It’s Tuesday again and yes I still have more tbr books I have yet to share. I know, it’s a problem.
Here a just a few more tbr waitlisters:
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia.
Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.
Rated 4.7 on amazon.com
My Life Before, During, and After
(1952; German: Sieben Jahre in Tibet. Mein Leben am Hofe des Dalai Lama; 1954 in English) is an autobiographical travel book written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer based on his real life experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during the Second World War and the interim period before the Communist Chinese People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet in 1950.
An adventure classic in a vivid memoir that has sold millions of copies worldwide.
Rated 4.7 on amazon.com
‘Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta’. Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady’s twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he’ll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert?
A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these?
Rated 4.3 on amazon.com
It’s actually because of the synopsis of “Lolita” that I’ve yet to read it…
I feel I may end up regretting it or torn between not finishing it…
Yet it’s always lingering there on my shelf asking me if I’m ever going to read it,
or showing up somewhere as praise worthy…
Help! Tell me your thoughts on this novel please.
Cafe Book Bean 
It must be 60 years since I read ‘Seven Years in Tibet’. I remember enjoying it. ‘Lolita’ is well written, Humbert is certainly a tortured soul, but I can’t remember if he acts on it.
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Sometimes well written books just aren’t enough to convince me to read it, but I think I’m tainted by “Perfume.” That books has made me cautious in choosing books just because “they are a must read.” I’m getting good feedback about Lolita though, it’s helpful.
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Actually, I liked ‘Perfume’
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I could appreciate that it was a well written book, I just struggled personally with the grittiness of it. That’s what I worry about happening with Lolita, that although it’s well written I’ll struggle through it, and not get a lot out of it… Maybe not though.
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Good luck with it
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I have never read Lolita. I keep thinking I should get to it…I don’t own it, so I may wait to see what you think!
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If I ever convince myself to read it 🙂
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You should definitely take Lolita down from the shelf and read it. It’s a classic!
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Have you ever read “Perfume?” for some reason I feel like Lolita will invoke similar feelings in me that Perfume did, and that is a big part of my hesitancy.
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I have not read it. I can’t say how you will react, but Lolita is a beautifully written novel.
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Lolita didn’t entertain or teach me much.
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Hm, well than I have a hard time imagining it would be worth the seemingly gritty content. I feel I would get trapped reading it like I did with “Perfume” which I regretted wasting my time on.
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I have “Between Shades of Gray” on my to-be-read list, too 🙂 I’m very excited to read it because I studied this era in college and it has always been of great interest to me.
Thanks for sharing!
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Me too 🙂 I’m looking forward to reading it.
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Have not read the other two, but Lolita is worth a read. It is told from the point of view of Humbert Humbert, not the most likable character but yes, perhaps a tortured soul.
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What do you feel the underlying message was?
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We could look at it as what happens when a figure of authority controls and abuses a weaker figure. Others see Lolita as the temptress and Humbert as the victim. We see the story through Hmbert’s eyes so we know little about how Lolita feels. Lolita has been compared to say the Olsen twins or Britney Spears in that she was sexualized without even being aware of it by adults. It is not really a lewd or obscene book, nor particularly graphic. It is just the whole idea of Humbert Humbert that is repulsive.
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Thank you, you’re insight really helps 🙂
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Seven Years in Tibet may have to jump onto my reading list. I saw the film some years ago, but have no doubt that it pales in comparison to the book!
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Well at least you watched it first, that always help, otherwise it can lead to serious disappointment. 🙂
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Between Shades of Grey sounds like a book for me! 🙂
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It does look SO good 🙂
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I feel the same way about Lolita as you do.
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Can’t help you much. Still on my TBR list.
It is vastly rated as a monument. But then so is Ulysses. (Not TBR list)
I may read it some day, but I think it will be more a tribute to a moment in time.
Lots of things have happened since that book.
😉
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Abbie, I love this!!!
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😀
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