Welcome to my book page. Below are the books I have read during the last few years. I own almost all of them myself. You are welcome to borrow one (if you are geographically located close to me). Just ask.
[ Laisen: Books | 2hansen | Bibliotekaren ]
Meget typisk Paul Auster-roman. Og ret god. Anbefalet.
443 pages, one of Rushdie's bests. And still more accesible than Midnight's Children or the Satanic Verses. Highly recommended.
Vi var jo inde og høre ham selv, Jan K., i det Sorte Diamant, om netop denne nye bog, og det var et rigtigt godt arrangement, og gjorde at jeg havde SÅ meget lyst til at komme igang med læsningen. Nu er jeg færdig og jeg er lidt skuffet. Det er virkeligt godt håndværk, endnu mere indvævet og udspekuleret og sammenkædet end fx Wergeland-trilogien, og som sådan rigtig god underholdning: en sand page-turner. Men desværre ender den uforløst, ikke engang med en cliff-hanger, men bare... ja, den ender bare. Lidt surt. 438 sider.
Letlæst, men ikke særlig god...
Om Gauss og Humboldt i 1800-tallets Tyskland. Den var pænt underholdende, og en page-turner, men ikke det litterære mesterværk, jeg synes de fremhæver den som.
452 sider. Ganske udmærket historie, men jeg brød mig ikke om, at forfatteren anvender så mange metaforer og beskrivende tillægsord: "som han svang som en kardinalhue", "bandede som en muldyrsdriver", "som en hvislen, der efterlignede en punktering i et bildæk" og igen og igen; det var interessant med historierne inde i historierne, men irriterende når så eksempelvis et brev Nuria har skrevet til Daniel fylder knap 80 sider af bogen, og er skrevet næsten som om hun er altvidende fortæller med refereret dialog, og i et sprog som de andre personer i bogen også bruger - dvs ikke særligt troværdigt at det ikke i virkeligheden er forfatteren der skriver. Det vil sige, det er jo forfatteren, men når han nu prøver at give os indtryk af at det er forskellige personer, som fortæller.... Alt i alt blev jeg bare irritreret, og det var lidt af en kamp at komme igennem.
Letlæst, men god
Sigh. This was a tough one - 508 pages. Very good, but difficult to read because the culture it describes is so different from our own. Since it took me almost four months to read, I cannot really recommend the book - unless you really really have time to spare!
This is the sequel to Blindness, and it is also very very good. Difficult, because Saramago really it not very strict with punctuation - or actually he is strict about it, just not in the conventional, grammatically correct way. I guess you have to see it to understand it. Seeing is about a city, where 90% of the populations cast blank votes at Election Day, and how the government tries to cope with that "shamefull attack on democracy". Blindness was quite nasty at times, as the blind people were doing horrible things to each other. There is far less "gore" in Seeing , but it does show the brutal workings of modern government, and offers no good endings. 307 pages.
Very well written, and highly disturbing! 309 pages.
I had no idea at all what this book was about - or when it was written. But it turns out it is from 2003, same year it also won the Booker Prize, and is a contemporary comedy about how a survivor of a school massacre in a small town in Texas gets blaimed and convicted and put on death row, about his white trash single mom, and her friends, and how everybody will do anything to be on TV. Quite good, and definately funny, but not something I would normally read. 277 pages.
Really good once it takes off - I did find it a bit dull the first 200 pages (out of 371). But when the storylines merge things start making sense. Recommended.
For two years Nick Hornby writes down what he buys and what he reads, and what he thinks about it - and lets us know.He surely does read and buy a lot of books! Entertaining and quite funny. 278 pages.
Phew. This was quite a tough one, but very rewarding. I won't bother you with a review, because everything that has been asked about this book is already answered a thousand times on the Internet. Check out fx the wiki article about the book. 547 pages.
Very funny and well written - eventually it escalates into something which Kurt Vonnegut could have written, on drugs... 320 pages.
201 pages.
383 sider.
246 pages.
145 pages.
239 pages.
The most incredible fictional nine-year-old ever created.... a funny, heart-rendering portrayal of a child coping with disaster. It will have you biting back the tears. Glamour.. Highly recommended. 326 pages.
There are more plot ideas in the first thirty pages of Palahniuk's Lullaby than some writers manage in a whole book. Independent. Yep, this is definately one of his bests. 260 pages.
Fra stillehavskrigen, USA i efterkrigsårene til Kina og Tibet i slutningen af 1980'erne. Hmmm, jeg tror jeg skal holde en pause med Ib Michael inden han begynder at gå mig på nerverne. 329 sider.
Jeg så filmen for et par år siden. Bogen er også rigtig sjov. 248 sider.
Underground is a collection of interviews with surviving victims of the Tokyo chemical agent attack by the religious Aum cult in 1995, and with members of the Aum cult itself - in an attempt to describe and understand the Japanese psyche. Slightly too long, but quite interesting. 309 pages.
Fresh from the publisher, McEwan's newest novel. "It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come...". One of his top-three best books, I'd say. Highly recommended (also for new fans). 166 pages.
Seks korte noveller - letlæste, finurlige, og som altid yderst velskrevne, alle med referencepunkt til jordskælvet i Kobe 17. januar 1995. 132 sider.
436 pages.
Collected essays and quite good - but difficult to read! 367 pages.
I have a vision of the Songlines stretching across the continents and ages; that wherever men have trodden they have left a trail of song (of which we may, now and then, catch an echo); and that these trails must reach back, in time and space, to an isolated pocket in the African savannah, where the First Man opening this mouth in defiance of the terrors that surrounded him, shouted the opening stanza of the World Song, 'I AM!'.
About language, ancient man, the native Australians, evolution, civilization, clash of civilizations and much more. A bit hard to follow at times, but leaves the reader with the impression that this is definately an important book. 293 pages.
Jeg synes ikke den var på højde med fx Lad Tiden Gå, Finder Sted, eller Genspejlet som er mine favorit-Madsen-bøger, og de afsnit der følger Sverres Syn, Katri-Vita, er både lidt kedelige, Hadr, og rodede. Der lægges også op til en del, som aldrig rigtig afsluttes, fx valgsvindlen ved EF-afstemningen, elle-gate, Niko og hvad der skete med Juni og Haldor, og Johannes krono-fysiske eksperimenter. Men i øvrigt sjovt med den reference, til Lad Tiden gå. Dog lidt malplaceret? Overvågningssamfundet som tema er højaktuelt, kampen mod kriminalitet og pædofili og de løsninger man har valgt er skarpe og gode debatoplæg. 242 sider.
En verdensomspændende epidemi udrydder menneskeheden, næsten. En lille gruppe mennesker undslipper i et krydstogtskib fra Ecuador, og går på grund på Galapagos, hvor de den næste million år grundlægger det moderne menneske som vi kender det i dag: pels over hele kroppen, svømmehud mellem fingrene, og meget små hjerner. Altsammen betragtet og beskrevet af L. Trout, søn af science fiction-forfatter Kilgore Trout, født 1946 A.D, død 1001986 A.D, og spøgelse. Meget satirisk og underholdende om apokalypsen, evolutionen, og det moderne livs latterligheder. 324 sider.
Jeg husker forgængeren, Kunsten at Græde i Kor, som værende sjovere, men Med Venlig Deltagelse er absolut læsværdig. Allan er blevet voksen og kendt forfatter - primært om sin og søsteren Sannes onde barndom i Sønderjylland. Far er endelig død, og de to søskende kommer nu hjem til mor, Allan opsat på at gøre regnskabet op: hvorfor reagerede mor ikke, når far og Sanne sov sammen på sofaen, når Allan fik tærsk etc? Det viser sig at faren måske ikke døde helt naturligt, og at Allans barndomsbeskrivelser måske har vendt landsbyen mod faren. Satirisk om et ubehageligt emne, men underholdende og velskrevet og ret morsomt. 221 sider.
Jeg troede ikke, at jeg havde flere ulæste af Ian McEwan, men så fandt jeg denne her i reolen. Novellesamling fra 1978, om bl.a. lavere middelklasse i London, en excentrisk rigmands affære med en mannequin-dukke, en englænder i Los Angeles. 134 sider, letlæst. Anbefales.
Hmmmm, Ib Michael for helvede! Der er faktuelle fejl og plotmæssige fejl og det piner mig. Den foregår i en nær fremtid, eksempelvis har de både holografiske displays og keyboards til deres laptop-computere, i "Grisen" mellem Lyngby og Helsingør er mobiltelefoni forbudt, så i hvert sæde er der små terminaler, så man stadig kan sende sms og email, spille spil, eller læse en e-bog. Rygning er forbudt i det offentlige rum. De har stealth-mode til sejlskibe og auto-pilot til personbiler. Men operahuset er ikke bygget endnu, og de er tilsyneladende aldrig blevet færdige med metrokonstruktionen ved Nørreport station. Beskrivelserne af Kyoto, Japan virker søgte og uvirkelige, og ærligt talt er det parallele fortællespor om shogunen og hans tvillingebror både forvirende og kedeligt. Ib Michael har sejlet med Troels Kløvedal, og beskriver gudskelov livet ombord overbevisende og detaljeret, rigtig mange sider om sejlades fra Panama til Påskeøen - komplet med astronomisk navigation (sekstant) og masser af sejlerudtryk. Ren fornøjelse. Men så skal de dykke... 37 meter, 49 meter, på luft. Og naturligvis dykker han alene. Toke får ikke dybderus, han får dykkerrus. Og i denne "dykkerrus" lurer en havfrue (eller er det en lejemorder) ham længere ned, men hun regulerer luftblandningen med en lille firkantet boks på maven, hvorved Toke indser at hun dykker på Nitrox. Og "derfor kan opholde sig på dybder, han slet ikke kunne komme i nærheden af". Øhhhh? Tag dig sammen, Ib Michael!
Den er nogenlunde, hurtigt læst, og i passager underholdende. Men heller ikke mere end det. "Grill", som jeg læste i sidste uge var langt bedre. Kejserens Atlas er på 410 sider.
Fra bogens bagside: "En thriller. Et kærlighedseventur. Et øjebliksbillede af verden lige nu: Danmark er med i USA's krig mod Irak. To kvinder møder tilfældigt hinanden i København. Den ene er lige vendt hjem fra Yemen, hvor hun har oplevet den store kærlighed. Nu er hun tilbage på Nørrebro. Her fortæller hun sin historie og forsøger at frigøre sig fra chokket efter et missilnedslag i en arabisk landsby. Hendes elskede tages som gidsel, krigen og kærligheden rykker hastigt tættere på". 315 sider.
Jeg købte den i mangel af bedre i Mexico Citys lufthavn - den første Ellroy jeg læser, og den første i krimigenren i lang tid. Udmærket, velskrevet, absolut ikke kedelig, og et temmeligt kompliceret plot, som jeg ikke kunne gennemskue, før det blev afsløret til sidst. Men ikke hverken en forfatter eller genre, jeg nu føler, at jeg bliver nødt til at kaste mig over. Filmatiseringen skulle ikke være særlig god. 371 sider.
116 sider.
400 sider.
497 sider.
Stephensons første roman, fra 1984, fra før han blev kendt med Snowcrash og Cryptonomicon. Den handler om livet på et amerikansk mega-universitet/kollegium med 40.000 studerende - og er vildt overdrevet, men ganske underholdende. Bl.a. kører de rundt i en kampvogn på gangene, bruger rail-guns, og fremavler muterede 50-kgs meterlange rotter, uden hjerter! 308 sider.
Det er et eventyr, om en dreng og hans far - en fortæller, der taber mælet, og hvordan de får hans fortælleevne tilbage igen. Ikke lige min stil, men interessant at læse noget så anderledes fra en forfatter der ikke just er kendt for det let tilgængelige. 216 sider.
Fra bagsiden: A Mixture of SF and folktale, past and future, primitive and present-day... Grimus is a parallel form of life, and conjuring of an alternate society... Thunderous and touching. Financial Times. 253 sider.
En halv snes noveller først typisk indiske, så typisk vestlige (inklusive meget morsomt om Hamlet på Kronborg), og slutteligt en blanding, om indere i England og kultursammenstød mellem øst og vest. Ikke nogen fatwaer eller massenedskydninger, men blot morsomme finurligheder om det at vokse op som indisk anden-generations indvandrer i 1960'erne, eller om Star Trek-fanatiske diplomater ved ambasaden i London. 216 sider.
Essays og uddrag af hans bøger fra tiden efter fatwaen på Rushdie - om islam og fundamentalisme. Kureishi er selv ateist, men med engelsk mor og indisk far, opvokset i England, men med et hav af onkler og tanter i Pakistan. 100 sider.
216 sider.
Korte noveller, hvoraf et par af dem er brugt som kapitler i nogen af hans romaner. Spænder vidt omkring, både det overnaturlige, hverdagsbetragtningerne, første person selvbiografisk, første person kvindelig fortæller m.m. Letlæst og en god introduktion til Murakami for evt nye læsere. Nogen af hans romaner er temmeligt underlige - denne her bliver man ikke skræmt væk af. 334 sider.
Den var jo faktisk ret god - ikke så hokuspokus-agtig som Mr Vertigo eller sød-sjov-lille-historie som Timbukto, men underholdende, plausibel, rørende, og naturligvis velskrevet - i stil med Leviathan eller fx Moon Palace. Anbefalet.
Den er ikke nem, 'The Double'! I klassisk Saramago-stil er der sparet på tegnsætningen men ikke på de indskudte sætninger:
[...], Hello, it's Antonio Claro here, I don't suppose you were expecting a call from me, it was enough for his voice to ring out around that previously tranquil living room for it to become clear that the traditional conventions of the novel we mentioned above are not, after all, merely a hackneyed solution used by unimaginative narrotors, but a literary resultant of the great cosmic equilibrium, because the universe, which, ever since it began, has been a system entirely lacking any form of organising intelligence, has, nevertheless, had more than enough time to learn through its own infinitely multiplying experiences, and, as is evident from the endless spectacle of life, has produced an infallible compensatory mechanism which will require only a little more time to prove that any slight delay in the functioning of its gears has not the slightest impact on what really matters, for it makes no odds whether one has to wait a minute or an hour, a year or a century.
AAAAAAAHHHH. Dyb indånding. Side efter side efter side. Når jeg lægger bogen fra mig eet minut bruger jeg fem på at huske hvor jeg kom til! Den handler om en historielærer, der ser en videofilm med en skuespiller, der er komplet magen til ham selv, og hvordan han forsøger at finde frem til vedkommende, deres møde, og de fatale konsekvenser heraf. Ret simpelt, egentligt, men ganske underholdende. Og nok ikke den første Saramago-roman, man skal kaste sig over, med mindre ovenstående citat ikke virker afskrækkende.
Hurra, fortsættelsen til Myrerne har jeg ledt efter i mange år - og forleden fandt jeg den via www.antikvariat.dk, i ganske pæn stand, paperback, dansk udgave 1993. Den kan læses selvstændigt uden forkundskab til Myrerne, og er ligesom forgængeren både underholdende og lærerig: Vidste I eksempelvis, at der findes træer, der når de angribes gør deres saft giftig - og at de kommunikerer information om angrebet videre til andre træer i nærheden, der endnu ikke er angrebet - som også - på forhånd så - gør sig giftige. Der findes også træer, der indgår symbioser med myrer - træet har behov for myrerne til at pleje og beskytte sig, for at træet kan udfolde sig. Alle træets grene er hule og i hver gren er der net af gange og kamre udelukkende beregnet for myrernes komfort. Yderligere lever der bladlus, hvis honningdug er yderst tiltrækkende for myrerne - dvs træet yder både kost og logi til myrerne. Til gengæld fjerner myrerne kålorme, snegle, edderkopper og andre træborende insekter, de klipper klatreplanter, der vil snylte på træet af med kindbakkerne, fjerner visne blade, og plejer træet med desinficerende spyt. På grund af dette gror træet meget bedre end andre træer - bliver højere og får mere lys og næring. Wikipedia har mere info (som altid...). Udover at øse mængder af viden af sig, er den en science fiction-historie om mennesker, der lærer at kommunikere med myrer - og myrernes forsøg på at udrydde menneskeden (de regner med der muligvis findes op til 20 "grupper" af mennesker - eller "fingre" som de kalder dem, som opererer 5 ad gangen. Det vil nok kræve omkring 200 mio myrer at udslette alle "fingre" i verden (dvs den skov lidt uden for Paris myrerne lever i). En hær sammensættes og drager afsted. Andrer myrer opfatter "fingrene" som guder og vil forhindre udslettelsesmissionen. Kan varmt anbefales. Og vil nogen venligst oversætte den tredje bog i serien til et sprog jeg forstår (ej fransk).
Mere om myrer.
"Mmm, jeg har altid gerne villet se Grand Canyon." "Ja," sagde han. "Vi kunne sikkert leje vandrestøvler og rygsække. Vi kunne bo i telt om natten." "Bobby. Man lejer ikke den slags ud. Folk ejer sådan noget. Der er folk, der lever et campingliv. Du og jeg er mere natklubtypen."
Absolut ikke en af Cunninghams dårligste. Faktisk ret god. Anbefalet.
Funny and sad, about why, or why not to commit suicide. Quite good.
Brilliant.
Bah...
Very good one. Highly recommended.
Magnificent. It reaches at least the heights of Atonement. Give him that Booker prize!
We follow three children, attending a private boarding school in the idyllic English countryside in the second part of the 20th century, growing up to a future already laid out for them. They receive their education, in the arts, history etc, then get trained, become "cares" and eventually "donors", until they "complete". Little by little they discover the truth, so slowly (the reader even slowlier) that they never really question it - it's like they have always known. Ethical (but please don't let yourself be put off by that - it goes deeper than just a discussion about ethics) alternate-universe horror story - zen-style, by master Ishiguro. The plot holds. Recommended.
Very good. Highly recommended.
Includes a remarkable story of the author as a young man. Recommended.
Monsoon sweep, string-in-left, ready right. Cradle-out, drill-9, shiver,
ends chuff. Broadside option, flow-and-go.
One of Delillo's earliest novels. Quite good. Swap football with baseball, triple the amount of pages and you have Underworld. Or at least a primitive version of it.
Den tredje jordomsejling - denne gang med fokus på Indonesien. Udmærket, men den mindst gode af dem jeg har hidtil har læst.
Highly recommended.
This is not a good book. Don't read it. Luckily it is written in such simple language and is, hence, so quickly to read, that you would not waste many hours of your life, if you chose to read it. Which I recommend you don't.
By all measures an enormous novel. Highly recommended.
Excellent novel. Typical Delillo.
SVMs tredje bog, fra 1965. Ret anderledes, men anbefalelsesværdig.
Complicated and well-written. One of Auster's best. Recommended.
På eventyr i Polynesien med Nordkaperen. Anbefalet.
A well-written powerful debut.
Haha, I also read this one as a kid. Entertaining, lots of sex and violence.
Favorite novel of Margrete Wergeland (late wife of Jonas Wergeland).
Super good detective novel. Funny. Recommended.
Very good. Highly recommended. Sparse, emotional.
Very good. Won the Booker prize. Highly recommended.
Essays. Recommended.
Am I the only one, or does everybody else also find this novel more ironic and funny than scary? At least funny in a Catch-22 sort of way. The ending is macabre, and surprising. Otherwise the book is a laugh.
Very recommended. Short stories from Dublin middle class, written by a 25-year-old Joyce. Remarkable.
It starts very good - flash backs between Shanghai and London, but eventually - actually when the actions starts - it becomes boring. And it turns out Christopher is far from the truth anyway.
Strange strange book! World famous pianist Ryder arrives in a central European city he cannot identify to give a concert he cannot remember to have promised to give. He meets a woman (who turns out to have been living with him for years (his wife?)) and her son (his son?), and his old school mates from England and lots of people who all know him, yet he cannot remember them. Being dragged from one place to the other, the time for the concert rapidly approaching, and too many things to attend to, too many favors to do for all these people who know him, Ryder realizes he's about to give his most important performance ever.
The narrator is Ryder himself, so we, as the reader, should only see and hear what Ryder sees and hears. But it turns out otherwise - Ryder is always nearby, but he sees and hears things with very high level of detail. Even what other people think! Even though he's sitting in the car waiting, or standing 50 meters away. This doesn't make him wonder.
I think The unconsoled is a remarkable book, and I want to read it again. But just as Ryder himself gets frustrated with all the things he has to attend to, all the people who want him to help them, so did I, as the reader, get frustrated with all these small details which apparently have no meaning, but which it is insisted that I spend time reading. It's not exactly high speed car chases or thrilling suspense! So, take that as a recommendation.
Steinbeck's allied propaganda classic from WWII. Recommended.
Highly recommended. I like her writing much more than I like the writing of you-know-who (sorry always have to compare them).
Believing in destiny, pursuing happiness. Too symbolic, fairytale-like for my taste, but well-written.
Hmmm... Last part of the Ender's shadow-series, I hope.
Ok, jeg gider ikke mere skrive at SVMs bøger er totalt gode. For det er de. Så fremover - med mindre jeg skriver at en bog ikke er værd at spilde tid på - kan du gå ud fra at den er en must-read! Sådan.
Rigtig god. Anbefales!
Deja vu! Denne bog har jeg læst før - som teenager. Et herligt gensyn. Som altid velskrevet, intelligent, og underholdende. Anbefalet.
Japan right after the second world war. While attending marriage negotiations for his youngest daughter, an aging painter looks back upon his life and his possible mistakes during the war. About pride, the courage to stand up for what one believes in, even when it might eventually turn out to be wrong. Written in the same sparse, economical way as Remains of the day. Highly recommended.
His best, after Slaughterhouse no 5. Recommended.
Now I understand the Matrix better.
Uhh... I want to do what he did!
Highly entertaining, one last christmas together - will Chip return from Litauvia, will Caroline let Gary bring Jonah, and will Alfred be too affected by his Parkinson's disease? And what about Denise's new gourmet restaurant? No (well, there is one, actually, in Litauvia) high-speed car chases, no thrilling suspense. Very recommended.
I read it because Captain Picard quoted from it, in Star Trek. Recommended - you learn a lot about whaling, whales, sailing and so on...
Really good. Highly recommended
Worse than reality, but less worse than the nightmare described in Orwell's "1984" . Unrealistic and exaggerated in many ways, but terrible accurate in other ways. Recommended.
Part auto biography, part fiction. Funny, wise - typically Vonnegut.
Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Charles Lindbergh - and young Walt the Wonder Boy who can walk on air. Not a typical Auster, but entertaining and well written.
Typical Auster. Very good plot, excellent told. Highly recommended.
Moore is one angry American. And for a good reason. Check out his website which also includes one free chapter of Stupid White Men, which wasn't in the paper book. Highly recommended.
Aarhusroman fra 1970'erne - med rødder, kørvel, cykelkæder, tyrkiske fremmedarbejdere - og samtidigt science fiction, samfundskritik, spøgelseshistorie, love story med meget mere. Omfattende, underholdende og velskrevet. Min første Svend Aage Madsen-roman, men ikke den sidste.
Wonderful description of life, love and death in a settlement in the South American jungle. Part paradise, part nightmare. (As most of the books I read,) Highly recommended.
Very remarkable. Mr Stevens is the perfect butler - made me laugh out loud a few times, and smile many times. I have not seen the movie (with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins) but would now like to. Highly recommended.
Very funny, recommended.
Disturbing, intimate, honest. From a review: "Incest is okay, as long as it stays within the family!". Highly recommended.
Not his best, but in his well known style. Do people really talk that way? Hyper-realistic, almost surrealistic! Recommended as a quick read introduction to Delillo. His later novels are better, the stories more complex, more scary and more eerie.
In pursuit of Quality - down the Hudson River on a sailing boat - Mr. Pirsig lectures about sociology, anthropology, philosophy and much more. I was initially a bit annoyed that there nowhere was any reference to what happened to Phaedrus after he left us at the end of Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance. But eventually we hear, though only very briefly, around page 379 (if I remember correctly) a few things about the stay at the mental clinic, what happened to his marriage, and what led Phaedrus to give up his former life and start sailing.
From the foreword to the 25th anniversary edition of Zen ... we learn that Chris was later murdered (as an adult, in his early twenties). Lila is written before this happens (early nineties) so this is not the reason we don't hear more about Chris. Still the two novels do not fit together as well as I would have liked them to do. This does not change the fact that Lila is a fantastic book and an absolute must read (but be prepared that it requires a bit of effort to get through!)
Sharp.
John Kelly/Mr. Clark is just another Carl Hamilton... Former Navy Seal, the ultimate soldier, he murders a number of drug dealers, and when the police finally close in on him, the CIA has taken him under their wings - he is now above the law. 800 pages. Nice way to spend a weekend.
Hermann's second novel. 318 pages. I like the way she writes, it's close to the skin, sharp, and realistic. However, it took her 250 pages to mention a person, who does not smoke. All her characters but this 18-year-old girl (who doesn't drink either, by the way) smoke cigarettes, often, and she describes it every time in great detail. In Prague, for example, the protagonist notices the 'please don't smoke here' sign, but lights herself a cigarette anyway. And is being gratefully followed by other tourists, who also want to, but didn't dare do it unless somebody else was also doing it. I don't mind stories which describe what ordinary people do. And some people do smoke, they have sex, they go to the toilet, and they scratch themselves in, well, anywhere. Hermann doesn't describe all this. She describes how they smoke. Only, and always. And that becomes very annoying eventually. If you think you can live with this - then I recommend the book (when it comes out as paperback).
Short book, but excellent. Rushdie could very easily become my favorite intellectual.
An American radio program asked the listeners to send in short stories from their lives to be read aloud in the program. The stories should be funny, entertaining, and deal with bizarre, mysterious incidents. Paul Auster then edited the best of these stories into this book. It is funny and entertaining, but I have never been much interested in "bizarre" mumbo jumbo hocus pocus events. Your long-dead grandfather does not speak to you in your dreams. On the other hand the book gives a good picture of everyday life in USA, describes all sorts of people from different parts of the American society, and is as such an interesting read.
Post mortem - includes Young Zaphod Plays it Safe and chapters from an unfinished Dirk Gently book as well as interviews, rants and more with and by Adams.
Hmmm... I really don't know what to write. Some of it is funny, most of it is just too much.
Fantastic book - a must read. Read while sailing in the Caribbean.
Three short stories which eventually gets connected. Not only does Auster re-use the names of his characters, but they actually have roles in each others stories as well. Much better than the other Auster novels I have read so far. Highly recommended.
Very good.
Not as good as Cryptonomicon or Snowcrash, but okay, and recommended. Stephenson is exploring the same problem he's doing with Randy in Cryptonomicon: how to communicate when you are being monitored. Randy uses the programmable LEDs on his keyboard to send morse signals with, Cozzana is in an even more difficult situation - part of his brain is being controlled by a bio-chip, so his left hand, which can work on its own, has to add seemingly random characters to the letter he's writing with his right hand. He doesn't know himself why he's writing such gibberish (he's had a stroke) and doesn't know what it means - or at least a part of his brain doesn't know... Reminds me of good old Zaphood from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who has in his brain a knowledge so secret, that he made it impossible for himself to access it. Great fun!
I would like to write that this is a fantastic book, and I do think that it's a good story, but Auster does not use the medium, the book, as well as he could do. He's simply just telling the story. It's like a movie, where they do not use background music, light, cutting and camera angles. James Joyce uses this - a bit too much though in the Wake - Don Delillo is a master of this. I guess what I'm saying is: Don't use your money on "Book of Illusions". It's good, but borrow it at your local library and go buy Don Delillo's fantastic "Underworld" instead. Or if you must own "Book of Illusions", wait for the paperback to come out.
Too far out. Not recommended.
About the bombing of Dresden during the second world war. Well written, funny, tragic, interesting. A recommended read.
Two plus two IS five!
Highly recommended
Written after Underworld, in a similar style. Short book, excellent.
Quite difficult considering my present knowledge of the German language. Reminds me of the first books I read in English. I understood the context, but didn't bother to look up individual words unfamiliar to me. The story is simple as most part of it take place during the magician's hypnosis show. The finale is short and horrifying.
"You can save yourself the trouble, Doctor. Everything reminds me of sex."
"Does it?" cried Major Sanderson with a delight, as though unable to believe his ears. "Now we're really getting somewhere. Do you have any good sex dreams?"
"My fish dream is a sex dream."
"No, I mean real sex dreams - the kind where you grab some naked bitch and pinch her and punch her in the face until she's all bloody and then you throw yourself down to ravish and burst into tears because you love her and hate her so much you don't know what else to do. That's the kind of sex dreams I like to talk about. Don't you ever have sex dreams like that?"
Yossarian reflected with a wise look. "That's a fish dream," he decided.
Major Sanderson recoiled as though he had been slapped. "Yes, of course," he conceded frigidly, his manner changing to one of edgy and defensive antagonism. "But I'd like you to dream one like that anyway just to see how you react."
"I'll mention it to Dunbar," Yossarian replied.
"Dunbar?"
"He's the one who started it all. It's his dream."
A very recommended read.
The first book I have ever read in German, for the fun of it. I also bought Thomas Mann's Mario und der Zauberer, but it might be too difficult for me at this point. Sommerhaus, später is a collection of short stories written by a promising young German author. The stories are well written, about fear, love, getting old, about people. I recommend it - it was easy to understand and I could often guess the meaning of words I did not understand at first. The stories are entertaining, touching and relevant. And it's a quick read with only 180 pages.
I regard each of them with the greatest of affection and consider them all truly original pieces of classic or soon-to-be classic literature; yet I see in Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Delillo's Underworld many of the same ideas Pynchon pursues in excellent Gravity's Rainbow. Of 750+ pages I first began to realize the plot around page 600, but even after reading the last chapter twice I'm still confused (luckily, now that I have read it, I'm allowed to seek information on WWW about what's it all really about). Gravity's Rainbow takes place in a Europe just before the outbreak of the WWII, during, and shortly after. IG Farben, AEG, the S-Gerät, many passages in German and recognizable settings in and around various German cities (including Darmstadt quite a few times), this book was a delight (but a time consuming one!) to read for an expatriate living and working in Germany. Highly recommended.
Very good. A pity so much is in Latin. Maybe it didn't bother Umberto Eco, since most Italians (I think) should be able to understand Latin. But for me with limited language skills it was quite difficult. I saw the film (with Sean Connery and Christian Slater), but could actually not remember who did it and why. A must read.
Excellent. 7 years later. Molly/Sally is older and meaner and 3Jane's a bitch. And in the end they make contact with the alien AI's in Alpha Centauri...
I have read this one before, but it must have been a long time ago, since I could hardly remember anything. Bobby is trying out some ICE-breaker for the first time and almost gets killed before he can jack out. AI's are feeding information to a scientist working for Maas Biolabs helping him to make major breakthroughs. The prize he pays is his daughter, who gets advanced implants in her head, allowing the AI's to interact with the physical world through her. The story takes place some 10 years after Neuromancer - everything is as Case and Molly left it, and the characters are making subtle references to those events - something was let loose in the Matrix (the AI's), 3Jane of T/A, Freeside, the Finn taking a more active role (wiping out Japanese enhanced hit men (their inner organs turned to dog food)), everything. Great story!
Frank Poole is brought back alive, after 1000 years floating in space. The Space Drive is a reality. So is Space Elevators (bringing people and things into orbit without the use of rockets). Mankind wipes out the Monoliths with a computer virus (oh no... just like in Independence Day. Suuure the code is compatible!) - amazing they dare. The creators of the monoliths will know in 500 years, and it will then take them another 500 years to take actions. Unless FTL travel is invented, of course. When science could defeat Newton (the Space Drive), what makes them (us) so sure it can't defeat Einstein?
Even with the obvious glitches the book is interesting and recommended.
Read it because it's ACC. But it's not very good compared to the others.
The collection of short stories also including Johnny Mnemonic. Maas Biolabs, Hosaka, implants, the Ono Sendai Cyberspace 7... just the way I like them. His Hinterlands is set in Space, and not very good. New Rose Hotel and Burning Chrome itself are the best. An easy, enjoyable, familiar read recommended for Gibson fans.
I've read this one before, but didn't own it. Last week I bought it in Copenhagen, and reread it yesterday evening. Reading Clarke can make you burn for astronomy and physics, reading Sterling's Heavy Weather makes you want to dedicate years to understand geophysics and meteorology. For an introduction to thunderstorms and lightening, I recommend Richard Feynmann's Lectures of Physics part 1.
I read the others - Count Zero, Monalisa Overdrive etc - years ago, but I never read Idoru before. Same characters as in All Tomorrow's Parties, and quite good.
Fast and fun, but I think Stephenson is overdoing it by letting the genetically engineered bug threaten all life on the planet. The story could have been just as good, but more likely to believe if it didn't also include this "save the world" feature.
A little slow to begin with, but it catches up. Interesting use of old British expressions, 'Struth! - a bit hard for me, not having English (and definitely not English dialects from the 19th century) as my first language. Someone even produced a dictionary for the book.
This is a good one, I don't know why I put it down so many times before now. Though, there are a few issues, which le Carre does not handle very well, I think. Having a computer virus, which can instantly delete the hard disk of the computers it has infected, including remote mail accounts is a little ... Hmmm. And if it could, when did Justin and Guido (who's supposed to be smart with these things) not just unplug the computer, as soon as they noticed the hard disk work a little too much?
On the other hand the novel is a real page turner, and frightfully relevant in these days. A recommended read.
Read it while staying at the Bismarck Strasse Hotel in Darmstadt.
Sigh. It's so much faster to acquire new books than to read them.