also know that I am a role model for many younger women around me. That is something that scares me (I am who I am, I am just living my life as I see fit and I am not perfect), but I am also proud of that. It is one of the reasons I continue to live in Armenia.

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

I’m back. Or at least I should be. Earlier this week I finished a big project at work. Early next week I should know whether I’m sticking around at the same office for a few more months leading another big project or whether my job is over. In that case I might still work for the company on a project-by-project base, but no longer as a regular job. Either way, I’m pretty much free until the middle of November at least. I plan to do lots of writing and take up regular blogging again here and on my other blog. So here I am, writing my first serious review in months. Feels strange, like I have to get the hang of it again. But I’m happy to sit at a computer and write instead of work.

Two days ago I finished Owen Sheers’ Resistance. Initially, when the book first came out in 2007 and I started reading about it on blogs, I wasn’t that keen on picking it up. It didn’t speak to me, really. But the book grew on me and eventually I added a copy to my TBR-pile. And now that I’ve read Resistance, I’m glad I did. But just like wanting to read the book took some time to develop, the story itself needed some time to grow on me. But once it did, I enjoyed it a lot.

The story is set in the isolated Olchon valley on the Welsh border in 1944-1945 where only a handful of families live. One summer morning, the women wake up to find their husbands gone without saying goodbye and without leaving a trace. Germany has just invaded England and the women suspect and fear their men have retreated into the hills surrounding the valley and joined the resistance movement. Wait a second? Germany has just invaded England? Yes, you read that right. Resistance is set during the Second World War, but with an alternative outcome in which England has been invaded and occupied by the German army.

After living on their own for several weeks and trying to cope with the sudden disappearance of their husbands and with the heavy-burden farm life, one day suddenly a small patrol of five German soldiers arrives in the valley with. The patrol settles into an abandoned house. Their arrival throws the women’s routine upside down. When an especially harsh winter sets in, the two groups have to decide whether to trust and help each other survive. This is not only the story of the two groups becoming mutually dependent, but it is also the story of one of the women, Sarah Lewis, who begins a careful friendship with the patrol’s commanding officer, Albrecht Wolfram. In the course of the winter and the following spring, it becomes ever clearer that decisions have to be taken, but also that any decisions taken cannot but upset the careful balance of the valley’s inhabitants.

The copy I have, has a blurb on the cover describing Resistance as a “sometimes frightening thriller”. The book is many things, but I would not classify it as a thriller and I think people who expect a thriller based on this blurb are in for a surprise. The pace is not fast, and in fact in a way not a whole lot is happening. I think that may be why the book needed time to grow on me. Owen Sheers’ writing is beautiful, though, it makes the valley and the people come alive, the sparseness of the landscape and of the valley inhabitants’ way of communication, the isolation of the people. The title of the book is well-chosen: throughout the book I kept identifying new references to the theme of resistance, ones that go way beyond the obvious. If I have to mention one thing I didn’t like, it can only be that the reason why the German patrol comes to the valley felt contrived an unconvincing. Though in the author’s afterword it becomes apparent that this is one of the aspects of the book based on a true story. Resistance at first glance seems a quiet and somewhat unassuming book, but it leaves one with a lot to think about. Very much recommended.

Other reviews:
Caribousmom
Dovegrey Reader
Estella’s Revenge
Ready when you are, C.B.
Oklahoma Booklady
Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover
The Linguavore
Page 247
Textual Frigate
A Book a Week
Quippe
Hawkins Bizarre

If you reviewed this book on your blog as well, leave a link to your review and I will include it in the list

In good Armenian style, things are moving and changing all the time. All of a sudden, starting from Monday, I am already working from home, though still for the same company. They suddenly had a load of work and needed to free up some computers at the office, so my boss asked me if I could work from home, because that’s fairly easy with the work I’m doing at the moment.

After putting up my previous post I realized I had forgotten to mention another of the summer’s lows: my cat Archy (the gray-white longhair) fell from the balcony and hit his head on the way down. As I live on the fifth floor, that was quite the fall. It took me about a month of nursing him back to something like his previous self and he’s still limping. But he survived and he’s doing fine.

I have another urgent writing job to finish this week, so I plan to be back in business with bookish posts here hopefully by next weekend.

I realize it’s been a few months since I posted anything here and I’ve had some sweet people asking me in the comments, by email and in other places if I’m okay, so I decided to post a brief sign of life.

I had a crappy summer with some emotional rollercoastering regarding my personal and my professional life, but now everything’s okay again. I am doing fine, I am just absolutely swamped in things, mostly work. Add to that, that I have been dealing with a bad internet connection for a while which is limiting my time online.

One of the decisions I’ve made this summer is to quit my part-time and completely unfulfilling job once the project I’m leading is over in another three weeks or a month. From then on I’ll be working on a freelance basis only, making things I have been doing “on the side” for the last few years my main occupation and source of income, translating, teaching Dutch, working on some projects in the non-profit sector and I’ll expand my writing activities over the next couple of months. Of course it isn’t and it will not be as easy as I’m making it sound right now in one or two lines, but ever since I took this decision and started working on making it a reality (financially as well) I’m feeling much better.

For the last month or so, I haven’t even been reading very much. I have started a couple of books, but threw them in a corner after reading a chapter or three and then nothing for weeks so I’d completely forgotten what I’d read weeks before.

I’ll be back when things calm down a bit – hopefully soon.

The Chosen by Chaim Potok has been my favorite and most beloved book since I first read it when I was sixteen or seventeen. It is the one book I have read more often than any other, this last reread must be the tenth or something close to that. It is my ultimate comfort read, and I desperately needed one these past weeks. It is the one book that still makes me cry all through the last chapter, a book that I immediately want to start again when I finish it.

This was the first reread in five years and I am glad to tell you that everything I just wrote, is still true. I don’t really know why The Chosen affects me so much, but fact is that it does. This is the first time I am actually writing about The Chosen so this time around I tried to figure out what it is that makes this such an important book for me. Truth is, I still don’t have a clue. I have the beginnings of a clue, but nothing that explains it in a completely satisfying way. Chaim Potok is my favorite author, I have read almost all of his books and most of them more than once. Several of his books rank among my top-favorites. I think part of his magic to me is that he is such an excellent story teller.

The Chosen tells the story of the friendship between Modern Orthodox Jewish Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders. Reuven is raised in a more modern way, whereas Danny is the son of a Hasidic rabbi, raised according to traditions and laws that go back centuries, and destined to inherit his father’s place when he grows up. The story takes place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during the final years of the Second World War and the early post-war years. The two fifteen year olds meet as a result of an accident while playing baseball and become close friends. Danny’s father raises his son in silence according to an old tradition, meaning that the two don’t talk with each other except during Talmud studies. Needing someone to talk to, Danny turns to Reuven and soon tells Reuven his biggest secret: for a while now he has been secretly visiting the public library to read books that his father would most certainly forbid him to read. Neither is Danny sure he wants to take his father’s place as a rabbi any longer. Instead, Danny wants to become a psychologist, but this would mean confronting his father and breaking with centuries old traditions. The Chosen tells the story of Danny’s confrontation between the old way of life he grew up in with its centuries old traditions and the inherited position of the community’s leader that Danny is supposed to take over and the twentieth century which Danny will have to enter if he chooses to pursue his dream of becoming a psychologist.

The Chosen is a book about friendship and father-son relationships, but also about loyalty and growing up, finding a place where one belongs and making choices.

One of the questions I am trying to find an answer to is why I still love this book so much even though I have so little in common with the characters. I’m a non-religious, feminist thirty-five year old (give or take a few days) woman, but every time I read The Chosen it still completely pulls me in and wins me over the same way it did when I first read it as a teenager. I think one important reason is the role of learning, education and books in the book. Another that both Reuven and Danny are very intelligent and learn easily. I was like that in high school and university. Neither held much of a challenge for me. I had to study, sure, but intellectually there wasn’t much challenge. If there was no challenge in substance, I created the challenge myself in taking up a second studies ending up with two Master’s degrees.

While reading this book, I realized once again how little intellectual challenge or activity there is in my life right now and how much I miss it in a way. You know what, I even miss studying, acquiring knowledge, learning new things. I have to admit that I reread The Chosen at a time when I have a lot to think about, changes to make and getting back to what is important to me.

So this ended up less a review of The Chosen than me going off on a tangent about…what? Life? I guess that’s what happens when I try to write for the first time about a book that’s so important to me. More than anything else I tried to find out why this book is so important to me. I feel the answer I have found is a start, but it’s not complete yet.

A short review I wrote about Chaim Potok’s The Gates of November is here.

Other reviews of The Chosen:
Banquet of Books
Ted at Bookeywookey

I you reviewed this book on your site, leave a link in the comments and I will add it to this list.

Is there anyone out there in the big wide world who can explain to me why my review of Orlando Figes’ The Whisperers (which I wrote in April of last year) has been getting so many views since July 19? Over half of all the traffic to this blog in the last couple of days has been going there and there is no way I can explain it by looking at search terms or incoming links. I’m just very curious, that’s all. Anyone?

I don’t really have a lot to say about Trial and Retribution III by Lynda la Plante. It’s a decent, middle-of-the-road police mystery, the third in a series all called Trial and Retribution and all adapted for tv by La Plante. I am not sure what was there first, the book or the TV series, both came out in 1999. The book was obviously written with TV in mind, the writing was very visual, focused on what could be seen, rather than on the thoughts or internal actions of the characters.

Detective Inspector Pat North is called on to deal with Stephen Warrington, who has repeatedly called the police to complain about the house across the road from his own. As Warrington turns creepier and more annoying with every complaint, North’s partner (boyfriend sounds weird when talking about two people in their late thirties, early forties) Detective Superintendent Michael Walker is investigating the disappearance of fifteen year old Cassie Booth. She was seen being dragged into a car while doing her paper round early one morning. As Warrington begins to stalk DI North, a possible link between the two cases appears.

Nothing bad, nothing spectacular, but it did keep me turning the pages. An OK read, perfect for the holidays or when you don’t want to read something taxing your brain too much (which is why I took it up).

My review of Bella Mafia, also by Lynda la Plante, is here.

Ok, so I was not planning to post again today, just as I was not planning to go to the bookstore today. But after meeting a friend for coffee, I somehow mysteriously, through a slight unintentional (yeah, right!) detour on the way from the cafe to the pet shop, found myself browsing the shelves at one of the two bookstores in Yerevan that have a quarterway decent English collection of books. This is what I came home with:

The topbook speaks for itself, below is a book called Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy by Tina Chanter, the last book is called Deviation: Anthology of Contemporary Armenian Literature. This combination of books was unintentional, but it made me laugh.

When I came home I sent out this Tweet:

Went bookshopping. Came home with anthology of contemporary #Armenia writers, book on #gender and an English translation of the #Koran.

Within seconds this one came back:

ThaBookie@armenianodar You should read Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

The Tweet contained a link to a page at Amazon for a book with that title. ThaBookie? I don’t follow a ThaBookie and neither does it follow me.  Turns out @ThaBookie is a bot that makes book suggestions based on your Tweet. Now I am wondering what exactly triggered it to come up with a book about angry and controlling men? Koran and gender in one sentence maybe? Or possibly gender and Armenia? The more I think about it, the more it annoys me, because it is such a subtle (or maybe not so subtle) way to confirm already widespread prejudices about Islam.

And for the record: no, I am not interested in ThaBookie’s recommendation, thank you very much.

While I am working on three or four posts, here are some recent pictures of my furry kids.


This is Nirvo’s favorite place, he’s the Master of the TV.

I disturbed Archy in one of his favorite activities, watching the neighborhood from the balcony railing. One of his nicknames is the Neighborhood Watch.

Another favorite activity: relaxing in the bath tub. Hence his other nickname, King of the Bathroom.