Bought new books:

Tom Wolfe - I am Charlotte Simmons (read it last summer, liked it, plus was in the mood for a "college novel".)
Lorrie Moore - A gate at the stairs (seemed good, "coming-of-age novel" and all that.)
Margaret Atwood - Lady oracle (You can't go wrong with Atwood.)

Right now though, I'm re-reading Curtis Sittenfeld's American wife. Spent two lovely days re-reading Prep, and then one lovely day re-reading The man of my dreams. Figured, why not just stay in Sittenfeld's world? I did try, however, to read something else by someone else after I had finished The man of my dreams but no one is as good as Sittenfeld, so it was just depressing.

Books I really, really want to buy:

SHE ISN'T WHAT SHE WROTE

This is a really interesting article about/interview with Curtis Sittenfeld about Prep; what I don't get is, why is it so bad to draw from your own experience when writing? Some people seem to think it's somewhat of a sin. When a woman writes a book, and some of turns out to be a bit like her own experience, people seem to think that that discredits the book in some way; also; whenever a woman writes a book, especially something like Prep which is so good, so exactly like it is, so dead-on, and so well-written, people always seem to want to discredit the book by saying that "Oh, she's probably just writing about herself", like the author in question wouldn't be able to come up with the story line just by using her own imagination. Basically: whenever a woman writes, there is always something wrong with it, or with her, she's unimaginative or she has too much imagination etc., etc. I'm so tired of the fact that, everywhere I turn, something is wrong with me, simply because I happen to be a woman.

THIS TOO SHALL PASS

I'm not doing too good at the moment. Like, at all or whatsoever. So I'm re-reading Prep while waiting for better times.

HERE'S THE MINI-CHERRY ON TOP OF THE REGULAR CHERRY ON TOP OF THE SUNDAE OF AWESOMENESS THAT IS MY LIFE

I haven't quite decided on what to read yet; read almost 200 pages of the Doris Lessing book until I realised it wasn't the right time for it. Might go for PopCo by Scarlett Thomas instead.

Wanted to put this picture up because it always makes me smile and because I miss Clara so much! It was a great evening, we got extremely drunk and spent five hours talking only to each other (for some reason we spent all of those hours lying in a bath tub). Awesome night, awesome friend. Will hopefully go to Italy and visit her soon.

THE ENGLISH BOOKSHOP

OK, so have decided to take a break from The executioner's song. I hate to "give up" a book although I'm not really giving up on it because I do like it and will finish it some other time. So, anyhoo, bought new books today:

Doris Lessing - The golden notebook
Margaret Drabble - The millstone (Yes! Finally! I have it! I own it!)
Ben Okri - The famished road
Scarlett Thomas - PopCo
Jonathan Littell - The kindly ones

Anne showed me this lovely little book store in Gamla stan that only sells English books. Awesome! Was so happy to find my absolute favourite Drabble book. And I've been wanting to read The kindly ones forever.

OH MOTHER OF PEARL, SO SO SEMI PRECIOUS IN YOUR DETACHED WORLD

Hello book blog, I'm leaving for Stockholm today. It's going to be nice, I need a break from Örebro, and I haven't been to Stockholm for about eight months which must be some kind of record for me. I'm planning on buying some books, because they have this great book store with loads of books in English in the centre. I'm also going to try to meet up with Sami because I haven't seen him in about two years. Weird, really. Anyway, so I'm going away for a bit. What I will be reading? Still The executioner's song. What I will be listening to? Roxy Music - Mother of pearl. Bye book blog.

HEATHCLIFF, IT'S ME CATHY, COME HOME

There's a lot of songs out there which has to do with books, certain characters, titles etc. You get what I mean. Anyway, the best one is obviously Wuthering heights by Kate Bush. I cannot get over how great this song is. What's funny though, is that I hated the book. I've never been one for the epic love stories or love stories in general. But the song is just awesome and Kate Bush is just wonderful.

WHEN I GET SAD I STOP BEING SAD AND BE AWESOME INSTEAD. TRUE STORY.

Sooo, I'm still reading The executioner's song (well, obviously, it's 1056 pages long). It's such a great book; it definitely deserved winning the Pulitzer Prize back in 1980. On another note, I watched Drag me to hell yesterday and I am so grateful I didn't see it in London last year. I was supposed to go to it with this guy I sorta dated (feels bad that I always have to put "sorta"/"kinda" before "dated" but that's because I don't really date; I have brief, sordid love affairs that almost always ends with me thinking "Why did I ever?", haha) because that movie freaked me out! I even pressed fast-forward at some points. However, it got me thinking I should probably read more of Stephen King's books; Drag me to hell didn't have a happy ending, i.e. the pretty girl didn't make it, which is normally how King's books end as well. Just bad news all around. I kinda like that.

Other than that, I don't have much to tell you; I might move to London a lot sooner than I thought which would be nice, and I've had a couple of bad days when I've just been generally sad but then I thought of Barney Stinson's awesome line instead and became happy again. True story.