- Last Chance to See – Mark Cawardine, foreword by Stephen Fry
- The Private Patient – P. D. James
- The Comfort of Saturdays – Alexander McCall Smith
- The Ladies of Grace Adieu – Susanna Clarke
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J. K. Rowling (reread)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling (reread)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J. K. Rowling (reread)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J. K. Rowling (reread)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling (reread)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J. K. Rowling (reread)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J. K. Rowling (reread)
- Packaging Girlhood
- Consumer Kids
- Tea Time for the Traditionally Built – Alexander McCall Smith
- This Charming Man – Marian Keyes
- The Brontes Went to Woolworths – Rachel Ferguson (reread)
- Paths of Glory – Jeffrey Archer
- A Prisoner of Birth – Jeffrey Archer
- The Thirteenth Tale – Diana Setterfield
- Until I Find You – John Irving
- Terra Incognita – Sarah Wheeler
- Blue at the Mizzen – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Hundred Days – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Yellow Admiral – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Commodore – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Wine-Dark Sea – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- Clarissa Oakes – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Nutmeg of Consolation – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Thirteen-Gun Salute – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Letter of Marque – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Reverse of the Medal – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Far Side of the World – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- Treason’s Harbour – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Ionian Mission – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Surgeon’s Mate – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Fortune of War – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- Desolation Island – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- The Mauritius Command – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- HMS Surprise – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- Master & Commander – Patrick O’Brian (reread)
- Twenty Chickens for a Saddle – Robyn Scott
- Martha Jane & Me: A girlhood in Wales – Mavis Nicholson
Merry Christmas
Poem for the day:
Prayer
for a New Mother
The things she knew, let her forget again–
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds and the queer old men
Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one,
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,
Grant her her right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king.
Keep from her dream the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.
Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go
And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan
The proud and happy years that they shall know
Together, when her son has grown a man.
— Dorothy Parker
Et lite (?) prosjekt for 2010
Det er en stund siden jeg sist klarte å følge en leseliste (om jeg noen gang kan sies å ha klart det), men når skal jeg gjøre et forsøk på å slenge meg med på Lyrans Jorden rundt på 8 bøker for 2010. Her er utvalget hennes, og jeg tror jeg følger Lilla Os metode med fet skrift på de jeg har tenkt å lese, kursiv på de jeg alt har lest (skremmende få).
Östeuropa
Stalins kossor – Sofi Oksanen (Finland)
Låt tistlarna brinna! – Yasar Kemal (Turkiet)
Aprils frusna blommor – Ismaïl Kadaré (Albanien)
Mellanöstern
Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis (Iran)
Alexandre Najjar – Krigets skola (Libanon)
Hur man botar en fanatiker – Amos Oz (Israel)
Asien
Den indiske tolken – Jhumpa Lahiri (Indien)
Mardrömmen – Kenzaburo Oe (Japan)
Människornas jord – Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Indonesien)
Oceanien
Boktjuven – Markus Zusak (Australien)
Fem svarta höns – Nevil Shute (Australien)
Att tro på mister Pip – Lloyd Jones (Nya Zealand)
Sydamerika
Den sista läsaren – David Toscana (Mexico)
Andarnas hus – Isabel Allende (Chile)
Stjärnans ögonblick – Clarice Lispector (Brasilien)
Nordamerika
Och var hör du hemma? – Anne Tyler (USA)
Illusionernas bok – Paul Auster (USA)
Kärlek, vänskap, hat – Alice Munro (Canada)
Afrika
Midaqq-gränden – Naguib Mahfouz (Egypten)
Sultanbrudens skugga – Assia Djebar (Algeriet)
Förändringar – Ama Ato Aidoo (Ghana)
Västeuropa
Kärleken är dödens motsats – Roberto Saviano (Italien)
Ungdomens bröd – Heinrich Böll (Tyskland)
Den röda soffan – Michèle Lesbre (Frankrike)
And another list
This would be a good starting point for a project, actually. De norske bokklubbene collected votes from 100 noted writers from 54 countries to come up with a list of the 100 greatest books (I picked the list up from The Guardian, though). The books have been released as a set, but I have too many of them already to make the set interesting to me. Using it as a reading list, however, is an interesting idea. So, let’s see how far I have to go, bolding the ones I’ve read, italicising the ones I’ve read parts of (either because they are more or less meant to be read in parts or because I abandoned them half-way).
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll’s House
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC)
James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia
Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC).
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays
Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300)
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight’s Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver’s Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs of Hadrian
I could have told you that.
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The Private Patient – P.D. James
I don’t exactly rush to buy any new P.D. James, as I am perfectly able to wait until I find it in paperback. Once I do. however, it tends to move very rapidly up my to-read list. I picked The Private Patient up in Oslo on the last weekend of November, and started it as soon as I finished the book I was in just then.
What to say? Well, it’s just as good as one would expect from James. Dalgliesh is his endearing self, Kate is still taking a lot of attention, which is all good, the characters involved in the actual crime are just the right blend of insufferable and adorable to make them human enough.
At Narvesen på Nordre
Which is still, alarmingly, the best place for new books in English in Trondheim:
Last Chance to See – in the Footsteps of Douglas Adams – Mark Cawardine (foreword by Stephen Fry)
Involving some of my favourite people and being about an interesting subject it’s hard to see how this could go wrong. I’ll report back on it soon.
The Comfort of Saturdays – Alexander McCall Smith
We’re actually getting to the point where we’re wondering if Alexander McCall Smith isn’t just TOO prolific. Here we were thinking we need to get hold of The Lost Art of Gratitude after seeing it in hardback earlier, and then I discover we’ve actually completely missed The Comfort of Saturdays! Really, the speed that man writes at! How are we supposed to keep up?
All is forgiven, though, the moment I start the first paragraph. As always, Smith amazes me with his ability to make me feel like I’m strolling along at a comfortable, sedate and philosophical pace while what I’m really doing is turning the pages as fast as is humanly possible. Or thereabouts.
Isabel Dalhousie is a lovable lady and her tendency to overthink achingly familiar in many ways. And her wry observations make me laugh:
The modern world was a tolerant place: even murderers brazened it out these days: they wrote their memoirs, telling all, and publishers fell upon them with delight. There was no shame there, she thought, unless the memoirs included an apology to the victims, which they usually did not; on the contrary, they sometimes blamed the victims, or the police, or their mothers, or even, in the case of one set of memoirs, the mothers of the police.
What could be better?
I can only see one drawback to this series so far and that is that it makes me devastated for a second every time I emerge from the books and realise I’m not actually in Scotland. But they are worth it.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu – Susanna Clarke
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke has been on my to-read list for quite some time, basically since I discovered it was out, I suppose. I did rather love Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and was eager for more. From that point of view, The ladies of Grace Adieu was a little disappointing.
My first objection is hardly Clarke’s fault: I really do not like short stories. As usual, just as I was getting really interested in a story, it was over. I like a book I can really get my teeth into and which takes days, even weeks to finish unless you are in the happy position of being able to drop everything else for 10 hours upwards. So though the stories were good, they were too short.
Other than that, well, I guess I’m not so much interested in fairie- lore as just appreciative of «magical» plot devices. Had I been really into fairies and magic in a of its own, I suppose I would have been more interested, but I’m not.
Saying that, the book is still pretty great, just not quite I’d hoped for. Clarke handles language beautifully, changing tone, syntax and spelling to suit the supposed time of the narrative, and held me transfixed for minutes (until I got to the end of the story and had to start again with a different set of characters).
Ok, so I really don’t like short stories. Why do I keep reading them, I wonder?
In Oslo for a weekend
And I got to shop at Tanum (Karl Johan), Ark (Egertorget) and Norli (Univ.gata). Heaven. Except more expensive, I suspect.
The Comfort of Saturdays – Alexander McCall Smith
The Private Patient – P. D. James
Bad Science – Ben Goldacre
Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter – Seth Lerer
And at least one Christmas present, but I’m not revealing that here, just in case. Anyway, I felt quite restrained, all things considered.