The Content Reader

One day during my two week 'not feeling well' time when scrolling down my bookmarks on book blogs I came into the forgotten site of 'Xoxo After Dark' (xoxoafterdark.com). There is a free read section. Mostly Fantasy and Romance and not always to my liking but from time to time something pops up. And this series did. You normally have a limited time to read them free directly from the internet. This Black Ops. Inc. series remind me of Alison Brennan's books on the Kincaid family. It is the same easy read, very thrilling stories and a little bit of romance in between. This series is about a bunch of tough, brave and gorgeous men and women who fight for the good side! Yes, it is a lot about the good guys and the bad guys. The series start in Sierra Leone where our guys are on a mission with their special forces group. One of them dies in the attack. This makes them think of what they are doing especially since they suspect that he died by foul play.

Book beginnings on Friday I will use this wonderful book for the book beginnings challenge. This one is really wonderful and this is the kind of beginning that captivates me from the first line: I'll never forget the night it snowed over Calcutta. Yesterday I was a little tired due to a cold so I decided to spend the day reading (what luxury even if the upper respiratory system is blocked!). I grabbed a book from my TBR shelf since the reader was set for loading! The book I choose is from one of my absolute favourite writers, Carlos Ruiz Zafón. His "The Shadow of the Wind" is a magic book, as is "The Angel's Game". I thought that I picked the third book in the series (although they are all independent books). How wrong was I not! The third book, I have now learned, is called "The Prisoner of Heaven". This turns out to be the second book of two he wrote in the 1990's for Young Adults (the first being "The Prince of Mist"). Howev...

If you have any kind of animals this is a book for you but of course for all animal lovers. Dr Dolittle invited us to 'speak to the animals' and this is book that has the same message but maybe on another level. The initial story of the book is about the German shepherd Strongheart who Strongheart was a famous movie dog in the 1920ies. He came to stay with the writer for some time and a very strong bond developed between the two. This was of course a very well trained dog and when you read about their time together he seems very human. Ah, but stop... this is exactly the point. Boone means that we humans always put ourselves above the animals and think ourselves superior. However, in the dealings with Strongheart the writer discovers time after time that the dog has his own private sphere and life which is on an equal level with himself. Mentally, we have to see each other as equal creatures and try to find the level where we can communicate with each other. Words are not ...

Your local bread shop! As I mentioned in the Tulipomania post we had scheduled a trip to Amsterdam for the long weekend. Although I have lived in Brussels for 16 years we never visited the city (although my husband have been there before). Well, some things you regret! This is a wonderful city and I should have visited it much earlier. But...never too late! There are a lot of things to see and just to walk around the city is a pleasure in itself. The wonderful canals, the beautiful Dutch houses, the flowers, the house boats just about everything. The people all speak English and they are all very friendly. We arrived on Friday afternoon and having settled into our Designer hotel, Artemis, in the outskirts of Amsterdam we took the bus downtown. First the important thing to find something to eat and then we were ready for the Rijksmuseum where the main attraction is Rembrandt's 'Nightwatch'. The Library in the Rijksmuseum Nightwatch by Rembrandt I like art, esp...

Since we are popping over to Amsterdam for the weekend I thought it would be interesting to read something connected to Holland. Recently I found a reference to 'Tulipomania' by historian Mike Dash as a reference book for an historical novel. Tulipomania is the name for a period in the Dutch Golden Age in the beginning of the 17th century during which prices for tulip bulbs which had then recently been introduced to Europe reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed. Do we see here a forerunner to modern share markets?  "The Viceroy", from a 1637 Dutch catalog. Price between 3,000 and 4,150  guilders (florins)  depending on size. A skilled craftsman at the timeearned about 300 guilders a year. Just starting it and it is bound to be a fascinating book. During the years 1633-37 there was a boom in the prices of tulip bulbs than can only be compared to the frenzy of shares today. Fortunes were made and lost over night. People paid more for a tu...

In the European Reading Challenge I have said I will read five books from five different European countries. This is the first one and as you see it is a French book (although I read it in Swedish, my French is not that good). This is about Jocelyne an ordinary French woman or any woman. Her life did not exactly turned out the way she dreamed of. She is living in a small French town, married to Jocelyn and have two children (one child died at birth). She has a small haberdashery and she also has a blog about sewing, knitting and similar handicraft. Nothing much happens in her life. The prose is very calm, down to earth and you can feel the eventless life slowly pacing on. The neighbouring shop is run by her friends which are also twin sisters. They always play the lotto and convinces Jocelyne to play as well. She pays 2 euros for a lotto shine from the machine and wins 18 million euro (or 18 547 301 euro and 28 cents)! She is shocked and doesn't know what to do. She receives a ch...

Charles Dickens has been hot the last year, mainly since 2012 was the 200 anniversary of his birth, but also because after all this time his books are still read and admired. The book about his life that I have read is a brick stone of around 500 pages written by Claire Tomalin. Claire Tomalin is a new acquaintance to me but she will become a close friend in the future. This is an excellently written biography and when you look at the list of books by the same author you have a very interesting list of biographies that she has written. Can't wait to read about Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelly, Katherine Mansfield, Jane Austen, Samuel Pepys and Thomas Hardy. Back to this book. It is a very thorough and very detailed book. It really must cover most aspects of his life. It covers his younger years, the beginning of his carrier as a journalist, his marriage to Catherine Hogart, his carrier as a writer, his travels (America, Italy, France) his friends, family and monetary problems etc etc....