Forfatter: Mirthful

Du visste om et land – Vilde Bjerke

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Jeg har hatt lyst til å lese Vilde Bjerkes biografi om hennes far en stund, men har liksom ikke kommet så langt som til å kjøpe den. Her om dagen var jeg på biblioteket for å låne Bjerkes samlede dikt og fant fram Du visste om et land i samme slengen, jeg tenkte at det jo ikke er nødvendig å kjøpe alle bøker man skal lese heller.

Desverre stemte det litt for godt. Boka var litt skuffende, selv om jeg ikke helt kan sette fingeren på hvorfor, og jeg kommer derfor neppe til å ha lyst til å lese den igjen og vil gladelig levere eksemplaret tilbake til Deichmanske. Jeg visste lite om Bjerkes liv på forhånd, så sånn sett lærte jeg en del nytt, men var allikevel altså noe skuffet. Det er mulig jeg hadde helt feil forhåpninger, blandt annet var jeg lite imponert over Vilde Bjerkes språkføring, men det er vel egentlig urimelig å vente at hun skal skrive eksepsjonellt godt bare fordi hennes far gjorde det.

Castle Waiting – Linda Medley

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I went to the library to borrow André Bjerke’s collected poems Monday, and picked up a few new (well, new to me) comic books at the same time. Castle Waiting was one of them, and a very good read it was, too. I’ve made a reservation on volume two, there only seem to be two, actually, which is a pity, but can’t be helped.

Knots and Crosses – Ian Rankin

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In which we are not sure quite what to think

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I’ve been meaning to try reading Rankin for a long time, and so I borrowed Knots and Crosses from my mother some time this spring an now finally got around to it. And I don’t know quite what to think. It’s engaging, I’ll give Rankin that, and having to put it away at arrival at work with only five pages to go was not good – I contemplated hiding in the ladies’ until I’d finished it (though didn’t). But there was less Edinburgh flavour than I’d been led to believe (that’s obviously not Rankin’s fault, it’s a miscommunication between me and the people I’ve heard about the series from). And I’m not entirely sure that I like John Rebus. Or rather, I’m not entirely sure I respect him, which is almost worse. This is partly due to my usual lack of enthusiasm at any sort of infidelity (Rebus goes home with another woman after starting a tentative relationship with a colleague – not a very serious breach of trust, perhaps, but enough for me to lose respect), but partly something else which I can’t quite define.

So. Not entirely sure. I think I might read at least one more Rebus book and see whether my interest vanes or vaxes. If the former, I’m likely to give the series up as a bad job…

Kastanjealléen

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In which we read – and write – in Norwegian.

Jeg har flere Dea Trier Mørch bøker stående på hyllen som jeg skulle ha lest, og her om dagen passet det liksom å begynne på en. Jeg tenkte jeg skulle starte mykt med Kastanjealléen, men det ble nesten i overkant mykt. Det er en veldig koselig bok, kan man vel si, om sommer på landet hos mormor og morfar. Det er slett ingen dårlig bok, men et stykke uti begynte jeg å ønske meg mer konflikt og, vel, jeg vet ikke helt, men noe mer i hvert fall. Jaja, den er da i hver fall lest. Jeg får se om jeg ikke kan få prøvd meg på en av de andre etterhvert.

Something Rotten

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In which time – and pretty much everything else, too – is out of joint.

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Thanks to Tinka I discovered Friday that a new Jasper Fforde had hit the shelves. After a short (but frantic) search in town I could get on the bus home and start reading. Something Rotten is every bit as good as one could expect having devoured the previous three books. Thursday is back in reality having spent two and a half years inside fiction, but reality is a somewhat dodgy concept, and something is definitely rotten in the state of, uhm, England. This made me very happy, which seems callous, but really, unless something is rotten, how are you going to get a good story?

In fact, the only thing that didn’t make me happy about Something Rotten was the quote from The Guardian they’ve opted to use on the cover. «Jasper Fforde has gone where no other fictioneer has gone before. Millions of readers now follow.» Well, what’s the problem with that then? Well, the problem with that is that in Thursday’s universe a «fictioneer» is a renegade fictional character, a «page-runner» who has not only left his own plot, but has left fiction entirely and tries to pass for a real person. Did the reviewer in The Guardian really mean to suggest that that is what Fforde is? And what about the publicity department? Has Fforde ok’ed the quote? In which case, why? What have I missed?

Anyway, go read The Eyre Affair and go on from there…

Zoovet – David C. Taylor

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In which we are entertained.

I pick up some odd books. David C. Taylor’s Zoovet: The Life of a Wildlife Vet may not be the oddest of them, but it at least seems to be out of print. Which is really a pity because it was highly enjoyable. Taylor describes, in anecdotal fashion, the trials and tribulations of a vet specializing in exotic animals. The style is reminiscent of Gerald Durrell (and you know I enjoy his books)

Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams – Nick Webb

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In which Robin is annoyed yet again.

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After an unintentionally expensive trip to one of the kiosks selling paperbacks at the central station, Nick Webb’s Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams came home with me. It pleased me somewhat more than the last biography of Adams that I read – however, Webb annoyed me by spending a lot of time referring to either Simpson or Gaiman, leaving the reader with a feeling that Webb’s own book was something of a waste of time and that he/she would have been better off with just the other two.

I’d still rather read Gaiman if I were you.

Notes from a Big Country

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While ill, I was looking for something to read that wouldn’t be to taxing and found Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country to fit the bill exactly. I’ve read it before, of course, so I knew it would. The nice thing, you see, about Bill Bryson, is that his writing is lightweight while at the same time he seldom makes the glaring mistakes (either gramatically or factually) that makes me fume at the edges when reading other authors’ works. Notes from a Big Country is highly entertaining and was a nice counterpoint (though sometimes making exactly the same arguments) as some of the other books on the USA I’ve been reading lately. It also has a nice echo of my own (increasingly problematic) homesickness for Britain, which can only help the comforting feeling of relating well to the author’s point of view – crucial for this sort of book, methinks.

Dude, Where’s My Country?

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I snuck a reread of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in between here, so don’t go thinking I’ve come over all serious and such and have vowed to never read fiction again. Actually, come to think of it, the whole of HP, and especially OotP, is scaringly appropriate in relation to current world politics.

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Dude, Where’s My Country? confirmed my opinion on several issues, the least significant of which is that I really don’t think Michael Moore is particularly funny. The only things in Dude that made me laugh were quotes from right-wing nuts and then mostly in a «can you hear yourself at all?» sort of way. Other opinions I had confirmed were more along the lines of «Please, dear God, do not let Bush get ‘elected’ this time around».

Moore talks a lot of sense. Even his idea to get Oprah elected president is not as far fetched as I originally thought. I mean, I’m somewhat sick of Oprah myself, but at least she seems to be interested in making money by helping people and getting them to read books and stuff rather than by blowing them up or polluting their drinking water and so on. And that has to be an improvement. But I suppose it’s getting a little close to the election now?

Anyway. Not the best read ever, but certainly not the worst. And quite definitely not the most worthless of reads. Go buy (then read, obviously). Then go vote – whereever you are (Canada, for example, we could really do without Canada following the example of the US and voting in a Bush-clone) – and follow Moore’s suggestion and persuade other sensible (if lazy) people to come with you to vote. Thank you.