2020 was not an easy year. But we coped, arming ourselves with beautiful things. Books always bring me joy and I love to discover new authors or new styles in authors I am already familiar with.
If you are in search of good books to read, please find below my list.
Should you be curious to read my books, you can find some of them here, here, and here.
The list of good books I read in 2020 is as follows:
When one is born in a family such is mine,
where every member is a skilled storyteller, one has innumerous stories to
tell. I reckon there are almost no occurrences that cannot be related to one of
our stories.
Today, I am going to narrate the one about
‘Mom said so!’. This reply is used,
within our family, as argument from authority (besides ‘Na!’, of course). Any
small whinge is annulled by ‘Mom said so!’.
Its story goes like this. In the apartment
building where my parents live, in Tulcea, there once lived a family with a
lot of kids. The parents, working in shifts, did not have the time to cook their
meals. So they would leave them money in order to buy some snacks. The eldest
brother had the task of buying and distributing the snacks. On the night in question (when
it happened that this expression entered our family vocabulary), the eldest was
distributing a biscuit pack to each of his brothers.
One, a whimsy-whamsy, refused to take it. The
eldest tried to give him again the pack, and since he was refused once more, he
uttered:
‘Mom said so!’
And so the little brother immediately took the
pack, and started eating. While us, have been honoring this saying ever since.
If you’re good, next time I’ll tell you about 'Ma
friend, go la noi la unitate' (a mixture of Romanian and English meaning to
express ‘My friend, go to our unit’). Though it’s very clear to me that I will
not be able to live up to the way my cousin tells it. Maybe that it is why I
can’t get enough of him telling this story.
For certain reasons, it seems to me that this year draws a perfect
circle. A thing that also applies to wonderful reading. I started and
finished this year by reading something that Elif Shafak wrote.
Fury, anxiety, suffering, sadness and
loneliness are the main characters of this book. All, actually, have one common
goal – to hold up a mirror to our faces. Let us look at us in this mirror and
realize our feelings and not give in to them. Just like Elif Shafak writes, we
are all emotional creatures and, whether we admit it or not, we act according
to our emotions. And this is where we must pay attention, for our actions may
start things we do not want for us or the generations to come.
Identity is another theme of this book. What defines
us? The country we were born in, the one we live in, our gender, aspirations or
the organizations we belong to?
‘Put me together with an author from Greece,
Bulgaria, Bosnia, Albania or Romania and you will be surprised to see how much
we have in common.’
It soothed me and will keep as token the
following:
‘Do not be afraid of complexity. But do fear those that promise you a shortcut
to simplicity.’
Recently, I received a ‘No’ and it was a good moment to stop and analyze my feelings.
I do not know about you, but I have received a lot of ‘No’ replies in my life. To the point that it was high time I gave everything up for not being good enough. I never was and never will be the kind of person that if faced with a closed door tries to enter through the window. But I am persevering, I tell you that. Well, a shy persevering. I taught myself to use my hurt feelings for the best and try to find other solutions in order to achieve my goal.
It’s hard. I’m not going to lie to you about this, and I am not going to show myself as a superhero. It’s very hard to receive refusals and to keep the faith in your project. Inevitably, one starts to think if one should insist on it, given that people keep saying that one's proposal is not in fashion and it cannot bring too many interested parties to the table.
At the end, I think that if one finds even a faint sense or meaning, one should continue. My meaning? Well, if I succeed in making people smile and if, after reading what I wrote, they find themselves closer to other people, other people’s experiences and emotions, my meaning does exist. Maybe in more ways that I could ever imagine.
It’s colder and colder outside and
the yearning to remain inside keeps growing. And so is the appetite for
reading. I have recorded some videos, reading from some of my published
books.
The videos below are in Romanian, but
you can read their English translations under each video.
‘Aventuri de excursionist/ Adventures
of tourists’
‘….
‘That
sucks! It’s not the first time I hear about thefts in buses.’
‘Yeah,
I don’t get it why people steal.’
‘Well’
Radu said, ‘some have reasons, even though I don’t take their side. But
others…’
‘They
should work, not steal’ and Cosmin’s voice started to coarsen.
‘Work
is not easy at all. Look at us, waiters, we work hard and most treat us like
slaves, but you’ll learn to ignore them. They can’t go beyond that! Well,
market economy isn’t what it used to be. Now we have to work even more in order
to afford what we easily afforded once’ Radu sighed.
‘You
know, actually, it’s the other way around’ Cosmin said.
‘Oh,
really! Who says that?’
‘Bertrand
Russell does.’
‘Never
heard of him. Who’s he?’
‘He
was a great philosopher, among other things’ Cosmin answered.
‘Oh,
no! I don’t want to hear about philosophers. They talk crazy things, with no
life experience at all.’
‘No,
this one really knew what he was saying’ Cosmin firmly replied. ‘Russell
believed that modern techniques could be used in order to considerably diminish
the number of working hours, for example from eight to four hours a day.’
‘Aha’
and Radu’s interest started to grow. ‘And how could we do that?’
‘He
said that if we tried to reduce the number of working hours, there would be
enough resources for everybody, and more, unemployment would not exist because
those that work extra hours would give from their surplus to those without work
places. And thus, it would be a balance for all of us. And people would have
more time to spend with their families, to develop or acquire skills, and to
learn new things.’
‘Aha,
your idea isn’t bad.’
‘It’s
not mine’ Cosmin smiled. ‘It’s Russell’s.
……’
‘I am a Veteran!’
‘….
Being so amused
by the faces she made, I didn’t realize she was shaking the beer bottle for a
while now. She was just like a speaker at the desk, utterly lost within emotions.
She opened the bottle and foam began to flow. Since she was really ashamed, she
quickly pulled a glass closer and started to pour into it. Now, on the table,
there was a glass full of foam. I didn’t say anything, that would have made me
really insensible to the problems she mentioned earlier. And I was in no mood
to scold her; a few minutes and the foam would vanish. Actually, five minutes,
to say the least. I was always intrigued and amused by her and Oana; they would
ignite so fast. Exactly like their mother.
”What
is this, Elena? What does your grandfather have in his glass?” Ana entered the
room.
”Beer, why?” Elena serenely asked.
”Then what type of beer is this? You only poured foam in this glass. Oh,
dear! You must have agitated that bottle! You did buy another bottle, right?
Please, give me that, otherwise we’ll be waiting here forever until this foam
goes away. Well, father, if you didn’t know, here in Tulcea, people drink beer foam instead of beer” laughed Ana, taking
her right hand to her right cheek and shaking her head. Well, she had to take after her mother, too.
”Hey, it’s nothing. We were so involved in our talk that we didn’t notice.”
”Oh! And what were you talking about?” asked Ana.
”Eh,
nothing important. We were talking about flowers.” Elena’s eyes were burning
with gratitude. I think this is the advantage grandparents have over parents.
There’s a complicity between grandparents and grandchildren that parents can
never have with their children. And maybe they couldn’t even understand it,
being so over their heads in their duties as parents. Ana looked at me, trying
to grasp the gravity of the discussed issues, and not sensing anything alarming
in my eyes, she turned over to Elena.
….’
‘Sugu the squirrel and the dog
Hapciu’
‘Sugu the squirrel lived in a small forest on the
outskirts of a mountain town. The tallest chestnut tree was his home. From the
top of Rur (that’s how Sugu named the chestnut tree), one could enjoy the view
of the town. But what Sugu loved most was to climb the tree at sunset and wait
for stars to appear in the sky. He found it wonderful the way the stars light
up in the sky, as if an invisible magician would flutter his magic rod. Three
very luminous stars and almost perfectly aligned were his favorites. He had
heard from Raf the owl, the wise of the forest, that these stars were called
Orion’s Belt. How lucky was this Orion! Sugu the squirrel would have loved to
own such belt.
Every morning, Sugu would exercise. He jumped from one
branch to the other and loved to race against Viju the rabbit. Sometimes, Sugu
would win and this made him very happy because it was a real victory, knowing
that Viju would never pretend. As it happened, sugu loved entertaining. Having
those two front teeth, animals would always think he was smiling. He was, but
he also tried to do something more.
