Bogormen

Title: The Power of One
Author: Bryce Courtenay
Genre: Fiction, cultural
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~22hrs
Date read: November, 2022

In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams, which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives and the power of one.


I read and loved this as a teen, but hadn't read it in years, so was eager to try it again as I remembered almost nothing of it other than the bare bones. Unfortunately, it couldn't quite live up to my expectations... or rather, it lost its charm along the way. I loved the first half - PeeKay's way of surviving his first boarding school, returning home, meeting Doc, convincing the prison guard to teach him boxing - all of that had exactly the atmosphere I remembered from the book, and I was very happy with the revisit.

Once he started his second boarding school, some of the charm started to disappear though, and by the time he reached the mines, it had gone completely. I can't explain exactly what went wrong, but it was as if Bryce Courtenay had a brilliant idea for the beginning of a book - but no idea how to end it, meaning it just meandered along until he realized, "This is plenty long now - I'd better finish up" and did just that.

I'm still glad to have read it, and would definitely recommend it to people as an interesting view on South Africa during and after World War II, but it did leave me thinking that it lacked... something.

Title: The Inagural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club
Author: Sophie Green
Genre: Cultural, fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 432
Date read: March, 2022

In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.

Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son, Lachlan, was Joe's designated successor but he has left the Territory - for good. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother's place. But that doesn't stop Sybil grieving the absence of her child.

With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben's English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.

Mother-of-three Sallyanne is invited to join them. Sallyanne dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband, Mick.

Completing the group is Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land.


I basically picked up this book because of the title, and stayed on because of its setting. The atmosphere is very much "Cooper's Crossing" (from the TV show "Flying Doctors"). It's a bit slow to start, but I soon ended up absolutely loving it.

You follow the lives of 5 women and their families over the duration of 3'ish years - share in their joys and sorrows, their hardships and their successes. It doesn't shy away from describing the hardships of an Outback existence, but never becomes a depressing book, even if not everybody gets the HEA we could have wished for.

The book is written in vignettes and jumps from character to character, but with enough of a red thread that it never feels disjointed, and I grew to love all the women of the book club - even if Kate did quickly become (and remain) my favourite).

An unassuming book, that I ended up loving a lot more than I had expected to.

Title: If Your Dream Doesn't Scare You It Isn't Big Enough
Author: Kristine K. Stevens
Genre: Travel
Rating: 5/5
# pages: 302
Date read: April, 2017

In honor of her 40th birthday, Kristine K. Stevens sold her house, quit her job and traveled solo around the world.

Carrying a backpack and the naïve belief that the trip was nothing more than a six-month-long vacation, she hit the road. As her journey moved on and off the beaten tourist path, she braved a monsoon in Zanzibar, a safari in Kenya, trekking in Nepal, kayaking in Thailand, caves in Laos, red plaid fish and lava in Hawaii, and grizzly bears in Alaska.

Little did Kristine know that she was completing a pilgrimage that would change her life forever. She gained self-confidence with every mile and relearned how to trust her instincts.


One of the best travelogues I've read in quite awhile. Kristine's way of writing really appealed to me, and I was fascinated by her adventures all over Africa, Asia, Hawaii and Alaska. Some of the places she visited (e.g. Alaska) have been on my bucket list for ages, and she just reaffirmed my desire to go there.

There's no doubt that Kristine was a very privileged traveler, in that she could stay with friends many places, and didn't really have to worry about money until the very end, so few people would be able to follow in her footsteps, but personally I loved living vicariously through her and can't remember when I've last been this immersed in a book.

I really appreciated that the book didn't just end with her returning home, but also included her struggles with going back to "every day life" again, and how she handled those challenges.

Title: Only in Naples: Lessons in Food and Famiglia from My Italian Mother-in-Law
Author: Katherine Wilson
Genre: Memoir, Cultural
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 304
Date read: January, 2016

I love living vicariously through other people - especially on travels - so the minute I saw the description of "Only in Naples", I knew it would be right up my aisle. Katherine Wilson travels to Napoli - originally only for 6 months - and ends up falling in love with the city, the people, the mentality and the language... and when her future husband's family take her in as one of their own, she knew she was never going back.

The first few chapters were a bit slow-moving. I got slightly frustrated with Katherine at times, and wasn't sure where she was going with her memoir. As she became more familiar with the country and its customs the frustrations lessened though, and before long it came to the point that I smiled involuntarily just from picking up the book, because its charm had so completely captivated me that I felt like I knew these people, and were reading about friends of mine.

Originally I'd assumed it to be a travelogue, but it's more a story of an unexpecting ex-pat falling in love with a new country. As such, it didn't inspire my wanderlust, as much as it made me relive my own experiences abroad, and I therefore connected with the book on a different level than I had expected, and found it intensely relateable.

Highly recommendable.

Title: Og sådan blev det (And that's the way it was)
Author: Maren Uthaug
Genre: Cultural
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 205
Date read: November 2013

A young girl is forced away from her Sami background and sent to live in Jutland. She never feels settled in Denmark, so as an adult she makes contact with the mother she left behind, and travels back to the country of her childhood to find her roots.

Honestly, I have NO idea how to review this book. It was absolutely brilliant, but so different from what I usually read that I'm at a loss for words. The title so perfectly describes the life of Risten / Kirsten from her forced separation from her mother, to the overbearing character of her step-mother (gah! she made me furious!) and the final closure back in northern Norway. The ending was very abrupt, but for once really worked for me - and again, tied in perfectly with the title.

It's a book that stays with you, I think, and though I honestly cannot say whether I liked it or not, I can say that it worked - and that Maren Uthaug is an incredibly talented author. She really has a way with words! This is her first novel, but hopefully not her last.

Title: Stolen: A Letter to My Captor
Author: Lucy Christopher
Genre: Fiction, Cultural
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 362
Date read: January, 2013

Sixteen year old Gemma is kidnapped from Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian Outback. This wild and desolate landscape becomes almost a character in the book, so vividly is it described. Ty, her captor, is no stereotype. He is young, fit and completely gorgeous. This new life in the wilderness has been years in the planning. He loves only her, wants only her. Under the hot glare of the Australian sun, cut off from the world outside, can the force of his love make Gemma love him back?

The story takes the form of a letter, written by Gemma to Ty, reflecting on those strange and disturbing months in the outback. Months when the lines between love and obsession, and love and dependency, blur until they don't exist - almost.

It's wrong to say that I "really liked" this book (which is the translation for 4 stars on goodreads), because I'm not entirely sure this is a book you like, but I couldn't put it down - that's for sure. The book is very emotionally draining, and I felt almost exhausted - again, emotionally - upon finishing it. It's so powerful and so captivating (no pun intended) that I think I will suffer from a slight book-hangover the next few days.

In many ways it reminded me of 3,096 Days by Natascha Kampusch and Room by Emma Donoghue - even though one is non-fiction and the other fiction. The emotion it leaves behind is the same.

At some point near the end, I really couldn't see how it could end in any satisfactory manner, and feared the worst. But Lucy Christopher managed beautifully, and though I would have liked for it to continue a while longer, it really couldn't have ended in any other way.

It did make me long for the Australian outback though - and I think that's in part what the author intended.

Most thought-provoking and troubling book I've read all year... although not troubling in a bad way, even though I know that makes no sense.

Title: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Author: Deborah Moggach
Genre: Cultural
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 281
Date read: July 2012

When Ravi Kapoor, an over-worked London doctor, is driven beyond endurance by his obnoxious father-in-law, he asks his wife: 'Can't we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.' His prayer seems to have been answered when his entrepreneurial cousin, Sonny, sets up a retirement home, recreating a lost corner of England in a converted guesthouse in Bangalore. Travel and set-up are inexpensive, staff willing and plentiful - and the British pensioners can enjoy the hot weather and take mango juice with their gin.

I went to see the movie, "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", not knowing that it was based on a book (although originally published as "These Foolish Things"). Upon discovering that it was, of course I had to find and read the book as well.

I'm glad I did :) Though I think I may actually have preferred the movie, the book was pleasantly charming as well. I especially liked Evelyn (who was also my favourite in the movie) and Dorothy.

Title: Kindred
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Genre: Cultural
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 267
Date read: January, 2012

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South.

Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back again and again for Rufus, yet each time the stay grows longer and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana"s life will end, long before it has even begun.

I picked up this book on a whim after reading the back blurb in a book store and being utterly unable to stop thinking about it again. Something in the blurb mesmerized me, and I knew I had to know more.

It's a fascinating story that ended up leaving me tied to my couch for 3 hours straight while I read it. It gives you a very unusual insight into the lives of black people in the South in the early 19th century, and how an otherwise decent white person can become so much a product of his time that he turns cruel too, because that's all he has ever known.

Octavia Butler left a number of things unexplained - why did Dana suddenly start travelling in time on her 26th birthday? Why not before? And once she did start, why did the travels occur so quickly, one after another, rather than spread out over several years? Why did she lose her arm (no spoiler, this happens in the prologue)? And will she continue travelling after the events described in the book occurs? These unanswered questions did bother me somewhat, but not enough to distract from the powerful message of the plot itself. I'm glad the book wasn't any longer than it was (267 pages) - I'm not sure I could have borne it.

Title: The Kitchen God's Wife
Author: Amy Tan
Genre: Cultural
Rating: 2/5
# pages: Audiobook ~16hrs
Date read: July, 2011

Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than fifty years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose everything. And Winnie angrily determines that she must be the one to tell her daughter, Pearl, about the past - including the terible truth even Helen does not know. And so begins Winnie's story of her life on a small island outside Shanghai in the 1920s, and other places in China during World War II, and traces the happy and desperate events tha led to Winnie's coming to America in 1949.

I think I must accept that I'm just not into Amy Tan's books. I read "The Joy Luck Club" a couple of years ago and was bored by it, but figured she deserved an extra chance. She got that with "The Kitchen God's Wife", but unfortunately didn't manage to change my opinion of her work.

One thing that threw me for a loop in TKGW was that the main character wasn't who you thought it was going to be. In fact, it turned out to be a person who'd been described rather unsympathetically in the first few chapters, so I wasn't inclined to like her, and really didn't care about what happened to her -- which kind of defeated the purpose of reading the book, as all but the final two chapters was about her! I seem to recall Amy Tan doing something similar in TJLC, so it's apparently her way of writing - which just confirms that I won't be reading any more of her work.

Title: The Night of the Mi'raj (aka "Finding Nouf")
Author: Zoë Ferraris
Genre: Crime, cultural
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 356
Date read: October, 2010

When Nouf ash-Shrawi, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy Saudi dynasty, disappears from her home in Jeddah just days before her arranged marriage, desert guide Nayir is asked to bring her home.

But when Nouf's battered body is found, Nayir feels compelled to uncover the disturbing truth, travelling away from the endless desert to the vast city of Jeddah, where, most troubling of all, he finds himself having to work closely with Katya Hijazi, a forensic scientist. The further into the investigation he goes, the more Nayir begins to question his loyalties: to his friends, faith and culture.

I'm not usually a big fan mystery/crime/detective novels. They have to be really good - or at least "just right" for me to care much about them. As crime stories go, I'd have to say that this was just "okay". Though I understand the reasoning, I think it was a mistake to tell the story from Nayir's view point. Since Nouf was dead by the beginning of the book, the reader couldn't get to care about her, and therefore didn't need the closure of discovering her murder, and as Nayir didn't know enough about her to care for her either, the motivation to solve the murder was secondhand at best, and made it really difficult to relate or even care whether or not we found the murderer. Sure, I was curious, but that was about it.

But as always it was fascinating to read a book that takes place in a culture so foreign to what I'm used to, so Zoê Ferraris still managed to keep me interested by the atmosphere, even though I was somewhat indifferent to the plot.