I look forward to a writers’ visit by Sarah Dunant and Paul Strathern this coming Tuesday at one of my local bookstores Daunt books. It will be a night with focus on the Italian renaissance. Dunant writes historical novels that take place during the renaissance, while Strathern writes non-fiction books. As you might remember I have a great interest in Italy and books written about Italy, fiction and non-fiction.
I have read two of Dunant's books about the renaissance and I look forward to the third, which will be published in July. I like her style of writing, entertaining but still accurate, she knows the period she writes about. There is a lot of small facts in her books that you know she had to research thoroughly to find.
I have not yet read anything from Strathern but my flat mate is currently reading Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance and I will have first dibs on that when she finishes it. Josefine
My recommendations: In the company of the courtesan by Sarah Dunant
Act I
Q & A vs. Slumdogmillionaire.
Vikas Swarup’s story has more power, more drama and intrigues and less direct action and death, which makes it a nicer read but would be difficult to translate to the big screen, as in the case with many other books turned in to movies. The all too familiar dilemma of how to project some things in written form on to the big screen without being cheesy. Taking the book straight out would be too difficult task, if not impossible. Therefore changes have to be made and sometimes these are difficult to make and need to change.
Act II
Knowledge v. love
Swarup emphasises less on love and romance and more on the entire world around Jamal. The screen play has its central role around love and the pre-decided destiny the main character and his lover. It sells movie tickets, yes, but is it really what the story is about? When I read the book I did not get that message at all. The more important things were how he gained his knowledge, even though he is just a slum dog (not judging a book by its cover, would be a nice cliché to use here).
Act III
Judgment
The book wins hands down. I don’t say that the movie is bad. It is just that you might not want to see it as a compliment to the book, but rather see it for its own movie qualities.
The Bollywood influence in the after text is worth staying in your seats for.
Josefine
My recommendations: Bridget Jones’ diary by Helen Fielding
Violets are blue…. And so on. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I will dedicate this entry to love.
For the old school readers out there, the classic romances of Jane Austin and Shakespeare might be tempting to pick up on a day like this. One of my favourite love stories is Sebastien Japrisot’s book A very long engagement, about a woman who refuses to believe that her fiancé were killed in the trenches during the Great War.
For a real life love story, I warmly recommend My Sergei-a love story by Ekaterina Gordeva, a love story on skates between a pair of figure skaters, that won it all but were tragically separated by the faith of an undetected disease. Gordeva’s love for Sergei shines through on every page of the book and leaves you with a broken heart.
Josefine
My recommendations: Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
Just as Staffan Stolpe’s In the shadow of a small Ouzo is trying to explain Greece, Chris Stewart tries to explain to us in his book Driving over lemons how it is to live as a foreigner in Spain. He writes about buying and maintaining a small farm in Andalusia. Just the process of buying the property would make any northern European cringe. But it doesn't stop there, when the house is bought, there are so many other things to fix to make it inhabitable. There is always something happening that wasn’t supposed to happen.
I like these kind of books, it gives the reader an insight into someone else’s life, that you might not be interested to live, but still wants to hear about. Stewart’s book is both humoristic and well written and it is worth the experience of a small Spanish village.
Josefine
My rekommendations: Sucka mitt hjärta men brist dock ej av Mark Levengood.
There is something about books set in Italy that draws me to them. Perhaps it is that romantic villa in Tuscany, the old Roman ruins or the blue waters of the Adriatic that makes my heart shiver. Some of the best books I have read takes place in Italy or have had something to do with the country. EM Forester’s A room with a view, partly takes place in Italy. It is a book I have read more than once. Another that I liked is Galileo’s daughter written by Dava Sobel.
Because of my pleasant experience with earlier books about Italy, I was not disappointed when I read my latest Italian conquest, The birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant. The story takes place in Florence, the great Lorenzo di Medici is dead and his son Piero takes over but is soon expelled from the city and the monk Savonarola takes over set to change the city and its virtues. In the middle of all this is a young woman, Alessandra, a talented artist in search for freedom from her father’s watchful eye. She gets it through marrying a much older man, but realises soon that there are greater things than freedom that rules your life. The intrigues get thicker as they can only get in Italy and Florence at this time.
The end? I won’t tell, you have to read it to find out!
Josefine My recommendations: The Medici Family, the beautiful people of Florence by Ulla Britta Ramklint
Any book will have a beginning, middle and an end, that’s pretty simple right? And there are as many writers as there are versions of how to accomplish this. A winter in China by Douglas Galbraith manages to do this in a very unique way.
The story is set in 1930s China at the outbreak of the invasion of the Japanese. A young English woman gets trapped with other foreigners during the caption of Nanking. If you have knowledge of the atrocities made by the Japanese in the city, the readings of Galbraith makes you shiver.
But it is not only that, which makes the story interesting, it is the way Galbraith tells it that captures you. In one chapter he takes us as far ahead in the story as he takes us back to another event in the story. In between this, he manages to throw in different perspective of what the different characters in the book are doing at the same moment. Does this sound complicated and messy? Maybe a bit, but when you read the book it flows so good that you don’t think about it and you don’t get messed up. My best recommendation is to read the book to get an understanding of the technical part. It is worth every penny you spend on it, or why not see if they have it at your local library.
Josefine
My recommendations: Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
I found this site online by accident, but it is quite interesting.
Josefine
