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books in August (Part 1) July

not recommend advice and August.
6 books, including (unfortunately for you) as many as 3 are fantasy ... and 2 of these are part of the Wheel of Time saga , I'm re-reading in its entirety before the the 13th and penultimate volume, on November 2.

• But now no more talk, let's talk about fiction. •

The graves of Atuana , Ursula K. Le Guin
Promoted: ★ ★ ★

Atuana continue with the tombs of the adventures of the young Hawk, the caster from the island of Gonta that we met in The Wizard of Earthsea, where he had to face and accept the dark side of himself.
But this time the protagonist is Ged, but a young priestess, Arha, the Devoured, servant of the Nameless, divinity so old now that their religion is forgotten almost everywhere and almost everyone - except to Atuana, where their power is still strong.
There goes the life of monotonous Arha [...] until the day when, in the crypt of the Nameless, where no man can set foot and where no light can shine, Arha discovered by chance a young man with a stick slightly illuminates the big hall (always in darkness with which the unnamed gentlemen), as if searching for something ...

It was hard to start reading The graves of Atuana. [...] The first few chapters do not mesh.
[...] But with the arrival on the scene of the magician (in which readers will not take long to recognize Ged) balance in her life is shaken to the core. Arha begins to doubt, and begins to break the apathy that had always been surrounded by its existence, in which her role as priestess had forced: and that is where Arha must choose whether to be or even whether to return to being Arha thenar.

is amazing and wonderful as the author, are just two main characters (Arha / Ged and Tenar) and as many secondary (Kossil and Manan) has managed to weave a story so simple yet so true. It is equally amazing that, almost without resort to fantastic elements, without the presence of a dark and evil enemy, the novel manages to shine in the midst of so many giants of his own kind. [...]

• Now is the turn of a classic, a title which owes its fame to the protagonist of the story. •

The Sign of Four , by Arthur Conan Doyle
Promoted: ★ ★ ★

The second adventure of Sherlock Holmes confirms the genius, sympathy and foibles of the famous detective and his faithful assistant, Dr. Watson.
Although the story is of course different from that told in "A Study in Scarlet, but the construction is similar: that the reader has sufficient information to understand the motive of the crimes, but will have to wait to hear the whole story from the mouth of the detective and the perpetrator.

A nice novel that yes, you read the story told, but especially for the singularity of her characters, the first of Sherlock Holmes (Dr. Watson and do not forget his love affair with a sweet young lady!).
If you want proof of this special, here are the opening words of the work:

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from an elegant morocco case. With his long, nervous fingers slipped the needle and rolled back his left sleeve of his shirt. For a while, 'he observed thoughtfully the forearm muscles and wrist, dotted with innumerable puncture marks. In the end, decided he thrust the syringe, pressed the piston, and sank into a velvet armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

[...] "What is today," I asked, "morphine or cocaine?"
[...]
"Cocaine," he said, "seven percent solution. He wants to try it? "

incipit A very ... amazing.

• And now, a story that leaves room for the sign. •

The beach stolen , Joanne Harris
Promoted: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Devin is a small island with two towns, and the Les Salants Houssin, a beach, La Goulue, and a cemetery, La Bouche. The Devin is so small that it seems impossible that the only two sites that houses are so different. Les
Salants is the village that you would expect to find in a place so out of touch: a fishing village with a small bar where everyone knows everyone and where everyone has a nickname that makes them true islanders. The
Houssin, by contrast, is a tourist destination that thrives thanks to Claude Brismand, an entrepreneur who has built a small empire thanks to tourists who are The call to Devin, brought by his boat twice a week. And Madeleine
Prasteau, Mado friends, is a young artist in search of success, that after ten years of absence returns to his native island where his father, Grosjean, has always lived. Mado, with its desire to do and fight for their people in Les Salants, bearing with her head down to live in the shadow of the Houssin, want to make sure that the returns to their village to thrive: the fishing is always more scarce, and the sand of the beach, Le Goulue, has disappeared, carried away by the sea in spite of the past was the place where everything runs aground carrying waves. Hence the motto of Les Salants, "Everything comes around."
With the help of a stranger, Flynn, nicknamed the Red for the color of hair, Madeleine will implement a project that will bring prosperity to Les Salants, but will also report to the surface of the old stories, now almost forgotten, that disturbs the peace of the islanders, and especially that of Mado ...

Joanne Harris has the extraordinary ability to paint, like a true artist, small and delicious squares of life in places almost lost, where the sense of community is still alive and where, often, people living outside of progress and technology.
The Devin is one of them, and through the eyes of Mado, the author described it in detail, the sand to form the same island, the capacities of people to their religious festival dedicated to the patron saint Marine-de-la-Mer, from the rich Houssin with its charming streets of the trailer where he lives Capucine Salants Les said the flea .
The story may seem simple: a girl of twenty-five returns home ten years after leaving, after the death of his mother, and seeing the passivity with which his people agree to be considered "second class" decides to do something to them, trying to shake them from their slumber to return to Les Salants decades of the past.
What is beautiful in such a story, very simple when you try to summarize in a few lines, is that they are experienced in all its nuances through the eyes of one of the protagonists, who struggle with all his might for their land, and to understand the reason for such desolation. To all this must be added a complexity that is not expected: As we approach the end, the questions that are posed during the novel begin to be answered, but when you think you have found ... to discover that the truth is more complicated than expected, and that if they have revealed only a tiny, tiny part.

Excellent final left slightly open, not enough to allow a sequel, but not too defined as to leave open the possibility of change. Not the classic, static "And they lived happily forever," but rather a more dynamic and uncertain "Life goes on, and what will be will be."

• The next book makes us take a dip in ancient Egypt. •

Fables and tales Pharaonic Egypt, edited by Aldo Troisi.
Rejected: ★ ★

The value of a book like Fables and tales Pharaonic Egypt is mainly in the fact that scholars have spent years deciphering and translating stories and myths, and more than three thousand years ago. Fairy tales contain
the elements that every reader can expect: magic and wizards, gods meddle in the lives of men found ingenious and lucky breaks ... but after reading a few dozen pages, the stories begin to be repetitive and reading becomes heavier.
The gem of this book is a short story (just over 10 lines), which is nothing but the precursor of the notorious "Cinderella", there are also some very nice stories, but overall the collection does not meet, and deserves only a "so so".

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In the next post will talk about fantasy, and in particular the Wheel of Time.
Ahivoi ...