October 18, 2007: Book Tuesday on Thursday!

Hi everyone,

I haven't been writing on BookTuesday for quite sometimes! Does it means I have been a lazy reader lately?

Anyway, yesterday I finished reading a book by Orhan Pamuk "Istanbul - Memories of A City" that I bought while at Manchester Airport last September.

I heard about the author from an Estonian friend of mine who is in the publishing industry. Orhan Pamuk's books have been translated into more than 20 languages, and typically deal with clashes between civilisations and Islam's relationship with secular nationalism. He has won the 2006 Nobel Prize for literature, has earned international acclaim for his writing while also generating controversy in his native Turkey. His best known works are the novels Snow and My Name Is Red. (which are now in my list of books to read)

Reading this memoir giving me the 'urge' to visit Istanbul and to 'walk through the book' ..... Turkey, a product of Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's revolution ..... has always been a'mystery' to me .

" Pamuk's achievement in ''Istanbul'' is to show the human damage done by Ataturk's revolution without succumbing to the benighted nostalgia of many Turkish Islamists. He is appalled that many secular Turks (including, presumably, Pamuk himself) must ''grapple with the most basic questions of existence -- love, compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred -- in trembling confusion and painful solitude'' but he offers no solution. "

(Christopher De Bellaigue - THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 12.6.2005)

Happy Thursday! "Reading to the mind what excercise is to the body."

Love - Larra

June 12, 2007: Tuesdays with Morrie

"Have I told you about the tension of opposites?" he says.

The tension of opposites?

"Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.

"A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle."

Sounds like a wrestling match.

"A wrestling match?" He laughs.

"Yes you could describe life that way."

So, which side wins? I ask.

"Which side wins?"

He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.

"Love wins. Love always wins."

~

*****************************

The above is an excerpt from the book that I am currently reading:

Tuesdays with Morrie - an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson

by Mitch Aldom.

I found the book on the Bestsellers shelves while looking for

Paulo Coelho's book "The Fifth Mountain".

If you have free time to read, look for the book.

Don't wait until Wednesday!

Love - Larra

NOTE:

I will try to put up a blog entry every Tuesday on a book that I have read.

If you have any book that you have read or currently reading

that you would like to share,

please feel free to do so on the comment section or in your own blog.

"Reading is to the mind what excercise is to the body."