bookswithdora

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"... Kitapları da düşündüm. Ve o kitapların her birinin ardında bir insan olduğunu ilk kez fark ettim. Onları düşünüp yazmak için epey zaman gerek. Bu daha önce aklımın ucundan bile geçmemişti."

-Fahrenheit 451, Ray BRADBURY

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If I can't have forever, please don't take away right now.

Rule Number Five - J. Wilder

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Ἁγία Σοφία Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey

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Beautiful vintage book spines

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All I need is for someone to gently cup my face and tell me I'm not as doomed as I feel.

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And/or ride the wave of emotions for weeks after finishing it.

How about in 2024 we stop it with reading books with the goal in mind to finish the book so you can add it to your list of read books and start reading books slowly and intentionally with the goal to rip it into pieces with your mind and be touched by it and formed by it and changed by it

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“Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.”

—Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

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do not worry about your contradictions, Persephone is both floral maiden and queen of death. you, too, can be both.

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imagine… you’re in an antique bookshop, full of soft golden light with rain pattering on the roof. it’s dim outside, and you don’t want to walk in the rain, but you’re not in a hurry, and you know it will end soon. maybe you buy a hot drink and cradle it in your palms while you browse. maybe you stand and watch the rain darken the pavement. maybe your heart doesn’t hurt, and everything feels okay

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Instagram credit: l_reads

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"And I think for that reason I find fan fiction especially a really interesting and really rich mode of expression that, of course, a lot of people look down on 'cause it's - you know, it lacks a certain literary polish. But I respect that about fan fiction. Like, I respect that fan fiction is so much the product of a compulsion, of a yearning, that it almost forgoes all of these pretensions of polish, of quality, of sophistication. And in that sense, for me, there is something that's revealed at the heart of fan fiction that I think is essential to all great literature, which is this desire to put yourself in the same space as the transcendental, you know, to almost touch the hem of it without really quite grasping it."

The loneliness of the central character in Esther Yi's 'Y/N' is universal, an interview with Esther Yi (NPR)

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*Still uses pinky promises as a legitimate foundation of trust*

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The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri - Book Review

Whenever I make a break, I always have to come back with some sort of emotional wreck of a book. 

*Spoilers ahead, read at your own risk*

Summary:

Nuri is a beekeeper, his wife Afra is an artist, and their son was used to pushing worms around their backyard in a small plastic truck. However, all of that changed once the war in Syria started and there were no longer bees to keep, the blue rivers of their landscapes turned red and the walls of their home started crumbling one by one.

Through the book, we follow Nuri and Afra on their journey through Europe and to the UK where they are to be reunited with Nuri’s cousin and partner Mustafa.

Review:

Living in Belgrade at the time, I witnessed the refugee crisis. It was difficult to watch, and it was difficult to stand by and do nothing, since there wasn’t much you could do as a broke university student, except maybe donate items of clothing and buy an extra bagel in the bakery when you are able to. I didn’t even realise the enormity of the devastation in their country until I watched a documentary a few months back. 

So I picked up this book. I was told that it was not the best description of what people go through in their journey since it showcased a rather mild experience of the couple we are following. However, it still did devastate me and made me feel like a jerk for even thinking about complaining about the waves of refugees that came through my country. 

Even though the story might be a mild one, it was told in a very beautiful manner. Reserved, yet beautiful. Maybe it was due to the fact that it was told from Nuri’s perspective since he is the type of character that finds it difficult to express his feelings in more than one way. I feel we might have missed out on a couple of Afra’s chapters because she would’ve given us an approach that was raw, more intense and would be much more expressive of how she felt through it.

Nevertheless, the entire spectrum of situations that they went through and the experiences that they lived, decisions that Nuri made in order to get them to a place where houses don’t fall down as theirs did, paint a pretty good picture of how difficult it was for the two of them actually to pull themselves from the clutches of the war they wanted no part of. 

I think I started crying at the very beginning when the author described how Mustafa opened the shop with cosmetic products made of honey and wanted to grow it into a big business for his daughter to inherit once she graduates from university. The way all those dreams were turned to dust and then by the end of the book built anew made the entire story beautifully rounded.

Nuri as a character seemed incredibly unlikable at the beginning and I believed myself not able to feel a tinge of sympathy for him. By the end of the book, however, I realized the heaviness of everything he was carrying and the way he had dealt with love and loss and tried to endure it all without falling apart made me feel so strongly empathetic towards him and his struggle. Not to say that other characters’ struggles were less meaningful, however, his position as someone who needed to stay strong and present a brave face for his wife and everyone around him made me feel for him so much.

I needed a bit more from the ending though. I needed a bit more closure and I needed to see him beekeeping again in a flower field somewhere in northern England, however, I decided to be satisfied with what I got with Afra starting to paint again and him being able to admit to himself that he had a deep issue with emotions and being willing to work on it.

I don’t know if I am able to do this book justice through a mere review, so… if you haven’t already, I would highly recommend you read this book and try to visualise all the landscape descriptions while you read because it will take you through the most beautiful and the ugliest of what this world is. Also, it will paint an amazing picture of all things beautiful that were ruined by the Syrian war. This book received 4 out of 5 stars from me and I will definitely pick it up again sometime.

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Where there are bees there are flowers, and wherever there are flowers there is new life and hope.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri

#quotes #quote #book quote #beautiful quote #word #bookworm #words #words words words #book #books #book quotes #book review #books & libraries #bookaddict #books and reading

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She cried like a child, laughed like bells ringing, and her smile was the most beautiful I've ever seen. She loved, she hated, and she inhaled the world like it was a rose. All this was why I loved her more than life.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri

#words #words words words #bookworm #book #books #book quotes #book review #books & libraries #bookaddict #books and reading #christy lefteri #quotes #book quote #quote #beautiful quote