Forfatter: Mirthful

Ravensdale

Mirthful

Books in the mail! This one from Christeph – Ravensdale by Kate Fielding (funny – amazon seems to have gotten the covers for this one and A Winter in Ravensdale mixed up…)

Let’s see, what to say… This is a feel-good, heart-warming tale, with some attempts at «darker» themes – it reminded me of some of the better British «soaps», Heartbeat or Ballykissangel or some such. This is hardly great literature, but pleasant reading none the less, and when you’re hopelessly in love with the British countryside, reading about the Yorkshire Dales can never be a Bad Thing. I’ll probably want to read the rest of the series, in other words.

(Bookcrossing journal)

English Passengers

Mirthful

I got Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers in the mail from nanny60read and since it’s been on my tlf (to look for) list for a while, I thought I’d start it right away.

It actually lived up to my expectations, providing an enjoyable, but also thought-provoking tale. Most of the people inhabiting Kneale’s universe are pretty hard to like, actually, and still I feel it was woth getting to know them. And you do get to know them. The novel consists of fairly short chapters written «by» (from the point of view of) the characters themselves, I count 22 narrators in all. Captain Illiam Quilliam Kewley, besides having the most wonderful name, is also one of the more worthwhile aquaintances the book offers, his style is straightforward and matter-of-fact, but with some highly personal observances to spice it up. Peevay, the Tasmanian aborigine, recounts his people’s rather miserable story after the arrival of «the white man» in a wonderfully poetic (for lack of a better word) language, and therefore provides some of the most fascinating sequences in the book. Dr. Thomas Potter is a wonderful counterbalance to Peevay, espousing his horribly familiar theories of racial types in a rather enjoyable diary jargong.

An excerpt from Peevay:

So I began to understand rum. I did suppose it would make me feel happy, but no, this was never so. It made me feel NOTHING, and this was great good fortune, too, as NOTHING was just what I was seeking. By and by I got another and then another, as I was hungry to get all the NOTHING in the world. But then I learned this rum was more difficult than I knew, as suddenly I was dizzy and feeling crook, so I had to go away, legs leaning like I was on some ship, and white scuts laughing, and when I got outside I was sick and all my beautiful NOTHING was gone.

(The books bookcrossing page)

Pondus – Fem rette

Mirthful

Ny Pondus-bok! Nå har man jo riktignok lest alle stripene før, man abonnerer jo på bladet (vel, mannen gjør), men allikevel må man jo løpe og kjøpe. Det er ikke stort annet å si om denne enn at den burde være obligatorisk eie for enhver nordmann (og alle andre som kan lese norsk).

Det blod som spillts

Mirthful

Det er svært hyggelig å lese ny (for meg) krim som ikke irriterer mer enn den behager (ok, behager er et dårlig ord når det gjelder god krim, men det er det beste jeg kommer på akkurat nå). Åsa Larsson skriver meget godt og sikkert, og historien har akkurat så mye driv som den bør ha. Jeg har nettopp «måttet» lese ferdig de siste 10 sidene etter å ha ankommet jobb – det var vanskelig å legge fra seg boka i går kveld, i dag var det platt umulig.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Mirthful

And so I finally got around to reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. About time, really, especially as it turned out to be just about as good as the hype claims, which was somewhat unexpected. So now I can cross off C on the list, which is good.

The Aubrey/Maturin series

Mirthful

No, I’m not dead. Neither am I «might has well have been dead», that is: Not reading. I just made the mistake of looking into The Final, Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey and, as is quite natural when it comes to O’Brian, simply had to reread the series. Which takes a while. It’s time well spent, though, and if you’ve still to read Master and Commander (just forget about the silly film and read the book, I tell you), then shame on you.

Abandonment

Mirthful

I was surprised to discover a book by Kate Atkinson that I hadn’t heard of before and promptly ordered it from Amazon. When it arrived I realised why I hadn’t heard of it, it’s a play. I had no idea Atkinson wrote plays, but since I rather enjoy reading playscripts it did not put me off (rather the opposite). Abandonment is an interesting little tale and can be recommended.

Nickle and Dimed: Undercover in Low-Wage America

Mirthful

nickel.jpg

Nickel and Dimed is chilling reading. Ehrenreich – as the title says – goes undercover and tries to find out how people survive in low-wage America. The answer is «barely». How so many people can live in such conditions beats belief, but on the other hand you see how staying alive would be so all-consuming that there is no time, and certainly no energy, left for even considering how to change the situation.

44 Scotland Street

Mirthful

44_smith.jpg

44 Scotland Street is an odd book, due to its origin as a daily serialized newspaper novel, a form of writing which was all but dead until McCall Smith revived it. However, it reads very well in bound form, too, and paints a vivid, if not altogether pretty, picture of life in an Edinburgh block of flats. I, for one, am looking foreward to the next installment.