I've come back from my trip to London loaded with books for you! Well, ten books in total to be precise :-) There should be something for everyone's taste from a variety of topics and authors.
The selection for this week starts with Bees by Laline Paull. (And Kevin, this one's for you!) I read it on my kindle few months ago and the paperback is hot off the press.
Below is the description from amazon, because I struggle to find words to describe the book. I rolled my eyes when it first came out, but after more and more (literal) buzz this book received, I gave it a try.
I couldn't put it down! A flipping, or rather flapping, bee held my attention alternating between fingernail-biting suspense and mesmerizingly erotic description of flower pollination. 50 shades of honey, indeed..... The prose is original, surprising, captivating. The story is funny, moving, and magnificent. Just take my word on this one!
The book has been Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015 and Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction 2015.
Enter a whole new world, in this thrilling debut novel set entirely within a beehive.Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing.
Then she finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, meaning her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden…
 |
| Click on the picture to read the article about L. paull in the Independent. |
Moving to more serious matter, a timeless classic is George Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London, first published in 1933. George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time living among the desperately poor and destitute, Down and Out in Paris and London is a moving tour of the underworld of society from the author of 1984.
'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them.'
Written when Orwell was a struggling writer in his twenties, it documents his 'first contact with poverty'. Here, he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor - sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses of last resort, working as a dishwasher in Paris's vile 'Hôtel X', surviving on scraps and cigarette butts, living alongside tramps, a star-gazing pavement artist and a starving Russian ex-army captain.
Exposing a shocking, previously-hidden world to his readers, Orwell gave a human face to the statistics of poverty for the first time - and in doing so, found his voice as a writer.
 |
| The poster of the film based on G. Orwell's most famous novel: 1984. |
The last, but not least, book for this week is a newly published history book 17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up by Andrew Morton.
The story of the love affair between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, and his abdication in order to marry the divorcée, has provoked fascination and discussion for decades. However, the full story of the couple's links with the German aristocracy and Hitler has until now remained untold. Meticulously researched, 17 Carnations chronicles this entanglement, starting with Hitler's early attempts to matchmake between Edward and a German noblewoman.
While the German foreign minister sent Simpson seventeen carnations daily, each one representing a night they had spent together, she and the Duke of Windsor corresponded regularly with the German elite. Known to be pro-German sympathizers, the couple became embroiled in a conspiracy to install Edward as a puppet king after the Allies were defeated. After the war, the Duke's letters were hidden in a German castle that had fallen to American soldiers.
They were then suppressed for years, as the British establishment attempted to cover up this connection between the House of Windsor and Hitler. Drawing on FBI documents, material from the German and British Royal Archives, and the personal correspondence of Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower and the Windsors themselves, 17 Carnations reveals the whole fascinating story, throwing sharp new light on a dark chapter of history.
Practice your English and listen to the interview of the author!
Enjoy this as well as many other treasures on the display table.
Your Librarian
Anna
Anna
