20141110
Long time since I updated this blog. I've mostly been reading books in Swedish these past few months, so please check out them out here (and if they don't look like many, please remember that one of them was over 1000 pages long. I think you can guess which one). Anyway, did read How to be a woman by Caitlin Moran which I found really rather boring. I don't see that this book has anything to do with feminism. Also read The moment by Douglas Kennedy which was very bad, but I already knew it would be - I just wanted to read something that was easy and that was set in Berlin. Mission accomplished.
20140912
MAY WE BE FORGIVEN
What I've read lately:
Alan Hollinghurst - The stranger's child (Very, very English which obviously I loved).
A.M. Homes - May we be forgiven (So, so good. She is so darkly funny, truly unique.)
Barbara Demick - Nothing to envy: Ordinary lives in North Korea (Very interesting and written in the same style as Anna Funder's Stasiland which can only be a good thing.)
Currently reading Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary in Lydia Davis' translation. Figured, why not read a translation by somebody I love and have great respect for? Seems like a good one so far.
Here's a picture of the lovely A.M. Homes:
Alan Hollinghurst - The stranger's child (Very, very English which obviously I loved).
A.M. Homes - May we be forgiven (So, so good. She is so darkly funny, truly unique.)
Barbara Demick - Nothing to envy: Ordinary lives in North Korea (Very interesting and written in the same style as Anna Funder's Stasiland which can only be a good thing.)
Currently reading Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary in Lydia Davis' translation. Figured, why not read a translation by somebody I love and have great respect for? Seems like a good one so far.
Here's a picture of the lovely A.M. Homes:
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| Photograph by Juergen Frank |
20140819
...AND HISTORY CONTINUES...
Stopped reading Shantaram and read some books in Swedish instead. Feel free to check out which ones here.
After that, I read Elsa Morante's History. On every other page, it broke my heart. I honestly don't know how to describe this novel. These things that we do to each other, the fact that we are actual people doing this to each other, these small stories that are our lives interwoven with the much bigger ones happening all around us, and also the power and powerlessness of history itself...She writes about it. You should read it.
I spent this weekend with Sidney Sheldon; when I was around twelve I loved, loved, loved his books and in a thrift shop in my hometown I came across one that I used to obsess over called Tell me your dreams. Was so much fun to read it as a 25-year-old woman as opposed to a twelve-year-old girl this time around. While I've changed my mind about a few things (honestly, did Sheldon even like women?) I have to say that he knew how to tell a good story. I also read The best laid plans by Sheldon as well. Hadn't read that one before, and it really wasn't very good. However, that does not contradict what I wrote earlier. It just wasn't my type of story. The best one has to be If tomorrow comes though. That book is fucking brilliant, I have to read it again.
Now I'm reading The stranger's child by Alan Hollinghurst.
Let's end this weirdly structured blog post with a random picture that my best friend took of me. Here I am, happy and drunk while waiting for my fiancé to get back from a trip:
After that, I read Elsa Morante's History. On every other page, it broke my heart. I honestly don't know how to describe this novel. These things that we do to each other, the fact that we are actual people doing this to each other, these small stories that are our lives interwoven with the much bigger ones happening all around us, and also the power and powerlessness of history itself...She writes about it. You should read it.
I spent this weekend with Sidney Sheldon; when I was around twelve I loved, loved, loved his books and in a thrift shop in my hometown I came across one that I used to obsess over called Tell me your dreams. Was so much fun to read it as a 25-year-old woman as opposed to a twelve-year-old girl this time around. While I've changed my mind about a few things (honestly, did Sheldon even like women?) I have to say that he knew how to tell a good story. I also read The best laid plans by Sheldon as well. Hadn't read that one before, and it really wasn't very good. However, that does not contradict what I wrote earlier. It just wasn't my type of story. The best one has to be If tomorrow comes though. That book is fucking brilliant, I have to read it again.
Now I'm reading The stranger's child by Alan Hollinghurst.
Let's end this weirdly structured blog post with a random picture that my best friend took of me. Here I am, happy and drunk while waiting for my fiancé to get back from a trip:
20140812
20140721
THE BLAZING WORLD
What I've read lately:
Lisa Alther - Kinflicks
Lydia Davis - Can't and won't
Aravind Adiga - The white tiger
Denise Mina - The end of the wasp season
Sophie Hannah - The point of rescue
Siri Hustvedt - The blazing world
Currently reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, though I'm taking breaks in order to read this Swedish crime triology I've gotten pathetically addicted to.
"No one rejoices more in revenge than women, wrote Juvenal. Women do most delight in revenge, wrote Sir Thomas Browne. Sweet is revenge, especially to women, wrote Lord Byron. And I say, I wonder why, boys. I wonder why."
- The blazing world, Siri Hustvedt
Lisa Alther - Kinflicks
Lydia Davis - Can't and won't
Aravind Adiga - The white tiger
Denise Mina - The end of the wasp season
Sophie Hannah - The point of rescue
Siri Hustvedt - The blazing world
Currently reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, though I'm taking breaks in order to read this Swedish crime triology I've gotten pathetically addicted to.
"No one rejoices more in revenge than women, wrote Juvenal. Women do most delight in revenge, wrote Sir Thomas Browne. Sweet is revenge, especially to women, wrote Lord Byron. And I say, I wonder why, boys. I wonder why."
- The blazing world, Siri Hustvedt
20140607
IF THIS WAS ADULTHOOD, THE ONLY IMPROVEMENT SHE COULD DETECT IN HER SITUATION WAS THAT NOW SHE COULD EAT DESSERT WITHOUT EATING HER VEGETABLES.
God, long time no see book blog. These are my literature-related news:
1. In May, me and my boyfriend went to Kulturhuset in Stockholm and listened to/watched an interview between Jan Gradvall and Donna Tartt. So surreal to see her in real life, and everything she talked about was just so interesting. She seemed like such a friendly, open person.
2. What I've read lately:
Iris Murdoch - The unicorn
It was OK, really good sometimes, kind of boring at other times.
Jung Chang - Wild swans: three daughters of China
This book is one of the best ones I have ever read. I could not put it down, I dreamt about it, I talked about it, I thought about it. It was just so great and heartbreaking and scary and sad and just everything inbetween.
Ian McEwan - The child in time
I felt like there was something missing from this novel: I maybe wanted him to concentrate even more on the protagonist's feelings about his lost daughter, but it was OK.
I really feel like I am forgetting a book, which is annoying. I'm sure of it. However, what I do know is that I read some short stories from Open secrets by Alice Munro, and then stopped. Now I'm reading Kinflicks by Lisa Alther.
1. In May, me and my boyfriend went to Kulturhuset in Stockholm and listened to/watched an interview between Jan Gradvall and Donna Tartt. So surreal to see her in real life, and everything she talked about was just so interesting. She seemed like such a friendly, open person.
2. What I've read lately:
Iris Murdoch - The unicorn
It was OK, really good sometimes, kind of boring at other times.
Jung Chang - Wild swans: three daughters of China
This book is one of the best ones I have ever read. I could not put it down, I dreamt about it, I talked about it, I thought about it. It was just so great and heartbreaking and scary and sad and just everything inbetween.
Ian McEwan - The child in time
I felt like there was something missing from this novel: I maybe wanted him to concentrate even more on the protagonist's feelings about his lost daughter, but it was OK.
I really feel like I am forgetting a book, which is annoying. I'm sure of it. However, what I do know is that I read some short stories from Open secrets by Alice Munro, and then stopped. Now I'm reading Kinflicks by Lisa Alther.
20140506
http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/
Been reading in Swedish lately, but also read While I was gone by Sue Miller and The hand that first held mine by Maggie O'Farrell.
"I was remembering the way it feels at just that moment when you begin to turn, when you're poised exactly between the things in life you want to do and those you need to do, and it seems for a few blessed seconds that they are all going to be the same."
- While I was gone, Sue Miller
Been reading in Swedish lately, but also read While I was gone by Sue Miller and The hand that first held mine by Maggie O'Farrell.
"I was remembering the way it feels at just that moment when you begin to turn, when you're poised exactly between the things in life you want to do and those you need to do, and it seems for a few blessed seconds that they are all going to be the same."
- While I was gone, Sue Miller
20140415
DOMESTIC SCENES
What I've read lately:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah (Definitely recommend it. Was very good.)
Suzanne Rindell - The other typist (Don't waste your time reading this clumsily written novel.)
J.D. Salinger - Raise high the room beam, carpenters (Read this nice little novella. As always, Salinger is so stylish, quietly funny as well as quietly sad.)
Anne Brontë - The tenant of Wildfell Hall (Loved it.)
Also: Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer Prize for The goldfinch, yay!
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah (Definitely recommend it. Was very good.)
Suzanne Rindell - The other typist (Don't waste your time reading this clumsily written novel.)
J.D. Salinger - Raise high the room beam, carpenters (Read this nice little novella. As always, Salinger is so stylish, quietly funny as well as quietly sad.)
Anne Brontë - The tenant of Wildfell Hall (Loved it.)
Also: Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer Prize for The goldfinch, yay!
20140331
HOW I FEEL AT THE MOMENT:
"She felt mute and contented, loaded with potential, yet entirely unproductive."
- The private lives of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller
- The private lives of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller
20140328
20140326
CHICK LIT
Read The wonder spot by Melissa Bank a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure I agree with Curtis Sittenfeld's very well-written review in the New York Times where she calls The wonder spot chick lit. While it is a bit lacking in substance (in the way that you don't really care about what happens to the protagonist) and it isn't nearly as good as Bank's debut novel The girl's guide to hunting and fishing, I just don't think about it as chick lit which to me are books where the girl more often than not works in PR, the designer labels that she wears are randomly mentioned on every second page, as is the salon where she does her hair, she has a group of girlfriends that she drinks mojitos with and who all seem more interested in the protagonist's life than their own, she has her eyes set on her dream guy whose outfits and hair is just as meticulously described as her own and the ending always consists of the girl realising that he loved her all along or - in order to switch it up a bit - that she didn't really love him but that other guy waiting in the wings who maybe doesn't have the right credentials (i.e. money, an interest in celebrities) but who nevertheless has great hair and loves her for who she is. Basically, Everyone worth knowing by Lauren Weisberger (I think I might have just inadvertently described the plot) or Bergdorf Blondes by Plym Sykes, or anything by Sophie Kinsella. And that's not what I got out of The wonder spot. (Side-bar, while we are on the subject: I also don't regard Helen Fielding's novels about Bridget Jones or anything by Marian Keyes as chick-lit. And also, I don't necessarily think that chick lit novels are always a bad thing).
Having said that, I didn't especially like The wonder spot.
After that, I read some books in Swedish, so feel free to go to the Swedish blog. Now I'm reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which is just so, so, so good.
Having said that, I didn't especially like The wonder spot.
After that, I read some books in Swedish, so feel free to go to the Swedish blog. Now I'm reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which is just so, so, so good.
20140314
HOCUS-POCUS TEENAGE-GIRL THINKING
I finished re-reading American wife yesterday morning and then spent the rest of the day reading Muriel Spark's The prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which was quite good. Currently trying to decide what to read next.
"Of course I later wondered: When you are the object of a person's affection, do you naturally credit him with a sympathetic heart and an understanding of the world? Perhaps your impression is right only insofar as it applies to you; in your presence, he is indeed possessed of these qualities for the very reason that you are the object of his affection. He is not observant so much as observant of you, not kind so much as kind toward you."
- American wife, Curtis Sittenfeld
"Of course I later wondered: When you are the object of a person's affection, do you naturally credit him with a sympathetic heart and an understanding of the world? Perhaps your impression is right only insofar as it applies to you; in your presence, he is indeed possessed of these qualities for the very reason that you are the object of his affection. He is not observant so much as observant of you, not kind so much as kind toward you."
- American wife, Curtis Sittenfeld
20140309
20140305
What I've read these past two-three weeks:
Samantha Hayes - Until you're mine
A badly written thriller, but with a surprising ending. Made me kind of forgive the writing, though not quite.
Doris Lessing - A proper marriage
Her writing is perfection. Enough said.
Margaret Drabble - The pure gold baby
Liked it very much, though not one of her best (but that's only because it is impossible to top her early books.)
Ian McEwan - Atonement
It might be too early to tell, but I think this novel might one of the best ones I've read this year.
Curtis Sittenfeld - The man of my dreams
Again! Yes! But it's just so, so good. I don't think any contemporary writer so fully understands teenage girls' and young womens' minds today as Sittenfeld. Also (and again): this book is just so, so good. The perfection of these sentences (the last ones):
""Hannah's boyfriend is cute, right?" Fig says.
Aunt Polly cups one ear.
"Hannah's boyfriend," Fig repeats and gives a thumbs-up gesture. (Hannah's boyfriend - they will always be the weirdest words Hannah can imagine. Jumbo shrip, she thinks. Military intelligence.)
20140214
20140204
20140110
ANOTHER DAY GONE AND NOTHING ACHIEVED
What I've read and/or re-read in 2013 (the ones in bold are the books that I loved, loved, loved):
Emily Brontë - Wuthering heights
Elie Wiesel - Night
Margaret Atwood - Dancing girls
Margaret Drabble - A day in the life of a smiling woman: complete short stories
Margaret Drabble - The middle ground
Doris Lessing - The grass is singing
Doris Lessing - The sweetest dream
Doris Lessing - The memoirs of a survivor
Doris Lessing - Martha Quest
Doris Lessing - The good terrorist
Siri Hustvedt - What I loved
Siri Hustvedt - The sorrows of an American
Siri Hustvedt - The enchantment of Lily DMarisahl
Siri Hustvedt - The blindfold
Paul Auster - The New York trilogy
Paul Auster - Invisible
Paul Auster - The Brooklyn follies
Paul Auster - Sunset Park
Nadine Gordimer - The late bourgeois world
Robert Harris - Fatherland
Amy Bloom - Where the God of love hangs out
Donna Tartt - The goldfinch
Marilyn French - The bleeding heart
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The yellow wallpaper
Ian McEwan - Enduring love
Ian McEwan - Sweet tooth
Elanor Dymott - Every contact leaves a trace
Joan Didion - Blue nights
George Orwell - 1984
Lorrie Moore - Anagrams
Hilary Mantel - An experiment in love
Hilary Mantel - Vacant possession
Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the wind
Tana French - The likeness
Tana French - Broken Harbour
Anna Funder - Stasiland
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The great Gatsby
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Marisha Pessl - Night film
J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
Gillian Flynn - Gone girl
Gillian Flynn - Sharp objects
Gillian Flynn - Dark places
Elaine Dundy - The dud avocado
Curtis Sittenfeld - Prep
Curtis Sittenfeld - Sisterland
Truman Capote - In cold blood
Sophie Hannah - Lasting damage
Sophie Hannah - Kind of cruel
Sophie Hannah - Little face
Sophie Hannah - The carrier
Josephine Tey - The franchise affair
Louise Doughty - Apple tree yard
Sarah Waters - The little stranger
Joy Fielding - Now you see her
Anette Dumbach & Jud Newborn - Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
Daphne du Maurier - My cousin Rachel
Shirley Jackson - Hangsaman
Posted this list a bit late, but bye-bye 2013, you were a good reading year. Here is the last picture of me taken in 2013. I look confused. My boyfriend looks good.
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Emily Brontë - Wuthering heights
Elie Wiesel - Night
Margaret Atwood - Dancing girls
Margaret Drabble - A day in the life of a smiling woman: complete short stories
Margaret Drabble - The middle ground
Doris Lessing - The grass is singing
Doris Lessing - The sweetest dream
Doris Lessing - The memoirs of a survivor
Doris Lessing - Martha Quest
Doris Lessing - The good terrorist
Siri Hustvedt - What I loved
Siri Hustvedt - The sorrows of an American
Siri Hustvedt - The enchantment of Lily DMarisahl
Siri Hustvedt - The blindfold
Paul Auster - The New York trilogy
Paul Auster - Invisible
Paul Auster - The Brooklyn follies
Paul Auster - Sunset Park
Nadine Gordimer - The late bourgeois world
Robert Harris - Fatherland
Amy Bloom - Where the God of love hangs out
Donna Tartt - The goldfinch
Marilyn French - The bleeding heart
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The yellow wallpaper
Ian McEwan - Enduring love
Ian McEwan - Sweet tooth
Elanor Dymott - Every contact leaves a trace
Joan Didion - Blue nights
George Orwell - 1984
Lorrie Moore - Anagrams
Hilary Mantel - An experiment in love
Hilary Mantel - Vacant possession
Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the wind
Tana French - The likeness
Tana French - Broken Harbour
Anna Funder - Stasiland
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The great Gatsby
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Marisha Pessl - Night film
J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
Gillian Flynn - Gone girl
Gillian Flynn - Sharp objects
Gillian Flynn - Dark places
Elaine Dundy - The dud avocado
Curtis Sittenfeld - Prep
Curtis Sittenfeld - Sisterland
Truman Capote - In cold blood
Sophie Hannah - Lasting damage
Sophie Hannah - Kind of cruel
Sophie Hannah - Little face
Sophie Hannah - The carrier
Josephine Tey - The franchise affair
Louise Doughty - Apple tree yard
Sarah Waters - The little stranger
Joy Fielding - Now you see her
Anette Dumbach & Jud Newborn - Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
Daphne du Maurier - My cousin Rachel
Shirley Jackson - Hangsaman
Posted this list a bit late, but bye-bye 2013, you were a good reading year. Here is the last picture of me taken in 2013. I look confused. My boyfriend looks good.
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