I have had a busy time, but now I worry my blog followers will forget that I exist.

So maybe I will just show what I have been listening to or reading lately and start writing proper blog later.Fome of those boooks connect to my childhood.

And if you are bored by other people talking about books, well, don’t read this. I won’t be offended.

Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels

This was he best audiobook so far. Brilliant. Witty, clever, well read. My favourite audiobook this year.Now I might read it again. I read it in Czech several time as a young teenager and loved it. But as a child, I did not get the marvellous sarcasm and descriptions of society. And only an adult who knows England can understand it properly. England that gave me political asylum and that is my home now. And despite some negative aspects of history,a country where this critical book was published in 18th century has an admirable tradition of freedom.

I thought his English of 18th century would be too inaccessible for me. I was very surprised about Swift’s modern language and thinking- especially in the third part. There, the humans are like animals, wild Yahoos, whereas the intelligent sophisticated cultured creatures are horses- Houyhnhnms. Well, it is an English book, and they love horses here, even women who look like horses are considered beautiful. So when Gulliver – a smart Yahoo for them- tells the horses that women don’t get the same education as men in England, they are shocked. ” So you leave half of the population uneducated and then let that half look after the young?” Swift seemed very modern for his time. Try the book, it is marvellous.

Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead audiobook

I loved this audiobook, the fascinating paraphrasing, moving David Copperfield to modern USA. As a child, I used to love David Copperfield – I read it at least 3 x in Czech translation . This book is darker, very dark. But brilliant. The description of drug addiction is also unusually accurate.

Charles Dickens

David Copperfield

I read this at least 3 times in Czech when I as about 11. I loved it, in a way more than when I tried in English as an adult,the Czech translation from 1934 was more accessible then Dicken’s rather archaic English. Recent reading of Demon Copperhead reminded me of this favourite book from my childhood.

Lina Lipiner Katz A Life Inherited

This book of a fellow second generation Holocaust survivor, as our generation is called despite not being alive during the Holocaust ,was fascinating, because it was so different than my experience.The book is well written, characters are alive, and the voice very powerful.The main character, growing up in America- presumably the author-was affected by the war experiences of her family during the war from early childhood. The trauma was real for her, the worry that the Nazis would come and arrest them all…I didn’t find out about being Jewish till I was 14,my parents didn’t tell me to protect me. I was cross, like any teenager finding out about a family secret. Now I wonder… Was it a wise decision? I could cope better as an older teenager and adult when I found out the horrible details. Now I am much closer to my Jewish identity,and I installed Stolpersteine on a Prague pavement as a reminder .

Prince Harry

Spare

Well, I bought it out of curiosity. I don’t like the vicious British press, the intrusion ,the paparazzis. But that didn’t prevent me from being prejudiced to this young privileged whining man…But listening to him reading it, I realised that it is not so simple, That being a young royal constantly being spied on by the press,the past, his mother Diana , the palace logistics, it is not easy to get through unharmed. The book was honest, not over dramatic, of course only his point of view, but still, I wish him and his family well.

So this is it, just telling you I am still alive and reading, or listening to audiobooks while doing other things.

My book contract is ending and I will re-publish my novel Why Didn’t They Leave ?” directly to Amazon, selling the paperbacks myself. So it will still be available in case you know someone who would like to read it.