The Content Reader

Once again I am joining Gilion on Rose City Reader to participate in the European Reading Challenge for 2019.  Go to link above for more detailed information. There are five levels of participation. FIVE STAR (DELUXE ENTOURAGE): Read at least five books by different European authors or books set in different European countries. FOUR STAR (HONEYMOONER): Read four qualifying books. THREE STAR (BUSINESS TRAVELER): Read three qualifying books. TWO STAR (ADVENTURER): Read two qualifying books. ONE STAR (PENSIONE WEEKENDER): Read just one qualifying book. I will go for the Five Star (deluxe entourage) and read five books by different European authors or books set in different European countries.

I am signing up for this challenge again for 2019. I did not make it with one book a week last year, but almost, missed five weeks. Ah well, a good try. It is hosted by  Robin of my two Blessings. The mini, weekly and monthly challenges are all optional, Mix them up anyway you like or follow your own path in the quest to read. • The challenge will run from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019. • Our book weeks will begin on Sunday • Week one will begin on Tuesday, January 1st. • Participants may join at any time. • All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. • Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2019 • Books may overlap other challenges. • If you have an blog, create an entry post linking to this blog. • Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" in the sidebar • You don't have a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section of each ...

A book challenge through a facebook group. Well, first time I join, but it sounds like a good challenge, and as always, I will try to find the books on my TBR shelves. Here are a few general rules (in short, for more info join Book Challenge by Erin on facebook): Have fun. Don't stress, read as many as you like.  The challenge will run from JANUARY 1, 2019 to APRIL 30, 2019.  Each book must be at least 200 pages long. Audio books are fine too.
 A book can only be used for one category, and each category can only be completed once.   You can read your books in any order you choose.
 Rereads can be used only once.  There will be a photo album for each category with links to books chosen. Please comment on the photo for each of your books when you finish reading them. A comment can include a review, a rating, a recommendation…other readers want to hear what you thought of your choice.  There will be 10 book categories with a possibility of earning...

I very much enjoyed Miranda Seymour's biography Robert Graves, Life on the Edge, so it was with much anticipation that I started her biography of Hélène Delangle, or as she called herself Hellé Nice. One of these women that seem to embrace life and go for it. She was born in a small French village in 1900. The 1920s saw her in Paris and its swinging life. She started out as a model for nude photos, took ballet and dance lessons and entered show business. She had numerous lovers, she really could not stay with anyone for long. Many of them within her own business, and many of them within the car racing business. That is how she became one of the best and most famous women in the car racing area. She was fearless and loved to challenge life. And, she was interesting in winning which made her a fierce competitor. "Hélène charted out her own course of victories in the ALps. Bobsleighing and skiing in the winters, she spent each summer with Kléber Balmart, one of France...

The Classcic Club spin #19 gave me this book to read. Since spin # 19 are aimed at chunksters and I did not adapt my list, I will also read Kristin Lavransdotter by Sigrid Undset. I failed to finish it last time, and have just read a few pages. Henry James is always a pleasure to read. This is a very short novel so I have already finished it. I think we could say that this is one of the highlights of James' novels. It is his usual slow, easy going story telling. What always amaze me in James, is that nothing much happens and still you don't get bored. Or maybe this is the wrong way to put it. It seems nothing much is happening, but it does. Not so much in action as by his sharp glimpse of family relationships, society and its peculiarities. What makes it so readable, as with all of James' work is his wonderful prose. Here is the opening line: "During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there f...

A couple of years ago, I took a correspondence course on "How to write historical fiction". One of my fellow students, Magnus R Lindgren, has now published, not a historical fiction (although he tells me it will come) but two books on poetry. Far longer than I have come myself. Magnus R Lindgren can call himself writer, poet, copywriter and teacher, and he also has a diploma in creative writing. His poetry debut, "Om det inte hänt hade jag inte blivit" (If nothing had happening I would not have been) is a reflection on the changes in life and the search for oneself. In "Detta privata" ( This private ) he continues with the same theme. He uses Lydia Stille as a co-writer, but she is actually his muse (a character from The Secret Game  by Hjalmar Söderberg), an inspiration for his writing. Each chapter starts with a poem and thoughts on the difficulty to enter into a new relationship. Especially, when you are divorced and a little bit older and wiser?...

It seems that, while I am struggling to read the books on my own book shelves, the list of books I would like to read, gets longer and longer. The books ending up here are books that you have written about and sounds very interesting to me. Or, they can be from a review in a paper or elsewhere. I wanted to share the list with you. Please recommend your favourites and I might start with them. Do I have a dead-line? NO! Whenever. But, and that is the thing. They, like the books on my TBR shelves tend to get older with the years, and sometimes it is just nice to read new books. I am a member of a "borrow and read" group with my local bookshop. There, at least, I get to read new books. Here is the list, filled up as I have read about the books. Any of them on your to read list? The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh The Country Wife by William Wycherley Time After Time (eBook) by D.P. Mendes-Kelly  The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri Murari A Cornish Affair by Liz Fenwic...

Six Degrees of Separation is hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best . This month it starts with the classic Christmas story by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. I have not read very many books by Dickens (and I have given up to be honest), but I have read A Christmas Carol  and I liked it very much. It is a perfect story for the season. Mr Scrooge is evil and that leads me to Heathcliff in  Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Here Emily created a character who is the embodiment of evil and eternal love. Just finished a Swedish thriller called Solitairen (the Solitaire) by Anna Lihammer & Ted Hesselbom, which also features a very evil man, who controls all the people around him. Evil lingers on the American plains in Alma Katsu's The Hunger . Stephen King says: "Deeply, deeply disturbing, hard to put down, not recommended reading after dark."  He is right, there is something disturbing out there in the wilderness. The novel tells the story of the...

These ladies are two of my favourite authors. I have now read everything (except the Juvenilia) they have written. It really was a fight at the end. The two novels left to read were Mansfield Park and Shirley . Have I struggled? Indeed I have. It was a heavy road uphills. They are classics, I like the authors so I really wanted to read them. In the end I had to use my method of reading a chapter a day to be able to finish them. Both novels are "much ado about nothing" as Shakespeare put it. The stories are boring, the characters are boring, ok, they are little better in Shirley than in Mansfield Park . The first book contains 572 pages and the second 330 pages. Rather long and thick in other words. They could both have been written in 100 pages if the authors had restrained themselves a little bit. There are so many stories about nothing interesting, nothing that takes the story further, descriptions of nature and for Shirley thoughts about circumstances that is probab...