Monday, August 31, 2009

Books I've read in 2009 - August

En såkalt drittjobb by Lotta Elstad
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Hemma hos Martina by Martina Haag
Linda - som i Lindamordet by Leif GW Persson AUDIO
Tatt av kvinnen by Erlend Loe
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë AUDIO
Meningen med livet by Bradley Trevor Greive
The Island by Peter Benchley
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Darcys and the Bingleys by Marsha Altman
Dette visste vi ikke noe om! by Peter Longerich
Pemberley Shades by D.A. Bonavia-Hunt
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo
Don’t Smell the Balloons by Stewart Clark
Madonna-gåten by Nærum/Botterli/Udnæs
En plutselig frigjørende tanke by Kjell Askildsen AUDIO

15 printed books, 3,829 pages.
3 audiobooks, 32h 26m.

Best fiction:
Pemberley Shades ... because it's always such a relief to come across a Pride & Prejudice sequel that is actually genuinely good. This one was also a very interesting read because it's so old ... it was first published in 1913. o_O Well worth reading, and not just for Austen fans.

Best nonfiction:
Dette visste vi ikke noe om! - the result of an examination of a great many sources from the 1930s and early 1940s, which shows that the German people of the Third Reich were not all burning anti-Semites, but on the contrary felt not a little compassion for the suffering of the Jews; that they were surprisingly well-informed about the scope and intention of the Nazi persecutions; and, not least, gives tremendous insight into exactly why the regime was able to carry out these persecutions in the face of what ought to have been public opposition. I learned so much from this book.

Best audio:
Jane Eyre. A total classic of course, but actually the first time I'd read the entire thing. Since I already knew the plot so well it's pretty impressive that I was still very moved by the story of the unfortunate but plucky young orphan. Well read too by some woman whose name I don't remember.

2 comments:

Paz said...

kudos madam even with your travelling

Leisha Camden said...

Thanks ... but actually part of it was because of the travelling, I read a lot when I was up at the cabin. There isn't all that much to do up there. :-) The Chinese Dictionary book (which is not a dictionary but a clever and charming novel) I read in one day. I doubt if I would have managed that here at home ... too many distractions ... ;-)