Welcome to the March 2011 YBS

This is a swap that is open to all comers whatever your location. All we ask is that you bring along a good book, which others will want to read.


The Rules:

• Swap begins as soon as this thread is posted.
• If you haven't sent out your reveal to at least one other player, do so now.
• Your reveal should include a link to the journal entry on BookCrossing.
• Regular rules apply (5 steals, 12 hours to play). Please sign-in once during the first 24 hours of swap.
• New players can be added until the 5th player has taken a turn.
• Leaving moves is not required, but recommended. If you leave moves please also leave instructions regarding how long/little to wait for you before using them.

This is the order of play for this round:


1. TITurtle1 (Pennsylvania, USA)
2. msjoanna (Missouri, USA)
3. AceofHearts (Ontario, CAN)
4. Therubycanary (Mexico, MEX)
5. terra57 (Massachusetts, USA)
6. Elsi (Texas, USA)
7. candy-is-dandy (England, GBR)
8. Xeyra (Portugal, PRT)
9. LoriPed (Oregon, USA)



Your hostesses is Elsi. Contact me if you have questions or a problem.


I like to include players' locations in this first post to make it easier to determine if someone is likely to be awake or not.

Oh!

I'd like Ace's reveal please.

My Book is : The Madonnas of Leningrad



This is a beautiful story about an elderly woman, Marina who is losing touch with the present due to Alzheimer's and re-living her past.

Marina was a docent in the Hermitage at the time of the Nazis' siege on Leningrad. The staff removed the paintings from the frames for safekeeping. Marina was able to remember every single brushstroke and re-create each painting in her memory. Dean is able to describe these paintings with breath-taking detail. Amid the starvation while the city is under siege and the horror of the constant attacks, amid the close calls with death and the grotesque deaths of close friends and relatives the paintings are a way to keep her sanity.

This book shifts between present day and the past just like an Alzheimer's patient does. Marina is taken by her daughter to a grandchild's wedding where she is slipping away from reality. Dean captures the horror of this disease extremely well.

Where I thought the book could have been improved is in the development of the characters in the present and what occurred after the war was over. A little too much was skimmed over.

Overall, a wonderful story and well worth reading.

I already have Madonnas of Leningrad on my kindle, so I'll take a reveal from whoever stops in next.

Do you want mine or Turtle's? I see him here.

Xeyra wrote:I guess I'll go ahead and reveal myself?

Go for it.

A young woman from rural China learns how to comprehend love and heartbreak in English in this quirky, touching novel. Zhuang, or Z to tongue-tied foreigners, arrives in London at age 23 after being dispatched by her parents to get an education. Her immersion and painful education are laid bare to readers, who witness Z's vocabulary, grammar and understanding blossom throughout her diarylike account, sped along by an intense romance with a man met at the cinema.

Her consuming love begins promisingly, but her failure to interpret her lover's lifestyle as a hippie drifter (who's 20 years her senior) alerts readers to potential trouble in paradise, even while such a notion remains beyond Z's not-yet-jaded imagination. The novel overflows with gentle jokes about culture shock and language barriers including Z's inability to understand why Brits bother talking about the weather when it's obvious—but there are deeper observations beneath the humor.

Z's comically earnest exploration of a sex shop illuminates the pathos of Western seediness, and her encounters with men reveal both the exploitative and meaningful sides of romance. Z's unique, evolving voice fits perfectly for a heroine whose naïveté is matched by a willingness to relay the truth.