MEN AND WOMEN

Books read:
Elanor Dymott - Every contact leaves a trace
Shirley Jackson - Hangsaman
Louise Doughty - Apple tree yard

"The weekend after, I threw a fit as screechy as the couple in the flat above us and told Guy that I would never be able to finish the project proposal I was working on unless he took the kids out for the afternoon on the Sunday; and he did, without demur. This was the thing he never understood: yes, he would give me time to work when I demanded it, but my time was considered to belong to our family unit unless I signalled that I wanted out. His time was considered to belong to himself unless I demanded that he opt in.
   Evene the nice ones don't understand what this is like. What's the problem? They say it sadly, trying to do the right thing. All you have to do is ask..."
- Apple tree yard, Louise Doughty

THIS IS A PARTY AND I'M HERE ALREADY AND I MUST REMEMBER THAT MY NAME IS NATALIE.

"The gap between the poetry she wrote and the poetry she contained was, for Natalie, something unsolvable."

"A knock on her door was as strange a thing to her as the fact of the door itself; at first she thought, It is across the hall, how clearly it sounds; then she thought, It is a mistake; she wasted a minute thinking of someone looking at the outside of the door steadfastly, as she looked at the inside, and meant to mark the next day whether the panels outside were the same as those inside; odd, she thought, that someone standing outside could look at the door, straight ahead, seeing the white paint and the wood, and I inside looking at the door and the white paint and the wood should look straight also, and we two looking should not see each other because there is something in the way. Are two people regarding the same thing not looking at each other?"

"I wish I knew why I am so excited all the time. I keep thinking something is going to happen. I keep thinking I am right on the point of telling someone all about myself."

""I used to think," Natalie said, "when I was a child, that I had only a limited stock of 'yeses' and 'nos', and that when they were used up I couldn't get any more and then I wouldn't be able to answer most of the questions silly people asked me.""

"From Natalie's secret journal:
Dearest dearest darling most important dearest darling Natalie - this is me talking, your own priceless own Natalie, and I just wanted to tell you one single small thing: you are the best and they will know it someday, and someday no one will ever dare laugh again when you are near, and no one will dare even speak to you without bowing first. And they will be afraid of you. And all you have to do is wait, my darling, and it will come, I promise you. Because that's the fair part of it - they have it now, and you have it later. Don't worry please, please don't, because worrying might spoil it, because if you worry it might not come true.
Somewhere there is something waiting for you, and you can smile a little perhaps now when you are so unhappy, because how well we both know that you will be happy very very very very soon. Somewhere someone is waiting for you, and loves you, and thinks you are beautiful, and it will be so wonderful and so fine, and if you can be patient and wait and never never never never despair, because despair might spoil it, you will come there, someday, and the gates will open and you will pass through, and no one will be able to come in unless you let them, and no one can even see you. Someday, someone, somewhere. Natalie please"
- Hangsaman, Shirley Jackson

CURRENTLY READING:

Completely forgot to mention in my last post that I read Sweet tooth by Ian McEwan this week. It was a bit so-so, but the ending was really good.

WOLF HALL

Finished reading The goldfinch a couple of weeks ago. PEOPLE, READ IT. God, it was good.

After that, I read Fatherland by Robert Harris and managed around 400 pages of The passage before I got too tired of virals and vampires. Had a really hard time deciding what to read, so bought some new books yesterday; Hilary Mantel's Wolf hall, Affinity by Sarah Waters and Every contact leaves a trace by Elanor Dymott. Currently reading the last one which really is quite good, despite its horrible title. The Wolf hall cover is, by the way, probably one of the best covers I've ever seen. Whoever designed it should be proud:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/17/doris-lessing-death-margaret-atwood-tribute

DORIS LESSING

Today Doris Lessing passed away in her London home, aged 94. I cannot even describe how truly, truly sad this makes me.
 I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

Q/A

OK, so I kind of borrowed this list from a Swedish blog. Translated the questions, skipped some, changed some. All pictures by my good friend, Karin Wåhlberg.  Here we go:

Currently reading: The goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

What you are planning to read after that: The passage by Justin Cronin (feel a bit embarrassed by this fact) or maybe Fatherland by Robert Harris.

Favourite bookstore: In Stockholm: The English Bookshop. In London: Foyles (though I really like Waterstones on Picadilly Circus). In Berlin: Saint George's English Bookshop.

Favourite place to read (at home): In my bed or on the sofa.

Three favourite authors: Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Drabble (schocking, I know!).

Best thing to read when hungover: Blogs. I almost never read when I am hungover. I mostly eat and look at clips of Taylor Swift on Youtube.

The best book you've read this year: Well. OK. The best book I've read this year in terms of good writing: The sweetest dream by Doris Lessing. In terms of couldn't-put-it-down-cried-when-it-was-over: Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell.

The book(s) you bought most recently: The passage (yep, still embarrassing.)

Favourite genre: I honestly don't know. I don't much like poetry, and I only like science fiction if it is by Margaret Atwood (and even then, I can't say I'm the biggest fan). I always thought I didn't like thrillers, but then I discovered Gillian Flynn. And Sophie Hannah. And Tana French.

Favourite place to read (outside of your home): I do like to read on the underground, but generally I don't read in public. I don't drink coffee, I only drink wine and I'd rather do that in company than with a book.

A writer you admire: If I have to choose only one: Doris Lessing. But Siri Hustvedt is worth mentioning as well.

The worst book you've read this year: Probably Now you see her by Joy Fielding. It was so boring and badly written I wanted to fall asleep (I have no idea why I kept reading it - maybe because I waited for it to get better the whole time? It didn't.)

Favourite quote: "I meant to keep myself out of this story, which is a laugh, really, I agree: I see however that in failing to disclose certain facts I make myself out to be some sort of voyeuse, and I am too vain to leave anyone with the impression that the lives of others interest me more than my own." A summer bird-cage, Margaret Drabble. But the most perfect sentence ever is this one from Elaine Dundy's The dud avocado: "A rowdy bunch on the whole, they were most of them so violently individualistic as to be practically interchangeable."

Aw, look at this lovely picture of Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood celebrating Munro's Nobel Prize win over the weekend:

Twitter/Margaret Atwood

THE PURE GOLD BABY

For some completely crazy reason, I've completely missed the fact that Margaret Drabble has published a new book. Where the fuck have I been?

THE POINT IS, LIFE HAS TO BE ENDURED, AND LIVED.

God, long time no see book blog. Anyway: a couple of weeks ago I re-read George Orwell's 1984. It was even better this time around. Other books I've read lately:

Annette Dumbach & Jud Newborn - Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
Sophie Hannah - The carrier
Daphne du Maurier - My cousin Rachel
Paul Auster - The Brooklyn follies

Read two books in Swedish as well, check them out here.

I'm not sure what to read right now, but that's mainly because I think I'm going to buy Donna Tartt's new novel on Thursday. Related but unrelated: the picture below of her is just so freaking awesome I don't know where to look. She just embodies the word cool.

Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

STASILAND

Books read:

Marisha Pessl - Night film
Anna Funder - Stasiland

Been reading in Swedish lately, so feel free to check out http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/.

NIGHT FILM

Read a really crap thriller by Joy Fielding, called Now you see her. Just wanted something that was easy to read while I was moving (I live in Berlin now), but it was just so, so bad. Currently reading Marisha Pessl's Night film, which obviously is considerably better.

THE LATE BOURGEOIS WORLD

Books read:

Sophie Hannah - Little face

Tana French - Broken Harbour

Nadine Gordimer - The late bourgeois world

Doris Lessing - Martha Quest

Then I re-read The secret history by Donna Tartt for the first time since 2010. It was just as good as I remembered it - maybe even better.

Quotes:

"I don't know whether Max loved me. He wanted to make love with me, of course. And he wanted to please me - no, he wanted my approval, my admiration for whatever he did. These pass as definitions of love; I can think of others that are neither more nor less acceptable. This business of living for each other that one hears about; it can just as well be living for the sight of one's self in the other's eyes. Something keeps two people together; that's as far as I'd go. 'Love' was the name I was given for it, but I don't know that it always fits my experience."

- The late bourgeois world, Nadine Gordimer

"The flast was bright, modern, compact. The small living room had striped curtains, pale rugs, light modern furniture. Coming into it was a relief; one enters a strange place feeling, To what must I adapt myself? But there was nothing individual here to claim one's mood, there was no need to submit oneself. In this country, or in England, or in any other country, one enters this flat, is at home at once, with a feeling of peace. Thank God! There are enough claims one us as it is, tugging us this way and that, without considering fittings and furniture; who used them before? What kind of people were they? What do they demand of us? Ah, the blessed anonymity of the modern flat, that home for nomads who, with no idea of where they are travelling, must travel light, ready for anything."

- Martha Quest, Doris Lessing 

I ♥ Doris Lessing.

Anita Brookner, by Karen Robinson

Been reading some books in Swedish, feel free to check them out here: http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/. Now I'm reading Little face by Sophie Hannah.

THE DUD AVOCADO

"I mean how can Life be so contrary to - never mind Art - just to general information and what's called Common Knowledge?"

"The vehemence of my moral indignation surprised me. Was I beginning to have standards and principles, and, oh dear, scruples?"

"I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it."

"It's amazing how right you can be about a person you don't know; it's only the people you do know who confuse you."

"A rowdy bunch on the whole, they were most of them so violently individualistic as to be practically interchangeable."

- The dud avocado, Elaine Dundy

That last sentence is so perfect I actually envy Elaine Dundy for having written it.

CURRENTLY READING "THE DUD AVOCADO" BY ELAINE DUNDY.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1933071/Elaine-Dundy.html

THE LITTLE STRANGER

Just finished reading The little stranger by Sarah Waters. Quite scary, very well-written. Quite good. Tomorrow I will drink wine for the first time since my stay in hospital. Will be interesting.

Books read:
Josephine Tey - The franchise affair
Doris Lessing - The memoirs of a survivor

ELIZABETH MACKINTOSH AKA GORDON DAVIOT AKA JOSEPHINE TEY:

Books read:

Hilary Mantel - Vacant possession

Truman Capote - In cold blood

Paul Auster - The New York trilogy

Currently reading The franchise affair by Josephine Tey.

Also, my mother sent me a picture on Facebook that is just so, so true:

Finished reading The middle ground a couple of days ago. Currently reading Look at me by Jennifer Egan which isn't very good, but sometimes one just needs to read something that doesn't really ask a lot of you; the "in-between-books" as I call them.

"Sanity and madness. Well, certainly, sanity is a precarious state, a thin ridge, a tightrope. How ever do most of us keep upright? Like tight-rope walkers, by not looking to either side, I suppose, like horses in blinkers. I should never have looked. I should never have looked, I should never have looked."
- The middle ground, Margaret Drabble

WORRY, WORRY, WORRY; SHE FELT BRUISED WITH IT

Books read:
Curtis Sittenfeld - Sisterland
Doris Lessing - The good terrorist

WHEREAS, SHE, SCARLETT—

Books read (in order):
Doris Lessing - The sweetest dream
Margaret Drabble - A day in the life of a smiling woman: complete short stories
Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the wind
Sophie Hannah - Kind of cruel

I finished reading Gone with the wind a couple of days ago and I seriously didn't think that there could be life after it. I'm still not sure that there is. It was so, so good. I've never seen the movie, so I had no idea how it would end. Let's just say I cried (my very romantic, very secret side came out). And oh, Scarlett! I adore her, and all her "unwomanly" ways.

I LOVE SCARLETT O'HARA.

THE NECESSITY OF BEING HELPLESS, CLINGING DOE-EYED CREATURES

"Ellen's life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a man's world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him."

""I wish to Heaven I was married," she said resentfully as she attacked the yams with loathing. "I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anyting I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying "How wonderful you are!" to fool men who haven't got one-half the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it...""
- Gone with the wind, Margaret Mitchell

Currently reading The sweetest dream by Doris Lessing. Ending this very short blog post with a random webcam picture, as per usual:

Seriously, this has got be the best reaction ever to winning the Nobel Prize in Literature:

THREE DRABBLE-RELATED THINGS

1.Margaret Drabble reads Katherine Mansfield's The doll's house here.

2. I have finally ordered A day in the life of a smiling woman: complete short stories from Adlibris.

3. A picture of the brilliant woman:

IT WAS A TIME NOT OF WHAT WAS THERE, BUT OF WHAT WASN'T

God, it's been ages since I updated this book blog. Let's do it in bullet points:

1. I went to Berlin a couple of weeks ago and bought some books at Kulturkaufhaus Dussmann. They have a really great English section, but they are a little bit too expensive for my taste. Ignored that this time.

2. Books read:
Sophie Hannah - Lasting damage
Gillian Flynn - Dark places
Siri Hustvedt - The sorrows of an American
Siri Hustvedt - The enchantment of Lily Dahl

3. I've really struggled with what to read lately, which is probably why I haven't updated this blog in so long (and that is probably why I have been reading things like Lasting damage.) I've started so many books, but just haven't been able to finish them. I firmly believe that you can't (or shouldn't) just pick up a book, any book, and read it. The time has to be right, but no book has felt right these past few weeks. Makes me feel really lost.

4. Soon the course I am taking at university is over. The only part I really liked was the English literature module. We had to do an essay on something we had read in the course literature and I chose to write about Susan Glaspell's Trifles. The essay was supposed to be quite short so I thought: why not share it? It's not great and there are some mistakes I can't be bothered to fix, but it isn't awful either. Anyway, since I can't work out how to upload it here, you can find it on one of my old blogs instead. It is in English. Click! 

WHERE THE GOD OF LOVE HANGS OUT

Books read:
Margaret Atwood - Dancing girls
Amy Bloom - Where the God of love hangs out

"What am I going to do? is one question. It can always be replaced by What am I going to wear?"
- Dancing girls, Margaret Atwood

Books read:

Joan Didion - Blue nights

Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

EVEN IN MY HABITS I MEAN TO BE FICKLE

Read Night by Elie Wiesel and then An experiment in love by Hilary Mantel. Been reading in Swedish lately though, and as always you can find them on the Swedish blog, http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/.

THERE IS NO POINT TO IT, THIS WANTING.

Love these illustrations: Margaret Atwood, The handmaid's tale

Phtograph: Anna and Elena Balbusso

Photograph: Anna and Elena Balbusso

Books read (before I forget):

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Paul Auster - City of glass
Lorrie Moore - Anagrams
Tana French - The likeness

Reading Night by Elie Wiesel now.

BOOKS I'VE READ LATELY:

J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
Curtis Sittenfeld - Prep (I know! Again! One day I will write a really long blog post about Prep, and why it is so good.)
Gillian Flynn - Sharp objects

Now I'm reading The Great Gatsby, but since that is for my module in English literature, what I am really reading is The New York trilogy by Paul Auster.

Paul Auster

THE BLINDFOLD

Finished reading The blindfold by Siri Hustvedt a couple of days ago. It was so, so good. It is her debut novel and it is slightly different to the way she writes now, which of course is only natural. Anyway, I loved it. Have a minor (read: major) obsession on Siri Hustvedt going on, which you probably have guessed from my recent posts. But I am slowly trying to get out of it, so I'm reading Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee now. Read it years ago, but the only thing I could remember was that I thought it was very good. That hasn't changed.

Other news: Marisha Pessl is finally publishing another novel. It's called Night film and will be released in August. Exciting!

A ROOM TO WRITE IN ISN'T LIKE OTHER ROOMS

Writer's room: Siri Hustvedt

THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT YOU ARE: IMPOSSIBLE.

Started reading Invisible by Paul Auster yesterday evening, finished it just now. It was incredibly good.

Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster

WEEK 6

Last week I read The bleeding heart by Marilyn French, Enduring love by Ian McEwan and The yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

OK: Curtis Sittenfeld is publishing a new novel, out on the 25th of June, called Sisterland. So.excited.I.cannot.breathe.

WHAT I WANT IS FOR MEN TO BE LIKE WOMEN

"Yes, she wanted to say, the whole world goes the same way. There is a word for hatred of all people: misanthrophy. There is a word for hatred of women: misogyny. But there is no word for hatred of men, males. Apparently such a thing is inconceivable. Oh, there was a war all right, but it wasn't women who declared it, it was men thousands of years ago. They declared women invalid and built that illegitimacy into the laws, into the very dreams of human race. That division lies curled deeply at the very root of our whole power-hungry, industrial, nature-crushing, ambitious, structured, patriarchal, hierarchical world. But when women started to fight back, men threw up their hands in horror and screamed in hate and fear about man-hating women! Yes!
   [...] So that men who don't go as far as others in their misogyny, men who are willing to admit that perhaps women can do "men's" jobs, can think, can act, men who are willing to admit that perhaps men haven't been entirely fair to women over the ages, men like that feel virtuous and pure and large and generous and expect women to fall all over with them with gratitude. Yes."
- The bleeding heart, Marilyn French

THE PLACE WHERE I AM IS MISSING FROM MY VIEW.

Finished reading What I loved last week. It was very beautiful. Then I read Gone girl by Gillian Flynn; I just needed something easy and this is probably one of the most satisfying thrillers I have ever read (not that I've read many, she adds snobbishly). It was such a page-turner which is my least favourite word after unputdownable, but I seriously could not stop reading. It was the same with What I loved but for completely different reasons.

Since I like ending my blog posts with webcam pictures, here's another one for you:

TO BE KISSED ON THE LIPS BY YOUR HUSBAND
IS THE MOST DECADENT THING.

THE GRASS IS SINGING

Finished reading The grass is singing by Doris Lessing yesterday. It was great. God, she is so brilliant. I'm currently reading Siri Hustvedt's What I loved. Tried reading it last year, but it wasn't the right time for it. Giving it another try now.

Irène Némirovsky 

These past few days I've been reading some books in Swedish. Feel free to visit http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/ and if you scroll down a bit, you can check out what I read in Swedish last year.

OUT ON THE WILEY, WINDY MOORS

Just finished reading Wuthering heights by Emily Brontë - first book 2013. I read it when I was seventeen and always said I hated it, but I was just a completely different reader then (I think the fact that Bret Easton Ellis was my favourite writer really says it all). Now, I truly enjoyed it.