"Promise me" by Harlan Coben

I was hesitating before if I should read any of books of Harlan Coben – you know, sometimes books of these very popular and “breedy” authors are not really worth of reading. But then I’ve got a chance to get it on the Polish version of BookMooch in the frame of special action – the books are suppose to come back to this web portal the latest in 30 days after receiving them, so it’s kind of queue for books :) I took this challenge. And for sure I’m not sorry about it.

The Polish translation and proofreading is not the masterpiece in this case. But still the book is worth of reading. It’s a story of Myron, guy trying to forget about his past and live his live as a co-owner of the PR company. During a small party at his home he promises to two teenagers (members of his friends’ families) that he will always pick them up in any case if they would be suppose to be driven home by a drunk driver or in similar case. Some days later one of the girls is calling him in the middle of the night and ask for the lift. He drives her to the house which she is telling is belonging to the family of her friend. The day later is still not back at home. She disappeared. And then the story began…

There are much more threads in this book than this single one and it’s keeping the attention (at least of me) until the end. And the end was surprising for me – it did finish in another way I thought it will be and also with other suspects than I thought. What is pretty good in my opinion. Or maybe I was not enough smart to find the answers out by myself ;)

It’s an interesting book, which is good to read if you want to don’t think about something else or just have some time and want to relax (if you may relax during reading such stories ;))
I already ordered 3 other books of Coben on the site of this action :)

"Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore

It was one of the first books which I’ve exchanged on the Polish website similar to BookMooch. It was waiting quite long for being read ;)

It’s a nice, funny, mostly light story in a form of new Gospel, written by a friend of Jesus, who was vitalized by an angel to create it. It focus mostly on the years, where are not really well known and well described in the Bible, wonder why ;) So, we’re getting to know Jesus childhood, growing up to his teenager years and then being an adult. On the way from Jesus childhood to his last days he has incredible amount of adventures –learning how to heal people, how to kick demons from them etc. When both of them are teenagers they decide to go and find 3 wise men, who were welcoming Jesus after he was born. So, they spend years and years on finding them and learning new knowledge and skills from them (with a lot of funny and not funny adventures.

Jesus in this book Is close to being an “ordinary person” – he has his doubts, fears, sins, temptations and so on. He is funny, sarcastic, with a sense of humor. You could have a pal like he :)

Of course, it’s just a funny fiction story, but it’s well written, keeping the attention of the reader all the time, giving a lot of fun while reading. I recommend reading it :)

"Tata, one i ja" by Manula Kalicka

It’s a book of a Polish author (the title in English would be something like: "Dad, them and me"). I took it as a light reading before going to sleep. And it was :) It would be nothing really special, but it has one thing which was adding a lot of joy during reading it – great amount of good humor in it. It’s really funny, there are many opportunities for laughing during reading it.

It’s a story of a family. The mother is deciding to leave the family and go to Africa with her great new love, she can’t resist it. So, she is leaving 2 daughters (teenager and 6 years old), her husband and rest of family and moving to Africa. The father is a rock musician, party type, loving to party until the morning, with a lot of alcohol, some weed and plenty of nice chicks around him. There is a new lady-help in the house, great cook, who help them surviving without any woman in the house ;) There is also a cool, incredible grandma and a nice, funny grandpa. And quite some girls which are trying to “hunt” the father and get involved in the relationship with a famous singer. There is a lot of funny adventure happening in this family, but of course everything is finishing good: father found his new love and decide to merry her, kids like the future stepmother, the real mother is also changing her great love for another great love, with whom she is getting married. The happy end :)

It’s an easy story, but sometimes it’s good just to read a light story, laugh and have a good sleep afterwards.

"The Nanny Diaries" by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

I was expecting more less an easy chick lit. And to be honest – I was surprised with what I’ve got during reading it. But it was a positive surprise!

It’s a story of a student, living in New York and trying to earn some money during the last year of her studies – working as a nanny. In the park she have met a family making a family pictures. She deals with the little boy – Grayer and through that she is “noticed”, by his mother – Mrs. X. She asked her to work for them – just a few times per week, flexible schedule etc. Everything looks perfect, but… With time she is rather getting into being a slave of the family, manage with dozens of issues which are not in the tasks of being Nanny of Grayer. But she starts to love the little guy, so she kept her work there. The family X is a reach family, with working father and “socially involved” mother. They totally don’t care about their son (besides of trying to put him in the best private school). The father just work and have love affair. Mother is trying to be “perfect” and also to keep her husband to stay with them. And in all these happenings they’re forgetting about their own 4 years old son. Who starts to see Nanny as the most important person in his life. What will happened at the end? Will take “wake up” in their life? Will be there any change for better?

I took this book as a “light” reading before falling asleep, but need to admit it got my attention and I was even getting angry on the family X :) Now, I’ll try to look for another book of these 2 authors to check if I’ll also like it or not.

"South of the Border, West of the Sun" by Haruki Murakami

It was for me a first book of Murakami which I read in my life. And it was a good beginning of the adventure with his writings.

It’s a story of a life of Japanese boy, later man. It’s the story of his relations with other people, but mostly women. Starting with an incredible friendship with Shimamoto when they were kids, through first relationship, college times, first work, the years full of loneliness up to meeting his wife and creating a family. Great wife and 2 daughters, owner of 2 popular jazz clubs, healthy man. But something is missing… How it’ll finish? It’s a very well written story about love, about the biggest love, about loneliness, about longing, about pain. About human being. But also about reality – especially the end is giving us a lot of surprises. The characters are well build, the story is interesting and go on very well during reading. It’s worth to give a try and read it :) I'll look for other books of this author as well.

And I love the cover ;)

"Trzepot skrzydeł" by Katarzyna Grochola

This book is written by a very popular Polish author. She is good in writing books, which are close to chick lits (but still there is “something more” in most them). But this book is different. The title means more less “Flap of wings” and it’s related with the ending of the book.

It’s a story of a woman. Woman who dream about love in her life, about something who will also take care about her. This need is also related with luck of acting out, her parents rather didn’t show her that they love her and that she is important for them.

At some point of her life she met a prince charming. He was full of love, taking care about her, fulfilling her wishes before she even thought about them. Shortly – an ideal. They got married and the live is just beautiful. As long as she doesn’t recognize that actually he is treating her as his property and doesn’t want to “share her” with anybody, he wants to take all the decisions etc. She lost all of her friends, she is all the time at home, just waiting for him and doing what he is asking for. And even this is not enough. This “not comfortable” situation Is slowly growing up to the hell… The first hit, the first slap, first black eye… Then “regular” beating, kicking… All the time new excuses at work – I felt down in the bathroom, I hurtled the shelf and so on. When he finally breaks her arm it seems that something get to his brain or heart and he is changing to the “short-after-we’ve-got-married” version. Happiness is blooming, she finally starts to think about having a baby, stops to take pills. But the happiness did not last for long – just because of one sentence everything started again. But this time she is trying to fight. As the result she is finishing in the hospital, with a lot of physical damage and lost child… But the women are though, so she is trying to overcome all the happenings in her life and start the new life by herself. And you want to believe she will manage it…

The story is written in the frame of kind of one long letter she is writing to someone to sum up her life. We don’t know the addressee until the very last pages of the book. Who is that?

I really like the book, it was well written story. And what’s more important – it’s dealing with one of the most common problems of women – domestic violence. Statistically the most physical and mental damage women get in the acts of domestic violence. So, it’s good to speak it loud and also to do it in the way which gives some – realistic – hope for changes and for the future. Good work!

"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

I was thinking about reading this book for a long time. But the problem was to get it. There is no in the library in my village, in the bookstores it’s quite expensive, on the Polish version of BookMooch there is no copies at all. At least I found a lovely person who agreed to mooch it to me from the United Kingdom via BookMooch.

Already the first sentence and the whole first paragraph conquered my mind and heart - „I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.”. I felt like sitting on my grandpa knees, during the freezing winter evening, nice warm fire in the fireplace and He is telling me the story of his life. And because of that the author got my interest already with the first paragraph :)

This book is about feelings, about what is good and beautiful in us, but also about what is scary and monstrous. We discover a history of a family, but also the history of a country. Country which suffered a lot during last few dozen of years. And will suffer still in the future, as it’s impossible to see a soon end of the conflict in Afghanistan. This book shows us the beauty of this country, tells us about people living in it, about their daily life, habits, celebrations, how they enjoy themselves, how they pray, celebrate, love, how their families function, how the social relations looks like.

But mainly tell us a story of a boy. Boy and his friend. Boy and his father. Boy and his wife. Boy and… I think that during reading this book I never read more than 2 chapters at time. There is too much of feelings in it, it gave too big emotional and psychological load, too many questions raised in my head. But that’s better, it’s not an ordinary chick lit, which you may “swallow” in one or two hours. That’s this kind of book about which you thinks a lot, even when you’re not reading it at the moment. Still everything is “melting” in my head, that’s why it’s still difficult to write the review of it.

Maybe – as some people are telling – Khaled Hosseini is just a great “craftsman”. Maybe this book is just an example of a good technique. Maybe, it’s not me to judge it, I’m not an expert. But this book is a wonderful gift for me, for which I’m very grateful for him. And that’s why my copy of “The Kite Runner” will stay on my shelf. No chances for mooching it. And I already mooched „A Thousand Splendid Suns” – to give myself another such a great gift :)

"Chłopiec z latawcem" - Khaled Hosseini

O przeczytaniu tej książki myślałam od dawna. Problemem było jej zdobycie. W bibliotece nie mają, w księgarniach drogo, na Podaju posucha. W końcu ściągnęłam sobie egzemplarz przez międzynarodową stronę wymiany książek. W razie jakichkolwiek nieścisłości – mogą one wynikać z różnic w polskim i angielskim wydaniu.

Już pierwsze zdanie i cały pierwszy akapit zawładnęły moim umysłem i sercem. „I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.”. Poczułam się, jak gdybym siedziała na kolanach u dziadka, w mroźny , zimowy wieczór, w kominku płonąłby ogień, a on opowiadałby mi dzieje swojego życia. I tym autor zdobył moje zainteresowanie już na samym początku.

Książka ta opowiada o uczuciach, o tym, co w nas dobre, piękne, jak również o tym, co przerażające i ohydne. Odkrywa przed nami historię rodziny, lecz także historię kraju. Kraju, który wiele przecierpiał w ciągu ostatnich kilkudziesięciu lat, i który jeszcze wiele przecierpi, bo niestety nie widać końca konfliktu w Afganistanie. Pokazuje nam jego piękno, opowiada o ludziach w nim mieszkających, o ich życiu codziennym, zwyczajach, świętach, o tym jak się bawią, modlą, świętują, kochają, jak funkcjonują ich rodziny, jak wyglądają relacje społeczne.

Ale głównie opowiada o chłopcu. Chłopcu i jego przyjacielu. Chłopcu i jego ojcu. Chłopcu i jego żonie. Chłopcu i… Wydaje mi się, że ciągu czytania tej książki nigdy nie przeczytałam więcej niż 2 rozdziały naraz. Zbyt wiele ta książka poruszała emocji, zbyt wielki ładunek uczuciowo-psychologiczny przekazywała, zbyt wiele pytań powstawało w mej głowie. Ale tak jest lepiej, to nie jest zwykły chick lit, który można połknąć w godzinę, czy dwie. To książka, o której się myśli nawet wtedy, kiedy się jej akurat nie czyta. Wszystko jeszcze „kotłuje” się w mojej głowie, dlatego też trudno było mi cokolwiek na jej temat napisać.

Może i Khaled Hosseini to tylko świetny rzemieślnik, jak twierdzą niektórzy. I, że ta książka, to tylko przykład dobrego warsztatu. Może, nie mi o tym sądzić, nie jestem ekspertem. Ale ta książka dla mnie jest przepięknym prezentem za który bardzo mu dziękuję. I dlatego „Chłopiec z latawcem” pozostanie u mnie na półce. I już zamówiłam „A Thousand Splendid Suns”, żeby sobie jeszcze jeden taki prezent sprawić :)

"Porte De LA Paix Celeste" by Shan Sa

"Porte De LA Paix Celeste" (I think it’s in English “The Gate of Heavenly Peace) is a short novel. That’s full of emotions.

It’s a story of 2 main characters – a revolutionist student, very smart and sensitive girl, trying to find peace in her life after the suicide of her big love and a soldier, settled strongly in order and in the frame of communist China system. She is criminal in the eyes of the government and he is send to catch her and to “make an order with her”. She – with help of some people – is hidden in the village, in the deep province. He is following her as a wolf after the lamb. But in the meantime he is reading her diaries found during the search in her house. She is trying to find peace in herself. He starts to feel emotions which never accompanied him. How it will end? What will happen? Will they meet? I will not tell you that :)

It’s a short story of sudden changes and deep emotions. It’s also showing the cruelty of the system, where individuals are nothing special. But it’s also showing those Individuals who means a lot.

If you want to spend an hour or two on reading – that could be a nice suggestion.

"Berlin Alexanderplatz" by Alfred Doblin

When I decided to read this book I did not have any info about it. I decided just because of the title – “Berlin Alexanderplatz”. Usually, in 99% of cases I check the books before I’m taking my decision about reading them (especially those, which I can’t earlier open and at least look through it). But those, who know me, know that I’m crazy about Berlin, and this square and its’ surroundings is one of my favorite places there. That’s why I decided on spec. First I could not find it anywhere, but one of my internet-bookworm-friends helped me and she borrow it for me :)

And that’s how my adventure with this book started. Honestly, I had a hard time during reading it! The story itself – the story of Frank Biberkopf – is compelling. We’re meeting him in the gate of the Tegel prison, from where (after spending there a few years for the murder) he is right now starting a new chapter of his life. Frank promises himself to live and to work honestly, avoid troubles and old companions. How will he manage? How the whole story will finish? What will the life bring to Frank during Just one year since this moment? I don’t want to tell much about the story line, but I will just mention that he will open and close a few more chapters of his life. Frank will be surrounded by more or less interesting characters, friends and enemies – how it’s usually in life. He will have a great deal of bad luck and quite much luck as well. But, at the end he will find out still that it’s better to live with other people, together, for each other. Then we know better what is good and what is bad. Will it be like that? I don’t know, but I’m willing to believe to Frank. That’s about the plot.

I had a hard time during reading because of the language and the style used in this book. In the foreword we are warned that this author like to “destroy the forms of the novels”. But I did not expect what I’ve got ;) Many times (especially during first 200 pages) I felt as I’m reading 10 different books in one + the newspaper with announcements. The plot is interrupted many times with small fragments, which doesn’t have any logical background and relation with the whole story. For example during one walk of Frank we’re getting to know how different plants are reacting for a cold weather. I need to admit that those fragments dishearten me often.

Berlin is very much settled in the plot of this book. We’re getting to know quite well many streets, squares, districts; we know how they looked like in the twenties of the last century. We get to know as well different information about architecture, transportation, economy, social relations etc. For me those descriptions of Berlin were an “added value”, because I could compare the look of the places which I know :)

To sum up – the story itself it’s interesting, but because of the style used I could not relish those 600 pages of reading.

Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Döblin

Zdecydowałam się przeczytać tą książkę nic o niej nie wiedząc, tylko i wyłącznie dla jej tytułu – „Berlin Alexanderplatz”.

W 99% sprawdzam książki zanim zdecyduję się je przeczytać (zwłaszcza te, których nie mogę otworzyć wcześniej i chociaż przejrzeć). Jednakże ci, którzy mnie znają, wiedzą o moim zwariowaniu na temat Berlina, a ten plac i jego okolice, to jedno z moich ulubionych miejsc. Dlatego tym razem zdecydowałam „w ciemno”.

Najpierw nie mogłam zdobyć nigdzie tej pozycji, jednakże uratowała mnie jedna z użytkowniczek BiblioNETki, która zdecydowała się pożyczyć mi ją na czas bliżej nieokreślony.

I tak zaczęła się moja przygoda z tą pozycją. Przyznam się bez bicia, że miałam z nią ciężką przeprawę! Sama historia – dzieje Franciszka Biberkopfa jest wciągająca. Franka spotykamy w bramach więzienia Tegel, skąd (po odsiedzeniu kilku lat za zabójstwo) właśnie zaczyna on nowy rozdział swego życia. Franek obiecuje sobie żyć i pracować uczciwie, trzymać się z dala od kłopotów i dawnych znajomych. Co z tego wyjdzie? Jak skończy się cała historia? Co czeka Franka w ciągu jednego tylko roku od tej ważnej chwili? Nie chcę zdradzać fabuły, jednak wspomnę tylko, że rozdziałów w swym życiu będzie on otwierał i zamykał jeszcze przynajmniej kilka. Otaczać go będą mniej lub bardziej ciekawe postacie, przyjaciele i wrogowie – jak to w życiu bywa. Będzie miał sporo pecha i całkiem wiele szczęścia. Jednak na końcu stwierdzi on „Ale jest również piękniej i lepiej żyć razem z innymi. Wtedy odczuwam wszystko i wiem podwójnie. Okręt nie stoi pewnie bez wielkiej kotwicy, a człowiek nie może istnieć bez wielu ludzi. Teraz lepiej będę wiedział, co dobre i co złe.”. Czy tak będzie faktycznie? Nie wiem, ale chce się Franciszkowi wierzyć. Tyle, o samej historii.

Ciężką przeprawę zagwarantował mi język i styl użyty w tej książce. W przedmowie (w moim przypadku przeczytanej na końcu ;)) można przeczytać „Ambicją Döblina nie było wszakże pisywanie „normalnych" powieści. Ten urzeczony marzeniem o monumentalnej epice artysta nie kroczył szlakami wytyczonymi przez klasyków rodzaju, lecz - jak mówi Claude David - rozbijał formy powieści, tak jak inni przed nim rozbijali ramy liryki czy dramatu. Ta destrukcja formy powieściowej nie była jednak mechanicznym rozszerzeniem na jeszcze jedną dziedzinę „rozbijackich" tendencji ekspresjonistycznej poezji i dramaturgii, nie wynikała też z nieudolności ani ze snobistycznego pościgu za osiągana oryginalnością.”. Wiele razy (szczególnie przez pierwszych 200 stron) czułam się, jak gdybym czytała 10 książek na raz + gazetę z ogłoszeniami. Wątek przerywany jest bardzo często wtrętami, które nie mają żadnego logicznego uzasadnienia i powiązania z tematem książki, np. w trakcie jednej z wędrówek Franka po Berlinie dowiadujemy się też jak różne rośliny reagują na zimno. Przyznam, że wtręty te zdecydowanie „obrzydzały” mi czytanie. Nie ten typ.

Berlin jest bardzo mocno osadzony w tejże książce. Wiele ulic, skwerów, dzielnic poznajemy dosyć dokładnie, wiemy, jak wyglądały w latach 20-tych poprzedniego wieku, jakie funkcje pełniły. Możemy dowiedzieć się wiele o architekturze, komunikacji, ekonomii, stosunkach społecznych. Dla mnie opisy Berlina były „wartością dodaną”, bo mogłam sobie porównywać wygląd wielu miejsc które znam :)

Sumując – historia ciekawa, jednakże przez właśnie to „rozbijanie powieści” nie rozkoszowałam się tymi 600 stronami lektury.

"Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog)" Jerome K. Jerome

This book is such a pleasant reading. It’s well written, with an interesting story telling, a lot of small funny threads told by the characters, lovely dog :)

There are three friends sitting and having discussion about their life and health. As a result of it they decide to take a boat trip, rowing trip from London to Oxford. They also don’t forget about the dog – Montmorency, full of energy and zest for fighting.

There is a lot of adventures on the way, they need to deal with different accidents, deal with the boat, river, food, cloths, people, dog and so on. And they survive all of them, but…

On the way home they need to row 2 days under the rain and this fact is bringing them close to the emotional and physical limits. Will they manage to finish the trip, how the rain will influence their decisions, how it will finish?

The story is interesting enough to spend some time reading it. All the characters (including the dog) are funny, with human (or animal) vices, but also interesting one. It’s a good reading, especially if you read it in original, then there is an added value of the literary English language.

"Bollywood Nights" by Shobhaa De

I bought it some time ago as a promotional offer – 3 „chick lits” for a very symbolic price. “Bollywood Nights” is the first book which I read from the pile I bought.


At the beginning I thought it will be just very typical easy book, nothing really special. Mather together with a beautiful daughter are coming from Madras to Bombay to fight for the career for the daughter – she should be an actress, a very popular actress. Mother used any opportunity to move forward, without thinking about her daughter at all. And she succeed – through different steps – to make a star out from her daughter “Sweetheart of Millions”.


But the daughter is doing a lot of mistakes – starting relations with wrong guys, finding wrong friends and so on. Finally, she decide to stop with this life and change it to more “usual” one. There are many decisions in between, but finally somehow she is coming back to India and the industry. There are plenty of threads in the book – the relations with parents, sister, husband, small daughter, lovers, work as the actress, role of woman, emotions, India, feeling of being an outsider and more. There are quite some difficult questions asked in the book, on which we need to find answers by ourselves.


There is also an interesting description of the movie industry in India – how it’s working, how the people behave, how are the relations between different people involved in it and so on.


Additional value of this book are the descriptions related to India – to its’ cities, villages, people, culture, food, religion. It was very interesting for me to find all those informations.


One thing which bother me during the reading was usage of plenty of non-English words in the text. I assume it’s Hindi, but as I don’t know it I can’t be sure. And that decreased my understanding of this book.


But besides this one detail I quite liked the book as a whole. For sure it was better than I expected from this kind of books. It’s not bad book ;)

"Snow Flower and the secret fan" by Lisa See

This book just make me almost cry, but also smile, think about things which are described there, human feelings and so on. A wonderful story, well written by Lisa See.


It’s a story of a life-long friendship between Lily and Snow Flower, two Chinese girls (later women). When the date of binding the feet of small girls is near, by the help of matchmaker , the adults decide that these two girls will be “the same” – friends forever. They write to each other letters full of emotions, wonderful words and using – instead of paper – a fan. They meet each other a few times each year, spend some holidays together. Time is passing, girls are growing, both of them are engaged, later married. They share together the joys, but much more often sorrows of being a young girl, who needs to be obedient to all people around her – parents, brothers, older sisters, later to her husband, parents-in-law, brothers-in-law and so on. They try hard to give birth to sons, it’s a main duty of women and her “guarantee” for the future. Their friendship is developing, growing, even against a bad luck and events around them. But then something happened. Will the friendship survive? Will they stay the most important person in the life of each of them? How our feelings are influencing our decisions? What is more important – heart or mind?


I love the plot so much. But also the poetic style of writing, colorful language used in the book. The beauty showed even in the description of simple actions taken in daily life. The feelings which author insert into this book influenced me during reading for sure. Sometimes it was difficult to stop reading, even if I needed to do something else instead. The characters in the book are so human, full of good and bad features, feelings, doing mistakes. And all those things were for me written so realistically! The girls are so sweet and lovely, but the relation which was created between them as adults was just amazing, so complicated, multileveled, full of emotions.



I strongly recommend reading this book for all people, who love books written with beautiful language. It was very good beginning of my adventure with the books of Lisa See. Now, I’ll look impatiently for her next book :)