tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90438305827318601792024-02-07T11:25:52.258-08:00JULIA'S BOOK BLOGJuliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comBlogger325125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-22413996419664572392016-08-07T03:25:00.000-07:002016-08-07T03:25:24.010-07:00What I've read this summer (Swedish list <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/" target="_blank">here</a>):<br />
<br />
<i>Lionel Shriver - The Mandibles</i><br />
<i>Lionel Shriver - Game control</i><br />
<i>Harper Lee - Go set a watchman</i><br />
<i>Charlotte Crosby - Me me me</i><br />
<i>Roxane Gay - An untamed state</i><br />
<i><br /></i>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-59116587581058284332016-06-08T12:11:00.002-07:002016-06-08T12:11:41.182-07:00Read:<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Lena Dunham - Not that kind of girl: a young woman tell you what she's "learned" </i>(very blah).</div>
<div>
<i>Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible</i></div>
<div>
<i>Lionel Shriver - Big brother (re-read) </i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-58276521655714715742016-04-08T01:24:00.002-07:002016-04-08T01:24:34.047-07:00Read <i>Bad feminist </i>by Roxane Gay.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-12923088278724240512016-01-31T06:42:00.000-08:002016-01-31T06:46:12.642-08:00WHAT I'VE READ IN JANUARYWhat I've read in Swedish so far: <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/">http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/</a><br />
<br />
<i>Norman Mailer - The executioner's song </i>(don't let the fact that this book is over 1000 pages long scare you off. It is SO, SO GOOD I CAN'T EVEN)<br />
<i>Karen Joy Fowler - We are all completely beside ourselves </i>(very good).Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-45355508220795234062016-01-13T10:38:00.000-08:002016-01-13T10:41:13.891-08:00WHAT I READ IN 2015You can find the Swedish list at <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/">http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/</a>. For the first time in <i>forever </i>I read so much more in Swedish than in English.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The ones in bold are the ones that I loved, loved, loved:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">A.M. Homes - This book will save your life</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Anne Enright - The forgotten waltz</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Hilary Mantel - Wolf hall</b></span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b>Hilary Mantel - Bring up the bodies</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Markus Zusak - The book thief</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 22.256px;"><i>Ian McEwan - Saturday</i></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Lydia Davis - The end of the story</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Siri Hustvedt - The summer without men</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Louise Doughty - An English murder </i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Lorrie Moore - Bark</i></span></div>
<div>
<i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Margaret Drabble - The sea lady</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Carol Topolski - Monster love </i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Richard Ford - Canada</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Lionel Shriver - A perfectly good family </i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;"><b>Lionel Shriver - Big brother </b></i></span></div>
<div>
<i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Teju Cole - Open city</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Margaret Atwood - Surfacing</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Paula Hawkins - The girl on the train</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Louise Welsh - The girl on the stairs</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Michael Cunningham - After nightfall</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">J.M. Coetzee - Elizabeth Costello</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b>Doris Lessing - Walking in the shade: volume two of my autobiography 1949-1962</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Helen Gordon - Landfall</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Joyce Carol Oates - Black girl/white girl</i><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">Kewin Powers - The yellow birds</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Ransom Riggs - Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.256px;">S.J. Watson - Second life</i></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-60484719496917855412015-08-31T08:20:00.001-07:002015-08-31T08:20:06.716-07:00SUMMER READINGThis is what I've read during the summer, most of which I spent in Berlin (Swedish list <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/" target="_blank">here</a>):<br />
<br />
<i>Margaret Atwood - Surfacing</i><br />
<i>Paula Hawkins - The girl on the train</i><br />
<i>Louise Welsh - The girl on the stairs</i><br />
<i>Michael Cunningham - After nightfall</i><br />
<i>J.M. Coetzee - Elizabeth Costello</i><br />
<i>Helen Gordon - Landfall</i><br />
<i>Joyce Carol Oates - Black girl/white girl</i><br />
<i>Kewin Powers - The yellow birds</i><br />
<i>S.J. Watson - Second life</i><br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-40563670115914745022015-06-09T06:01:00.002-07:002015-06-09T06:03:00.573-07:00THE KING'S QUICKSILVER DARLINGLong time no see as per usual, book blog. I've been reading a lot in Swedish lately, so please check that out: <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/" target="_blank">http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/</a>.<br />
<br />
What I've read lately:<br />
<i>Teju Cole - Open city </i>(very good).<br />
<i>Hilary Mantel - Bring up the bodies </i>(ILOVEYOUHILARYMANTEL).<br />
<br />
"You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it's like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you're thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws."<br />
- <i>Bring up the bodies, Hilary Mantel</i><br />
<br />
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Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-8337089848699747772015-04-21T03:56:00.001-07:002015-04-21T04:00:17.336-07:00HE, THOMAS CROMWELL, IS RUNNING EVERYTHING, INCLUDING THE WEATHER.<br />
What I've read lately (Swedish blog <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/">here</a>):<br />
<br />
<i>Carol Topolski - Monster love </i>(Was OK.)<br />
<i>Margaret Drabble - The sea lady </i>(Quite good).<br />
<i>Richard Ford - Canada </i>(Honestly, don't understand why this one got so good reviews. It was kind of blah).<br />
<i>Lionel Shriver - Big brother </i>(So, so good.)<br />
<i>Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall </i>(THIS BOOK. I DO NOT HAVE WORDS. I WILL LOVE IT FOREVER. <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">❤</span>).<br />
<br />
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<!--3-->Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-59963612908224277962015-03-13T02:18:00.000-07:002015-03-24T05:50:58.872-07:00What I've read lately:<br />
<br />
<i>Lydia Davis - The end of the story</i><br />
<i>Siri Hustvedt - The summer without men</i><br />
<i>Louise Doughty - An English murder </i>(so bad, don't read it)<br />
<i>Lorrie Moore - Bark</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Currently reading <i>The sea lady </i>by Margaret Drabble. If you want to know what I've read in Swedish lately, feel free to check that out <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.de/">here</a>.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-24086773733246354962015-02-09T12:38:00.002-08:002015-02-09T12:39:16.591-08:00SATURDAYJust finished reading <i>Saturday </i>by Ian McEwan. While I thought it was OK, this review someone posted on goodreads is so funny and on point:<br />
<br />
<div class="reviewHeader uitext stacked" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<a class="user" href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3926982-shovelmonkey1" style="color: #666600; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" title="Shovelmonkey1">Shovelmonkey1</a> </div>
<div class="reviewHeader uitext stacked" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 1.4;">"Hello everybody,</span></div>
<div class="reviewText stacked" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer109555525" style="font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 1.4;">I'm Henry Perowne and welcome to a day in my life... a Saturday to be precise. I'm a good natured sort of chap, if I were famous I'd probably be saddled with the tag of "thinking women's crumpet", but personally I take myself much to seriously to acknowledge that kind of thing. I'm a successful neurosurgeon who enjoys long, descriptive and adjective laden games of squash with my erudite and debonair colleagues. Today, for once in my incredibly lucky and wealthy life, I had a spot of bad luck and pranged my top of the range Merc. This led to an encounter which can, at best, be described as unpleasant. The thugs in the red BMW gave me a bit of a pasting which left me with a cracking haematoma over my sternum. However, my extensive medical knowledge allowed me to diagnose one of my attackers with a genetically inherited degenerative disease on the spot. This allowed me to escape, quick-smart, while they brooded over their own mortality.<br /><br />Later, after welcoming home my improbably talented and successful 16 year old Blues Musician son and my improbably talented and successful published poet daughter there was another small altercation. This time however the ebb and flow of violent modern day life breached the walls of this englishman's pricey Georgian Castle and things took a turn for the worse.<br /><br />Needless to say, my calculating surgeons mind and spirited, courageous family pulled together to best the simian-like thugs. Ironically it then fell to me to save said thug with an emergency neurosurgical procedure. Life's funny that way. I wrapped up the whole day the way it began; by making love to my improbably talented and successful wife and then having a little bit of a wistful ponder about my own mortality while considering it in perspective against a backdrop of modern foreign policy."</span><br />
<span class="readable" style="font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 1.4;"><br /></span>
<span class="readable" style="font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 1.4;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5015.Saturday">Saturday reviews on goodreads.com</a></span></div>
Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-80378578300315607952015-02-03T07:35:00.000-08:002015-02-03T07:36:45.067-08:00What I've read lately:<br />
<br />
<i>A.M. Homes - This book will save your life</i><br />
<i>Anne Enright - The forgotten waltz</i><br />
<i>Lionel Shriver - A perfectly good family</i><br />
<i>Markus Zusak - The book thief</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
You can check out the Swedish blog <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.de/">here</a>.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-70707669589508099162015-01-23T11:36:00.001-08:002015-01-23T11:37:23.560-08:00"Here's a trick I found for how to finally get some sleep. I sleep in my husband's bed. That way the empty bed I look at is my own."<br />
<i>- The collected stories, Amy Hempel</i>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-32094858819915043082015-01-09T02:34:00.001-08:002015-10-04T06:41:10.312-07:002014: READING LISTWhat I've read and re-read in 2014 (the ones in bold are the ones that I loved, loved, loved):<br />
<br />
<i>Doris Lessing - A proper marriage</i><br />
<i>Margaret Drabble - The pure gold baby</i><br />
<i>Ian McEwan - The child in time</i><br />
<i><b>Ian McEwan - Atonement</b></i><br />
<i>Muriel Spark - The prime of Miss Jean Brodie</i><br />
<i>Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah</i><br />
<i>Zoê Heller - Notes on a scandal</i><br />
<i>Lydia Davis - Can't and won't</i><br />
<i>Lisa Alther - Kinflicks</i><br />
<i><b>Elsa Morante - History</b></i><br />
<i>J.D. Salinger - Raise high the roof beam, carpenters</i><br />
<i>Aravind Adiga - The white tiger</i><br />
<i>Curtis Sittenfeld - The man of my dreams</i><br />
<i>Curtis Sittenfeld - American wife</i><br />
<i><b>Anne Brontë - The tenant of Wildfell Hall</b></i><br />
<i>Sue Miller - While I was gone</i><br />
<i>Suzanne Rindell - The other typist</i><br />
<i>Denise Mina - The end of the wasp season</i><br />
<i>Caitlin Moran - How to be a woman</i><br />
<i>Maggie O´Farell - After you'd gone</i><br />
<i>Maggie O'Farell - The hand that first held mine</i><br />
<i><b>Jung Chang - Wild swans: three daughters of China</b></i><br />
<i>Iris Murdoch - The unicorn</i><br />
<i>Sophie Hannah - The point of rescue</i><br />
<i>Sophie Hannah - The carrier</i><br />
<i>Samantha Hayes - Until you're mine</i><br />
<i>Louise Doughty - Whatever you love</i><br />
<i><b>Alan Hollinghurst - The stranger's child</b></i><br />
<i>Siri Hustvedt - The blazing world</i><br />
<i>Lauren Beukes - The shining girls</i><br />
<i>Melissa Bank - The wonder spot</i><br />
<i>Sidney Sheldon - The best laid plans</i><br />
<i>Sidney Sheldon - Tell me your dreams</i><br />
<i><b>A.M. Homes - May we be forgiven</b></i><br />
<i>Douglas Kennedy - The moment</i><br />
<i>Barbara Demick - Nothing to envy: Ordinary lives in North Korea</i>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-43015437419800076872014-11-10T08:49:00.000-08:002014-11-10T08:49:04.790-08:00Long time since I updated this blog. I've mostly been reading books in Swedish these past few months, so please check out them out<a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.de/"> here</a> (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 <i>How to be a woman </i>by Caitlin Moran which I found really rather boring. I don't see that this book has anything to do with feminism. Also read <i>The moment </i>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.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-49706429070839609302014-09-12T12:27:00.000-07:002014-09-12T12:27:07.834-07:00MAY WE BE FORGIVENWhat I've read lately:<br />
<br />
<i>Alan Hollinghurst - The stranger's child </i>(Very, very English which obviously I loved).<br />
<i>A.M. Homes - May we be forgiven </i>(So, so good. She is so darkly funny, truly unique.)<br />
<i>Barbara Demick - Nothing to envy: Ordinary lives in North Korea </i>(Very interesting and written in the same style as Anna Funder's <i>Stasiland </i>which can only be a good thing.)<br />
<br />
Currently reading Gustave Flaubert's <i>Madame Bovary</i> 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.<br />
<br />
Here's a picture of the lovely A.M. Homes:<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkJ9s_8aWuVOFprn5NhR9cnsYz3EnOXMJ-WDLGYGZwwyUvL-Lm6Lv9BRjRh5AyjFFHdY-lfWB8YUrIRltnfNajxFf5cBfnY4-rRsSBzmvib9iHpY_8_wf1l65brS7-_nxgfIAcZ75y-kga/s1600/am-homes-portrait_2361330b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkJ9s_8aWuVOFprn5NhR9cnsYz3EnOXMJ-WDLGYGZwwyUvL-Lm6Lv9BRjRh5AyjFFHdY-lfWB8YUrIRltnfNajxFf5cBfnY4-rRsSBzmvib9iHpY_8_wf1l65brS7-_nxgfIAcZ75y-kga/s1600/am-homes-portrait_2361330b.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photograph by Juergen Frank</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-78674029471760594722014-08-19T07:59:00.002-07:002014-08-19T08:09:49.148-07:00...AND HISTORY CONTINUES...Stopped reading <i>Shantaram </i>and read some books in Swedish instead. Feel free to check out which ones <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.com/">here</a>.<br />
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After that, I read Elsa Morante's <i>History. </i>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 <i>people </i>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.<br />
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I spent this weekend with Sidney Sheldon; when I was around twelve I loved, loved, <i>loved </i>his books and in a thrift shop in my hometown I came across one that I used to obsess over called <i>Tell me your dreams. </i>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 <i>like </i>women?) I have to say that he knew how to tell a good story. I also read <i>The best laid plans </i>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 <i><a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.comen.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Tomorrow_Comes">If tomorrow comes</a> </i>though. That book is fucking brilliant, I have to read it again.<br />
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Now I'm reading <i>The stranger's child </i>by Alan Hollinghurst.<br />
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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:<br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-32425781050579436212014-08-12T10:34:00.002-07:002014-08-12T10:34:49.169-07:00ELSA MORANTE<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the Elsa Morante Estate</td></tr>
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-79152753291736959712014-07-21T13:06:00.001-07:002014-07-21T13:06:33.164-07:00THE BLAZING WORLDWhat I've read lately:<br />
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<i>Lisa Alther - Kinflicks</i><br />
<i>Lydia Davis - Can't and won't</i><br />
<i>Aravind Adiga - The white tiger</i><br />
<i>Denise Mina - The end of the wasp season</i><br />
<i>Sophie Hannah - The point of rescue</i><br />
<i>Siri Hustvedt - The blazing world</i><br />
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Currently reading <i>Shantaram </i>by Gregory David Roberts, though I'm taking breaks in order to read this Swedish crime triology I've gotten pathetically addicted to.<br />
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"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."<br />
<i>- The blazing world, Siri Hustvedt</i>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-59914760494138037292014-06-07T05:24:00.000-07:002014-06-07T05:31:39.191-07:00IF 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:<br />
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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.<br />
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2. What I've read lately:<br />
<i>Iris Murdoch - The unicorn</i><br />
It was OK, really good sometimes, kind of boring at other times.<br />
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<i>Jung Chang - Wild swans: three daughters of China</i><br />
This book is one of the best ones I have <i>ever </i>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.<br />
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<i>Ian McEwan - The child in time</i><br />
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.<br />
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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 <i>Open secrets </i>by Alice Munro, and then stopped. Now I'm reading <i>Kinflicks </i>by Lisa Alther.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-44602833574320320462014-05-07T01:26:00.001-07:002014-05-07T01:26:32.795-07:00A FILM ADAPTION I'M PRETTY EXCITED ABOUT: <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/X9IZkt9XkzQ" width="560"></iframe>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-41844460191455968662014-05-06T08:53:00.000-07:002014-05-06T08:54:40.708-07:00<a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/">http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/</a><br />
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Been reading in Swedish lately, but also read <i>While I was gone </i>by Sue Miller and <i>The hand that first held mine </i>by Maggie O'Farrell.<br />
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"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."<br />
<i>- While I was gone, Sue Miller</i>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-27290357800438950032014-04-15T06:49:00.003-07:002014-04-15T09:04:28.417-07:00DOMESTIC SCENESWhat I've read lately:<br />
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<i>Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah </i>(Definitely recommend it. Was very good.)<br />
<i>Suzanne Rindell - The other typist </i>(Don't waste your time reading this clumsily written novel.)<br />
<i>J.D. Salinger - Raise high the room beam, carpenters </i>(Read this nice little novella. As always, Salinger is so stylish, quietly funny as well as quietly sad.)<br />
<i>Anne Brontë - The tenant of Wildfell Hall </i>(Loved it.)<br />
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Also: Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer Prize for <i>The goldfinch</i>, yay!Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-35146186383097392042014-03-31T01:32:00.001-07:002014-03-31T01:32:30.510-07:00HOW I FEEL AT THE MOMENT:"She felt mute and contented, loaded with potential, yet entirely unproductive."<br />
<i>- The private lives of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller</i>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-75665553999303718182014-03-28T03:25:00.003-07:002014-03-28T03:29:12.995-07:00AMERICANAH<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5V7RRxQmD6AmsZCVqTGwB1NBOupITSPS3IfVcwK44S_Fsm94mG4Xbwc5uJHvMcy_aKucmjEdgty-1EBfSoohI5xONtgHtWjFYQ3WgVCPEm0WxUVjzmfXirZQvocf-OogzJiZUJzAJqYKb/s1600/chimamanda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5V7RRxQmD6AmsZCVqTGwB1NBOupITSPS3IfVcwK44S_Fsm94mG4Xbwc5uJHvMcy_aKucmjEdgty-1EBfSoohI5xONtgHtWjFYQ3WgVCPEm0WxUVjzmfXirZQvocf-OogzJiZUJzAJqYKb/s1600/chimamanda.jpg" height="240" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, by David Levenson</td></tr>
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Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9043830582731860179.post-14052142715264990602014-03-26T02:27:00.003-07:002014-03-26T02:48:13.229-07:00CHICK LITRead <i>The wonder spot </i>by Melissa Bank a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure I agree with Curtis Sittenfeld's very well-written <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/books/review/05SITT01.html?_r=0">review </a>in <i>the New York Time</i>s where she calls <i>The wonder spot </i>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 <i>The girl's guide to hunting and fishing</i>, 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, <i>Everyone worth knowing </i>by Lauren Weisberger (I think I might have just inadvertently described the plot) or <i>Bergdorf Blondes </i>by Plym Sykes, or anything by Sophie Kinsella. And that's not what I got out of <i>The wonder spot. </i>(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).<br />
Having said that, I didn't especially like <i>The wonder spot.</i><br />
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After that, I read some books in Swedish, so feel free to go to the <a href="http://librisvedese.blogspot.se/">Swedish blog</a>. Now I'm reading <i>Americanah </i>by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which is just so, so, so good.<br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08382869197671364143noreply@blogger.com