Svetlana's Reads and Views

   Name of Book: Author: ISBN: Publisher: Part of a Series: Type of book: Italy, family, 1950-1951, six months, travel, affair, work, old vs new, diary, breaking society's roles  Year it was published: Summary: Characters: Main characters are Valeria and her family. There is Valeria who is longing to be more than just a housewife, but she feels constrained by society and her family to remain as she is. She is also dealing with a lot of changes when it comes to her family and society. While Valeria is struggling with roles and family obligations, HER husband DESIRES to have a change of career and to be more than he is, a mere provider. Her son wants to leave for Argentina and quite often is old fashioned on his views, especially as it relates to his younger sister. The youngest sister, Mirella, is perhaps a modern day girl who wants to break out of the societal constraints by working and having an affair with a married man.  Theme: It's amazing what diaries can reveal...

   Name of Book: Author: ISBN: Publisher: Part of a Series: Type of book: 1983, New York, Paris, 1980s to 2020s, counselling, winter, seasons, lost in language, colors, modeling, lost innocence  Year it was published: Summary: Characters: Main character is the sixteen year old girl, an unnamed narrator who sought fame but paid the price. She is from Scandinavia and lives in New York with her mother. However, one day she catches a photographer's eye and thus begins the story of bildungsroman and lost innocence. She often tiptoe a lot during the book, having the reader go on wild goose chases, at the same time the prose and revelations become less and less shocking as story goes on. There is also the girls mother who acts more as a sister than a mother and who is afraid of exerting her own authority.  Theme: Memory and experiences create strength and fragility  Plot: The story is in first person narrative from the girls point of view, and yes the time jumps around...

  Title of the book: Author: Publisher: Publishing Date: ISBN: Summary: Author Info: Personal Opinion: I am truly and honestly speechless when it comes to this book, and I mean in a good way. Written as both incorporating poetry and science, this is both a deep meditation and filled with facts and wonders about what we can learn from Earths history. Its definitely easy to take earths building blocks for granted. They were always there, and I doubt many people think of the how and why earth is the way it is. ( at least in my case, I admit.) However, upon reading Strata, I gained a lot of appreciation of how and why earth became the way it did. Starting from the time of Great Oxygenation Event about 2.5 billion years ago, and skipping to "snowball earth" 720 million years ago then to plants and mud 458 million years ago and at last to heat or time before dinosaurs 252 million years ago, I doubt readers will find the book boring or disappointing. If you are seeking something for...

    Name of Book:Once Was Willem Author: M.R. Carey ISBN: 9780316505123 Publisher: Orbit  Type of book: Medieval, England, 1152, fantasy, magic, angels, wizardry, manipulation, villages, kidnapping, shapeshifters, friends  Year it was published: 2025 Summary: From the bestselling author M. R. Carey comes an utterly unique and enchantingly dark epic fantasy fable like no other. This is the tale of Once Was Willem, who - eleven hundred and some years after the death of Christ, in the kingdom that had but recently begun to call itself England - rose from the dead to defeat a great evil facing the humble village of Cosham. Pennick for all its beauty was ever a place with a dark reputation. The forests of the Chase were said to be home to nixies and boggarts, and there was a common belief, passed down through many generations, that the castle housed an unquiet ghost of terrible and malign power. These rumours I can attest were all true; indeed they fell short of...