Jessi

Welcome to the site - I love history too!

Read more of Voyage and am trying to figure out what to read next...

Voyage on the Great Titanic – Ellen Emerson White (3/5) This was a quick, but of course by nature a thought provoking book. Another book in the My Story series, it tells the story of thirteen year old Margaret Anne Brady as she is chosen by an upper-class American to go with her as her companion for the voyage on the Titanic. Despite feeling like a fraud, there are moments of joy for Margaret on the titanic, especially once she meets a young man named Robert. But the story was only ever going to end one way, and with the Titanic, however many times you hear/read/watch something about it, the tragedy of it all never goes away.

Oh yeah, so they didn't share a bed every night! Thanks for the memory jog Though of course she must have moved back in at some point because of Zalmai.

Hollyoaks

I agree sirinrob, and was thinking about Rasheeds treatment of the two of them. Even before the miscarriage, Rasheed told Mariam he would rather sleep alone but as soon as he married Laila, I got the impression they shared a bed. I know there was not another room in the house but surely if this was true he would have put a bed in Mariams room for Laila? I am beginning to think even when Mariam was capable of giving him the longed for boy he never really liked her.

Yay for my first reading circle! Gah! I have been waiting to talk about this for days! I found a Thousand Splendid Suns to be so powerful book that it is still playing on my mind... (Can I say sorry for this being an essay here?) BE CAREFUL LADIES AND GENTS – HERE BE SPOILERS! 1. Who was your favourite character and why? It really is for me a tossup between the women – Laila, Mariam and poor little Aziza. All of them suffered different as well as collective griefs and they did so with such grace and strength. It was so interesting when the three of them came together and changed each other’s outlook on life. Laila I think would pip the others to the post though. She was so strong and such a good mother. She gave up what little she had left to protect Aziza when she married Rasheed. I never did figure out the age gap, but there was 25/30 years between him and Mariam so it must have been 35/40 for him and Laila. To marry him after knowing true love with Tariq wasn’t easy for her but she did it for her baby. 2. Was there a particular part you enjoyed/disliked more than the rest? Favourite moments in the book...

Welcome to the site

Welcome to the site

Welcome to the site

Me too!

Read more of the Last Voyage of the Valentina as well as more of Winston and Clementine - I am now on the home straight with it but I am loving every page and am now reading the Nov 1943 letters between them currently - so interesting as well as passionate!

Welcome to the site

I have now begun Last Voyage of the Valentina - I am now nearly a chapter in.

Welcome to the site

Eastenders

Welcome to the site

I am going to pick a new book out and start it in a while - not sure what it is going to be yet though... A romance though - I need a light read.

LOVED the Asbo Fairy Tales - got them for christmas two years ago. Very funny book

Be careful of spoilers here guys if you are still reading... A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni (4.5/5) I can’t say I am not relieved to get to the end of this book. I needed closure before the end of the day and bed. I read 250 pages of it today and was gripped from start to end of this breathtaking and utterly haunting novel. I am in no doubt that this story is going to stay with me, though I do not think I am going to be able to reread it for a while, if I am ever inclined to again. A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of Mariam and the women who becomes like a daughter to her Laila. Coming from very different back grounds and parentage, they come together under one roof and have to deal with the same challenges in life daily. Both women characters were supremely strong as they tried to defend one another and eventually Laila’s children from their common enemy – their husband, Rasheed. I am not going to say too much here as we are going to discuss it on the Reading Circle in March, but I really found this to be a book that brings the emotions out. I gasped as I read it, cried and was ultimately satisfied with the end. However, I will say that it is rare for me to hate a literary character with the passion that I absolutely loathed Rasheed with.

Hollyoaks

I am trying to read the classics though rather than reading them I seem to be just collecting them at the moment!! LOL - I shall have to get through a few in the summer including Anna Karenina - after the Last Station I am inspired to give Tolstoy a go.

I am now about 300 pages into a Thousand Splendid Suns - I am finding it an addictive but harrowing read and am currently praying for a happy ending.

Not really no - I haven't read any Tolstoy and did not know a lot about him and still loved it though there are obviously reference to his works throughout the novel. I think it might help but I wouldn't say you needed to have read his work.