Out Stealing Horses,Elephant Winter,Tirra Lirra By the River

Out Stealing Horses***** by Per Petterson (Norway)

This won the Dublin Impac Award 2007. That's the big one cash-wise:100,00 Pounds. This prize is chosen by librarians around the world.

Other Awards:

Norwegian Critic's Award

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Winner Norwegian Booksellers' Prize

American Library Association Notable Book

Time Magazine Best Book of the Year

New York Times Best Books of the Year

New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2007

Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist

Out Stealing Horses is about boyhood friendship, tragedy and loss, fathers and sons and their expectations of one another. And how the main character deals with loneliness both in his youth and late in life. Well worth reading. A good place to start on Scandinavian literature if you haven't tried any yet. Four and a half stars. Highly recommended.

Elephant Winter***** by Kim Echlin (Canada)

A very good story set in the Africa Lion Safari Park, close to where I live in Ontario. Elephants figure prominently but there is love, loss, illness, and trust between both animals and human for those of you who need people in your stories too. An original story, highly recommended.

The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy (Canada) will be my next novel about elephants. An elephant family comprises the characters of this story.

Tirra Lirra by the River**** by Jessica Anderson

This won the Miles Franklin Award (Australia) in 1978.

I Bookmooched it so I could read it and it was worth it. An oldie but goodie about how a woman's life turns out differently than she'd expected. Denied independence, then having it forced upon her by her husband, she reflects on her two lives. One lived in Australia and the other in London until she returns to her childhood home in old age and finds the world a very different place. A very good read, I recommend it.

Currently reading Under The Skin by Michael Faber

I'm 40 pages in and scared to find out what the woman is doing with the hitchhiking men she keeps picking up in Scotland. They disappear, you see, and it's giving me the creeps.

Reading recommendations and comments are always welcomed.

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