Immensee by Theodor Storm
Fun Fact up front: I read this at the lake today, where I cannonballed a few teens to shame and felt very good about myself. Still got it! xD I pulled this out of one of the free book cases and gave it a try, we had to read Storm in school but for some reason never this early novella, which apparently is one of his most famous and often translated ones. I can see why, it’s pretty representative of late German Romanticism/early Realism in […]
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The ultimate romantic novel, now read by Indira Varma. I don’t think I really need to write a summary for this, we all know the story, be it from reading the book or watching one of the gazillion adaptations. (Or, you know, trying to read the novel all ambitiously as a teen, but failing spectacularly because English no good yet, watching the 1995 BBC production at 20 and being obsessed with Colin Firth for 2 years, then reading the novel again to somewhat greater success). […]
Veronika decides to die by Paulo Coelho
Veronika, a pretty 24-year-old Slovenian decides to take her life. She survives the suicide attempt and is admitted to the post-Yugoslavian state-of-the-art mental hospital Villette in Ljubljana where she meets the different inhabitants, including a psychiatrist with rather unconventional and probably (definitely) unethical methods. It’s a slightly cliched setup, but I enjoyed the sense of humour in it, the different characters, their distinct personalities and their rather realistic backgrounds. Coelho wrote this based on his own experiences in mental wards and in those life stories […]
The Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
This is the fave thriller of a friend of mine, I found it on one of the free bookshelves around town and gave it a try. I read quite a few of the Wallander cases as a teen, but I mostly only remember the gory violence and not much else. While not a Wallander case, this definitely doesn’t disappoint either when it comes to cruel ways to die. A former police man is found flogged to death in his house somewhere in the Swedish boondocks, […]
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
And the saga of my conflicted feelings for audiobooks continues. With a highpoint, admittedly, but conflicted those feelings still are. I spend a lot of time in front of screens for work, reading documents etc., my eyesight has suffered this year and since I, for some odd reason, cannot bring myself to cancel my audible subscription, I’ve decided to try listening to audiobooks before bed. And boy does that work! 15 minutes in and I’m fast asleep! It stretched out my “reading” time for this […]
Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard
My very Catholic and moderately conservative auntie gave me this book for Christmas, since I’m the loud feminist in the family, and I actually think it’s really sweet of her that she thought of me when she saw that. I do feel like I’m cheating a bit for including this here though, it’s a very very short book, it’s the printed version of two speeches Mary Beard gave (I’ve heard of her through cultural osmosis but have never really come across any of her writings?) on […]
