Eleonora

Congratulation Carelia!! And .. yuhu ChrisD.

Great job, Karsa.. it took me so long when I had to read it at school. Maybe I was to young or maybe it's because it was an homework, but I didn't like it. I would like to re read it now though, as an adult. I finished JR Moehringer's The Tender Bar.. loved it. Also finished the essay on the war in Bosnia.. it was really tough.

I can read only if there's a lot of noise, I know it's strange but it's been like this since my childhood: when I was 7 or so we moved in a very noisy flat with a lot of wonderful very noisy neighbours. Our home was a sort of open space where everyone could come and go whenever they wanted. I loved that!! I loved the chats, the laughs, the fact that my kitchen was a meeting point for so many different people with many different stories to tell. But I had to study and do my homeworks in any case. So I learnt how to concentrate in the noise. And I still do it. When I'm in my room I have my mp3 player in my ears if I can't have any other kind of voice or loud sound in the background. But I love reading in the market square on saturday morning when hundreds of people walk by with their shopping and their businnes.

Welcome Jean!! Hope you'll like it here..

Medicine has gone so far.. it's great they can do stuff like that nowadays. But it's terrible you had to pass through it, Muggle!!!

Hugs Muggle. And thank you Pontalba..

Library opened today!! Well, at least one, for the other I have to wait until the first week of september. Anyway, I took for books for the moment: a non-fiction book on the war in Sarajevo; an italian classic I've never read before; Twisted Wing by Ruth Newman and The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer. I think I'll start reading immediately, 2 hours until dinner and I have already cooked it. Oh yes!!

Went to see The Dubliners last night and met the band after the show. They dedicated me a song (because I helped them with the translations).. and I can't stop listening to it now. http://youtu.be/ixWHon55y0g

Thank you Chrissy.. you're always so sweet!

Finished the italian thrillers my cousin gave me last week. They were not the best thing i've read, definitely. We can't write thriller in Italy and that's a fact!! On monday one of my library will open..and I can't wait!

Congrats Carelia!! I feel so blue at the moment. I said goodbye to my friend this morning, he's going back home and we won't see each other again. Ok we can still talk on the phone or chat on pc, but it's not the same. Goodbyes suck.

We can discuss after you've read the book and once you read to yourself what he thought about jews and how Germany should solve the problem.

Well, he said everything and its contrary. As I wrote before, the book is not very coherent. Which makes the events of WW2 much worse: milions of people followed that broken mind, the majority of men because they were so desperate they needed someone to follow.

I read Mein Kampf when I was at school: I read it in german end my class made a huge work on it from an historical point of view. It's not very coherent, it's easy to understand there was a highly disturbed mind behind it, but it's terrific too. The things that mad man told about politicians and his resolutions to the economical problems are so current, so vivid that you can't be afraid. There are a lot of people right now, in our time, that have ideas similiar to the ones he had. And the economical crisis we're living spreads them so much. I think we should all know the past to better face the future.

Thanks everybody for your support.. and yes, Pontalba, august is half gone, thankfully (not only for the libraries closed but also because I can't stand summer). Kidsmum, we have the same problem here: no money and a lot of cultural places or events had to be closed, cancelled or run only by volunteers. It's really sad because culture is the only real root of a country, if we stop reading and stop visiting museums or going to the theatres.. what are we?

Well, I live in a very small village, we are only 500 people so our services aren't the best. I guess it's easier in the cities..

Yes, libraries around here are closed during most of july and august; and yes, you're right: I still haven't got a copy of Dry... poor me!! Thankfully my cousin had a couple of book I'm starting right now: italian thriller..better than nothing.

I'm getting really tired of all this holidays thing with the library closed.. I have read the whole huge pile of books I picked up a month ago, and now I don't know what to do. No book till monday? NO WAY! I'm seeing my cousin this evening, hope she can borrow me something. Anything! Or I'll have to re re re read The Picture of Dorian Gray: nice, but I know it by heart.

Emelee, you've just listed some of my fave movies.. of all time!!!

Karsa.. I LOVE Faith no More!!!!! I used to listen to The Real Thing on the bus while I was going to school. My walkman (yeah, old enough to have used that thing) broke and riuned my lovely FnM cassette. Bought the whole discography on cds, then! But today I'm really into italian progressive. Hope you'll like it..

Nature is so wonderful I have tears in my eyes.

Yes.. two in particular: - No Logo, Naomi Klein: I read it when I was at school and it definitely changed my point of view and my behaviour. I still don't use lebels. - Nothing, and so be it, Oriana Fallaci: It changed my conscience in so many ways! I read it when I was only 12 and I decided I wanted to live helping other people and being their voice everytime they couldn't speak for themselves. I'm still doing this: I live for the others and not for myself only.

I went to the library this morning and I took a book which seems really intruguing. It's called The Daughter of the East, translated from spanish, written by the spanish writer Clara Usòn. It's the story of a really happy serbian girl named Ana, truly loved by the father she admires with all her heart and soul. She seems to be one of those fortunate girl, clever and beautiful, to which life is easy an safe. But after a small holiday in Russia, she cames back and kills herself. Maybe because when she was in Russia she found out who her beloved father really is: Ratko Mladic, the executioner of Srebrenica, responsable of the killing of thousands of men and women. I'm not spoilering, this is what's written on the back of the book. I managed to read 30 and so pages while I was waiting for my brother to drive me home, and I must admit it's an intense story and it's really hard to put it down. But I don't know if it's translated in English. I'm reading a book written by icelandic Jon Kalman Stefansson too: good choice.. it's so hot in Italy I could do with a little stormy freezing weather.

Being unemployed.

Lovely pics, everybody!!