nobelprize.org

I was recommended a true treasure from a friend, the website of the Nobelprize. Here you can listen to some of the literature winners’ interviews, biographies, acceptance speeches etc. It is very fascinating to hear what they have to say about their books and their writings. I really liked Portrait of Doris Lessing.
Josefine

My recommendations: the fifth child by Doris Lessing

Summer reading II

It is this time of the year again. It is time for those lazy summer days spending the days in the hammock reading. Those lazy days when you have all the time in the world to enjoy a book and catching up on all the books you have neglected during the year.

My recommendation for this summer is to use your library. During the summer months at my local library, the expiration date for the books are longer, which makes it possible to go on long vacations without being stuck with late fees on my books.
Use your library to revisit old books you read in another period of your life and see what’s changed in them, or perhaps in you. If that isn’t interesting enough, take a leap into the unknown and find a new author or genre. If you can, unlike I, don’t make yourself go through a book if it is boring, put it down and find a new. This is a time for leisurely reading, not heavy plowing.
Josefine

My recommendations: The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

CD books II - voices

Lately, I have listened to more CD books, especially when I bike to and from work. I now realize how much the voice of the reader affects the story. One of my favourite books to listen to was Rikard Wolff and Hamadi Khemiri reading Montecore a unique tiger by Jonas Hassen Khemiri. This book was probably more entertaining to listen to than to read on its own (I never read the hardcopy).

Right now I listen to Zadie Smith’s book On Beauty. In Swedish it is recorded by Johan Rabeus, he also recorded the Swedish version of The ultimate hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Dougals Adams. When I listen to On Beauty, I hear Arthur Dent and the other characters in Adams' story, but now they are in new costumes and live in Smith’s world. A voice, no matter what it actually says, can really create a picture before me and now I have to alter that picture, it is a strange feeling.
Josefine

My recommendations: Call it whatever you want by Marjaneh Bakhtiari (another good CD book from my latest collection)

Hawaiian soul

I just finished a really good book, Hawaii by James A. Michener. It reminded me of the time when I lived in Hawai’i. He talked about many of the places I recognized, walking up Nu’uanu Street or down in China Town. Those places used to be in my backyard.
It is a novel, which means it’s fictional but it still have its benefits. It is a great start for someone who wants to ease into the history of this former kingdom.
Josefine

My recommendations: Pompeii by Maja Lundgren

Sequels - The Orange Girl

I just borrowed a book from my sister, the sequel to Lena Kallenberg’s book The Orange girl. (if you remember, I recommended it here a couple of entries ago). I didn’t even know that there was a second book; it came as a good surprise.
I hope it is as good as the first was, sometimes that’s not always true. Most of you have probably seen several movies with both a second and a third follow-up and for every movie it has become a bit worse. I will do my best to not judge the book before I have read it. At the same time I will try not to have too high expectations of it.
By the way the name loosely translated would be Love in Stockholm. Perhaps I start to read it tonight.
Josefine

My recommendations: Alexander McCall Smith’s books about Isabel Dalhousie and the Sunday Philosophy club.

All quiet on the bookfront

There has been very little for me to write about lately. Other things have been on my mind and the book I currently read is leading nowhere. As usual, I can’t put it away and start a new but I am almost at the end. I am looking forward to a new start, a novel about Queen Kristina of Sweden.
Did anyone celebrate or even recognized the World book day last week?
Josefine

My recommendations: Tulip fever by Deborah Moggach

Female portrait in historical novels

How do you describe a woman who lived during the middle ages, the renaissance or almost any time period before the 20th century? Often there are no descriptions of their life, their way of living, what they looked like and definitely no written words from them, most of them time not even a signature. The exception would be monarchs and noble women, but they do not belong to the majority.

This is what gets interesting when authors of historical novels try to describe these women. Can they make it real enough for us to believe them? Or do they simply just take the easy way out and exclude them from their stories. The Swedish writer Agneta Pleijel has made one approach to the subject. In her book, The queen’s surgeon, she simply says I don’t know, but perhaps it was like this. She does it so well and make it fit into the story so well that you agree with her.

There are other approaches to this problem, some writers simply leave out the women and let them be merely background props. This however, I believe is to cheat the reader of half the story. But then again, it is called fiction for a reason.
Josefine

My recommendations: The Orange Girl by Lena Kallenberg