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Kedilere Dair (1967)

Her portrait of all the different cats and their personalities felt very real and vivid. The stories are told a bit randomly, but this did not affected my enjoyment of the book in the least. Although it might not be for everyone. I recommend it for people that like cats, or animals in general. I...

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Gatos e Mais Gatos (1967)

This book is a gem, written by the Nobel Prize winning author on the cats in her life, from her childhood in Africa, to her life in England. She gives the reader a true sense of each cat's personality, showing her careful observance of their behaviour and how they interact both with other creatur...

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The Golden Notebook (1999)

If before this book you wanted to be a writer, if after you finished it you still wanted to be a writer, then all the power to you.What concerns us here is an English white heterosexual female, mother, author, communist. Upper-class, unmarried, unconsciously feminist. Neurotic, classist, homophob...

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To Room Nineteen (1994)

An interesting shortstory worth reading by all people, mainly because of the femanistic point of view. It is not the best thing I ever read, and even if it is not hard to read it has a deeper meaning to it.I believe the story is a metaphor for the contemporary society. The fact that a woman shoul...

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The Sun Between Their Feet (2007)

The second volume of Doris Lessing’s Collected African Stories, and a classic work from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature."As for these stories – when I write one, it is as if I open a gate into a landscape which is always there. Time has nothing to do with it. A certain kind of pulse ...

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Love, Again (1997)

In lots of ways, this is probably a 3 star book. It's not very exciting. Most things that are suggested may happen never happen. But as with the other Lessing book I've read, the quality of the insight is so good that it can't be discounted. Usually I copy my favorite passages from dog-eared ...

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The Grandmothers (2015)

Since Goodreads, the world’s largest book club site , honed my appetite for reading books, particularly gave me the ideas of what books I should read, I have been updated with the famous and acclaimed literary writers , not only with the classic but also with the contemporary writers-I have t...

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Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography--1949-1962 (1998)

Reading this second volume assuredly requires your stamina, familiarity and sense of humor since its scope/plot is a bit different from its predecessor in which it's divided into normal numerical chapters while this one divided into four main road/street themes, each with its seemingly never-endi...

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Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (1979)

First read January 2005This book does three ambitious things.1. It takes the Old Testament of the Bible as inspiration for its mythical geo-historical content, but instead of an angry bearded guy in charge, it has a super-advanced utopian-collectivist space-travelling civilization colonising Eart...

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Martha Quest (2001)

At the start Martha Quest is a fifteen year old English girl (though time flows quickly... she’s 19 or 20 at the 40% mark and remains about that age for the rest of the book). At the beginning, it’s about 1935: between the World Wars, Hitler is name-dropped, and Martha lives on a farm in Africa. ...

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The Grass is Singing (2000)

The Grass is Singing is Doris Lessing's first novel, published in 1950. It is a savage and stark indictment of South Africa's apartheid system. It is set in what was formerly Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and concentrates on Rhodesian white culture with its racist and prejudiced attitudes. The...

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The Cleft (2007)

A Review…and a Few QuestionsIn June, 1992, Doris Lessing wrote an Op-ed for the NY Times entitled, “Questions You Should Never Ask a Writer.” The questions that Lessing especially does not want to hear are, “What is the story really about? What does it mean?” In other words, we must take her stor...

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The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1994)

Un monologo interrotto da pochi dialoghi che descrive la lenta distruzione di un pianeta. Difficile da capire, anche leggendo la post-fazione dell'autrice. Ispirato dalle vicende legate all'esplorazione del polo sud e dalla morte di Scott, dovuta a inefficienze e disorganizzazione nella spedizion...

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The Sweetest Dream (2002)

طالعت هذه الرواية في رفوف المكتبات، إلا أنّ سعرها الغالي كان محفزاً لي لتركها؛ علّـني اتحصل عليها في موقع هنا او مجلدٍ هناك. إلا اني طمعت فيها كثيراً حينما وجدتها في معرض الأيام الثقافي في المنامة، العاصمة البحرينيّة، فاقتنيتها بسعر يختلف بشكل يسير ( 60 ريال! ) في سبتمبر الماضي. والآن، أجدها قد ق...

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The Memoirs of a Survivor (1995)

تجري أحداث الرواية في إحدى المدن ,( لم يكن لها اسما كما لم تُمنح بطلة الرواية اسما )هذه المدينة من المدن التي نالها نصيب من آثار حرب ما ( المكان غير معروف ) وكما يحدث في الحروب غابت عنها الخدمات الضرورية للحياة , الماء , الكهرباء , الطعام , مما نتج عنه رحيل أغلب سكانها بينما سيطرت العصابات التي ت...

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The Fifth Child (2010)

I reread this the day Doris Lessing died. It's very short, and every sentence packs a heady concentration of power. This is the novel that introduced me to Lessing. I was lucky enough to be working in a bookstore when it was released; I read a review and immediately used my employee's discount to...

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The Sirian Experiments (1980)

What is amazing about "The Sirian Experiments" [which I ought to point out I read independently from the rest of the series] is the way in which the science fiction works as a sort of political-psychological history of what makes up the human psyche. Through the memoirs of one of the leaders of t...

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The Real Thing: Stories and Sketches (1993)

(American edition is titled The Real Thing)A collection of eighteen short stories and "sketches" -- I suppose the "sketches" are the stories where not as much happens -- all of which take place in London. These are all quite good stories, though perhaps on average not quite as good as some of her...

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Briefing for a Descent Into Hell (1981)

I have a problem with the word ‘experimental’ because most experiments fail; it’s in their nature. When I use word ‘experiment’ here I mean a test to prove a hypothesis. In the case of a novel the word ‘experimental’ usually means: If I try this and this and this do I still have a novel? And the ...

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The Summer Before the Dark (2002)

this is the 2nd story from lessing for moi. her other story...forget the name...just came to me...The Fifth Child...i marked that as a favorite of mine. it is. it is a good story. i hope this is a good story, too. i'm already prejudiced in favor of it. imagine that.begins:at homea woman stood ...

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Mara and Dann (1999)

The Barnes & Noble ReviewAn emotionally involving science-fantasy novel with a focus on history and sociological relevance, Mara and Dann is Doris Lessing's return to magic realism after a number of autobiographies and books of essays. As with most of her work, this tale is set in Africa (now kno...

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The Good Terrorist (2003)

16/5 - I'm a bit scared to start this because it looks deep and complicated and I'm worried I won't understand it. The plot sounds interesting, but the language could be difficult. A bit like what happened with Blood Meridian. Okay, here I go... To be continued...18/5 - I'm not a fan of well ...

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The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (1984)

'After I left the hotel, through a lobby all excitement and noise – a trade delegation from the Sirian HQ on their planet Motz were just leaving, looking pleased with themselves – I walked straight into the park opposite. Some freely wandering gazelles came to greet me. They originate, as it happ...

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African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe (1993)

In this portrait of Doris Lessing's homeland, the author recounts the visits she made to Zimbabwe in 1982, 1988, 1989 and 1992, after being banned from the old Southern Rhodesia for 25 years for her political views and opposition to the minority white Government. The visits constitute a journey t...

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This Was the Old Chief's Country (2015)

Last year I met a little Afghan girl, a refugee with her family in Pakistan. She had lived in a village that had water running through it from the mountains, and it had orchards and fields, and all her family and her relatives where there. Sometimes a plane crossed the sky from one of the larger ...

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In Pursuit of the English: A Documentary (1996)

Doris Lessing tells about when she finally came to London in 1949, the town of her dreams, after WW2 to live there and how little it met up to her expectations from the beginning. All the streets looked the same. Later on she learned to like London. ...

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The Four-Gated City (1995)

So ends Lessing's Bildungsroman par excellance. This near-700 page breeze block of a book takes Martha from her early 30s to old age, and is set in post-war London. Lessing compelled my attention before even beginning, with a dervish teaching story and a quote from The Edge of the Sea Each of the...

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Landlocked (1970)

In the aftermath of World War II, Martha Quest finds herself completely disillusioned. She is losing faith with the communist movement in Africa, and her marriage to one of the movement's leaders is disintegrating. Determined to resist the erosion of her personality, she engages in the first sati...

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Diario de Una Buena Vecina (1995)

These two extraordinarily engaging fictional diaries narrated by Jane (Janna) Somers crackle with energy, dry takes on the foibles of modern life, and bracingly grating relationships that often ring true. The impeccably turned-out editor of a trendy London magazine, Janna has a horror of commitme...

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Adore

Owing to back problems, she was unable to deliver her lecture in person. The lecture was delivered by her British publisher, Nicholas Pearson, at the Swedish Academy, Stockholm, on December 7, 2007. I AM STANDING in a doorway looking through clouds of blowing dust to where I am told there is stil...

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Shikasta (2011)

The houseboy, who has been arrested, has confessed to the crime. No motive has been discovered. It is thought he was in search of valuables. The newspaper did not say much. People all over the country must have glanced at the paragraph with its sensational heading and felt a little spurt of anger...

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Walking in the Shade

The child was probably thinking, But ships and cranes and water was Cape Town, and now it’s called London. As for me, real London was still ahead, like the beginning of my real life, which would have happened years before if the war hadn’t stopped me coming to London. A clean slate, a new page—ev...

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A Proper Marriage

She was dressed and ready two hours before the time, and was just about to start when Jasmine telephoned to say that unluckily she had an unexpected meeting. But she would meet Martha at eight outside McGrath’s so that they might both go to yet another meeting, organized by Help for Our Allies. J...

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Four Gated City

From this the conclusion may be drawn that it was at least partly not a personal matter. What then was it? The world going in and out, aspects of the world falling into shape inside a head … Nothing in the least important had occurred to him. After he had been dealing with water by way of example...

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In Pursuit of the English

Rose said: ‘Now you’re going to be a working girl like me. I’m glad.’ But Flo was disappointed in me, even offended. ‘You should have told us, shouldn’t you,’ she said. ‘Told you what?’ ‘Now you’re nice and comfortable up in that little flat that’s so nice.’ ‘Flo. I’m looking for a real flat, I t...

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El sueño más dulce

A su espalda la habitación empezaba a llenarse de una fría penumbra, pero nada conseguiría abatir a Frances: estaba flotando, con el ánimo tan elevado como una nube de verano, tan contenta como una niña que acaba de aprender a andar. La causa de este insólito buen humor era un telegrama de su ex ...

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Alfred and Emily

The meal is the full English breakfast. The men having departed, the women begin their day. If there are babies or small children, they will have to be kept pacified until the important business of the order books is complete. The delivery men arrive on bicycles, which they leave leaning against ...

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The Real Thing (1992)

Several times she seemed about to approach somebody who had just come out of the Underground to walk up the street, but then she stopped and retreated. At last she moved in to block the advance of a smartly dressed matron with a toy dog on a leash that came to sniff around her legs as she said hu...

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Stories (1978)

Three men were at work on the roof, where the leads got so hot they had the idea of throwing water on to cool them. But the water steamed, then sizzled; and they made jokes about getting an egg from some woman in the flats under them, to poach it for their dinner. By two it was not possible to to...

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A Ripple From the Storm

Mrs Maynard took a cup of coffee and half a piece of toast; Mr Maynard a cup of tea. The problem which occupied the two minds behind the large, dark jowled faces did not reach words: the native servant stood at attention throughout the meal by the sideboard.Mr Maynard said: ‘I have to be at the M...

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NF (1957) Going Home

This is the first big Federal project, a symbol of the success of Federation, a big dam on the Zambezi, 200 miles below the Victoria Falls. Before leaving Britain I had promised to find out as much as I could about the Africans who are working on it, and those who are being moved from the flood a...

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African Laughter (1992)

In 1982 few conversations did not come around to South Africa, either as a threat or a promise. Not only civilians left every day to this bastion: the soldiers of the disbanded white armies, their occupation gone, talked of Taking the Gap and then forming guerilla groups who would return to fight...

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