Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
5 comments

Month in Review - May 2016

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The Content Reader

Bookdate is rounding up our reading for May, so I take the opportunity to summarise my month.

May was a very busy month, with holidays and travels. I still read eight books, which I think is fine, considering the lack of time. I also read some 200 pages in a very thick book with small text; the excellent The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark. One of these thick books, good to grab for a trip. You don't really run the risk of finishing it half way through your trip! At least not on a short one.

Here are the books I read:

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
The Other Rembrandt by Alex Connor
Stormaktens sista krig by Olle Larsson
Mad Women by Jane Maas
Analfabeten som kunde räkna (The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden) by Jonas Jonasson
The Dinner by Herman Koch
De gömda rummen (Habitaciones cerradas) by Care Santos

Best book(s)

It is almost impossible to choose the best story from these eight novels. I really loved all the books (a good month in other words!), and they are all very good. If I have to choose one, it will probably be the last one, ”The Hidden Rooms” or ”The Closed Rooms” which is a more direct translation from the Spanish. In Swedish it is called the equivalence of ”The Hidden Rooms” (unfortunately, not yet translated into English, as far as I can see). It is rather peculiar, and I did not entirely like the book when I read it. Or, I did like the story, but not so much the writing. However, it has stayed with me, since I finished it about a week ago, and lingers there in the back of my head. Well, more about that in a coming review.

Writers’ nationality

Without any plan, just grabbing what I felt like, I managed to read books by writers from six different countries. I am very pleased about that. They are from Italy (Eco), Great Britain (Moggach, Connor), Sweden (Larsson, Jonasson), USA (Maas), the Netherlands (Koch) and Spain (Santos).

Number of posts

I posted seven posts this month. I thought it was a little bit less than usual, but turns out to be rather average! Hmm! No control there of how much I post it seems. Although, some of the posts contain more than one review.

Goodreads' challenge

I set a goal to read 100 boks this year. I am 10 behind for now, which means I have to speed up the reading in the coming months.

Comments

  1. Nise' 5 June 2016 at 03:53

    I love to take chunksters on vacation too! Hope June is a great reading month for you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisbeth 6 June 2016 at 11:23

      Thank you. It has not started that well, but who is to say I can not made a good run before the end of the month! Good luck with your reading as well.

      Delete
  2. Kathryn T5 June 2016 at 07:57

    You certainly have a variety in the number of authors of various countries. Yes a book with small print and many pages wouldn't run out fast! Thanks for joining in.

    ReplyDelete

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