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Apr.23

April 22nd - 2pm

 

"The Vagrants"

by Yiyun Li

 

 In the provincial town of Muddy Waters in China, a young woman named Gu Shan is sentenced to death for her loss of faith in Communism. She is twenty-eight years old and has already spent ten years in prison.

 

The citizens stage a protest after her death and, over the following six weeks, the town goes through uncertainty, hope and fear until eventually the rebellion is brutally suppressed. They are all taken on a painful journey, from one young woman's death to another. We follow the pain of Gu Shan's parents, the hope and fear of the leaders of the protest and their families.

 

Even those who seem unconnected to the tragedy - an eleven-year-old boy seeking fame and glory, a nineteen-year-old village idiot in love with a young and deformed girl, an old couple making a living by scavenging the town's garbage cans - are caught up in a remorseless turn of events. Yiyun Li's novel is based on the true story which took place in China in 1979.


The official ranking of the books we previously read :

2019-2020

Transatlantic - Colum McCann                                      6.28/10 

The Wych Elm - Tana French                                          5.97/10    The Borrowed - Chan Ho-Kei

Educated - Tara Westover                                                  8.53/10

Unsheltered - Barbara Kingsolver

The Power - Naomi Alderman 

War & Turpentine  - Stefan Hertmans                           7.2/10

Snap - Belinda Bauer

In Another Country and Besides - Maxwell Jacobs

 

The books' reviews are here!

2020-2021

Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson                          6.5/10

Lost Children Archive - Valerie Luiselli                               4.6/10

The Salt Path - Raynor Winn                                                  6.2/10

The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek - K.M. Richardson 

                                                                                                         7.1/10

Things Fall Apart - Chiuha Achebe                                    8.07/10

Small Island - Andrea Levy                                                      7.9/10

Girl Woman Other - Bernardine Evaristo                            7.3/10

The Dry - Jane Harper                                                              7.3/10

Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick                                       8.4/10

Agent Running in the Field - John LeCarré                     5.75/10

Thunderstruck - Erik Larson                                                  7.5/10

The Midgnight Library - Matt Haig               

 


2016-2017

 

After yet another year of reading, here's a reminder of the books we loved, hated or felt rather uninterested by.

  

"A Meal in Winter" (Sep)                     4.4

"Their Eyes Were Watching  God" (Oct)         6.83

"A Gap of Time" (Nov)                      5.57

"Slade House" (Dec)                            6.57

"A Clockwork Orange" (Jan)           6.36 

"Orlando" (Feb)                                    7.96

"The Kraken Wakes" (Mar)               6.75

"Bonk" (Apr)                                         6.55

"Dirt Music" (May)                                7.1

"The Glass Room" (Jun)                    7.58

"Genghis Khan" (Jul)                           5.63

2015-2016

 

Here you find the books we've read in the year of 2015/2016.

 

 

The Poisonwood Bible                        8.63

Blindness                                                 7.83

Kepler                                                      6.57

Go With Me                                           4.40

The Twin                                                7.20

Cold Cold Ground                              2.88

The Golem and the Djinni                7.93

The Quiet American                           7.10

The Memoirs of Hadrien                   7.25

English Passengers  

2014-2015

 

Below you can find an overview of all the books we read for the year 2014-2015

 

The Devil in the White City              5.14

World War Z                                          7.06

Breakfast at Tiffany's                            8.11

The Lives of Girls and Women         7.14

The House on Mango Street             5.93

We Have Always Lived in the Castle                      8.00

I am Malala                                             6.33

Three Day Road                                   7.25

Lamb                                                        3.71

The Bellwether Revivals                     6.80