Where the Birds Call Her Name

Where the Birds Call Her Name by Claire van Ryn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I liked some aspects of the book - layout, illustrations, visible effort of the author to deliver a comprehensive story. As a result I felt motivated to continue reading.
Visible effort - generally you recognise a master when she/he delivers a piece of art effortlessly, here I found an opposite - visible effort which somehow melted my heart,
Tangible result?
Not so good, I found the story artificially complicated, characters not real.
I welcomed the end with a relief.

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The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After reading few pages of this book I got lost.
Every few lines a new character introduced with not much connection to the main plot of the story.
Main plot? The story?
I could not find any of these.
Still I continued reading although without much heart. I read slowly, just few pages at a time and after some time I got into the climate of the book - I still could not figure out who cheated whom and why but I started enjoying the mess around me.
Another positive point was a check of authors biography - James McBride - his father was an Afro-American pastor, his mother - a Jewish immigrant from Poland. Her maiden name - Zylska - raises some sentiment - from my early years I remember a popular Polish singer - Natasha Zylska :)
Anyway - at around 2/3 of the book I started enjoying it, unfortunately last few chapters broke the spell.

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Portrait of Poland

Portrait of Poland by Bernard Newman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Few years ago I read Pedalling Poland by the same author, I was surprised to learn that he visited Poland after the war and tempted to read the book.
My feeling are mixed.
On one hand I appreciate an effort to present quite comprehensive history of Poland to English reader, on the other hand - there is practically NO STORY.
I can imagine that B. Newman expected that the book may interest British politicians and business people who were involved in contacts with Poland.
Maybe it did.
I do not think it may raise any interest in Polish readers.

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