#TTWIBRAT Mini-Challenge + GIVEAWAY : Favorite Characters in Cover Art

Image courtesy of potowizard at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’m very happy to be hosting a mini-challenge for our Travel the World in Books Readathon. It’s about one of my very favorite things about reading–great characters! When a truly memorable character transports me to a different place and time, it’s even better, and speaks to my own longings to travel around the world and travel in time too.  A beautiful or striking book cover featuring the outstanding character I will meet in the story is sure to draw me in, whether the book is a favorite classic in a new edition or something totally new–a favorite in the making.

I’m sure you’ve had that experience too.  I like many kinds of covers featuring characters: original illustrations made just for the book cover; paintings or other art that suggests the character and gives me some notion of time, place, and personality (Penguin is a fan of this approach); or even photographs, modern or period photos of people who then become my mental image of the character as I read.

CHALLENGE

This challenge is meant to be easy, fun, and flexible. The goal is for us to share some favorite characters from around the world, especially those which have been depicted in memorable cover art. Your task is to select one or more book covers featuring any one of your favorite characters (they don’t have to be on my 100 list, of course), and post the result in the format of your choice.  Some details:

1. You can share just ONE book cover that you especially like–that would be great.  Or, if you wish, create a COMPOSITE image, a COLLAGE, or GALLERY with several covers.
2. Post your image on the social media of your choice. You can Tweet or Instagram it. You can post it in your blog. Whichever way you choose, be sure to include the hashtag #TTWIBRAT in your posting.
3. Share the link with me by leaving a comment to this mini-challenge post.  Be sure that you use the specific link that will take me right to your post, tweet, or instagram page containing your submission.  I will be tweet-sharing your submissions @Fictional100, and I will feature as many as I can in a follow-up post at the end of the Readathon.
4. This mini-challenge and giveaway will run throughout the second week of the readathon, from October 25 to 31.

GIVEAWAY

I am giving away a copy of one of the following books, featuring Fictional 100 characters on their gorgeous covers, to ONE lucky winner.  These are all chunksters, in acclaimed translations, and well worth adding to your personal library and your lifetime reading (or re-reading) plan.  Follow the links to Goodreads for more details about each one.

The GIVEAWAY is open to those who participate in the mini-challenge and share a fabulous character cover or covers! Because the prize is a print book, which I will ship to your doorstep, this print-book giveaway is open in the US/Canada only. International readers who enter will receive a Kindle version of one of these books if they win.

The winner will be selected by random drawing from those who ENTER using the link below. I will notify the winner by email and arrange to send your prize.

Entry-Form

I can’t wait to see and share your cover selections for favorite characters. If you are participating in the #TTWIBRAT Instagram Challenge, today’s theme is Favorite World Lit Characters, so feel free to share the same photo here if it is a book cover. Thank you for participating, and enjoy the rest of the Travel the World in Books Readathon!

And There’s More!

Also be sure to check out the main Travel the World in Books Readathon 2015 Giveaways Page and enter to win a book from among the 18 books generously offered there! See more details at Mom’s Small Victories.

Travel the World in Books 2015: Bookmark Mini-Challenge and Some Books of the Americas #TTWIBRAT

I am happy to have a morning to work on Isi’s delightful bookmark challenge, and also to say a little more about the books from North and South America which I suggested via an Instagram photo yesterday. My inspiration for a bookmark came from one of these books, Bernardo and the Virgin, a novel by Silvio Sirias.

This beautifully constructed novel tells the story of Bernardo Martínez, a tailor in Cuapa, Nicaragua, whose devotion to Mary began when he was a little boy. He experienced visions of the Virgin Mary in a field near his home, and his humility and sincerity began to attract more people to this site. It is a terribly moving story of his efforts to save the small image of La Purísima in his local parish, and his long struggle to become a priest despite obstacles posed by his level of education and the political crises in Nicaragua.

Bernardo Martínez of Cuapa (1931-2000). He was ordained in 1995.

After reading this, I learned more about Martínez and found these lovely images, which I used to make the bookmark. Two are prayer cards, one depicting Bernardo’s account of the appearance of the Virgin to him and the other showing the message he heard from her, “Let Heaven and Earth Unite!” The small image of La Purísima from the parish church of Juigalpa finishes the trio of images.

While Bernardo of Cuapa is relatively little known, Our Lady of Guadalupe who appeared to St. Juan Diego in Mexico in 1531 is known worldwide. This book, Our Lady of Guadalupe by Carl Anderson and Eduardo Chávez, includes a translation of the Nican Mopohua, written by Antonio Valeriano during San Juan Diego’s lifetime.  It was written in a mixture of Spanish and the indigenous Náhuatl language, and gives a very early account of the events surrounding the apparition.  As a bookmark, I have included a beautiful prayer card for Our Lady of Guadalupe that I found during my brief trip to Rome in 2009.

Let me briefly introduce the other books from the Americas which I shared yesterday for Tanya’s Instagram Challenge.

Smiley writes a compelling novel that reads like an Icelandic saga, but does not copy the events of the existing Saga of the Greenlanders, only its spirit.

I did a full review of An African in Greenland at my Northern Lights Reading Project. It is certainly a candidate for the best travel narrative I have ever read.

The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy is definitely one of my favorite story collections. Four connected stories tell the life of Christine, a French-Canadian woman in Manitoba, Canada. I especially liked the first one, from Christine’s childhood memories of visiting “My Almighty Grandmother.” Because Roy’s books give an idea of life in that challenging prairie province in an earlier era, Gabrielle Roy has been called a Canadian Willa Cather.  In another book, Street of Riches, Roy follows the same character growing up near Winnipeg.

Teresa Mendoza lives a dangerous life, sadly fueled by the drug trade, in this thriller by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. I haven’t finished this one yet, so I couldn’t give you spoilers, even if I wanted to, but the action begins in Mexico and then moves to Gibraltar and Spain.

María, by the Colombian author Jorge Isaacs, was published 1867, and is a classic of Romanticism beloved widely in South America, and it deserves a wider readership in the English-speaking world. It is a dramatic, sentimental love story and also an example of the style of writing called costumbrismo, often translated as “local color” or local everyday life conjured up by vivid incidents. The hero of the novel, Efraín, is one of The Fictional 100, ranking 79th in my book.  By its centennial year, this novel had been republished in 140 editions, including many translations, and it had been adapted for film and stage. A good English translation from 1890 by Rollo Ogden was republished recently by Wildside Press, and I highly recommend it as an exemplar of popular fiction from South America.

Fathers and Crows is volume 2 of William T. Vollman’s “Seven Dreams” series of “North American Landscapes,” which began with The Ice-Shirt (about the voyagers from Iceland to Greenland and then “Vinland”) and keeps coming with more volumes, most recently, The Dying Grass, about the Nez Perce War.  Fathers and Crows tells the story of French Jesuit missionaries (called “Black Gown,” for their cassocks) in Canada and the Huron and Mohawk people whose lives they encountered. Vollmann employs an ingenious number of maps, drawings, found documents, and first-person accounts to create his impossibly complicated, confounding, and therefore rich and many-sided picture of the clash between Europeans and Native Peoples in North America. Famous folks such as Kateri Tekakwitha and Jean de Brébeuf make their appearances in this volume. I’m just starting it, so wish me luck as I dive in!

For me, it was helpful to reflect on traveling in the Americas, seemingly closer to home but often quite removed from my own knowledge or experience. The value of traveling by books this way is not determined so much by how far away we go but how willingly we venture into other cultures and perspectives on the gift of life we are privileged to share.

Travel the World in Books Readathon–Day 1 Intros and Photo Challenge #TTWIBRAT

Image courtesy of potowizard at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

The 2nd annual Travel the World in Books Readathon has begun! It’s a beautiful fall day here in NJ, crisp and sunny, and perfect for reading with the curtains open and some great music in the background. But first…

Time for Tanya’s delightful Photo Challenge which runs throughout the readathon. It gives us a chance to rummage through our bookshelves (boxes, bags, toppling piles, as the case may be!) and locate favorite books we’ve read or are planning to read that transport us to another place, and share a photo of them. The Photo Challenge also includes other fun book-related and travel-related items to hunt up.  I knew this challenge was coming, so I joined Instagram and posted my first picture–a selfie (naturally) with a favorite from world literature.

#TTWIB Photo challenge Day 1

I have just begun Fortunata and Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós, but I think it is a favorite in the making. I already admire the rich character development and beautiful writing (through the gifts of translator Agnes Gullón), and the love triangle these two women endure for a very long time is likely to make a heart-wrenching and memorable story.  This book isn’t even on my posted Readathon plans, but these things are flexible, right? I may just pick this up and keep reading.

I don’t know what other introductions to add right now, except that I love to read world literature, especially when I discover classics from other countries, and I love blogging and keeping up with new sightings of the Fictional 100 characters (here is my ranked list of them).  I’m looking forward to checking out everyone’s photos and #TTWIBRAT postings!  Stop by Mom’s Small Victories to see the full schedule of events for the readathon, including discussion topics, guest posts, and mini-challenges.

#FrightFall Read-a-thon 2015: Wrap-up Thoughts

I send big thanks to Michelle at Seasons of Reading for graciously hosting this year’s #FrightFall read-a-thon. As usual, readathons create some motivation to select something and try to finish it–something I am sometimes slow to do!

I ended up reading two of my planned fairy-tale retellings, Deerskin and White as Snow.

White as Snow by Tanith Lee was indeed a chilling retelling–more of a retooling–of the ‘Snow White’ story. It had flashes of insight certainly, and proved to be very involving, although quite shocking and painful to read. Half of the book was about the Queen and the brutal crime that had warped her spirit early in her life. The second half of the novel was about her daughter Snow White, but at this point her story merged with the Persephone myth and some fairly standard Celtic elements of the Beltaine stag figure. The span of time in which Snow White lived with the dwarfs was the most creative part of the book, and recaptured my attention.  The tone of this part reminded me of War of the Flowers by Tad Williams (which I liked better).

Deerskin, which I didn’t finish yet, also subjects its main character, Princess Lissla Lissar, to terrible violence and betrayal early in the story at the hand of her father the king. She is wholely sympathetic, though sometimes rather stuporous in her trauma.  She must flee for her life, and in the process of survival, suppresses her true identity, even from herself. She assumes the name Deerskin, after receiving a supernatural gift of a deerskin dress.  The chapters where she is living off the land with only her greyhound Ash for company are beautifully and tenderly written.  I will definitely keep reading this one to the end, and I look forward to reading both of McKinley’s retellings of ‘Beauty and the Beast’–Beauty and Rose Daughter.

I have to wonder why, in both these retellings, two such highly regarded writers as Tanith Lee and Robin McKinley chose to subject their main female characters to such brutal crimes, described so graphically.  Whereas often the ‘Grimmest’ of fairy tales only threatens a potential for crime or taboo-breaking in the story, while not enacting it, these tales are merciless and rescue does not come. In the aftermath, these women suffer, very realistically, a total deadening of spirit, a numbness and hollowing out of soul. The rest of the story offers opportunities, however slender, to find their way back to selfhood and a sense of wholeness.  It seems no accident then that fairy tales are one vehicle now, in our time, for holding up a mirror (a magical mirror in White as Snow) to the violence against women in our world, by no means a thing of some mythic or misty past.

Travel the World in Books Readathon, Oct 18-31 #TTWIBRAT

Image courtesy of potowizard at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’m so happy it’s Fall again and time for another Travel the World in Books Readathon! It was such great fun last time, and also a great stimulus to reading widely and diversely, discovering new writers and their books from around the globe.   This year I’m very happy to be joining Tanya of Mom’s Small Victories, Becca of I’m Lost in Books, Savvy Working Gal, and Aloi of Guiltless Reading as a co-host!  I’m planning a mini-challenge, about favorite characters and the cover art they inspire, for the second week of the readathon.  I will also be hosting a Twitter chat, along with Savvy Working Gal, where we can discuss what we’ve all been reading.  Once you SIGN UP, you will get updates with all the particulars for events during the Readathon.

The thing I love about the challenges and linkups that Tanya creates is the way they are relaxed and laid back, yet abundantly clear, structured, and inviting. Right from the beginning last year, I felt like I knew what to do and where to begin, and I could pick and choose the mini-challenges and events that interested me most.  I’m so glad that Guiltless Reader Aloi will be offering her mini-challenge again where we can make our own Google Maps of our reading. Hers is awesome, and I plan to add to the one I started last year. I’m also looking forward to Tanya’s Instagram challenge, especially since I just (or, should I say, finally?) joined Instagram so I could participate!

The Readathon is part of the ongoing Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge, but you don’t have to sign on to that to do the readathon–unless, of course, you want to!  The purpose of the readathon and the challenge is the same:

Explore countries other than the one where you live. Read as much as you can of books set in a different country or by an author from a different country. Read for your own pleasure or learning, read with your kids or both. Travel the world from the comfort of your own home and learn about different cultures. Expand your horizons and show publishers that #WeNeedDiverseBooks to promote cultural understanding and diversity in our reading. Support diverse authors and books.

We’ll be using #TraveltheWorldinBooksRAT and #TTWIBRAT as our hashtags for posts and social media during the Readathon. I’ll probably opt for the shorter one, to have more room to tweet!

Sign up and link up, and you can sample ideas for diverse books from those who have linked up already. I know I will refer to Becca’s fabulous list of books she has read by Country and Culture (organized by continent). Stop by Guiltless Reading’s post to find her links with many book ideas, including her Notable Reads in 2014 for the reading challenge.

What I’ll Be Reading This Time

I’m planning on finishing two books that both begin with characters traveling by train:

The Girl from Krakow by Alex Rosenberg shows one woman’s perilous activities during wartime.

The 6:41 from Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel puts two characters in an awkward emotional situation when they meet on a train.

I’m also going to keep reading The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  The title character, Prince Myshkin, is viewed as an “idiot” in the very Russian sense of the Wise Fool, one who is touched (and a bit tetched) by God. This character is usually regarded as a Christlike figure–he is a gentle soul whose simple goodness is uncompromising, and therefore sometimes perplexing to those he meets.  After reading The Brothers Karamazov, I have been eager to read this one too.

As part of my Northern Lights Reading Project, I plan to continue reading the Icelandic classic, Independent People by Nobel-prize-winner Halldór Laxness.  This modern-day saga of an irascible sheep farmer and his wife is compelling reading, and quite fascinating!

Happy reading!

Review and Giveaway: “In the Shade of the Almond Trees” by Dominique Marny #FranceBT

MY REVIEW

In the Shade of the Almond Trees by Dominique Marny is historical fiction at the intersection of many of the features I especially appreciate: It is a family saga. Set in the immediate time after the First World War, it shows the effects on family life at the home front. The Barthélemy family has lost their patriarch, who died at Verdun. His widow and children must deal with their grief and the challenge of running their business in the postwar economic climate.  It is set in the French countryside, outside the village of Cotignac, in the center of Provence, where the Barthélemy almond trees and olive groves have provided the family’s livelihood.

Place de la mairie de Cotignac – Var – France. By Technob105 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The pace of Marny’s prose is measured and restful, like the undulating rows of olive trees in their estate of Restanques.

“They went around a pigeon coop, then down the steps that led to the yard’s first terrace. Restanques spread down a hill over several acres planted with almond, olive, and fig trees, all on terraces held together by stone walls.” (p. 11)

This view, which Jeanne Barthélemy shows visiting botanist (and soon-to-be love interest) Jérôme Guillaumin, may be restful but the problems she faces are urgent and unsettling: how to maintain the smooth operation and solvency of the almond nougat and olive oil businesses without the support of her mother or the immediate help of her brother, Laurent who is bitten by wanderlust. As a further complication, an opportunist land speculator called René Verdier has bought the neighboring estate of Bel Horizon, with an eye to romancing the naive Barthélemy widow and gaining control of Restanques too.  Jeanne tackles the demands of running her businesses with determination and creativity, but very humanly, she faces genuine discouragement at times and her own romantic blind alleys.  But, as Jérôme advises her,

“You’re pursuing a dream–yours, which gives your life meaning. … What you’re accomplishing here, right now, will be yours forever.” (p. 174)

What I liked most about this novel was that it presented two strong female characters, who were NOT romantic rivals, but rather childhood friends, whose lives converged again at this critical moment.  Rosalie is the niece of Apolline who had worked for the Barthélemy family for many years. When Rosalie joins her aunt and begins to work for them as a maid, the two young women find themselves side by side, their friendship renewed but complicated by the differences in their situations. Jeanne is now Rosalie’s employer.  Marny does an excellent job of showing us Rosalie’s aspirations and conflicts as often and as deeply as Jeanne’s. In fact, their romantic lives are running in parallel to some degree, both having three significant men in their lives. For Jeanne, they are Régis Cuvelier, a self-centered playboy who nevertheless keeps a strong hold on her; Antoine Laferrière, a businessman who persistently offers her financial help–and his heart; and Jérôme, who is elusive and independent.  Soon after she arrives, beautiful Rosalie gives her heart to Laurent Barthélemy, but his restlessness and immaturity pose significant obstacles. Vulnerable and dissatisfied with her position, she becomes entangled with Verdier, at great cost.  She is nearly oblivious to the loyal attention of François, who works managing the estates and is likewise ambitious to make something better of his life.

At the risk of repeating a stereotype, this novel felt ‘very French’ to me (in the best way!), focusing as it did on the sometimes disastrous love affairs of the principal characters. Perhaps that is just the hallmark of good historical romance, in any language!  As I read, I instantly compared this novel to The Rocheforts, which I also reviewed for France Book Tours (see The Rocheforts tour quotations) this year.  Like it, In the Shade of the Almond Trees gives a glimpse of the workings of the family’s agriculturally based business–information which I found especially helpful in rounding out the picture of French life at the historical time and place.  The Rocheforts perhaps emphasized the business side more, as it presented the intertwined relations of two families over several generations. With the strength of this book’s compassionate portrayals of Jeanne and Rosalie, and Marny’s sure hand in crafting a well-paced story, In the Shade of the Almond Trees captured my interest throughout, and I can highly recommend this slice of Provençal life and love in the aftermath of the First World War.

I also look forward to reading Marny’s previous novel in translation I Looked for the One My Heart Loves.

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Dominique Marny

on  Tour

September 29 – October 8

with

In the Shade of the Almond Trees

(historical fiction)

 Release date: September 29, 2015
at Open Road Media

280  pages

ISBN: 978-1480461178

Website | Goodreads

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SYNOPSIS

In the aftermath of World War I, a family estate hangs in the balance.

For generations, the Barthélemy family tended to the olive trees of Restanques, a sprawling property in Cotignac whose olive oil and almonds were as incredible as the countryside that produced them. But all that changed when war came to France. Robert Barthélemy never returned from the trenches, and without him, the farm is beginning to die. His widow has lost the will to live, and only the fierce efforts of their daughter, Jeanne, have kept the creditors at bay.

Jeanne is spending an afternoon at home with the family’s grim financial statements when a handsome stranger appears on the front steps. His name is Jérôme Guillaumin and he is a brilliant botanist about to embark on a journey around the globe. From the moment they meet, Jeanne is struck by feelings she never thought possible: feelings that could save her life or destroy everything she has ever known.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dominique Marny
was raised in a family
that loved art, literature, adventure, and travel.
In addition to being a novelist,
she is a playwright and screenwriter,
and writes for various magazines.

Follow Open Road Integrated Media on Facebook |   Twitter
Subscribe to Open Road’s Newsletter

Visit the author’s website (in French)

Follow her on Facebook

Buy the book

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GIVEAWAY

Global giveaway open internationally:
2 participants will each win a copy of this book.
Print/digital format for US residents
Digital for all other residents

Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook,
for more chances to win

Enter here

Visit each blogger on the tour:
tweeting about the giveaway everyday
of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time!
[just follow the directions on the entry-form]

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CLICK ON THE BANNER
TO READ OTHER REVIEWS AND EXCERPTS

*Note*: I received an advance copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.  I did not receive any other compensation, and the views expressed in my review are my own opinions.

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