Bukowski is one of those authors I heard about over the years but never came around to reading. I had heard his name but never actually knew what his writing was like and yet for some reason I thought he was one of those dense, exhausting, difficult to understand kind of writers.

Could I have been more wrong? His writing is honest, free-flowing and sometimes very crude. What I mistakenly thought of him is exactly what he despised in writers:

“They were very dull. There were pages and pages of words that didn’t say anything. Or if they did say something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you already were too tired to have it matter at all.” Ham on Rye

I enjoy the way he tells his stories. It’s like you’re sitting with him, talking about life. Ham on Rye shows his growing up with his parents, the beatings his father gave him, his anger, his acne outburst and the painful treatments, his awkwardness towards people in general and girls in special and his self-destructive behaviour – always getting into fights and drinking himself unconscious.

Post Office was his first novel and it’s a portrait of the period he worked for, obviously, the Post Office. A mind-numbing job, a life of drinking, gambling and screwing around. Here you see what became of the boy from Ham on Rye.

Henry is not a likeable character and sometimes I had to put the book down before it made me too depressed. He lived at a time and place marked by unemployment, poverty, dead-end jobs, war. But I did like his observations of the world around him.

"At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves." Ham on Rye

"Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working." Post Office

"All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn't." Ham on Rye

"Was I the only person who was distracted by this future without a chance?" Ham on Rye

On reading:

"Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great." Ham on Rye

"Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you." Ham on Rye

I’m very curious about his other books: Women, Hollywood, and Factotum. But I need a break to read something lighter first. 

Books have always been my favorite past-time. I can’t remember a moment when I wasn't reading, adding a title to my to-read list or feeling sad because I had so little time to do it for fun.

And then I came back to Belgium and had the luxury many desire and probably many more dread: free time. A whole year of it. I won’t go into details right now, but let’s say I knew exactly how to fill my days.

If you’re a book lover too, I hope you enjoy the list:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) - You might have seen the movie with Martin Freeman (from The Hobbit and Sherlock). If you haven't, it's worth checking out. What surprised me was that there are four other books, equally insane and brilliant at the same time. 
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Douglas Adams) 
• Life, the Universe and Everything (Douglas Adams) 
• So long, and thanks for all the fish (Douglas Adams) 
• Mostly harmless (Douglas Adams) 
• A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin) 
• A Clash of Kings (George R. R. Martin) 
• A Storm of Swords (George R. R. Martin)
• A Feast for Crows (George R. R. Martin) 
• A Dance with Dragons: Dreams and Dust (George R. R. Martin) 
• A Dance with Dragons: After the Feast (George R. R. Martin) - Now that I've read all of them, watching the series won't be the same. Any idea when the next book comes out? 
• The work we were born to do: find the work you love, love the work you do (Nick Williams) 
• Looking for Alaska (John Green) 
• The Fault in our Stars (John Green) - Attention! Movie coming out this year!
• Paper Towns (John Green) 
• An abundance of Katherines (John Green)
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson (John Green) 
• Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances (John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle) 
• The casual vacancy (J. K. Rowling) - NOT for Harry Potter fans. 
• The signature of all things (Elizabeth Gilbert) 
• The Hunger Games Trilogy (Suzanne Collins) - Can't wait to see what Hollywood will make of Mocking Jay. 

Have you read any of these? How did you like it?
Can you suggest me a good read? 

I am going to put myself in a difficult position here and talk about my latest reading experience: the Hunger Games trilogy.

The movies reached tremendous success and that revived people’s interest in the books. I must confess that when The Hunger Games (the movie) was out in 2012 I thought it was just a silly teenager flick and never bothered seeing it. Last year though, when Catching Fire was on theatres my friends wanted to go see it and I gave in: watched the first one, enjoyed it, watched the second one and got the trilogy for Christmas. Naturally, the fact that I had just seen the two movies affected my expectations and reactions I had when reading. I read the books really quickly and couldn’t wait to get to the third one so I’d be surprised by the story’s development.

Wasn’t I surprised…

And disappointed.

But first things first.

For those of you who don’t know the story, the Hunger Games is set in post-apocalyptic USA where the Capitol rules over twelve districts. The districts provide the Capitol with everything they need, getting little in return. They are oppressed and some of them are starving – which led to a rebellion 75 years before our story point. When the rebellion was supressed, the Capitol started the Hunger Games: a yearly event where each district must provide two tributes, male and female, to fight to death while being televised for the whole country.

(Stop reading if you don’t want spoilers!) (Skip to last comment.)

The first book was thrilling. The main character and narrator, Katniss Everdeen, volunteers as a tribute in order to save her sister. The other tribute from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, who has had a crush on her since they were kids.

The readers are taken into that world with her: the luxurious train, the exquisite food, the frivolous people of the Capitol, her fear, her determination, her conflicted feelings towards Peeta. After all, only one of them could survive and she couldn’t imagine killing him.

She’s a hunter and very skilled with the bow and arrows, which was one of the keys to her survival. Another strategy was faking being madly in love with Peeta, thus charming the audience and sponsors. The fights and deaths were gross and gory and her daring twist at the end brought both her and Peeta home alive.

But barely.

In Catching Fire we are shown that President Snow is furious about that and concerned about possible uprisings in the districts, since they might have interpreted Katniss and Peeta’s suicide attempt an act of defiance. They couldn’t just walk away unpunished.

So they are thrown in the arena again. Lame. I know.

Their excuse was based on the fact that every 25 years there must be a Quarter Quell, the Hunger Games with special – and crueller – features. On this third Quarter Quell they drew the tributes from the remaining Victors from each district (it was actually quite interesting to see them and get to know their stories).

The Games themselves were just a bloodbath, the game makers’ weapons and creatures eliminated a lot of contestants. You could also realize that something was going on – some of the tributes went out of their way to keep Peeta and Katniss safe.

In the end they bring the whole arena down and some of them get rescued, the rest captured by the Capitol. Then we learn that District 13 still exists and a revolution was in the making.

Mocking Jay had so much potential. I just read some reviews and confirmed that I wasn’t the only one to think “What. The. Heck?”

I get it that Katniss must have been somewhat traumatized – survived two Hunger Games and all – and angry after knowing they had been plotting and using her. Peeta was a prisoner at the Capitol, she had to live underground and comply with rules (totally against her nature) and on top of it all they wanted her to embrace the role of symbol of the Rebellion, the Mocking Jay (inspired by the golden pin she always wore in the games).

Besides, we are presented with some decent fights that will totally rock onscreen and the plot does develop – they fight their way into the Capitol, President Snow dies and there’s peace and justice in the end. BUT! Katniss is the one telling us the story and I lost my admiration and even my patience with her. The brave but slightly aloof girl from the Hunger Games now spends her time being clueless, apathetic, confused, angry, in pain, drugged, sleeping or hiding. Or thinking everything happens because of her, always.

We couldn’t see the story but from her eyes and they were closed half of the time.

The end was definitely rushed. Katniss was convinced (forced?) to be with the boy who always loved her. Peeta deserved better.

I still recommend it though. It’s entertaining and it keeps you on the edge of your chair. It reads fast and easy and you’ll always want to know what comes next. It just needed some more time and effort. 

“You see, I have never felt the need to invent a world beyond this world, for this world has always seemed large and beautiful enough for me. I have wondered why it is not large and beautiful enough for others-- why they must dream up new and marvellous spheres, or long to live elsewhere, beyond this dominion... but that is not my business. We are all different, I suppose. All I ever wanted was to know this world. I can say now, as I reach my end, that I know quite a bit more of it than I knew when I arrived. Moreover, my little bit of knowledge has been added to all the other accumulated knowledge of history-- added to the great library, as it were. That is no small feat, sir. Anyone who can say such a thing has lived a fortunate life.” 

“I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker," he continued, as though he had not heard her. "We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything.”

As soon as I opened the package that contained my copy of The Signature Of All Things a smile crossed my face. The book is extremely beautiful – the colours and the way the pages were cut make it look like it’s old. It’s like it is actually from the eighteenth century, when part of the story is set.

I had read Eat, Pray, Love and Committed and I’m a fan of Elizabeth Gilbert, her life story and her writing style so I couldn’t wait to read her new book.

It’s a very ambitious book, very well researched and exceptionally written. The characters are quickly and strongly imprinted in your mind and you can easily visualize their surroundings.

The author presents us with a rich account of how science, trade, society and beliefs changed during those years (the story goes from late 18th century to late 19th century). It is fun to imagine how people reacted to new discoveries and ideas that are common to us today, like Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Henry Whittaker was born poor and made his fortune trading plants, manufacturing medicine and investing on expeditions and new discoveries. He married Beatrix, a Dutch woman, and they moved to Philadelphia, where their daughter was born.

Alma is remarkable. Intelligent, dutiful, curious, but a bit self-absorbed. We follow her from the moment she is born. She is faced with conflicting feelings, stiff relationships, loss, new concepts and experiences and so she grows and so the story unfolds.

The book is long (500 pages) but the pace is great. I read it quickly, but sometimes I felt like it dragged on the explanations and descriptions of facts, ideas and theories of that time, like a lecture. However, there’s always something going on and you can’t help but wonder what will happen next.

The Signature Of All Things is a theory that says everything in nature was marked by the Creator. Like God left a series of imprints and clues for us to understand life. This concept is brought into the story by Ambrose Pike, who changes the course of Alma’s life – and of the book.

Captivating story, it really takes you on a journey.

New Year resolutions for me have never been more than wishes. In that magical moment at midnight, I’d close my eyes and think about the things I wish would happen. Needless to say, they didn’t happen or I simply forgot about them with the passing of time.

Then, I started having these big, yearly goals - living in the USA, living in Europe, coming back to Belgium – and give them all my attention and energy, not really worrying about what else would happen. They were a fun couple of years, focusing on the big decisions and letting the rest surprise me.

But now I feel like taking more action and responsibility in creating my own life. I know I can’t control every single thing and it’s not about that. It’s about starting a new year – and a new cycle of life, in my case – with a clear vision of how you want your life to unfold and what concrete actions you can take in order to achieve that.

The Create Your Amazing Life Workbook, by Leonie Dawson is making me think in detail and putting me in the best mindset for making things happen.

It starts by Celebrating and Releasing the past year. Maybe you just want to forget things that happened this year; or maybe you’re clinging to good and fun things that won’t come back. Either way, give thanks and let go. I wrote about the lessons I learned this year, the ways I was transformed, what dreams came true and why I’m happy today. I made a big gratitude list and let go.

I opened space for the new wonderful things to come. 

This workbook is not only about making plans. It’s about the BIG picture of YOUR LIFE.

How do you want to feel during the year? What will you give yourself this year? When everything sucks, what will you turn to? (It’s very handy to have this list around. I wrote down everything that makes me feel better, because when you’re sad it’s easy to sink even more.)

Leonie also prompts us to make lists of good habits, mottos and affirmations to hang/paste around the house. She encourages us to dream big and to dare writing our wildest goals down. Then, she shows us how to break it down in smaller steps.

I had never thought about planning my year like this. Sure, I’ve promised myself to eat healthier and exercise more, but it’s so easy to forget and slip into old habits and routines.

I’ve completed my workbook and I’ll review it every month to keep me on track of my gorgeous plans and challenges (Publish a book! Lose weight! Go to Brazil!). I’m sure the reminders, calendars and posters will help. 

What are your big dreams for next year?

John Green and David Levithan write alternating chapters in which the main characters are both teenagers called Will Grayson who live in Chicago.

One of them is friends with Tiny Cooper – a huge gay football player who’s writing a musical about his life (later on it becomes about love).

The other lives with his mom and is chronically depressed. He has a destructive friendship with Maura, which eventually leads to meeting the first Will Grayson, Tiny Cooper and Jane.

The writing style is very distinct between chapters: Levithan writes completely in lowercase, which he explained as being Will Grayson’s perception of himself and also the way he prefers to communicate (online, via instant messaging).

The story is all about relationships – with others as well as with yourself. It’s about feeling comfortable in your own skin and about giving love a chance.

They touch subjects like homosexuality and depression with lightness and wit.

“When things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It's because a little piece gets lost - the two remaining ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed.” 

“i think the idea of a 'mental health day' is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it's like to have bad mental health. the idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying 'i don't want to deal with things today' and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide.” 

“I think about how much depends upon a best friend. Then you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don't scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there. Until it's not.” 

Great read.

Colin Singleton is a child prodigy who can speak many languages, loves anagramming and has dated – and been dumped by – not less than 19 girls named Katherine. Hence, the title.

He has just graduated from high school and is locked up in his room moping about his most recent break-up and the fact that he is no longer a child prodigy and will probably never be a genius or do anything that matters when his friend Hassan comes in and convinces him that all he needs is a road trip.

Classic John Green story.

They drive from Chicago to Tennessee and stop by a town called Gutshot, where they claim is the resting place of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

They meet Lindsey, a tour guide/store clerk/paramedic in training/daughter of the richest person in town and girlfriend of another boy named Colin, whom they promptly start calling TOC (the other Colin).

Colin and Hassan are offered a job and move in with Lindsey and her mom. Hassan goes around making friends and having fun while Colin works on his new idea, the one that will probably give him the genius status he desires so much: a mathematical theorem that explains his past relationships with Katherines and predicts who will dump who in any given relationship.

Meanwhile, Colin and Lindsey get closer and discuss being important, doing things that matter, trying to fit in and being yourself.

For once, the characters’ speech didn’t annoy me and it was again a nice read. 

Favorite quotes:

“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?” 

“I don't think your missing pieces ever fit inside you again once they go missing.”

“I don't think God gives a shit if we have a dog or if a woman wears shorts. I think He gives a shit whether you're a good person.” 

“The future will erase everything—there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion.” 

In Paper Towns John Green tells us the story of Quentin and Margo, who are high school seniors about a month from graduating.

They are neighbors and have known each other since they were little but ended up growing apart and having their own group of friends.

Quentin lives a pretty “normal” routine: school, video games with friends and a platonic love for Margo, who is adventurous and unpredictable.

On “the longest night of his life”, Quentin is surprised by Margo at his bedroom window, dressed all in black and summoning him for a night of pranks and revenge – she had just found out her boyfriend was sleeping with one of her closest friends.

They drive around Orlando spray painting houses and cars, hiding fishes in closets, taking pictures of her ex naked and breaking into buildings. I liked the notes she left with the fish, as a reference to The Godfather: your Friendship with ms Sleeps with The fishes. The capitalization is also an interesting concept: Margo says she doesn’t agree with the rules because they are not fair to the words in the middle.

On the top of a building, they look out at the city in the middle of the night and she talks about paper towns, about how fake everything is and about how people are living their lives:

Margo doesn’t show up for school the next day. And the next one. And the next one. Nobody is actually worried because she is known for running away on adventures. However, Quentin thinks something is different this time and ends up following clues he thinks she had left for him in order to find her.

As his friends obsess about prom and graduation, he can’t stop thinking about finding Margo and maybe proving that he is good enough to be with her. He tries to know her better through her clues and realizes each person has different perceptions of one another. His Margo wasn’t his friends’ Margo or even her parents’ Margo.

Isn’t that the way it is? People are but what we believe they are. Will we ever truly know a person?

John Green has again created an easy to read, young adult novel with great food for thought and charming characters. Margo has a compulsion for leaving, for going somewhere she could be herself and not have to go down the road of graduation-college-job-house-marriage-babies. Needless to say, I resonate with her.

Oh, and it also features a family who owns the world’s largest collection of Black Santas! 


Have you read this or any other of John Green's books? Share your thoughts with us!

I started reading The Fault in Our Stars with no previous knowledge of what it was about. I didn’t read any reviews, so I didn’t have any pre-conceptions or expectations. That’s a great thing.

On Chapter One I learned that the main character, Hazel, is a sixteen-year-old cancer survivor. Her tumor had shrunk but she had been living with “lungs that suck at being lungs” and an oxygen tank at tow all the time.

At Support Group she meets Augustus, a seventeen-year-old who had lost a leg but had no evidence of cancer for a while.

They start hanging out and gradually fall in love with each other, sharing their fears and dreams.

They think a lot about life and death – Hazel fears her death will devastate her parents’ lives and she struggles with the idea of “being a grenade”. For a while she avoids getting close to Augustus so that he won’t suffer when she passes.

Augustus fears oblivion and is obsessed with the idea of being remembered and of leaving a mark.

Here John Green touched one of the biggest and unanswered human musings: What’s the meaning and purpose of life? What’s the importance and impact of one human life? What are we supposed to do with our time here? Why bother, since we’re all going to die and be forgotten by the Universe?

We’re invited into Hazel and Augustus’ views on that as they come to terms with the fact that they will die young.

It was a nice read and I kept on turning the pages in order to know what was going to happen to them. However, the same thought occurred to me over and over as it did while reading Looking for Alaska: “What teenager talks like that?” I thought that maybe I’ve been misguided on “American teenage vernacular” by MTV and series but now that I’m reading other people’s reviews, I see that I’m not the only one who felt exasperated. They describe the characters as “wise beyond their years” and the dialogues as staged and unnatural and I couldn’t agree more. They say things like:

“I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” – Augustus to Hazel

“I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn't see it again, and it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.” – Hazel

“It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.” – Augustus, when he first meets Hazel and puts a cigarette in his mouth even though both of them had cancer and she dragged an oxygen tank with her all the time.

I’m going to stop here so that I don’t spoil the plot twist and the end, but keep an eye open because The Fault in Our Stars, the movie is on its way!

“So this guy,” I said, standing in the doorway of the living room, “François Rabelais. He was this poet. And his last words were, ‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps.’ That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.”

An unpopular, friendless high school boy decides to attend a boarding school in Alabama in order to seek his Great Perhaps. Miles didn’t know what it would be, but he didn’t want to waste his life in not-knowing.

I resonate deeply with that feeling and I guess many of you do too. We want to go somewhere and find something exciting and do things and live.

At his new school, he makes new friends – his roommate Chip, aka the Colonel and his friends Alaska, Takumi and Lara. On the first night, sitting on the school swings and smoking cigarettes, the quote that will hover during the whole story comes up:

“He – that’s Simón Bolívar – was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at that moment reaching the finish line. The rest was darkness. ‘Damn it,’ he sighed, ‘How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?’”   

That is a fantastic quote and food for a lot of reflection and discussion. Later on the book, it is suggested that the labyrinth is suffering. How do you get out of this perpetual labyrinth of suffering? Most people don’t. They choose to stay in it and continue their lives pretending it doesn’t exist.

The rest of the story is filled with teenage love/lust, school pranks, sad stories and drama. I guess Miles found more than a Perhaps. 

It is an easy read – I got hooked and finished it in a couple of days. What I can’t wrap my brain around is the way the characters talk. I don’t know any teenager who talks like that: so articulate, no slangs or corruptions and full of literary references.

I didn’t know John Green was a writer, but apparently he’s been doing it for a while and now I’m set out to read all his books (Currently reading: The fault in our stars). My boyfriend has already stocked our bookshelf. It was him who introduced me to John and Hank Green in the first place – their Crash Courses are awesome and addictive, as you can see below: