#the eighth life for brilka

[tamisdava2]

This book is thick. Thick af.

[tamisdava2]

I am still stuck on The Eighth Life: (for Brilka)

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Eighth Life: for Brilka | Author: Nino Haratischwili | Publisher: Scribe Publications (2019)

[sommerregnen]

Love was a slow, creeping poison, love was treacherous and insincere, love was a veil thrown over the misery of the world, love was sticky and indigestible, it was a mirror in which one could be what one was not, it was a spectre that spread hope where hope had long since died, it was a hiding place where people thought they found refuge and ultimately found only themselves, it was a vague memory of another love, it was the possibility of a salvation that was ultimately equivalent to a coup de grâce, it was a war without victors, it was a precious jewel amid the broken fragments you cut yourself on: yes, Brilka, in those days, that was love.

Nino Haratischvili, The Eighth Life (For Brilka)

[rotzaprachim]

also reading log: w family for a week or so so! some books i’ve brought, all by women 

The Old Drift, Namwali Serpell 

The Glorious Heresies, Lisa McInerney 

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo 

The Eighth Life (For Brilka), Nino Haratischvili 

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

[physicelie]

Tagging Game

Tagged by @hizerain Favourite colours: light pink, black Currently reading: The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischvili Last song: Dreamer by The Word Alive Last movie: The Old Guard (2020) Last series: Fate (The Winx Saga) Sweet, savory, spicy: spicy Craving: chili sin carne Coffee or tea: coffee Currently working on: studying for one of my architecture exams Tagging: @howlingathemoon @wine-stained-dawn @oldmagnoliatree @milaya-pochemuchka @problematicprocrastinator

[womenintranslation]

The 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, judged by Amanda Hopkinson, Boyd Tonkin and Susan Bassnett, was awarded to The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischvili, translated from German by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin, during an online event held on Thursday 26 November.

On her Translating Women blog Helen Vasallo gives a thumbs-up to the winner: “This multi-generational story of revolution and downfall strikes a endnote of possibility and new chances....I cannot recommend this extraordinary book highly enough, and I hope you will read it and love it as I did.” Read Helen’s rave review here.

The event was capped by readings from all the shortlisted titles, beginning at  00:26:00 (not to be missed: Lissie Jacquette reading from Thirteen Months of Sunrise with her week-old baby at 00:45:38):

Abigail by Magda Szabó, translated from Hungarian by Len Rix (MacLehose Press, 2020)

Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg, translated from Italian by Minna Zallmann Proctor (Daunt Books Publishing, 2019)

Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong, translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce (Granta Publications, 2019)

Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson, edited by Boel Westin & Helen Svensson, translated from Swedish by Sarah Death (Sort of Books, 2019)

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili, translated from German by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin (Scribe UK, 2019)

Thirteen Months of Sunrise by Rania Mamoun, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette (Comma Press, 2019)

White Horse by Yan Ge, translated from Chinese by Nicky Harman (HopeRoad, 2019)

Congratulations to the prizewinning author and translators!

[manuscripts-dontburn]

Bookhaul December 2019

New books:

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne of Windy Willows

Anne's House of Dreams

Anne of Ingleside

Rainbow Valley

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice

How Long 'til Black Future Month?

Lavinia

Maria Romanov: Third Daughter of the Last Tsar. Diaries and Letters 1908-1918

A God in Ruins

The Eighth Life (For Brilka)

The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel

The Ghost Stories Of Edith Wharton

Cybele's Secret

The Books of Earthsea

On the Battle Lost (e book)

The Makioka Sisters

Secondhand books: -

Library books: 

Větrná hůrka rodiny Brontëových

[sveniasblog]

The Eighth Life: (for Brilka)- Nino Haratischwili

When she heard that I was going to Georgia my friend Uda warmly recommended this sensitive, illustre, powerful family epos that is taking place in Georgia and spans over several generations.

I'm listening to the 43h audiobook, it's a fascinating story, at times sad, at times touching the heart, taking it's time to build up, written in very skilled words portraying the family member's thoughts and feelings, their hopes and dreams, made up by little fragile moments.

Great to dive in Georgia's history and culture and to broaden my knowledge about Soviet times, too.

#audiobook #Nino Haratischwili #Georgia #Das achte Leben

[bookish-thinking]

Review: “The Eighth Life (for Brilka)” by Nino Haratischwili

Despite its quite formidable length, this is a book well wort recommending. Nino Haratischwili captures the Georgia (the country in Eastern Europe, not the U.S. state) character very well. The style of the novel ranges from essay to poetical were needed and all of it is done very well. The characters were interesting and not typical, many not really true heroes. Often, they found themselves in a conflict between the larger political events of their time and their own interests, but at times and for some of them, those two things also went well together. That, in turn, led to tensions between the members of the family, many of which were not resolved throughout the entirety of the book. I liked that the older generations were around for a long time, seeing change and not always approving of it.

I must say, though: at times this felt like "just another" Eastern European 20th century family saga. In a way, all the Sowjet states suffered the same fate, and this novel does not really do a good job in showing what is unique about Georgia. After 1990, when the Sowjet Union had collapsed and Georgia went through a conflict different from all of the other former SU-nations, the book just skims over these things. That was regrettable. However, in the very end, I liked the message to embrace your (national) history, even if it was violent and bloody, in order to learn from it and grown out of it into something better. That was very well done.

[bibliobethblog]

Did this book over 900 pages make me feel slightly nervous? Well yes, there might have been a few beads of perspiration on my forehead but luckily @keeperofpages was there to mop my brow (not literally sadly, we are in COVID times) and to offer to buddy read it with me throughout the month of December. This was also my second #wasitworththebump challenge for that month, nominated by the wonderful @messy_aussie_reader and @dreaming.witheyesopen ⁣ If big books intimidate you, fear not fellow reader, you are NOT alone. However, I can whole-heartedly recommend taking a chance on The Eighth Life. As well as winning the Warwick Prize for Women In Translation in 2020, it was long-listed for the International Booker Prize in the same year and is a dazzling and epic story that will be hard to forget. ⁣ ⁣ The author, Niza is writing to her niece, Brilka and her story follows members of their family over the years in Georgia, Russia and London as they lived through war, revolution, starvation, grief and loss, betrayal and success. The author brings so much light and life to all these characters individually that it is as if you know them intimately by the end of the novel. ⁣ ⁣ Life isn’t easy in Eastern Europe during the early 20th century and we see our characters go through so much pain and suffering as they fight for survival in a cruel world which appears to be against them. Personally, I have a great fascination with Russian history, particularly that period around the Russian Revolution but what was unique about The Eighth Life is that 1) you got so see so much more of its story as a country AND as a people rather than a snapshot moment in and 2) we heard about countries like Georgia and how they coped with life in the Soviet Union. ⁣ ⁣ The Eighth Life was written in such a beautiful way that I was completely engrossed. I won’t lie, it took me a while to become invested but by p60 the hooks were in and I, its willing victim. I need more novels like these, those that aren’t afraid to be as intense and powerful as this and those that aren’t afraid to shine their light on lesser known countries which are otherwise forgotten. ⁣ ⁣ Five glorious stars 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 https://www.instagram.com/p/CYUP5zfLwLq/?utm_medium=tumblr

[okbuthowgayisit]

Book: The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischwili

Is it gay: yes :)

One of the main characters/family members is a bisexual woman who is shown to be in a (sort of) relationship with another woman.

[marie-curie]

Currently reading “The eighth life (for Brilka)” by Nino Haratischwili. And it’s awesome! Reading often is (next to family and friends) my last refuge to calm down from learning. It’s easier to read about other people than thinking about your own struggels. Hope you’re having a good week!

[rotzaprachim]

2021 too read list

- Small Island, Andrea Levy 

- Milkman, Anna Burns 

- The Eighth Life (For Brilka), Nino Haratischvili 

- Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich 

- Il Gattopardo, Giuseppe Thomaso de Lampedusa 

- more in Hebrew? working through poetry and short stories more now 

- i got like halfway through A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James a year and a half ago and it was genius but i wasn’t ready for it as a reader i would like to finish! 

- finish Sacred Games 

- The Lowlands, Jhumpa Lahiri 

- Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,  Olga Tokarczuk

- Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin 

- The Wild Laughter, Caoilinn Hughes

- The Mersault Investigation, Kamel Daoud 

- Beowulf trans. Seamus Heaney + the Beowulf readers guide 

- more sections of dante 

- epic of gilgamesh (find a good translation)

[physicelie]

about the novel i have been reading. the eighth life has been an emotional read. many stories of many lives, of growth and pain and strong emotions. i have gained a lot of historical knowledge about the ussr and the twentieth century and georgia. i liked the novel very much but the ending is a little anticlimactic. more importantly, i don’t see the relevance of brilka as the person for whom the narrator writes the story. except for breaking niza’s emotional barriers and being the one the story ends with she’s entirely irrelevant to the story itself. i probably would have preferred it without the pro- and epilogues, connecting loose ends with a couple additional chapters, skipping the whole brilka-part. overall it was a great read though, 4.5/5 stars.

[bigtickhk]

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili

US: https://amzn.to/2VvP688

UK: https://amzn.to/34IbKxX