Karl's Reading List

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC: New York, NY, 2016. I made it! This is the 26th and final book in my Alphabet Soup reading challenge. I finished the first book in this challenge on the 11th of August last year, having started it a week earlier. So, finishing in May means it took me 9 months to finish this challenge. I suppose I could have done it quicker if I only read Alphabet Soup books, but where would be the fun in that! Anyway, Judenstaat is a strange book. It falls into the 'alternate history' category of fiction, with this world having a slightly different outcome for the Jewish people post-World War 2. Instead of being granted a state of their own in Palestine (aka, the modern nation of Israel), they are instead granted a state of their own within the borders of Germany. This is justified both as a sort of punishment for Germany's acts of atrocity, and also as a statement of resilience from the Jewish people - that the place where they have faced their w...

Published by Chatto & Windus: London, England, 2002. Translated by Esther Tyldesley. When I started the Alphabet Soup challenge, I knew that some letters would have a few less options to choose from, and felt that X would probably be the hardest. As I approached this letter I did occasionally glance ahead, and would see one or two books at most on display at any one time. In the end, when I went to get a book out for X there was only one fiction book currently in the library by an X author. Skimming through it I was unimpressed, so I browsed through non-fiction for only the third time in this challenge.  The Good Women of China is a collection of biographical stories told by Xinran, who for eight years ran a radio programme in China called Words on the Night Breeze dedicated to telling the stories of Chinese women. Fifteen such stories, including Xinran's own upbringing, are presented here, including some so traumatic that she was never able to share them on air.  The f...

Published by The Reprint Society: Suffolk, Great Britain, 1953 (1951). Translated from Italian by Una Vincenzo Troubridge. I didn't really know what I was getting into at the start of this book! A friend at church lent it to me (thanks Natalie!) saying she thought I'd enjoy it, so I had a read. I did enjoy it, but its an odd little thing. After a few short introductory stories told from the point of view of the (fictionalised?) author as a child or a young man, we are introduced to the Catholic priest Don Camillo and his 'little world' aka, the village of which he is priest. Don Camillo is an interesting figure. He is quick to anger, he is not above using threats or deception to get his own way, and he is a powerful fighter. He is also often in dialogue with 'the Lord above the altar' - an icon of Jesus who speaks to him as God. The fact that this is indeed the icon rather than merely 'God anywhere' is highlighted in a few stories, where the Lord's v...