Back again

It has been a long break but now I feel I have the time again to write something meaningful about the books I read. I will mostly concentrate on the English language books, so it is easier for you to find them as well. As always, get them at your local library. Use it! It needs your support.

First out is a love story straight from the Tower of London.

Who knew there could be so much unrequisted love at the Tower of London. An albatross that mate for life, the keeper of the meangeree who thought he mated for life, The Rev. Septimus Drew, the Ravenmaster, Valerie Jennings at the Tube's Office of Lost Property and Julia Stuart weave the stories together skillfully.
The subplot at the Lost Property Office at the Tube might contest for her second book, as the stories are as engaging and funny as the mainstory. It wouldn't surprise me if half the things Stuart writes about actually got lost on the Tube for real.
Josefine

The scene of the book, seen across the Thames.

Photo source: Niclas Ejebjörk

Name: Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo. Author: Julia Stuart. ISBN: 978-0-00-734523-6

Taking a break

Summer is now in full bloom here in London, at least most of the times and even if I usually read more in the summer, at the moment I don’t have the time to sit down and write anything. I have therefore decided to hold up for a couple of months.
Josefine

My recommendations: Enjoy the summer, take a book, go and sit outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Pompeii

It was a long time since I listened to a CD book. But last weekend when I had a big spring clean weekend I borrowed Pompeii by Robert Harris. I mainly choose this book for its length, which might not be the best measuring tool, but I was lucky. It not only kept me occupied the whole day, but the story is intriguing with lots of subplots and roman history all set with the rumbling Mount Vesuvius in the background.
Josefine

My recommendations: The Bridge over the River by Johannes Gramich

Miss Smilla

A young boy is dead. He jumped to his death from a rooftop. The traces in the snow shows only one set of footprints, but Miss Smilla knows better. She can read the signs of the steps in the snow and they are not made by someone who willingly jumped, especially not someone who is afraid of heights. The question is who was it that got him up on the roof and scared him so much that he would jump?
This is a wonderful book, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg, is well written, engaging and impossible to put down. When I came to the last chapter I let the book rest for three days just to able to savour it a little longer.
There is a movie version of the book, I haven’t seen it, but I doubt it is better than the book.
Josefine

My recommendations: Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

2012 Book race

I have now finished nine countries (4,39 per cent) in my effort to read a book from every country that will participate in the 2012 summer Olympics. I think I have to step it up a bit to be able to make it. My next conquest is George-Marc Benamou’s book The Ghost of Munich (France).
Josefine

My recommendations: Miss Smilla’s feeling for snow by Peter Höeg (Denmark)

There is no pot of gold...

...at the end of this book

I have about 60 pages left of A Black Englishman by Carolyn Slaughter and I am struggling with it. Already from the first couple of pages I was not impressed with her way of writing, but I continued anyway. Now I am so close to the end that I can’t put it down (I have always felt that I have to finish every book I start). Disappointed I have realised that I will not feel the satisfying experience I usually do, when I read the last lines of a book.
Oh well, I guess I just have to pick up the next book and hope for a better result.
Josefine

My recommendations: East of the sun by Julia Gregson

Harry Potter II

A nasty throat infection has kept me away from anything but laying in my bed sipping hot tea and gurgle with salt. But here I am back again with my latest epiphany.

I am convinced of her geniuses.

I have now finished the first book in the Harry Potter series (Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone) and I must say that I am hooked. Yes, it is a children’s story and most of it you have to take for what it is, but it is so well written and the story captures you that I understand what it is the has hooked a whole world. However I do think that this is a series that should be read with a couple of months in between, so I will take some time off before I pick up the second book.
Josefine

My recommendations: Faceless killers by Henning Mankell