7 x 7 Link Award: my take
Caroline kindly tagged me in her 7 x 7 Link Award. The rules are simple:
1: Tell everyone something about yourself that nobody knows.
2: Link to a post I think fits the following categories: The Most Beautiful Piece, Most Helpful Piece, Most Popular Piece, Most Controversial Piece, Most Surprisingly Successful Piece, Most Underrated Piece, Most Pride-worthy Piece.
3: Pass this on to 7 fellow bloggers.
So, here is my participation:
1: Well, I’ll tell you something about me that you don’t know
I hate Brussels sprouts.
2: Link to a post I think fits the following categories:
The Most Beautiful Piece
She moves him in mysterious ways, my review of South Of The Border, West Of The Sun by Haruki Murakami. I wrote it as soon as I ended it and the emotion filters through the post.
Most Helpful Piece
French Ways and Their Meaning by Edith Wharton. It’s also one of the most popular posts.
Most Popular Piece
According to WP statistics, the most popular piece is The Controversy Of Valladolid by Jean-Claude Carrière. It’s about the Valladolid debate and the central question was: Are Indians human or animals. A fascinating book which was made into a film.
Most Controversial Piece
The novel as a ragbag or can you write fiction about anything? It was a reaction to all the publicity done for Claustria by Régis Jauffret. The discussion was interesting.
Most Surprisingsly Successful Piece
Recently I wrote a reminder-post about Promising French Women Writers. I posted the list to keep the names in a safe place and I was surprised to receive so many comments, including one from one of the authors!
Most Underrated Piece
The mother who could not be a Mom, which is about La Virevolte by Nancy Huston. It’s a little book asking disturbing questions about motherhood.
Most Pride-Worthy Piece
Hollow Highways Revisited, which is my response to On The Holloway Road by Andrew Blackman. Andrew approved of it and what can be better than a writer reading and liking your review of his book?
3: Seven other bloggers:
Pechorin’s Journal. This is the first blog I found, read and followed. I still read everything Max publishes. His reviews are extremely well-written, thought-provoking and intelligent.
Tony’s Reading List. Tony is British, lives in Australia, reads all kinds of books in English, in German or in French. I love his reviews and his sense of humour. (His tag line is Too lazy to be a writer, too egostistical to be quiet) Have a look at his blog if you don’t know him.
A Rat in the Book Pile. Sarah’s reviews are worth reading. Her choice of books is diversified in style, countries and her reviews are deep and never pedantic. And she’s fun. And I love her Extreme Reading series which shows her reading in various perilous situations.
Andrew Blackman. Yes this is the writer I mentioned before. I enjoy following Andrew’s blog to discover his thoughts about his reading and also to keep in touch with his adventures as a writer.
ANZ LitLovers Lisa is Australian and promotes Australia and New Zealand literature buut she reads a lot of international literature too.
Wuthering Expectations. Once I told Tom from Wuthering Expectations that I’d know my English is really good when I can understand all his posts. I’m not there yet. Meet us on Tuesday for our readalong of Washington Square by Henry James.
Romain Gary et moi. A blog in French by Delphine who, like me, adores Romain Gary.
My number seven-bis would be the bloggers I read whatever they publish and that Caroline already tagged: His Futile Preoccupations and Tales From The Reading Room. And of course, Beauty Is a Sleeping Cat. I don’t have enough time to read all the posts of the other bloggers Caroline mentioned but I know their blogs and I heartily second her recommendation.
Book Around the Corner 
Brussel sprouts are my favourite (cooked) vegetables
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I got sick when I was little, I can’t stand them anymore.
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Thanks for joining and your choices. Our two lists together are really something, I knew I could count on you to include those I couldn’t squeeze into my 7. 🙂 I only miss 2 other blogs now on our joint list.
I only miss two bloggers on our lists that we couldn’t add but like to mention them here, seraillon and Books Without Any Pictures.
I like the posts you chose but need to read them again, I can’t remember all of them.
And you shared one thing. I don’t hate Brussel sprouts but I’m not keen.
I’m surprised the Carrière post got so many visits. The one on my book blog which has the most visits is Glattauer!
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I wish I had more time to read other blogs, there are so many good ones out there.
It was difficult to choose the most underrated piece as I have many posts with only few hits.
In addition to The Controversy of Valladolid, the biggest hits are : Le Mal du siècle by Alfred de Musset, Belle de Jour by Joseph Kessel and Crocodiles, turtles and then squirrels, the review of La Valse lente des tortues by Katherine Pancol.
And of course, I’d love to see the face of those who type “sea, sex” and land on my post on Proust or those who search how French men treat their women (I’m not kidding) and land on French Ways And Their Meaning.
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Hehe. I’m surprised I don’t have a lot of people coming for “weird” reasons. I didn’t understand why you said the Huston was underrated. It had quite a lot of comments. Were you looking at the hits?
There are great blogs out there. I would wish that those we tagged would at least go through their archives. I understand not everybody wants to tag 7 other people. I only realized that this was like a chain mail when I saw Guy’s post and Kevin’s – very understandable – reaction.
I’ve let all these awards pass so far but I thought the link idea was interesting.
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Well, when I read your entry it reminded me of teenage chain letters. That’s why I was a bit reluctant but I thought it was a great opportunity to point out other blogs.
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I didn’t think of the chain letters at all but I was reluctant as well. I thought that the choice of blogs made it obvious that it was about something else from my point of view and so far, in my case, only one person didn’t react and one is still a bit hesitant but the others like the idea and will post soon.
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Ema: on my flm blog, I get the search term “where to find hookers in …”
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sorry for the typos
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Did you review Pretty Woman ? (kidding, I know you didn’t)
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I would not want to say that your English is 100% of the problem with understanding my writing.
Thanks for putting me in such nice company. See you Tuesday with Eugénie Grandet – I mean, Washington Square.
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How generous of you!
Nice comparison for Washington Square. I have another one in mind. See you tomorrow!
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Thank you for the shout out Emma. I’m not sure I could answer this one. The questions are actually quite hard (I’m not sure I think of much of what I write as helpful, pride-worthy and underrated would be tricky too).
I did have someone find my blog once looking for lonely boys. I fear they didn’t find what they were looking for.
What is nice is directing people to one’s archives. Whenever I look back at anything I wrote before I find myself wincing at the errors in it, the infelicities of style and in the earlier ones the overlong paragraphs, but they are as they are and as with many other bloggers much of what’s best isn’t this week’s particular entry but stuff written a year ago or a month back or whenever.
After all, for those of us who have reading blogs, as you and I do, if the current book is lacklustre or there just isn’t much to say about it or however good it is we don’t connect, there’s a limit to how great a post on it can be. There’s always an element of luck in blogging, as in most things.
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Well, I suppose I’m not modest enough not to answer. (If I were that modest, I’d stick to my native language, btw) Besides, it’s relative. I took beautiful as better than the others not as masterpiece whatever the frame of reference.
I think you could answer like I did, picking the first entry that came to mind in each category. It would be fun to know what first comes to your mind.
Sorry to disappoint you, but according to the WP Stat spy, it doesn’t encourage visitors to discover older posts: almost nobody clicked on the links.
It’s funny to look at search engines terms, sometimes it’s strange.
if the current book is lacklustre or there just isn’t much to say about it or however good it is we don’t connect, there’s a limit to how great a post on it can be. Yes and no. Most of the time, yes. It’s hard to write well about something you didn’t enjoy. But there are counter-examples. My post about The Big Sleep is a catastrophe and I loved the book. I didn’t know how to write about it. My post about Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policemen’s Union is better and I abandoned the book. I just got inspired when it came to write about my disappointment.
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Hi Emma, thanks for mentioning Hollow Highways Revisited as your most pride-worthy piece! That made me very, well, proud 🙂
Thanks also for the tag! Usually I don’t like these chain things too much, but this one I love because it gives people a chance to highlight posts from the archive that would otherwise be lost. I loved your piece on the novel as a ragbag, which I missed first time around as it was soon after I arrived in Barbados and I wasn’t online much at that time. And the Murakami review, from before I started following your blog, was very beautiful. Also enjoyed reading through Caroline and litlove’s choices. I’ll have to get thinking about my own post now!
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I’m glad you enjoyed reading older posts. It’s always nice to have them digged out, one way or the other.
I’ll see your version of that award when you publish it.
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To all!
I got another “how French men treat their women” Is it a post-Strauss-Kahn sydrome?
And I have a new one: “how French people treat their food” !
I should write a post about the French clichés that bring visitors to my blog…
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