Showing posts with label Abdellah Taia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abdellah Taia. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

recent reads #9




Those are not so recent reads but I didn’t know what to name the post, the books I read during August September and October would be more correct but that’s too long don’t you think that too? ANYWAY even though I wasn’t writing a lot lately I have been reading and a lot and those are the books I had the honor to read in the last three months:

_ Four graphic novels: 



MAUS by Art Spiegelman: the story is about the holocaust, the author is actually the son of a man who survived the genocide, so the book tells the surviving story of the dad, the thing that I liked about this book is that it goes back and forth between the past and the present showing that even though that man survived he didn’t really survive he carried with him scars from that war that neither time nor doctors would ever heal,  a five star book all the way.

L’espion de Staline by Isabel Kreitz: another true story about a double agent who was working as a journalist for Germany and spying on it for Russia, the story seemed interesting and took place in Japan during world war two this book had all the potential to be a great read yet the drawing was so bad I couldn’t figure out who was who, while reading I kept looking at the last pages of the book were there was the pics and the names of the characters, and that was so tiring, I gave the book two stars because of the poor drawing.

The stranger by Albert Camus a graphic novel adaption done by Jacque Ferrandez: the story is really famous but I didn’t read it before and I think I should have read the actual book then read its graphic novel adaptation but it’s ok I’m definitely going to read it one day, I think the graphic novel was great the drawing was good, the story is just strong and the idea behind is so deep but still I should read the book to give a solid opinion about it.

Pyongyang by Guy Delisle: the book is a carnet de voyage of the author in his business trip to North Korea, it’s a really interesting read for someone who knows nothing about how it is like to travel to that country either for tourism or work, the book is nothing more than that, I wished that it would held more. since I already watched documentaries about north Korea there was nothing new for me in this book but still the book was good. reading about north Korea makes living in a third world country in Africa look not that bad after all.

_ Classic short stories by Kafka and Chekhov:


If you ever read for those two authors you are really missing a lot they are just geniuses, reading for them isn’t easy the plot can be so slow but once you finish the story it’s going to stay with you for the rest of your life and I’m not exaggerating.

_ More of Mohamed Choukri and discovering Abdellah Taia:


I read my forth book written by Mohamed Chokri, Wojouh or faces which the third book of the author’s autobiography; but it’s really different from the two books before it you can’t tell if it follows a chronology it’s more about people Mohamed Chokri met through his life, I don’t know if I like this book as much as the first ones but certainly it’s an interesting read the last part of the book was SO good.

I also read 3 books by Abdellah Taia, and they were all amazing, this author has a really simple smooth style; I wasn’t exepecting to like his work this much I wished they weren’t that short, I read l’armée du salut, le jour du roi and une melancolie arabe and I’m willing to read every single book written by this author, if I have to choose a favorite among the book I read I’d choose le jour du roi it was amazing I don’t know if it’s right to compare  authors but reading that book made me think of haruki murakami’s style and I don’t mind that since I love so much haruki marakami.

_ Other books that I couldn't put in a category:


Finished reading the Millennium series and I have to say I don't consider this book from as part of the series for it's just fanfiction the series has only three books and that's only my personnal opinion yet this book wasn't that bad.


My first book by Albert Camus it’s a play based on the true story of a group of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries who assassinated the Duke in 1905. A five stars book it was so deep yet written in really simple style. 


I don't know what to say about this book, maybe not as good as everyone on the net say it is maybe it's just not my style. I gave it two stars and I hardly finish it.

what a long article I wrote, I know filled with mistakes but I felt like I should write it now I feel relieved I can move with my life hhh.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

My summer reading list



Hi friends; 


How’s your summer so far? mine not so bad, just resting and trying not to think about the after summer, living every day to the fullest and I can say I’m good at doing that, I made a huge list of books I wanted to read since ever and I challenged myself to read it during summer and so far I’m doing well.

My list consists of four novels, two graphic novels and two magazines, let’s start with the novels:


Three are classics: 

- Oeuvres I Théâtre complet, Récits 1882-1886 by Anton Tchékhov : This book is scary, it contains a lot of Tchékhov’s work and it’s the first time for me to read any Russian literature so I don’t know what to expect but I have a feeling it would be great.
- La Métamorphose et autres récits by KAFKA: I already read la metamorphose and it was more than amazing, this author held a special place in my heart since I read KAFKA on shore by HARUKI MURAKAMI.
- Les justes by Albert Camus: I have never heard about this author before, but a youtuber that I really like mentioned one of his works “ the stranger” as one of her favorite books, and since I couldn’t find that specific book at the library I borrowed another one by the same author instead, I wish I won't get disappointed.


The last novel I chose to be a contemporary book;
- L’armée du salut by Abdellah Taia: Abdellah taia is a Moroccan author, I got to know him through a interview he did on TV5 monde, he is famous because of his works but also because he is one of the few openly gays Moroccans, I liked the way he was talking on TV and got really curious to know what he writes about.


The two graphic novels are:
- L’espion de Staline by Isabel Kreitz: I know nothing about this book beside that it’s translated from German and that the story has something to do with Stalin which is already enough for me to plan on reading it.
- MAUS by Art Spiegelman: again no information about this graphic novel, from the back cover I concluded that I would like it because graphic novels and world war two happen to match well from my experience till now.


And finally the two magazines are Le Magazine Littéraire and DIPTYK both some 2014’s editions, I usually don’t read magazines, the last one I read would be WITCH a teen magazine that I used to LOVE when I was in middle school, I’m adding those magazines to the mix because why not and also I just got to know that we are allowed to borrow them from my library.

So those are my summer reads or my library haul since all of the books are from the library, I already started some of them and I’m going to try to stick and finish reading them all by the end of this summer, wish me good luck!