A Mrs' Bookshelf - vol.1

Title: Miss Chopsticks
Author: Xinran
Pages: 240
Publisher: Vintage Books

Plot:  This is the story of three sisters (the story is romanced, but it takes inspirations from real life stories of three girls the author gets to know in her life).

The story takes place in China, in the nineties when the three girls -Three, Five and Six- leave their country village and go to the big city of Nanjing in search of fortune.

The novel developes the stories of the three girls who are employed in three different places, each one according to their talents. As the time goes by the girls learn that they are valuable as much as anyone because they have qualities and talents and that their father's belief is wrong: they are not chopsticks: utilitarian and easily broken, but valuable girls to be proud of.

In the city each one of the girls understands that there's another life than the one they've always known in the village they were born and bread in.

My opinion on the book: The story is well written and the books itself is a light read and a real page turner. Xinran draws a clear and coloured image of the big city and the reader is introduced to Chinese society from the first to the very last page of this novel. I truly enjoyed reading this book. On a total of five stars I would give this one four.

My week in pictures...

This week was busy and I would run as fast as ever to go back home from work, to my hubby who was home with a flu (he's now doing allright though, and we'll catch up on outdoor activities during the weekend).

The past week mainly meant baking and letter writing for me.

I baked two birthday cakes last Sunday (lactose free cakes):

The strawberry cake I ate with my family and the second cake was for the dinner we had with Ricky's side of the family. All in all I had a great birthday and was spoilt with nice presents.

I was spoilt on the mail front also, I received three beautiful letters:

I received letters from Amy in Georgia, Jessie in Illinois and Mel in Canada.

I also sent three mails and that made me proud of my penpalling achievement.

I sent two letters: one went to Mikaela in Finland and the other one (together with a very belated birthday present) went to Eva in Hungary. The third parcel went to Germany to a fellow bookcrosser who got "The Daughter of Time" from me.