Summer Stars runs from Tues 4 June to Sat 31 August. Get Reading! Now that school is over you can still spark your imagination, join in activities and take part in our exciting Summer Stars challenge.
‘Alone in Berlin’ and ‘A Whole Life’ - books by German authors.
Our colleague Charlotte is sharing her views on two books by German authors. I always try to get keep in touch with literary developments in Germany which is where I am from. Lately, I have come across two wonderful German novels, one originally published in 1947, the other in 2014. Both celebrate the lives of ordinary people but in very different ways.Hans Fallada (1893 – 1947) was a bestselling German writer during the early 1930s. He published a number of well-known novels about ordinary people trying to get on with life. Eventually, he fell foul of the Nazis and, despite trying to keep a low profile, was under constant threat of persecution. Fallada died in 1947, two years after the end of the Nazi rule. Alone in Berlin, his last novel, was published posthumously. It is one of the first anti-Nazi novels published after World War II. Largely forgotten until re-discovered and translated into English in 2009, it became an international bestseller more than 60 years after its publication.Inspired by the real-life story of a Berlin couple who were executed in 1943 for treason, the novel describes life under the Nazi regime in Germany and the resistance of ordinary people. When Anna and Otto Quangel’s son is killed in World War II, the quiet and unassuming couple decide to call on others to resist the tyranny of the Nazi regime. They distribute postcards with anti-Hitler messages around Berlin. Soon they are being tracked by the Gestapo. Fallada’s novel paints a haunting picture of the atmosphere of fear, suspicion and intimidation in 1940 Berlin and Fallada leaves no doubt what his view of the Nazi regime is. An unforgettable book.In contrast to Fallada’s book, Robert Seethaler’s novel A Whole Life is the work of a contemporary artist. Robert Seethaler is an Austrian writer and well-known actor who has published several books, ‘A Whole Life’ being his best-known work outside of German-speaking countries. It was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize 2016 and The International Dublin Literary Award 2017. Like Fallada, Seethaler writes about the life of an ordinary person, Andreas Egger. Egger lives most of his life in a remote valley in the Austrian Alps. He is an outsider, barely tolerated by the farming family who take him in as an orphan and make him work for his keep. His life is hard and without comforts. Events outside the valley (the book spans the time from 1902 until 1977) are barely mentioned. Egger only ever leaves his valley as a soldier during World War II and on short working trips. Egger’s happiest time is his short, ill-fated marriage to Marie and yet, this is not a sad book. It is a gentle, wistful reflection on life in its simplest form and on the happiness that can be found in acceptance and solitude. A wonderful, tender novel.Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN.Members of other library authorities will need to access BorrowBox using a different link.
Although I am way past reading young adult fiction (agewise, that is), I do love it. I devoured ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins and ‘The Divergent Trilogy’ by Veronica Roth. So when a borrower recommended the ‘Tearling Trilogy’ by Erika Johansen, I gave it a try and I was hooked.The ‘Tearling Trilogy’ is a dystopian novel with elements of fairy tales and dark magic. The first book, The Queen of the Tearling, is set in an area called the Tearling somewhere in the middle of a mystical ocean around three hundred years after the 9/11 events in the United States. Time is counted as before and after ‘the Crossing’ when a small group of citizens fled a dictatorial United States to set up their own utopian territory. The main character, Kelsea Glynn, is a feisty young woman who had been hidden away and brought up in secret after her queen mother had mysteriously disappeared and thought to have been murdered.Kelsea has been prepared for her future role from childhood onwards and yet she has been kept in the dark about the kingdom’s dark past and present. When she turns nineteen, she inherits a deeply divided country full of corruption and dark powers that is subjugated by the Red Queen of rivalling kingdom, Mortesme. Kelsea sets out to win the support of her people and to defend the Tearling with the help of the Royal Guard who are sworn to defend the Queen to the death.In the subsequent books, The Invasion of the Tearling and The Fate of the Tearling, as Kelsea fights the Red Queen and her army, she develops a mysterious connection to the pre-Crossing United States and to a woman called Lily Mayhew. Through Lily she learns about the time before the Crossing which might hold the key to her own and the Tearling’s survival. This trilogy is a crossover between adult and older young adult fiction. Judging by the reviews on Goodreads, it seems that this is one of those novels that you either love or hate. I loved it.Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN. Members of other library authorities will need to access BorrowBox using a different link.Submitted by Charlotte from Donaghmede Library.
Recommended on BorrowBox - Wilding by Isabella Tree..
Please read on for a listening recommendation from our colleague Eileen. One of the many perks of working in a library is that it’s like being in a constant book club, all kinds of books are at hand, books that you would never dream of buying or looking at. I have discovered so many books by just holding and looking through what our borrowers have returned. As George Martin wrote in one of the Game of Thrones titles, a man who reads lives a thousand lives. I saw this book when it was returned to the library and I liked the cover (yes, we all judge a book by its cover, it’s been proven that it makes it easier to choose what you like). So I flicked through it and I liked the pictures (yes I’m very shallow) of deer and flowers and wildlife. I thought I’d bring it home as I was working on a drawing of flowers, and when I started reading it, I was immediately sucked into a family’s life of trying to sustain a working farm.As I progressed my way through the pages, I noticed how beautifully it was written, and so I looked up the author and discovered that she has some highly recommended travel books. So I continued with this book which blends scientific facts and figures with graceful insights into nature, animals and the very soil, which creates and feeds us. This is a must read for any hobbyist gardener, bird watcher, animal lover, any professional botanist, farmer or geologist. Or if you just want a change from fiction, try this non-fiction book. I really can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s an exquisite odyssey through the very ground we walk on and our part in preserving and respecting it.It’s available on BorrowBox and is ideal to listen to while gardening!Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN.Members of other library authorities will need to access BorrowBox using a different link.