Dilara jumps on the bandwagon

Hoping the second part of the year will be less busy than the first, I am starting my 2024 reading log thread 5 months into the year - better late than never!

This is my seventh year in Club Read. I like literary and speculative fiction, especially from countries other than France, the UK and the US. My aim is to read as widely as possible, with a good mix of original languages, places and author backgrounds. I won’t write about all the books I read, but I’ll list them all and review some of them when I can (or when you ask for one). I read in French and English, and welcome posts in both languages.

My previous threads are here:
2023
2022
2021
2020
Spring 2019
Winter 2019
2018

My Reading Globally thread: Dilara's World Tour which I've been updating regularly

My Nobel Laureates in Literature Challenge thread: Dilara reads Nobel Laureate

The year before last, I joined the Food & Lit challenge over at Litsy, where we cook food and read books from a different country every month. I have been following this religiously, and haven't missed a month so far!

I've also joined Naturalitsy, a reading group focusing on nature books, but only participate sporadically, when practical.

Just like the two previous years, I am reading books set in the French département whose number is the same as the current year, so, in ’24: the Dordogne département in Nouvelle-Aquitaine (the South-West). It roughly matches the historic county of Périgord. In '23, I read books from Creuse in central France, and in '22, books from Côtes d’Armor in Brittany.

Food and Lit 2024

January – Ghana
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Red Red with fried plantain and okra



Link to the main post on the Global Challenge forum

February – New Zealand
Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand, a poetry anthology collected by Anne Kennedy (recommended!) and a pineapple, kiwi and kumquat pavlova



Link to the main post on the Global Challenge forum

March – South Korea
The Story of Hong Gildong (the "Korean Robin Hood") by an anonymous 19th-century Korean author and Gochujang chicken, Ojingeo Bokkeum (Korean Spicy Stir-fried Squid) and Oi Muchim (Korean Cucumber Salad)



Link to the main post on the Global Challenge forum

April – Venezuela
Iphigénie by Teresa de la Parra
Arepas, carne mechada (shredded beef) and caraotas negras (black beans), served with lettuce, cheese and avocado
See post >11 Dilara86: below

May – Spain
Un cœur si blanc by Javier Marías

June – Iceland

July – Turkey

August – Jamaica

September – Malaysia

October – Botswana

November – Canada

December – Finland

Dordogne

The Dordogne département roughly maps to the historic county of Périgord, as the area was known before the French Revolution. It is part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in South-Western France, and is in the Occitan cultural area. It is very rural (the capital, Périgueux, is the biggest town with under 30,000 inhabitants), famed for its traditional gastronomy (duck, foie gras, cep/porcini, truffles), and peppered with prehistoric caves such as Lascaux. Its most famous author is probably Montaigne, followed by his BFF La Boétie.





Map of the Dordogne département, beloved of British expats and prehistoric cave aficionad@s, in South-Western France.



Picture of the Dordogne river, taken from the side of the road (may not be strictly-speaking in the Dordogne département - but this is the best I can do from my own photos, on this computer)

Just like last year for my Creuse challenge, there's a long list of books set in Dordogne on Babelio ( https://www.babelio.com/livres-/dordogne/6296 ), but take away light novels, "romans du terroir" and British expat memoirs, and there's a lot less choice... Still, I am confident that I'll find plenty to be getting on with!

Possibilities

Malevil by Robert Merle - set in and around a version of château de Commarque - READ a few years ago
I could read the Fortunes de France series by the same author, but frankly, I can't face it.
La relieuse du gué by Anne Delaflotte Mehdevi - READ a few years ago
Les Gens d'Auberoque by Eugène Le Roy - his novel Jacquou le croquant is a classic I enjoyed, so I am l looking forward to reading another of his novels
La vie tranquille by Marguerite Duras - one of her novels that's not set in Indochina or Paris
Les sept fils de l'étoile by Francoise d'Eaubonne - a speculative novel I did not particularly enjoy, but in which the Dordogne looms large - READ
Le Fou de Bergerac by Georges Simenon - this would be my first Simenon novel
Mon voisin Raymond by Troubs - a graphic work that looks interesting
La bouille by Troubs (because Mon voisin Raymond wasn't available at the library, but this one (only partially set in Dordogne) was)
Les essais by Michel de Montaigne - a classic I never read in full - started
Discours de la servitude volontaire by Etienne de la Boétie - I think I've already read it but since I can't remember the first thing about it, I might benefit from a second, more serious read
Victoire la Rouge by Georges de Peyrebrune - a novel by a forgotten 19th-century female author found through the Fières de lettres newspaper articles (LT list here: Fières de lettres - READ
Les chants de Giraut de Bornelh : troubadour du XIIe siècle by Giraut de Bornelh and Georges Peyrebrune (a different person from the author above) - amateurish and not worth my time - ABANDONED
Les deux Beune by Pierre Michon - depressing village life in the sixties, sex, prehistoric caves - READ (but I am done with Pierre Michon)

Some of the lists I've created - you're welcome to add to them!

https://www.librarything.com/list/538/all/Novels-featuring-language-professional...
https://www.librarything.com/list/20532/Speculative-Fiction-from-around-the-Worl...
https://www.librarything.com/list/10002/all/French-SF-%25252F-SF-fran%C3%A7aise
https://www.librarything.com/list/44925/all/French-female-working-class-authors
https://www.librarything.com/list/45438/all/Class-mobility-in-fiction
https://www.librarything.com/list/44978/all/Fi%C3%A8res-de-lettres
https://www.librarything.com/list/322/all/Feminists-memoirs%25252Fautobiographie...
https://www.librarything.com/list/317/all/Books-with-racist-aspects-you-wished-y...
https://www.librarything.com/list/44724/Political-satire-in-fiction
https://www.librarything.com/list/429/all/Books-featuring-grandmothers
https://www.librarything.com/list/534/all/Books-featuring-grandfathers
https://www.librarything.com/list/711/all/Novels-featuring-siblings
https://www.librarything.com/list/911/all/Best-African-and-African-diaspora-book...
https://www.librarything.com/list/10143/all/Indian-Diaspora

May reads

1. L'île de Silicium (Waste Tide) by Qiufan Chen
   
2. La grande A by Giulia Caminito
   
3. Un coeur si blanc (A Heart so White) by Javier Marías
   
4. L'imagerie de la mer by Marie-Renée Pimont
   
5. Comptines de roses et de safran (+1CD inclus) by Chantal Grosléziat
   
6. voisins de palmier by May Angeli
   
7. Le Château des Rentiers by Agnès Desarthe
   
8. Les essais by Michel de Montaigne - ongoing
   
9. 500 recettes sans gluten: De l'entrée au dessert, les meilleures recettes pour toute la famille by Carole Garnier
   
10. La bouille by Troubs
    
11. Haïkus de la Roya collected by Mo Abbas, written and translated by various participants
    
12. Le roman de Silence by Heldris de Cornuälle, as found in an anthology of French medieval romances called Récits d'amour et de chevalerie - XIIe - XVe siècle directed by Danielle Régnier-Bohler
    
13. A Thousand Golden Cities: 2,500 Years of Writing from Afghanistan and its People an anthology of writings about Afghanistan collected by Justin Marozzi, which I started last January and finished in May
    
14. by
    
15. by
    
16. by
    
17. by
    

Original languages of the books I've read this month:

• French: 7 (including Montaigne, which could be classed as Middle French)
  
• English: 1
  
• Chinese: 1
  
• Italian: 1
  
• Spanish: 1
  
• Old French: 1
  
• 2 books with texts written in various languages: Tendasque (a subdivision of the Royasc language, variously categorised under Provençal or Ligurian), Italian, Catalan, Occitan, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, French (Haïkus de la Roya), and Dari, Persian, English, Urdu, Turkish, etc. (A Thousand Golden Cities)
  
  

That's xx% English and French

21st-century books: 2

20th-century books: 1

19th-century books:

18th-century books:

17th-century books:

16th-century books:

Medieval books:

Ancient books:

That's x% 21st- and 20th-century

• Number of female authors this month:
  
• Number of male authors this month:
  
• Mixed male/female collaborations this month:
  

UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

Here's the link to the list of all the works translated and published with UNESCO's support since 1948: https://www.unesco.org/culture/lit/rep/index.php
Leave all fields blank and hit search for the full list, or select a region/country/language/genre and see what comes up!
Wikipedia says there are 455 translations into English and 450 into French ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO_Collection_of_Representative_Works )
All titles aren't easily available, but it is a good first step towards finding works that are considered significant in their country of origin.

Works I've read (incomplete list - still working on it)

Song of Lawino by Okot P'Bitek
Golden Pavillion and others by Mishima Yukio
Shrikanto by Saratchandra Chatterji
Me Grandad 'ad an Elephant! by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer
Nepali Visions, Nepali Dreams by Laxmiprasad Devkota
Snow Country and others by Kawabata, Yasunari
Speaking of Siva - anonymous
The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Junichirô
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam
Vie et passion d'un gastronome chinois by Lu Wenfu
by
by
by
by

Authors I've read (incomplete list - still working on it)

Okot P'Bitek
Amadou Hampaté Ba
Taha Hussein
Tayeb Salih
Naguib Mahfuz
Adonis
Abû'l-'Alâ al-Ma'arrî
Mahmoud Darwich
Soseki
Kabir
Rumi
Saadi
Rabindranath Tagore
Bibhouti Bhoushan Banerji
Pu Songling
Kobo Abe
Basho
Bankim Chandra Chatterji
Nanak
Inoué Yasushi
Shûsaku Endô

I love the photos for your food and lit challenge. Looks delicious! I also like your département self-challenge. I signed up for the US States challenge, but I have not progressed much. I just don't read that much US fiction, nor am I particularly motivated to.

I'm so glad you started a thread!

>7 labfs39: Thank you! With 99+ départements, I won't be able to read through all of them at the rate of one a year, but well I am there for the journey, not the destination :-D I was tempted by the US States challenge, but decided I didn't want to commit to a formal challenge. I haven't made much progress either...

>8 Dilara86: How are you picking which department to read next?

>9 labfs39: In the same way as the others :-) In 2025 I'll be reading books set in département number 25: Doubs. This will be my first foray into Eastern France since I started this challenge, and a good excuse to read about Toussaint Louverture, who was imprisoned in this part of the world, in the Fort de Joux. I thought about maybe choosing two or three départements per year to give me a chance to get to all of them before I die, but decided not to at this time because I enjoy the gentle, year-long pace and the focus on one place more than I hate knowing that I won't be able to finish this challenge.

Food and Lit April

The country of the month is Venezuela

I read Iphigénie (Iphigenia: The Diary of a Young Lady Who Wrote Because She Was Bored), written in Spanish by Teresa de la Parra, translated into French by Yves Colman





This novel is a 20th-century classic in its country, and although forgotten in most of the world, it was very well-received internationally when it was published in 1924. Teresa de la Parra’s remains were moved to Venezuela’s National Pantheon in Caracas, and Iphigenia is in the UNESCO Catalogue of Representative Works. In fact, my copy of the book is a UNESCO publication.
The Iphigenia/Ifigenia/Iphigénie of the title is a young upper-class woman called Maria Eugenia, brought back from her boarding school in Biarritz (the posh holiday resort in the French part of the Basque country) to live with her step-grandmother and aunt in Caracas as the death of her beloved father reveals that he had been on the edge of bankrupcy (or was this a setup?) I can't think of many early 20th-c. novels that show the mind of a teenage girl in such detail. She is bright but naive, superficial but thoughtful, bold but shy. And very volatile, as teenagers tend to be. It's clear she is/will be used as a pawn by her family, at the very least to maintain their social status, but also for money. She is hands down the most irritating character I came across these last few years, but I also felt immense pity for her.
There is a definite 1920s/30s flavour to the novel (think Mitford, Cold Comfort Farm, etc.) and a strong sense of impending doom until the last pages, reinforced by the constant references to Iphigenia of Aulis and Romeo and Juliette (and as it happens, Teresa de la Parra died on a 23rd of April, just like Shakespeare – and Cervantes!)

Warning for offhand racist, classist, colorist and antisemitic remarks - mainly from the mouths of foolish characters, it has to be said.
And here’s what I cooked:







I made arepas, carne mechada (shredded beef) and caraotas negras (black beans), served with lettuce, cheese and avocado. Easy and tasty. I was really tempted to up the spice level, but didn't because I wanted to keep the food authentic, at least for my first try. Can't swear I won't next time. Arepas were a lot quicker and simpler to make than anticipated. They'll probably be going into my regular rota of gluten-free carbs.

Taking stock of Q1

I started 65 books, abandoned 4 (La Laveuse de mort, How to Watch a Bird, Les chants de Giraut de Bornelh : troubadour du XIIe siècle and Le roi des gyozas), was stopped from finishing 1 because it disappeared from everand (The Hormone Reset Diet: Heal Your Metabolism to Lose Up to 15 Pounds in 21 Days), and am still making my way into 2 doorstops that lend themselves well to sporadic reading (La Grande Grammaire du français and A Thousand Golden Cities: 2,500 Years of Writing from Afghanistan and its People).

There were 20 non-fiction books, but that's including a number of children's books, and even 3 non-fiction boardbooks from the Baby University series!
My favourite hands-down was Histoire des droites en France by Gilles Richard about the history of right-wing parties in France from 1815 to the present-day. I learnt a lot.

I read 1 cookbook: Herbes: 70 herbes potagères et sauvages,130 recettes by Régis Marcon - very "cheffy", and dare I say "wankery", but also instructive.

There were 10 poetry books (anthologies, collections or single-poet works). My favourite was Mort et vie sévérine by João Cabral de Melo Neto, which strictly-speaking, is a play in verse. It will stay with me for a long time. I also really enjoyed the anthology of New Zealand poets Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand edited by Anne Kennedy.

I read 13 children's books - fiction and non-fiction.
My favourite non-fiction was Les fruits du soleil by Dominique Mwankumi about various exotic fruit.
My favourite fiction was Grandma and the Great Gourd: A Bengali Folktale by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, with fantastic illustrations by Susy Pilgrim Waters.

I read 3 graphic works, including Le père Noël est mort : Un conte pour les fêtes by Zerocalcare - a safe bet!

The rest were all novels
My most favourites were Adieu Goulsary (Farewell Gul'sary by Tchinguiz Aïtmatov and Sarraounia by Abdoulaye Mamani but there were probably another 10 I'd read again. I was very happy with my choices overall.

Italian folk music singer, songwriter and musicologist Giovanna Marini died last Wednesday - I've just seen the obit in Le Monde newspaper. I discovered her through Aliette de Laleu's video and never dug any deeper, but I should.

I thought I'd watched all of Aliette de Laleu's videos, but I missed this one, about Kaija Saariaho. I liked what I heard, so something else to explore... There's a clear literary slant to her music, with librettos written by Amin Maalouf and Sofi Oksanen.

Link to the full YouTube list: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx5eKCD_cnobQHkZlmrr8BeSd_WfVwOIK

>10 Dilara86: Ugh, I knew that. When I read your post though, I was thinking that I would be tempted to pick the departments that sounded most interesting. I guess that would be defeating the purpose though.

>12 Dilara86: Great reading so far this year!

Great food photos and book descriptions, Dilara! I definitely want to learn how to make arepas.

>14 labfs39: Thanks!

>15 kidzdoc:
Welcome to the thread!

Arepas are so easy to make!

All you need is pre-cooked white fine cornmeal (PAN is the go-to brand), salt and water. Optionally, oil.

Mix 1 cup of cornmeal with salt and 1 to 1.5 cup of water. It should have the texture of playdough.Let the mixture stand for 5 minutes.
Roll into 4 balls, then flatten into 1/4-1/3 inch discs.
Cook on a dry or oiled griddle/frying pan 5 minutes per side.

Slice horizontally and fill with the foods of your choice!

Thanks, Dilara!

Food and Lit

The country of the month is Spain

I read Un coeur si blanc (A heart so white) by Javier Marías, translated by Anne-Marie Kéruzoré and Alain Kéruzoré, which I chose because the author had been on my radar for some time as someone whose work I might like, and the book’s narrator/main character is an interpreter and I’m always on the lookout for fiction featuring linguists. Unfortunately, I couldn’t empathise with any of the characters, which made it difficult to engage with its themes. In the end, the novel left me cold…



And I made fideuà, a Catalan dish similar to paella, but with pasta instead of rice. I first ate it on holiday in Sitges, and have been making it from time to time ever since: it's a good Sunday lunch option for us! Of course, the one time I have to photograph it is the time the finished dish is less than perfect, but hey! And for some reason, the parsley, garlic and olive oil sauce on top looks really weird on the photo, with a colour typically only found on synthetic food :-D




This post is not the most enthusiastic, but really, everything was fine, just not fantastic…

Well done on making fideuà and finishing A Heart So White, Dilara! I've never had that dish, although I've seen it on menus during the four or five times I've visited Barcelona.