Davita’s Harp

Mirthful

In which we enjoy old friendship.

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I find I always reread books when I’m a bit under the weather, which may explain why I suddenly got the urge to reread Davita’s Harp. It’s my least favourite of Chaim Potok’s novels (excepting I am the Clay, which for some reason I can’t get through at all), but as he’s one of my all-time favourite authors, that really isn’t saying much. As with the majority of Potok’s work, the main theme of the book is the finding a balance in life between religion and your other convictions, but for once we get the story from a female point of view.

Du visste om et land – Vilde Bjerke

Mirthful

Jeg har hatt lyst til å lese Vilde Bjerkes biografi om hennes far en stund, men har liksom ikke kommet så langt som til å kjøpe den. Her om dagen var jeg på biblioteket for å låne Bjerkes samlede dikt og fant fram Du visste om et land i samme slengen, jeg tenkte at det jo ikke er nødvendig å kjøpe alle bøker man skal lese heller.

Desverre stemte det litt for godt. Boka var litt skuffende, selv om jeg ikke helt kan sette fingeren på hvorfor, og jeg kommer derfor neppe til å ha lyst til å lese den igjen og vil gladelig levere eksemplaret tilbake til Deichmanske. Jeg visste lite om Bjerkes liv på forhånd, så sånn sett lærte jeg en del nytt, men var allikevel altså noe skuffet. Det er mulig jeg hadde helt feil forhåpninger, blandt annet var jeg lite imponert over Vilde Bjerkes språkføring, men det er vel egentlig urimelig å vente at hun skal skrive eksepsjonellt godt bare fordi hennes far gjorde det.

Castle Waiting – Linda Medley

Mirthful

I went to the library to borrow André Bjerke’s collected poems Monday, and picked up a few new (well, new to me) comic books at the same time. Castle Waiting was one of them, and a very good read it was, too. I’ve made a reservation on volume two, there only seem to be two, actually, which is a pity, but can’t be helped.

Knots and Crosses – Ian Rankin

Mirthful

In which we are not sure quite what to think

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I’ve been meaning to try reading Rankin for a long time, and so I borrowed Knots and Crosses from my mother some time this spring an now finally got around to it. And I don’t know quite what to think. It’s engaging, I’ll give Rankin that, and having to put it away at arrival at work with only five pages to go was not good – I contemplated hiding in the ladies’ until I’d finished it (though didn’t). But there was less Edinburgh flavour than I’d been led to believe (that’s obviously not Rankin’s fault, it’s a miscommunication between me and the people I’ve heard about the series from). And I’m not entirely sure that I like John Rebus. Or rather, I’m not entirely sure I respect him, which is almost worse. This is partly due to my usual lack of enthusiasm at any sort of infidelity (Rebus goes home with another woman after starting a tentative relationship with a colleague – not a very serious breach of trust, perhaps, but enough for me to lose respect), but partly something else which I can’t quite define.

So. Not entirely sure. I think I might read at least one more Rebus book and see whether my interest vanes or vaxes. If the former, I’m likely to give the series up as a bad job…

Kastanjealléen

Mirthful

In which we read – and write – in Norwegian.

Jeg har flere Dea Trier Mørch bøker stående på hyllen som jeg skulle ha lest, og her om dagen passet det liksom å begynne på en. Jeg tenkte jeg skulle starte mykt med Kastanjealléen, men det ble nesten i overkant mykt. Det er en veldig koselig bok, kan man vel si, om sommer på landet hos mormor og morfar. Det er slett ingen dårlig bok, men et stykke uti begynte jeg å ønske meg mer konflikt og, vel, jeg vet ikke helt, men noe mer i hvert fall. Jaja, den er da i hver fall lest. Jeg får se om jeg ikke kan få prøvd meg på en av de andre etterhvert.

Something Rotten

Mirthful

In which time – and pretty much everything else, too – is out of joint.

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Thanks to Tinka I discovered Friday that a new Jasper Fforde had hit the shelves. After a short (but frantic) search in town I could get on the bus home and start reading. Something Rotten is every bit as good as one could expect having devoured the previous three books. Thursday is back in reality having spent two and a half years inside fiction, but reality is a somewhat dodgy concept, and something is definitely rotten in the state of, uhm, England. This made me very happy, which seems callous, but really, unless something is rotten, how are you going to get a good story?

In fact, the only thing that didn’t make me happy about Something Rotten was the quote from The Guardian they’ve opted to use on the cover. «Jasper Fforde has gone where no other fictioneer has gone before. Millions of readers now follow.» Well, what’s the problem with that then? Well, the problem with that is that in Thursday’s universe a «fictioneer» is a renegade fictional character, a «page-runner» who has not only left his own plot, but has left fiction entirely and tries to pass for a real person. Did the reviewer in The Guardian really mean to suggest that that is what Fforde is? And what about the publicity department? Has Fforde ok’ed the quote? In which case, why? What have I missed?

Anyway, go read The Eyre Affair and go on from there…

Zoovet – David C. Taylor

Mirthful

In which we are entertained.

I pick up some odd books. David C. Taylor’s Zoovet: The Life of a Wildlife Vet may not be the oddest of them, but it at least seems to be out of print. Which is really a pity because it was highly enjoyable. Taylor describes, in anecdotal fashion, the trials and tribulations of a vet specializing in exotic animals. The style is reminiscent of Gerald Durrell (and you know I enjoy his books)

Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams – Nick Webb

Mirthful

In which Robin is annoyed yet again.

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After an unintentionally expensive trip to one of the kiosks selling paperbacks at the central station, Nick Webb’s Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams came home with me. It pleased me somewhat more than the last biography of Adams that I read – however, Webb annoyed me by spending a lot of time referring to either Simpson or Gaiman, leaving the reader with a feeling that Webb’s own book was something of a waste of time and that he/she would have been better off with just the other two.

I’d still rather read Gaiman if I were you.

Notes from a Big Country

Mirthful

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While ill, I was looking for something to read that wouldn’t be to taxing and found Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country to fit the bill exactly. I’ve read it before, of course, so I knew it would. The nice thing, you see, about Bill Bryson, is that his writing is lightweight while at the same time he seldom makes the glaring mistakes (either gramatically or factually) that makes me fume at the edges when reading other authors’ works. Notes from a Big Country is highly entertaining and was a nice counterpoint (though sometimes making exactly the same arguments) as some of the other books on the USA I’ve been reading lately. It also has a nice echo of my own (increasingly problematic) homesickness for Britain, which can only help the comforting feeling of relating well to the author’s point of view – crucial for this sort of book, methinks.