Project Phileas Fogg

Reading books from every country in the world

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High places in whose world? And high is as you decide it... I've met known roadies who knew their was a high place in the scheme of things, and I've met a cabinet minister who realised he was bottom of the sing heap.

The bone people - Keri Hulme

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Back inside she proposes a toast. "Here's to the skeletons we all keep in cupboards." Joe says unsmiling, "Here's to the ones we let out..."

The bone people - Keri Hulme

[projectfogg]

We hid our real names, gave false ones when asked. We built mountains between us and them, we dug rivers, we planted thorns- we had paid so much to be in America and we did not want to lose it all.

We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo

[projectfogg]

And the adults just returned quietly to the shacks to see if they could still bend low. They found they could bend; bend better than a branch burdened with rotten guavas

We need new names - NoViolet Bulawayo

[projectfogg]

Back into the heart of Africa.. We need new names by NoViolet Bulawayo from Zimbabwe. Feels good to read this after reading Achebe Things Fall Apart. Reading about a civilization, which 'fell apart'.. slowly realizing that my homeland is not too far either.

[projectfogg]

From the huge collection of English books, I wanted something unique. Flatland - A Romance of Many Dimensions was the perfect fit. So, do you dare think beyond your dimension?

[projectfogg]

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

[projectfogg]

It's always interesting to read about a civilization completly unknown to me. The fun part is when we realize how similar we all are. Beautiful book from Nigeria.. 

[projectfogg]

Little people know, when little people fight, we may look easy pickings, but we've got some bite. So never kick a dog because it's just a pup! We'll fight like twenty armies, and we won't give up! So you better run for cover, when the pup grows...

[projectfogg]

"The light of the torch resembles the wisdom of the cowards; it gives bad light as it trembles" - Les Miserebles

[projectfogg]

The fruit

He felt what the earth may possibly feel, at the moment when it is torn open with the iron, in order that the grain may be deposited within it; it feels only the wound; the quiver of the gem and the joy of the fruit only arrive later

[projectfogg]

The combatants of the first hour have alone the right to be exterminators of the last. He who has not been a stubborn accusor in prosperity should hold his peace in the face of ruin. The denunciator of success is only the legitimate executioner of the fall.

Victor Hugo is Les Miserables

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"So long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless." 

[projectfogg]

'Lajja' from Bangladesh. Does not live up to it's expectations. But, any cry for secularism in the subcontinent, even the faintest whimper is welcome. It has been almost 2 decades since the book has been published, flames of religious bigotry still burn the subcontinent. 

"Religion is the opium of the masses" - Karl Marx

[projectfogg]

"Those who had built the roads would only be able to walk these roads. They had struggled in the cold, in the heat and the rains until they had become indistinguishable from the roads. Their blood and sweat bound them to the roads like the tar bound gravel to them. These were their roads because they had build them, but to those who could afford to travel these roads in their private vehicles these were ‘our roads build by our laborers’. For them the laborers were indeed indistinguishable from the roads. They were simply an item. The laborers were listed with the excavators, rollers, bulldozers’ the spades and shovels on this section of the road."

From the Circle of Karma by Kunzang Choden

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"Are we human.. Or are we dancer?"

[projectfogg]

If people wouldn't hold back on all the good things like butter, cheese and meat... anyone can be a good cook

The Circle of Karma