The Books I've Read In May

May has been a good month when it comes to reading -- well, mostly. I managed to read a bunch of books, and some of them were really good. So, without further delay, here they are, in the order in which I've read them.

Irbis by Aleksandar Žiljak. This novel sort of reminded me of Escape from L.A. It's fast-paced, full of action, there's the "do or die in horrible pain" catch, and the ending is just as vicious, although more optimistic. Above all, it's fun, and well worth a read. And the cover is adorable (you also get to see what an irbis is). The link leads to his blog, which is usually in Croatian, but there are posts in English too.

Ogledalo za vampira (A Mirror for a Vampire) by Adrijan Sarajlija. It's the first novel by a Serbian author who already had a pretty good story collection. It combines magical realism, horror, science fiction (sort of), and the structure is more of an acid trip (not that I have a first-hand experience of an acid trip) than of a novel. An interesting and a fun read, although some parts of it are not for those with a weak stomach.

Intrusion by Ken MacLeod. It's a creepy novel about Hope Morrison who lives in near future and refuses to take The Fix, a pill which would remove many possible genetic defects from her unborn child. She has no particular reason for refusing to take it, other than the wish to be left alone with her body and her pregnancy. The world she lives in is not that of totalitarianism, on the contrary; it's a democratic Western country where there is a lot of care for everyone's safety -- which leads to very little personal freedom, and people fought for it to be that way in the name of democracy and safety and good life for everyone. For example, every woman of a child-bearing age must wear a monitor ring, which informs the authorities if she is drinking alcohol while pregnant or engaging in other activities which might damage her unborn child -- all for the safety of the children. Another example: the police won't beat you up, they'll torture you instead with heated sterile needles, so there's no infection,and when they're done with you, they'll give you the number of the service which helps people cope with the trauma. To make it short: it's what the world might look like if people give away too much of their personal freedom in exchange for "safety" and "common good".

The Executioness by Tobias S. Buckell. It goes together with The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi -- and The Alchemist was considerably better in exploring the society which lives under the threat of a magical (and extremely difficult to destroy, and often lethal) bramble which grows every time someone casts a spell -- and spells are quite easy to cast. So, it is illegal to use magic, and those who do it anyway get executed, normally by executors, but The Executioness tells a story of a woman who picked up her father's axe after he got too sick to perform his duty. The story is an interesting read, although too naive at times.

Preko rijeke (Across the River) by Dalibor Perković. Another book by a Croatian author, this time a story collection, some of them award-winning. The horrible truth about Jesus Christ. Extraterrestrial aliens and the war in former Yugoslavia -- the aliens had nothing to do with the war, some of them just happened to be in the area and were conducting their business -- the aliens were not nice by any means, it's just that humans can be even worse than that. A humorous story involving a time-travel machine and the sexual life of a couple. A story about the relationships between a deity and the folks worshiping that deity. Some of it was serious, some was funny, and overall, quite a good read.

The Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. It's the fourth book in the series, following what should have been a trilogy, and it's mostly of the what happened next kind -- and something always happens, doesn't it?

Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig. Fun idea. Well thought-out characters. Well thought-out plot. Well thought-out everything. Feels like it was rewritten too many times, though, so some life was sucked out of the book. Fun anyway, and worth reading. Will read the next one for sure.

Bullet by Laurell Hamilton, the 19th book in the series about Anita Blake. Skip the first part. Skip the last part, unless to see the ending. From the middle, read every fifth page. You'll miss nothing of importance, skip the sex scenes, and won't read every single thought Anita had. That way, the book is tolerable. Sort of. To give you an example: in the first 30 pages or so, we get to see what everyone is wearing, and we get to learn that even a 3-year-old (or a 5-year-old, the author can't remember how old that character is) knows that Anita has sex with just about everyone. Then there are some emotional problems, guys (particularly one of them) talking about emotional problems, you get to know which one of the guys can give another guy oral sex without choking even if it goes deep (you were dying to know that, didn't you?), and then there's a long sex scene (three guys, one woman, homosexual sex, heterosexual sex, BDSM), and when it's over, you see you've read about the third of the entire book. It doesn't get better. Oh, and you get to read every single thought Anita has. The oral sex talk was way way more interesting, even if you weren't interested in it at all.

Hit List by Laurell Hamilton, the 20th book in the same series.** spoiler alert ** Yet another book where you get to read every single thought of Anita Blake. Some things happen, too, some people get injured, folks we were previously told were superfastsuperstrongsuperkillers are suddenly sloppy, the villain we were previously told might be unkillable gets defeated without much difficulty, and we get to read inner monologue of Anita Blake. At least she's less annoying than she used to be, so we don't read about her having issues and having issues, but growing up a bit and having less issues than she used to. Yay. Not.







Have you read something interesting lately?

Keep the Introduction Short, Please

Recently I’ve  read a book which I’m not going to name here, because the problem I’ll talk about does not appear in this one book only. And the problem is: the introduction was way too long and way too boring.

The book is an anthology, and the subject is such that it should be a fun book and mostly a light read. There are two editors, and each one of them wrote an introduction. Each of the introductions goes on and on about what they liked to read when they were kids, and how much they liked it, and how they found some other likable stuff to read and watch, and how those various things could actually go pretty well together, and how much they liked all that, and... Each of the introductions was about 10 pages long. In both of them, the editors mostly talked about themselves and what they liked and how it led to this particular anthology, but failed to say much about the anthology itself.

It was pretty late at the time I was reading these introductions and I was tired, but couldn’t sleep because it was too darn hot. I doubt that it improved either my mood or my patience. Still, I find it difficult to imagine I’d enjoy reading them no matter the time and the weather.

I almost gave up on the entire book because of the introductions; it’s highly unlikely that’s what the editors tried to achieve, and it’s not like they’re new to the business. The only reason I didn’t give up on the book was that I expected the stories to entertain me quite a bit (sadly, it didn’t happen, the stories were, except for one, ineptly written, or childish, or too much down the anything goes alley, or all of it).

An introduction to an anthology, as far as I can tell, doesn’t need to be longer than 2 pages; if the editor or whoever wants to talk some more about certain details of the book, that can be put in the afterword and, also important, it should be interesting to read and to the point (there should also be a point). I don’t mind learning how a particular book came to be; what I do mind is reading meandering and long-winded introductions (or meandering and long-winded anything), unless it is done in such a way that it is really fun/interesting/informative to read. I don’t count every little thing you liked as a kid informative, sorry. I’m aware that I can just skip the introduction, but why putting in a book something so boring a reader would want to skip?

This was the first time that the introduction to a book made me want to give up on the entire thing (and not even because of something it said about the anthology!); normally I enjoy them. How do you feel about introductions? Do you skip them, or read them? Has an introduction ever made you want to give up on the book? 

Monday Fun: The Holy Sinner by Thomas Mann

*giggles*

One of the books I’ve recently read was The Holy Sinner by Thomas Mann. I kept giggling while reading it, or at least thinking of giggling.

Now, this is not a review. It’s more my impressions, and what made me giggle so much; there’s a bunch of spoilers too, so proceed at your own risk. Oh, and there’s religious matter, so if you’re easily offended, you might be offended by this too.

The story is told by a monk Clemens, in a somewhat old-fashioned way and in a sugary tone. He tells us of a brother and sister, twins, of noble birth, who loved each other very, very much. They loved each other so much that they were expecting a baby (so now you know how they loved each other). Realizing that they have a problem, they talked to their trusted advisor, who suggested that the brother went on a pilgrimage, while the sister would go to the advisor’s castle and have her baby there, in secrecy. Not knowing what else to do, they agreed.

The sister was oh so mourning being separated from her beloved brother (the sugary tone, remember?). She gave birth to a beautiful little boy, whom the advisor wrapped in expensive silk, placed him in a barrel, put lots of gold and a message on a plate in it, and left the barrel in the sea, to God’s mercy.

And so on, and so forth; the little boy grew up into a strong young man, Gregory, who helped a noble woman when her city was under siege, and married her, and had two daughters with her, only to discover he had married his own mother. And oh, they were so horrified, and so she went on to take care of cripples and such, while he went to become a hermit and to sit on a stone far away from the shore. Still the sugary tone.

And then some more things happened, and then Gregory became Pope Gregory.

And there’s the Children, don’t do this at home conclusion (don’t sin, things worked out for them in the end but they suffered a lot, don’t do it, kids).

Hilarious.

Now, I’m fully aware that there’s more to this book, that this is Thomas Mann trying to explore some really serious stuff like sin and evil and so on, but still, it’s hilarious, and if someone tells me Germans have no sense of humor, I’ll throw this book at him/her. Well, I won’t, because it’s my mother’s and I gave it back to her, but you know what I mean.

Have you read anything funny recently?

Something New

Would you like to buy this book?

I believe that new experiences are very important for us. They’re important for us as human beings who wish to keep growing as such, and they’re crucial for writers – if I don’t have my own personal experiences, what am I going to write about? My childhood? Of being bored and stagnant and empty? It’s something to write about too, but it can only get me so far until I’m left without anything to say and until everything I write starts looking as a fake and a lousy retelling.

How do you pick something new to do, some other area to explore? It’s up to you and to your interests, whether those interests are big or small or just something which will pass within a week. It can be learning a new language, exploring the woods close to your home, starting to take more pictures and playing with photography, looking for new recipes and trying them out... Anything, really.

What I did recently was to join a Serbian auction website. One part of it designed for auctions, and the other for selling and buying at fixed prices. I did it both as doing something new, and as a way to sell some stuff, books mostly (my own short story collection, plus a bunch of books I own but will not read again, nor will I give them as gifts – you know the kind, you buy them on a whim, read them, have no wish to read them again, and don’t know anyone who’d actually love to have them).

It was scary. Not much, but still. You see, I’m an introvert. I’m anti-social. It’s not that I hate people; I don’t. I just want them to stay away. And if I’m going to sell them stuff, well, I’ll have to communicate with them, to answer their questions, meet them in town and bring them books (if they’re from the same town as I am – that’s the simplest way). Scary.

So far, I didn’t have unpleasant experiences (well, it’s only been a week). The very first day I put up some books for sale at the fixed price part, I sold one. The guy who bought the book contacted me immediately. He didn’t live in my town, but it turned out that his dad did, so we agreed that I would meet with his dad and give him the book, and he’d give me the money. It all went without problems, his dad turned out to be a polite elderly gentleman used to meet with people who sold books to his son.

But still. A new experience, plus communicating with people. Scary.

The other book I sold went to another guy. The meeting with the elderly gentleman was still two days away (we agreed on the time which suited us both, and it wasn’t the same day), but with this other guy, it went faster, on the same day the book was marked as sold. In other words, it was the first time I did it, went to the place where we agreed to meet (a public place, of course), and I was a bit nervous. It’s not that I was scared of that particular guy, or of the possibility that he could be a lunatic with a machine gun – I checked him out on the auction site, and several people already stated that they sold him stuff and it all went just fine, so I had no reason to be afraid of him. It was that nervousness of doing something for the first time, and it was the darn communicating with people – and in person at that.

The guy – a young man, in his early twenties perhaps – showed up in a tow truck, the one they use to remove cars from the no-parking zones. I have no idea whether he was in the middle of the working hours, or was just finishing his shift and used the tow truck as his own vehicle, or what; we didn’t chat, it all went pretty quick, give the book, take the money, say bye.

We call those tow trucks ‘spiders’, so I was joking, later, that I sold a book to a Spider-Man.

So. Doing something new, making two sales, and I have stories to tell, of an elderly gentleman whose son lives in another town and loves buying books, and of a young man who came in a tow truck to pick up a book. Well, not exactly stories, but certainly nice details, at least.

Not to mention, while doing something new can be a bit scary, it’s also fun, and good. The little bit of money added to it doesn’t hurt, either.

When was the last time you did something new?

The Books I've Read In 2011

I tried to read 100 books in 2011, and failed; I only got to 78. Translating all day and recovering after the work is done seem to take their toll. Still, I did manage to read some really good books, and below are the seven that meant most to me, in no particular order. If I've written a review of the book, there's a link to it.

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindquist.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. If you wish for a book with a strong African female protagonist, this one would be a great choice.

The Woman In the Dunes by Kobo Abe. A surreal Japanese novel about the erosion of the mind and the spirit and the morality, an unusual love story, and a story of an unexpected enlightenment.

Dreamsongs: A Retrospective by G.R.R. Martin. A retrospective of a famous writer, starting with his early, not-so-good works, and following his career. A huge book mostly filled with compelling stories. After reading it, I came to the conclusion that his A Song For Lya is still one of the most beautiful stories ever, and that, as much as I find A Song of Ice and Fire fun, his science fiction Sandkings are much, much better.

Master of the Day of Judgement by Leo Perutz. This novel is from 1923, and on the surface, it's your typical murder-in-the-locked-room story, with fantastical elements thrown in. It's also a masterfully written novel, with the flawless rhythm and the fantastical images which stay with you long after you've finished it.

Dying Inside, by Robert Silverberg.

Old Masters by Thomas Benrhard. The old misanthrope at his best -- and with the ending which will make you roar in laughter.

Overall, I did read some great books in the last year, I just hope I'll be able to read even more.

Have you read something great?

Of Zen, Health and Lily Allen

Zen can improve your health. So can cats.

There's this virus going around where I live, giving trouble to everyone; combine it with a lot of work, and there's almost no way of avoiding it. There was a bit of luck in all that; the publisher told me he decided to delay the publishing of the book I'm currently translating for a little, meaning I had more time to translate it, meaning I could actually allow myself to be sick and not work for as long as I can keep my eyes open.

During that pause, I've read The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk by D.T. Suzuki. It's a short book, and a quick read; and yet, it's so full of information. It starts from the moment a monk gets refused at the door, goes through the acceptance, the work, the service, the humility, the koan the monk receives,  the meditation, the rules everyone has to obey... And a lot more. The book is also filled with naive, and yet so lovely, illustrations by another Zen Buddhist monk, showing all the phases of a monk's life and the instruments used in Zen Buddhism. Such a simple book, and a wonderful read. And it helped me feel a bit better and do some more work. The feel-better didn't last for all that long, but hey, every bit helps, and I have no doubt I'll recover eventually.

Lately, I've been listening to some Lily Allen songs, and for some reason, the one bellow, if you pay attention to the lyrics, went quite well with the book.

The Great Belgrade Book Fair, Part III

Jelena Đurović signing her book

Sunday was the official last day of the Belgrade Book Fair, but my last day there was Friday -- there was too much work after that.

My intention was to go to the promotion of the 30. februar novel by Jelena Đurović; she's a colleague dramaturgist, and also a young politician trying to make things better. Unfortunately, I was late, and only got to the end (public transportation, what can I say); I still managed to make some pics of the promotion, and to get my copy signed.

After that, I went to another promotion; it partially overlapped with the first one, but I managed to see a part of it; it was about a new edition of Goran Skrobonja somewhat cult horror novel Nakot (it translates to The Spawn, it's a hard-core horror about a bunch of monstrous babies being born and overtaking the world), and also about the Naked Heat by "Richard Castle". Other than being a writer and a translator, Mr. Skrobonja is also a publisher, and the talk was about his editions and some of his publishing plans; it wasn't mentioned there, but those plans include The Man from the Diogenes Club by Kim Newman which I'm translating right now (yay, working again! darn British slang and the wardrobe from the seventies and the writer who pays much more attention to what people are wearing than I do! still, the book is great, it will be really hard work because of the very short deadline, but hey, it's fun!).

Then there was some more walking through the Book Fair, buying a few more books (the already mentioned Naked Heat, The River of Gods by Ian McDonald, The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk by D.T. Suzuki, and something else I can't remember right now), and seeing some nice people, fellow writers promoting their stuff and signing their books. One of them was Mr. Aleksandar Tešić, the author of Kosingas - The Order of the Dragon and its two sequels. His publishing house brought some knights to entertain the audience (well, they're not really knights, they're a society for preservation of the old Serbian skills and arts, and a part of it is training with the equipment the real Serbian knights of old were using -- when they went for a walk, I tried the sword, and I can tell you it's quite heavy, and so is the chain-mail; it really takes a lot of strength and stamina to be able to move in that all day and then take part in battles, and the guys from the Society go and have tournaments in it; the girls usually just wear those pretty medieval dresses, but there's one of them who fights with the guys).

Me with a sword (which I have no idea how to hold properly)

And so my last day at the Book Fair ended with me wielding a real sword, which is great; and I managed to do some business, that is, to get another translation to do (and a challenging book at that!), which is also great. The experience was somewhat tiresome because the Fair is so huge, but I loved it, and wish for more events like that.

The Great Belgrade Book Fair, Part II

Belgrade Book Fair

The Belgrade Book Fair is too big to see everything and to get everything you want during the first visit, so I went again. This time, I didn't buy as many books, although I did buy some great ones:

Wittgenstein's Nephew and Auslöschung. Ein Zerfall by Thomas Bernhard - Bernhard is always good
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco - a new novel by Umberto Eco, should I say more?
Rechnitz by Elfriede Jelinek - a play by a Nobel prize winner
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson - again, should I say more?

The books I bought this time.

This time, I saw a bunch of schoolkids at the Book Fair; it is a tradition here for teachers to bring the schoolkids to this Fair -- they basically just let them loose at the Fair and pick them up at the appointed time, and it seems to work, the kids have a good time (one bookseller told me they were so cute, they wanted to but so many books, but never had money for any), and I've never seen them get into trouble or cause any.

Schoolkids coming to the Book Fair

I also managed to get money for an earlier translation -- the guy I translated a story for lives in another country, and he managed to send me money through his fellow bookseller who was at the Fair (he was hoping to come himself, but had an injury). I mentioned it to a friend who is a publisher, and we agreed that for us who have some business with books (as writers or translators or publishers or editors or a little bit of everything) it's impossible to be just visitors at the Book Fair, there's always business involved.

Overall, it was another pleasant visit to the Book Fair; I'll be going tomorrow again, mostly to attend some promotions -- and to bring you more pictures. I hope more people will come; while it's easier to move around if there isn't too much crowd, overcrowded Book Fair is somehow nice to see, not to mention it means better business.

And now for some more pictures:

You don't have to know Serbian to recognize this, do you? :)

Two girls taking a break.

A plenty of comic books and graphic novels, too!

Books!

There could be more visitors, though.

The Great Belgrade Book Fair, Part I

The Great Belgrade Book Fair

The last week in October is a great time for every book lover in Belgrade, Serbia -- and not just in Belgrade, people from other cities and countries come too. It is the time of the Belgrade Book Fair. The big publishing houses are all present, but the Fair doesn't mean all that much to them, they have other ways of selling books. However, it is the time when the small publishing houses manage to earn some money (typically used to pay their debts), and thus survive in the market.

As for the readers, it is the time when they can find a lot of books from the domestic and foreign publishing houses, some of them rare and old and otherwise difficult to find, and the prices are lower than the usual.

And, you get to look at a lot of books at one place.

I went to the Book Fair yesterday and will probably be going again tomorrow and on Friday. I bought 8 books: 30. februar by Jelena Đurović (she is a former University colleague and the novel is part science fiction, part romance, part poitical satire), Vrtovi nestvarnog by Sava Damjanov (the title translates to The Gardens of Unreal, it is a book of essays about Serbian fantastic literature), All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, Goethe schtirbt by Thomas Bernhard (stories which haven't been translated to English yet), Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon, Abraxas' Guide Down the Documentary Movie, 2nd edition by Bojan Pandža (weird, bizarre documentary movies, serial killers, Zeitgeist...), his blog is here, it's a great place if you want to download various interesting documentary movies), a book about No and Kabuki theater, and Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko (a Russian urban fantasy). What made me very happy was finally getting my hands on my copy of another translation of mine, this one is a book of essays by Norman Spinrad, I translated two of them (two essays, not two Spinrads :) ).

Other than seeing a lot of books, which is always a joy, it's great to see dear people I know there -- and it happens every year, because we're all book lovers. One of them bought my book, which is another great thing; since we happened to be there at the same time, she got her copy signed.

Going to the Belgrade Book Fair was a great pleasure -- and there will be more of that pleasure in the days to come. I look forward to it.

My book is there!

P.S. If it doesn't seem crowded to you, it's because i went early, while most people are still at work; the big crowd comes later, making it difficult to see the books and sometimes even to move.




Here are some more pictures, just for you!

Portugal is the special guest this year.

Come back soon, there will be more!

Dying Inside

Last night, while the darn flu bothered both me and SO, I have finished reading Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. It's a science fiction novel -- but also a beautiful book for everyone, whether you're into science fiction or not.

David Selig is a middle-aged telepath who is slowly losing his gift, and he feels like he's dying on the inside. It's not that he ever used telepathy for anything great; quite the contrary, he was using it to achieve his selfish goals, and since his ability showed him his fellow human beings as usually small-minded and petty and full of flaws, he rarely managed to really care about anyone. And yet, he can't stand losing it, because, since his early childhood, he defined himself as a telepath, and has no idea what to do with himself after it goes away.

Don't get me wrong: David Selig is not an evil man. He's just as small-minded as all those people he despises -- and he's also having difficulties overcoming his own flaws, which made him unable to reach out to people, which in turn made him very lonely, and he's very, very scared.

The novel goes back and forth in time (but never in a way difficult to follow), so we get to see David as an adult who's losing his ability, as a young adult who meets another telepath for the first time, as a misfit kid who wants to murder his adopted baby sister, as a young man falling in love and ruining it, while he's trying to make peace with his sister... Some episodes are hilarious; others read like poetry; and, even though it's a novel about a telepath, even though it can be read as a study about telepathy at its various stages, it can also be read as a novel about any of us slowly losing that one thing we believe defines us and trying to cope with it -- any of us, whether it's you or someone you deeply care for.

A beautiful novel, and well worth a try even if you don't usually read science fiction.

Summer (What Summer?) Reading (A Bookpile Post)

The weather is killing me.

Summer? Seriously?

It's supposed to be summer, but you can see on the picture what it looks like these days. I can't properly wake up, my mind refuses to work, and on Twitter I read that my friends are experiencing similar problems, taking four hours just to wake up and then forgetting stuff at home, saying "Hi" to everyone and then going for a nap at 3 in the afternoon, and we're talking about young, healthy people here.

So, what I do mostly is read. Some time ago i went to the library again, and took seven books. The librarian was new, and didn't ask me whether I'd be able to read it; she seemed not to care one way or the other.

My new bookpile

The books in the pile, from the top to the bottom, are: Hunger by Knut Hamsun, Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Castle by Franz Kafka, A Philosophy of Boredom by Lars Fr. H. Svendsen, Muleum by Erlend Loe, and Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. Hamsun, Svendsen, Loe and Petterson are Scandinavian authors, Kafka is German, Atwood is Canadian, and Adichie African. A wide variety, and so far a good pile of books.

The first one I read from the pile was Hunger, about a talented, but still unrecognized writer. Wait now, where have I seen that one before? Fante and Bukowski come to mind, but, while their protagonists were drinking and doing dumb things, the protagonist of Hunger is starving. Not being really hungry and managing to find something to eat, even if it's same old, same old; no, not eating for days, so he gets thinner and thinner, his hair falls off, he really, truly looks like a ruin. A very well written novel.

Then there was Out Stealing Horses, an old man coming to live in a distant part of Norway, wishing to be alone, to escape... Well, to escape himself, mostly. And there he remembers the summer when he was fifteen, had a friend he used to steal horses with (the "theft" was actually getting on neighbor's horses, riding them while imagining they were in the Wild West, and sending them back to the owner). As the novel progresses, the things become more serious. Something horrible, unforgivable happened to the friend right before they went to the horse theft. And "stealing horses" was a phrase used before, by the protagonist's father, during the resistance to the Nazis. And the protagonist's father and the friend's mother have a sort of a history together (no, not some cheap affair). And the protagonist, in his old days, meets someone he never expected nor wanted to meet again, and discovers it's actually a good thing.

With all this said, this short novel is quite easy to read, and gets you in its world pretty quickly.

After that, there was Muleum by Erlend Loe. The main character is 18-year-old Juliet from Norway who lost her entire family when a plane crashed. While she doesn't have to fight for physical existence - her family was rich, and she has lots of money - she has to find a reason to keep living, and she fails to do it. Juliet tries to kill herself, then travels the world, stays at the airports, hopes that the next plane she gets on will crash (and feels guilty because of all the other people who would die too), meets a Korean athletic star she likes... Although the subject is difficult, there's humor in the novel too, and there's some strength in this young woman as she seeks some sense after the family to whom the word "muleum" meant something is gone (one of the first words little Juliet spoke was "muleum", it was supposed to be "museum", but ever since then her family kept saying "muleum", it was like their family word). While what happened to Juliet is tragic, there's nothing pathetic in this novel, and it's quite an enjoyable read.

Then there was A Philosophy of Boredom. Svendsen writes in a clear, understandable style - you don't have to be a Philosophy major in order to understand his books. In this book, he explores the history of boredom (boredom as we know it today seems to be somewhat new), gives some examples in great literature about the consequences of boredom brought to the extreme, and, while he doesn't give an answer to the problem of boredom, he does give some suggestions.

Right now, I'm reading Surfacing. I'm still at the beginning, so all I can tell you is that it is about a woman who comes to Quebec to look for her father who just disappeared; she comes to an extremely, err, old-fashioned community (for example, a divorce is unimaginable there) she ran away from when she was younger, and isn't happy about it, but hey, her father disappeared, and she wants to know what happened.

Well, that would be it for now. And, for the end, and completely unrelated, here's a cat picture, because every blog needs one.

Every blog needs a cat picture.

You Can't Possibly Read That Much, the Librarian Said

You can't possibly read that much, the librarian said.

I spend most of the day translating, something I'm not quite used to do yet. When I finish it, I don't really have much strength to stare at the screen, either to watch videos, play games or read blogs or something. So i read books. The paper ones.

I went to the library on Tuesday, and took the charming pile of books you see on the picture. The librarian told me I couldn't possibly read all of them in twenty days. I told her I'd return the ones I've read and re-borrow those I haven't managed to read. She agreed to that.

Me and librarians. Librarians who don't get it: I read, I read a lot, and I read quickly. One would expect more from the librarians; then again, this same librarian called Twilight a beautiful, beautiful book at the time I took Twilight, some books by de Lilo and a book by Doris Lessing. A great American writer, a Nobel prize winner, and she tells me the Twilight (yes, the silly one with the sparkling vampires) is beautiful?

Oh well.

The books I took on Tuesday: Sputnik Sweetheart and Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami, Twilight #2 and Twilight #3 by Stephenie Meyer, Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe and Ask the Dust by John Fante. The Twilight is to see what all the fuss is about, the rest of them is for pleasure. So far, I've read Woman in the Dunes and Sputnik Sweetheart, and I'm currently reading Ask the Dust.

Woman in the Dunes is a fascinating book about a Japanese man who goes to a remote village in the sand to look for some sand bugs, and the villagers capture him to help them remove the sand, because the erosion is the constant danger there, and the government does nothing to help. He is placed in a house in the hole in the sand with a thirty-year-old widow, to help her. He wants to escape, he's trying to find a way to get out of there, but at the same time, he's eroding, just like his surroundings. It's hard to describe this one; what goes on is bizarre, and the tone of the novel is surreal. A great read.

Sputnik Sweetheart is an unusual book -- which is quite usual for Murakami. It starts as a weird love triangle -- a young man is in love with his best friend, a pretty girl who likes him as a friend but falls in love with an older woman, and while the woman likes the girl, something weird happened to her fourteen years ago, she doesn't feel whole and cannot return love. And then things start to get weird -- I'm not going to spoil it for you here.

So far I've read about a third of the Ask the Dust. It's about the author's alter ego, a writer wannabe Arturo Bandini, who is trying to survive in LA and to finally sell some stories. Charles Bukowski loved this book, and so far it looks good (heh, us writers writing and reading about writers), so I guess I'll enjoy that one too.

And unless something prevents me, yes, I'll read them all within twenty days. And I've already noted the books I plan to borrow next.

In case you didn't notice: I'm a bookaholic. :)