Monkey

I read faster then have time for writing about it. Sometimes I cannot make a decision which one was the most interesting...
Therefore today I share with you not book, but my handwork. Little monkey, which I have done after visiting Sharon's Ojala blog. It was my inspiration for preparing some gifts for my friend's children. I hope to be ready with my work in July and send it to them before their birthday in August. They live far far away from me... :)
The first monkey is already ready.

I announce a contest for the name of a small monkey!
Any idea?

The mental trip to Brazil

Several days between Christmas and New Year Eve is the best moment for reading a thick book. I had such one. It was 606 pages about life in the end of 19th century in Brazil... hot summer, smell of coffee flowers...

While reading this story there was quite warm and sunny winter outside. So I sit, drank coffee and travelled in time and place...
A young woman called Victoria felt in love with a young man, whose mother was a slave... The story flows in a very interesting and dynamic way like Victoria's character. If you have plenty of time and want travel to Brazil without leaving home I recommend you this book.

History of maths

Have you ever think about world before teorem of Tales?
Can you imagine your calculation without "zero"?
Do you know that if you are under 21 you still can became a great mathematics?
How much do you know about Carl Friedrich Gauss, a man called a prince of mathematics?
How many digits of the number pi (symbol: π) can you recite without breath?
Have you heard about constant e, which "father" was Euler?

If you want read about it, I recommend you a Denis Guedj's book The Parrot's Theorem.
A Parisian bookseller (Mr. Ruche), receives a bequest from a long lost friend in the Amazon of a vast library of maths books, which propels him into a great exploration of the story of mathematics. He is reading about maths in chronological order and a reader can learn history of maths with him. At the same time you are invited to solve the murder mystery along with the main characters.

Brazil in German way

So long I haven't written... and so many books I had read in that time. Today one of the latest read book.
More then three years ago I met nice man from Brazil. And than I have been trying find a book about Brazil. It was very difficult, everything what I found was about nature or about Indians of South America.
Finally I've got a one about emigration of Germans in 19th century - "Dziewczyna znad Rio Paraiso"

They know almost nothing about Brazil environment and animals, but they dream and believe in wonderful future in that far far away land. But not everything went as they wish...
(german: Das Maeschen am Rio Paraiso). The author (Ana Veloso) tells a story parallel in two point of time. At the beginning, in 1826 we met a young woman, who suffer from amnesia and then we learn what had happened in the past. The second point of time is in 1810, when the main character is 7 years old girl. She is German and has grown up in German village in Hunsrueck as a 8th child of her parents. When she was about 20 years old she went with her fiance to Brazil to Sao Leopoldo, because a government of Brazil gave fields to all immigrants and helped them at the beginning.
Of course it is only an imagination story, however I learn a little about Brazil history.

Nobel Prize

Probably you already known, that the Nobel Prize in literature in 2012 goes to Chinese writer - Mo Yan. I haven't read his book yet. But it is a good opportunity to write about books written by people from China. Unfortunately, I read books faster than I have time to write about them. I hope this month I will write about books, which are for very long time on my list... I hope to write here soon!

The second part of an orange

When we watch a movie or read a book very often we can hear about love story. Finally love is the most important part of our life. Today I would like to write about book "Heaven Lake" by John Dalton (2004). It is quite long (ca. 650 pages in Polish) story of an American Christian volunteer, who arrived in Taiwan to tell about God and teach English. His name is
Vincent Saunders, and he is fresh out of college in the States. His story is complicated and in the second part of his being in Asia he decided to help a guy who ask him to marry a woman from China instead him...
Usually I like main character of book or identify with him. But not this time. Vincent is young man, he believes in God, knows the Bible very well and try do many things correctly. Page by page I saw that he is a bit naive, and doesn't know what he want. Although I do not like him and his behaviour made me angry, reading this book gave me pleasure! His travel for taking woman from China as a wife, show China as a bit strange and dangerous country. Vincent seemed lost and very lonely, not only in China, but probably more in their emotions.
Other intriguing character is a businessman from Taipei, who has wife and four years old son are constantly looking for his other half, his true love. What an unhappy marriage! Very strange book!

book vs movie

Next book about China. It is "Pavilion of women" written by Pearl Buck. That day, when I borrowed it from library, there was a movie displayed in TV, which is a screen adaptation of the book :) I recorded that movie to be able to watch it after reading the book.

The main character is Mrs Wu. The story begins on day of her 40th Birthday in 1938. She has four sons. She don't want be lover for her husband any more, therefore she plans to find a young girl for him. This changes harmony in her big, famous and rich family. Finally she recognizes that she hurts all people with this decision and that she never loved her husband. She is very lonely until she meets a Christian priest. He becomes her friend. He understands her mind and knows almost all answers of her questions about life, sense of life, love, man and woman, etc.
Only one of her sons has as philosophic soul as Mrs Wu. He is married, but doesn't love his wife much. He feels that his wife doesn't understand his existential problems and intellectual needs. Mrs Wu wants to help him, so she sends him to US for study. He meets an American girl there. Her name is Margarita, she has blue eyes... They fell in love, but he understands, that he can't be with her. He tells Margarita about his marriage and immediately (earlier than he planned) comes back home to China.

In this book there was one sentence about colours of eyes: "Her blue eyes are like an open window, his dark eyes are like a descended curtain."

Marrgareth, do you have blue eyes, maybe? Sorry, but I do not remember...

When it comes to the movie... the beginning is quite interesting, but the longer I watched the more bored I was. Some stories have different scenario, but unfortunately not better. This is one of many examples when book is much better then movie.