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:

Photograph by Juergen Frank

...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:

ELSA MORANTE

From the Elsa Morante Estate

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

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.

A FILM ADAPTION I'M PRETTY EXCITED ABOUT:

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