Reading and the first book I read

Hello dear Readers,

I've been reading a lot lately, which feels awesome. So many great books out there waiting to be read Others may be not that great but at the end, is reading. I believe reading is magic. Reading can take us to so many wonderful places. Reading can help us when we are having a bad day, to relax. Reading can make us laugh, cry, feel angry, upset. Can make us feel the happiest person in the world. Something that can make us feel all those things, that has to be magic and the good thing is that we do not necessarily need money to read the books. With a library card we can check out books at the library. We can even use a computer or an e-reader and read books for free.  Reading is a privilege. Reading can make us free.

Reading has been present in my life since I remember but it was not always something I did because I liked it. I read all the books I had to read in school and high school but it was always out of obligation, because I had to. Though there were some books that I liked and still do, there was always that "if you want to pass the class, you have to read it" thing that never let me enjoy reading as much as I do now.

With all the reading going on in my life right now, I started thinking about the first book I read not because I had to but because I wanted or like most people say "the book that got me into reading".

In my case, that book was the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

First published in 1988, in the Portuguese language, it has been translated into 56 languages. The story follows the shepherd Santiago in his journey to Egypt, after having this recurrent dream of finding a treasure there. The main theme or message in the book is finding our destiny, our Personal Legend.

When I first read the book, I did not own it. I borrowed it from my sister. One day I was at her house and while taking a look at her personal library, I saw it, read the first pages and it interested me. My sister also said it was a great book and that I should read it and that is what I did. I loved it and not only was the first book I read because I wanted but it was also the first book I bought with my own money. Since that first time I read the Alchemist, Paulo Coelho became my favorite writer. I have read all his books, including a few he wrote before The Alchemist was published and he was not that famous. 

In my case, his books, specially the Alchemist, have been an inspiration. Every book, every story teaches us something. Finding and understanding our Persona Legend, our destiny. Teach us about love, wisdom, about pursuing our dreams, about character, but they also teach us about fighting our demons, sadness and loneliness, which though those are feelings always perceive as bad but we can learn something good from them if we really try.

Not a day pass by that I do not feel thankful that I read this book because it opened my eyes to the wonderful world of reading. Every time I hear somebody saying what this book means to them and how the book has impacted their lives in a good way, I feel lucky because I can relate to it. It not only started my love for reading but it also started my curiosity and my willingness to find my Personal Legend, my purpose in this world.

Have a wonderful reading and a happy reading.

Wen

Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr/Historical Fiction

Hello dear Readers,

Today, I'm doing my book review on All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

Title: All the Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Scribner, First Edition (May 6, 2014)
Language: English
Hardcover: 544 Pages

Book Description

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

My thoughts

*I gave 5/5 stars on Goodreads

I do not usually describe a book with one word. Books can make me feel so many different things that is always hard to come up with one word. However, like everything in life, sometimes we can make exceptions and that is what I am doing with this book, an exception, because if you ask me for one word it would be Perfection. 

I would like to start my review by sharing  two things on why I liked the book that much and how I knew about it. First, and you do not necessarily have to agree with me on this one, but a book that has the power to grasp you from the beginning to the end, through 530 pages, that has to mean something. And the second reason is, I have always liked reading about World War II.  Any book or story that has to do with it, in one way or another has always interested me.

I did not know about this book. I did not even know the author lives in the same city I do. One day, I went to my local library and I saw they were having him for a reading and a book signing on his newest book. I love going to readings, specially if it is at the library. I decided I would look for the book and see what was it about. All the books were checked out so I did not have the chance to see it but that made me realized one thing, the book must be really good. They had a lot of copies and all checked-out plus 44 holds. Since I could not do anything about the fact that all the copies were checked-out, I asked if there were any other books written by Anthony Doerr and they had one copy of his Memoir: Four Seasons in Rome. I was really excited about it because I love reading Memoirs. I read it and liked it. When I got home that day, I took a look at the book All the Light We Cannot See on the internet. The cover is beautiful, the colors. Then, I read about the book, I wanted to have an idea on what was the book about and it immediately captured me. A few days after that, the library purchased more copies of the book. I was able to borrow a copy and when I actually saw the book, I felt in love with it. 

I wanted to finish the book before the reading but it was impossible. A few hours before it started, I was on page 100.  When I got to the library, it was packed. Another sign for me that it was going to be good. And it was. It turned out to be one of the best readings I have ever been to. Except for the fact that one of the ladies there spoiled us on how one of the main characters ends (we did not like that at all but I guess, things like that happen), I still think it was a great evening. Anthony Doerr prepared this presentation to explain when the idea of writing this book came from, how the writing process was, a little bit of the story behind it and I particularly liked that because I was just expecting him to introduce himself, do a little talk about the book, do the reading, then the signing and leave. He did read a few pages but that presentation made the whole thing different, made me want to go home and keep reading the book, non-stop.  

Now, lets talk about the book. Anything you are looking for on a book, this one has it. A well written book, well developed characters, the story, how well organized it is. One of the things I liked the most about it was the short chapters of alternating characters. In my case, it helped the reading process to be smooth. Alternating characters in that way can be confusing for the reader but I think the author did a great job on maintaining the events very well organized, the flow of the story is so well structured that I never got lost or confused with any of the character's stories. 

There is a lot of description. That can be dangerous if the the writer does not know how to use it but again, in this case, it helped me to better understand the characters, what they were going through, how they were feeling. I wanted to read it slow, so I would not miss any detail. The power of description and what can be accomplished when a story is well written, it was almost like I knew what it was like to be blind or what having such passion for something can be like. I felt like I was there, literally, I felt that way through the whole book, like I could touch the characters.

The characters. The main two characters. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History. He works as the master of all the many locks are there. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind. Her father decides to build a miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris so they have to leave their house and went to this city called Saint-Malo. This is where Marie-Laure's uncle lives. 

 Then we have Werner. He is an orphan who lives in Germany with his younger sister Jutta, fascinated by a radio and an expert on how to fix them, his talents got him a place on this academy for the Hitler Youth. They both have something in common, a radio, and because of his talents on reparing them and tracking the resistance, that is how Werner ends in Saint-Malo  and his story and Marie-Laure's converge.

There is more on the history of course but I do not want to spoil it for you. I just want to say, one of my other favorite things on this book, that really touched me, were the letters that Marie-Laure's father sent her when he ended in Germany and Marie-Laure had to stay with her uncle Etienne and Madame Manec. How his father always tried his best to protect her, to assure her he was fine and nothing bad was going on. How much he loved her and how much she loved him. I will share one, the one I liked the most:

Dearest Marie-Laure-

The others in my cell are mostly kind. Some tell jokes. Here's one: Have you heard about the Wehrmacht exercise program? Yes, each morning you raise your hands above your head and leave them there!

Ha ha. My angel has promised to deliver this letter for me at great risk. It is very safe to be out of the "Gasthaus" for a bit. We are building a road now and the work is good. 

My body is getting stronger. Today I saw an oak tree disguised as a chestnut tree. I think it is called a chestnut oak. I would like very much to ask some of the botanists in the gardens about it when we get home.

I hope you and Madame and Etienne will keep sending things. They say will be allowed to receive one parcel each, so something has to go through eventually. I doubt they would let me keep any tools but it would be wonderful if they would.

You absolutely would not believe how pretty it is here ma cherie, and how far we are from danger. I am incredibly safe, as safe as I can be.

Your Papa.

Perfect, amazing, beautiful, heartbreaking. All these words describe this book. Anthony Doerr shows us through the characters, through the story, how, even in the most difficult, horrible times, when we think there is no hope, that there is no meaning or purpose in life, there is that unseen light that can in a moment, easily, make everything better.

If you decide to read this book, hope you enjoy it

Wen

NaNoWriMo 2014 (National Novel Writing Month)

Hello dear Readers,

I was not able to post much in the last weeks and I apologize for that. I have been busy taking care of my husband who recently had a knee surgery and we recently adopted a dog. His name is Ike, a golden retriever, one year and a half. He is adorable, handsome, sweet and smart. Yes, he has been keeping us busy but we love him very much. He has brought so much happiness into our lives in such short period of time and of course I felt like I needed to write about it. Some of the pages I wrote in the last few weeks will be included in the draft I am finishing of my Memoir and speaking of writing, yeahh, NaNoWriMo 2014 is coming very soon. 15 days and the fun will be back.

Sometimes I feel kind of crazy and ask myself: "Why am I so excited about this?" Then, I remember, hey, is NaNoWriMo, this is about writing, having fun and getting things done.

I discovered NaNo last year. I did not even know it existed. One day checking the web site of my local library, they had a post about NaNo. It talked about how people were getting ready for it and what activities were planned for people here in Idaho. write-ins, the launch party, etc. I clicked on the link included on that post and that is how I learned what NaNo was about. All this happened like 3 weeks before it started.

At the beginning I thought I was not going to be able to do it. 50000 words in one month, meaning I had to write at least almost 1700 words a day, it sounded totally insane at the moment. I was struggling to write 500 a day, not every day. Why I would want to add almost 1200 to the struggle? I asked myself. Then, I realized how wrong I was. First of all, I was looking at writing as a struggle, something bad, and not something I was passionate about. It was a period in my life that I did not know what I wanted to do. I had been writing poetry for too long and for a long time I thought about writing a fiction novel but every time I started it, it was a disaster. I was writing because I felt like I had to not because I wanted to. And that is something I always will thank NaNo for. It made realize that even if I dont feel like doing it, writing does not have to be a struggle. I understood that if I wanted to write and not just "want to be a writer", I needed to write, at least a few words a day. Writing is hard, its true, but it can be fun. Winning NaNo is awesome. Having your winner certificate, your winner T-Shirt, all that is great but even if you do not wing, knowing that you wrote at least a few words every day, for 30 days, I can tell you, right there is what makes you a 'I'm a writer" and not just a "I want to be a writer".

I won last year. It helped me to start what today is my first draft and hopefully, I will be able to finish it this year. I am very positive that it will happen.

I had so much fun doing NaNoWriMo last year. I can't hardly wait for November. Last year I went to some of the write-ins they organized, met new people and at the end of the month we even had a celebration party. I really enjoyed it.

Thanks to NaNo I discovered Scrivener, an awesome computer's software for writers which has made writing on the computer much easier and organized for me.

If you want to know more about NaNoWriMo and how to participate, click in the link below.

http://nanowrimo.org/

Have fun guys and keep writing, reading, and living.

Wen