Kategori: Authors

Yikes!

Mirthful

It’s been so long (12 November?!) that I’m not even sure I can remember everything, never mind which order…

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss – while I agree with the zero tolerance approach, this book didn’t quite do it for me. Not quite funny enough, and not quite extreme enough. Or something.

Faster, They’re Gaining by Peter Biddlecombe – entertaining enough, but that’s about it (will be bookcrossed).

A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd – received as a RABCK. I loved the film when I saw it years back, I struggled somewhat with the book, though. I think it’s probably just my old problem of needing to empathise with the main protagonist and, frankly, Morgan Leafy is not the most appealing of characters… However, as Morgan «grows» as a character, I get more caught up in the story, so that by the end I’m beginning to forget about the struggle with the first half (or so). Still, not, I think, Boyd’s best (and I’ve only read two).

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Uhm. Yeah. Classic, you say? Why? Not my cup of tea. For one thing I find it hard to believe that ANYONE (let alone a seven-year-old child) ever spoke like that.

Ikoner i et vindu av John Erik Riley – Tja. Ikke dårlig, bare ikke særlig bra. Hovedproblemet, kanskje, er at de forskjellige fortellerstemmene lignet alt for mye på hverandre til å være særlig overbevisende som forskjellige fortellere. (Blir bookcrosset.)

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle – another RABCK. Pretty enjoyable, this, but I agree with rednumbertwo who sent it to me that the religious/spiritual overtones were a little hard to swallow. Not giving up on L’Engle, though.

No Logo by Naomi Klein – a reread prompted by the Husband reading it for the first time. Somehow it’s stayed with me for longer and been more fundamentally upsetting this time round, probably because of the pregnancy. It seems worse, somehow, to contemplate the baby wearing clothes sewn by children or even adults in sweatshops than wearing such clothes myself (though I hardly like the latter thought). I suppose it’s a good thing to become more «hung up» on such issues, but it’s certainly made shopping a lot more difficult…

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman – clever and entertaining, and a quick read as it was quite difficult to put down for any amount of time.

Pappa for første gang av Finn Bjelke – kjøpt til mannen i julepresang (kjempeoppfinnsomt, sant?). Lettlest (vi hadde begge lest den innen utgangen av 2. juledag) og underholdende, men med noen gode poenger (tror jeg da – vi får se hvordan realiteten blir…).

ABC for spedbarnsforeldre av Nina Misvær – sikkert nyttig…

The Baboons Who Went This Way and That by Alexander McCall Smith – another collection of folk tales from Africa.

The Outlaws of Sherwood and Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley – McKinley was a pleasant discovery. The Robin Hood version caught my eye, as I collect Robin Hood versions, and since they were both on sale and Spindle’s End looked intriguing, I bought both. In The Outlaws of Sherwood we meet a Robin Hood like no other Robin Hood I’ve ever come across. It’s a more realistic novel than any other Robin Hood novel I’ve ever read, and the characters are all more human and fallible. Much as I love the legend of the (almost) invincible outlaw, I hugely enjoyed this fresh take. Spindle’s End is Sleeping Beauty retold, with surprising twists to the tale, and rather a lot of «embroidery», seeing as filling a novel with just the basic tale would be rather difficult. It’s pretty and competent embroidery, however, and is to be recommended. I’ll be looking for more McKinleys – and not just on sale, either.

Vita Brevis av Jostein Gaarder – jeg nærmest skummet gjennom denne. Kanskje fortjener den mer oppmerksomhet, men jeg er ikke så sikker (nok en bookcrossing-bok).

Friends in High Places – Donna Leon

Mirthful

Friends in High Places showed up in the zone recently, and I decided to bring it home and give it a look-see, not having read anything by Donna Leon before.

I rather enjoyed this peek at Venice, and especially the darker sides of Venetian society. I must say, though, that if Leon’s descriptions of «how society works» are accurate, I’m sure glad I don’t have to live there.

An especially endearing aspect of the book was that Brunetti’s daughter Chiara is reading the Aubrey/Maturin series (and therefore wants to learn how to sail), and that his wife has read them and loved them. One cannot but admire their excellent taste in literature…

(Bookcrossing journal)

Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums

Mirthful

Anne McCaffrey was a pleasant aquaintance to make. Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums may not be big, heavy tomes, but the story has strength enough to stick with you and certainly made me want to read more. I found the «trilogy» a bit construed, though, the third book, though obviously related to the first two, does not quite belong. No matter, though, when it is all so enjoyable.

Time flies

Mirthful

Since early May I’ve read a lot of books and been dumb as an oyster about most of them. To give myself a chance to catch up I will therefore throw them all in this catch-up post and start afresh with the current read once I’ve finished that.

Having felt for a long time that I really ought to read some of the Moomin books, I read Pappan och havet, which is perhaps one of the darkest and least «children’s literature» of Tove Jansson’s great series. I then read three books in the Dot-series by Inge Møller that I picked up in a jumble sale – hardly great literature and not even the best of their genre, but not an unpleasant way to spend an afternoon.

I then got through Follestad and Ffforde, before embarking on P. D. James’ latest, The Lighthouse, which, fortunately, was every bit as good as one could have hoped. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was next, a fascinating book, though overhyped, and also not at all what I expected (though I don’t know what I expected, to be honest, I just had no idea what the book was about owing to the fact that all I’ve ever done before is look at the front of the cover).

Next I picked Roald Dahl’s My Uncle Oswald off the shelf – I’d bought it a while back mainly because, well, it’s a Dahl and it also happened to be a first edition in good shape. This was quite entertaining, though I suspect the subject matter would enrage some people, but I wasn’t quite satisfied with the conclusion.

I bought The Wicked Winter by Kate Sedley at my doctor’s office (there’s a Lions’ Club book sale shelf there) and was entertained. It was pretty good as these things go – the main character, who is also the narrator, is sympathetic and the mystery had a nice twist at the end which I certainly didn’t foresee. However, not a likely candidate for a reread, it’s too… well, I suppose «simple» will have to do for a descriptive word – It’s too simple for that. Well enough written, though. So I stuck a bookcrossing label in it and left it in Britain somewhere. I hope somebody else will pick it up and enjoy it as much as I did.

I borrowed Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor from my father, who’s a fan, and enjoyed it to a certain extent, but it was not the sort of book I really wanted to read just now – I’ve been on the search for strong main characters and a make-you-turn-the-page-quickly central plot, and whatever Lake Wobegon‘s merits, those are not among them. So I turned to another rearead instead, The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer. Not the best choice, unfortunately, as neither of the two arch rivals really manage to engange my sympathy in sufficient degree to make me care much about «who wins». Still, Archer is always good entertainment.

Next was Hver sin verden by Marianne Fredriksson, which was almost good. Fredriksson ruined the book for me by making basic mistakes regarding Scandinavian/nordic history (assuming an Icelander with the surname Anarson must be a decedant of earlier Anarsons was the most glaring one) and by formatting the text very strangely. Instead of sticking to the standard paragraph indicator (indented first line) there was also a blank line between paragraph-lengths blocks of text. Mostly this was just a waste of paper and though it seemed unecessary, it could be taken to indicate a «break» in the narrative – replacing the line «Some time later» for example. However, it sometimes happened in the middle of dialogues or otherwise coherent episodes, and felt just as wrong as putting a full stop in the middle of a sentence. I came very close to throwing the book across the room a couple of times, but managed to restrain myself.

Frelseren

Mirthful

Endelig ble det mulig å få fatt i Frelseren til en nogenlunde ok pris, så endelig fikk jeg lest den. Fort gikk det også. Boka var veldig bra, men jeg kom jo selvsagt på hvorfor jeg ikke kan lese så mange realistiske krim-bøker på rad. Det er nemlig slik at i «snill krim» – Agata Christie for eksempel – er det som regel slik at de som blir drept «fortjener» det (i den grad det er mulig, selvsagt) og dersom morderen er sympatisk så løser det seg liksom ganske bra til slutt. Sånn er det ikke i virkeligheten, selvsagt. I virkeligheten er det til stadighet folk som blir drept som ikke har gjort noe som helst for å fortjene en vrikket fot en gang. Sånn er det gjerne også i realistisk krim – det er noe av det som gjør den realistisk. Og sånn er det i Nesbø, og jeg liker det virkelig ikke når «feil» mennesker dør. Ikke at jeg synes at han skulle begynne å skrive «snille» krimbøker, da ville ikke bøkene være på langt nær så gode, men jeg må altså prøve å huske at jeg ikke skal lese flere slike bøker på rad, for det har jeg ikke godt av.

Men en om gangen er helt fint, og Frelseren levde opp til forventningene. Kan anbefales på det varmeste – men begynn i andre enden dersom du ikke har lest noe Nesbø før.

Blue Shoes and Happiness

Mirthful

Oh joy, oh frabulous joy! A new No. 1 book! Amazingly enough I found it in one of the local bookshops before I even knew it was going to be out, and even more amazingly it was priced so reasonably that I didn’t have to wrestle with my conscience (who might otherwise have held the opinion that one could wait until end-June when we go to the land of hops and glory, i.e. the UK). Blue Shoes and Happiness continues in the same rather brilliant vein as the previous books, and only makes you wish it were longer.

Going Solo

Mirthful

I ended up rereading Going Solo because I had found it in a box (along with Waltzing through Flaws) and had given it to the husband with a «here you go, you need to read this» and he’d brought it to Vienna and was reading something else when I needed something to read and had put my own book (which I still haven’t finished) in the wrong bag. Uhm. Nice sentence, that.

Anyway. I’ve read Boy once, and as far as I can remember I found that pretty tedious. Going Solo, however, is charming and, amongst other things, leaves you wondering how on earth Hitler managed to get beaten by the allies, though I suppose someone in charge must have learned from their mistakes at some point after Dahl was invalided home. Or perhaps the allies were just more stubborn and won on the basis of sheer luck, which seems to be mainly what kept Dahl alive.