[b]Full title:[/b] Cod: A biography of the fish that changed the world [b]Author:[/b] Mark Kurlansky [b]Published:[/b] 1997 [b]Where got:[/b] public library [b]Genre:[/b] History Cover image
I decided it was time to learn more about the fish that can, with some justification, be called the basis of Iceland's economy. I have always liked haddock better. Maybe this book will change that.
Week 5: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Review
"I love all the people whom God made, but I especially know how to love the people who live in this place. They are my people, my brothers and sisters. It is my duty to help them to solve the mysteries in their lives. That is what I am called to do."
There is something enchanting about the way Alexander McCall Smith puts these words into the mouth of his private detective heroine, Precious Ramotswe.
The book is more a collection of interconnected sketches than a continuous narrative. It moves backwards and forwards in time, telling the story of Precious and some of the people connected to her, in a simple and flowing style. Background information is dispersed throughout the book and you slowly get to know about Precious' past and the experiences that have brought her to the point where she decided to set up a detective agency. Armed with her intuition, a manual for private detectives, and minimal assets that would make any American or European private eye hand in his licence on the spot, she starts the business with money inherited from her father. The book is about her first cases, which range from a cheating husband to a missing one, a variety of con men to expose and a missing boy who may have been murdered to make magic amulets. She solves (or in some cases doesn't solve) the cases to her customer's satisfaction (sometimes not), through intuition and knowledge of human nature, occasionally resorting to lying and sneaking about in search of clues.
The image you get of her is that of a woman who has learned to accept life as it is, whether it be happy or sad, and has not let the suffering she has lived through get her down. The descriptions of her and other character's reactions to misfortune are quite matter-of-fact, giving you an idea of a people who accept suffering with equanimity, much as they rejoice in good fortune.
The humour is sly and sneaks up on you, like the following: "Now constipation was quite a different matter. It would be dreadful for the whole world to know about troubles of that nature. She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them to form a political party - with a chance of government perhaps - but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail."
I like it that the author has made his heroine a non-traditional one. Writing a story about a fat lady who runs a detective agency in Africa is an original idea and the author definitely took a risk with it. I'm sure he can have had no idea that it would become such a hit, or that people would be crying out for more of the same. There are now five book in the series and it's popularity just keeps on growing.
[b]Favourite quote: [/b] "Nobody was missing, nobody was cheating on their wives, nobody was embezzling. At such times, a private detective may as well hang a closed sign on the office door and go off to plant melons."
[b]Rating:[/b] Great and unusual detective novel that convinces the reader that maybe she too can become a private eye. 4 stars.
Yesterday I mentioned that Terry Pratchett is my current favourite author (and likely to remain so for the unforeseen future). His Discworld novels are full of little in-jokes and allusions to all kinds of subjects, and although knowledge of the sources of these jokes is not an absolute necessity for his readers, it is necessary for full enjoyment of his works.
I am quite well versed in the cultural and historical aspects and the classical literature that Pratchett alludes to in his works, but have found myself lacking in the areas of science and the fantasy and science fiction works that Terry read when he was growing up (and still reads for all I know) and which has influenced his work. Some of the science questions were answered with the publication of The Science of Discworld I & II, but I still have some reading to do in sci-fi and fantasy. I have set out to remedy that, and some of the books I plan on reading as background to Pratchett may turn up from time to time as parts of my reading challenge or in bonus reviews.
I have just finished reading Ill met in Lankhmar, a collection of stories by Fritz Leiber, one of the classic masters of sword and sorcery fantasy. Robert E. Howard?s Conan the Barbarian books are perhaps the best known of this fantasy sub-genre.
By reading Leiber's works I am beginning to explore the fantasy background of Pratchett's Discworld, and I have found many similarities between the two authors in the themes they deal with and especially their humour, which although quite different in nature, nevertheless serves to make quite grim and horrible situations bearable and even funny at times.
I first found out about Leiber when I was reading the annotations for The Colour of Magic. Pratchett gently parodies Leiber's two heroes, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser in The Colour of Magic, and in fact one of the interconnected novellas that make up the book is a take on the whole sword and sorcery genre. Even more follows in the sequel, The Light Fantastic, where Pratchett takes on Conan Cohen the Barbarian.
I quite like Leiber's Lankhmar stories, which are written in a tongue-in-cheek style which rescues them from being just another example of humourless hero-worshipping fantasy. He does seem to have a problem with dialogue - it comes across as quite stilted and formal at times, and I can't decide whether it's a) to show that people in Nehwon (Leiber's fantasy world) speak like that all the time b) he's making fun of other authors' bad dialogue, or c) he simply can't write good dialogue.
But dialogue aside, the stories are fun to read and I will definitely check if I can find more of his books in the library.
Next on my Pratchett background reading list is H.P. Lovecraft, whose Cthulu stories Pratchett parodies in another of the novellas in The Colour of Magic.
It's funny how my taste in reading has developed in cycles.
The first books I really got hooked on were Enid Blyton's [i]Adventure[/i], [i]Famous Five [/i]and [i]Adventurous Four [/i]series, which means that my first love in literature was detective novels. Then I discovered Jón Árnason's collection of folk tales. Jón Árnason is to Iceland what the Grimm brothers are to Germany, and his collection of folk tales is great reading. My favourite section was the fairy tales, and I could spend hours reading them. This developed into an interest in legends and mythology, especially Nordic and Greek, and in all branches of religion.
Then came a period when I read just about everything I could get my hands on, including all kinds of stuff that isn't meant for kids. One memorable book I read during this period was Robert Bloch's [i]Psycho[/i], which gave me nightmares, and then there were the hardcore porn books I found somewhere and which gave me rather strange ideas about sex. I think I was 11 or 12 at the time.
Then I became interested in action books of all kinds: Alistair MacLean, Sven Hassel, Desmond Bagley and Ian Fleming were among my favourite authors, and I'm sure I didn't understand half of what was going on in some of these novels.
This was followed by a period when I became fascinated with love stories, but this quickly blew over and I got interested in Agatha Christie. (First full cycle completed). I read every one of her books I could get my hands on, both in Icelandic and English. After that I graduated towards more serious detective stuff and Thomas Harris and Patricia Cornwell became my favourite authors.
Then I discovered fantasy, which may well be called a rekindling of my interest in fairy tales. My favourites were the Pern series by Anne MacCaffrey and Piers Anthony's Xanth books. Just when I was beginning to get tired of both, I discovered Terry Pratchett, who has been my favourite author since. I read his Discworld books with the same fervour and interest as I did fairy tales 25 years ago.
With this reading challenge I have re-entered the omnivore part of the cycle, and am reading anything I can get my hands on. I have, however, just made an inventory of the 40-50 books I have on my "to be read" list, and there are more detective novels than any other genre on the list. I wonder if this is the beginning of a new cycle?
[b]Author:[/b] Alexander McCall Smith [b]Published:[/b] 1998 [b]Where got:[/b] public library [b]Genre:[/b] Detective novel Cover image
[b]Reason for choosing:[/b] I first read about this book in a book review in one of the daily newspapers in Iceland. The title caught my attention and I decided that such an unusual and humorous name was very promising as to the contents of the book. So far I have not been disappointed (after reading chapter one).
[i]Kitchen Confidential[/i] is for the most part a memoir, but one which is interspersed with anecdotes and advise and littered with profanity. This funny and entertaining account of Anthony Bourdain's progress from dishwasher to chef is written in a tough and macho tone and sprinkled with inventive vulgarisms that might offend some readers and make others laugh out loud. In between the autobiographical stuff and accounts of people he's met is useful information about kitchen tools, what foods to avoid in restaurants and even a chapter on kitchen jargon.
Bourdain freely admits to having been a drug addict for many years, but somehow you never feel sorry for him, maybe because he obviously doesn't feel sorry for himself. One of the things you catch onto quickly is that he obviously loves food. Right from his childhood experiences with raw oysters in France and all the way to his visit to the sushi place in Tokyo, you sense that here is a man who first and foremost does what he does because he loves food.
I'm not going to go into the "don't order fish on Mondays" thing, as it has already been discussed to extremes (it was the thing most media latched onto when the book became a hit), but I am going to mention one chapter that will be useful to anyone who thinks they need a kitchen full of gadgets to be able to cook like a professional. To condense it somewhat: You don't!
As if the excerpts weren't enough to give an idea of the writing style, here is a quote that made me laugh. Bourdain has reached the bottom, is recovering from heroin addiction and still doing other drugs, is thin as a rake, nervous and generally not in good shape, when he gets a call from Bigfoot, an old employer. To begin with, the guy lends him 200 $:
"Looking at me, and hearing the edited-for-television version of what I'd been up to in recent years, he must have had every reason to believe I'd disappear with the two bills, spend it on crack and never show up for my first shift. And if he'd given me the twenty-five instead two hundred, that might well have happened. But as so often happens with Bigfoot, his trust was rewarded. I was so shaken by his baseless trust in me - that such a cynical bastard as Bigfoot would make such a gesture - that I determined I'd sooner gnaw my own fingers off, gouge my eyes out with a shellfish fork and run naked down Seventh Avenue than ever betray that trust."
[b]Rating[/b]: Recommended read for anyone who is interested in the restaurant business, and especially what happens on the other side of the kitchen doors. 4 stars.
[b]Author[/b]: Anthony Bourdain [b]Published[/b]: 2000 [b]Where got[/b]: Public library [b]Genre[/b]: Autobiography Cover image
I first got wind of this book shortly after it was published in 2000, when, browsing on Salon.com, I came across an excerpt from it. I liked the style which is refreshingly honest and has great descriptions of people, and I immediately decided I wanted to read it. Below is a link to that excerpt.
[b]Author[/b]: Louis Sachar [b]Published[/b]: 1998 [b]Where got[/b]: Public library Cover image
Picked up [i]Holes [/i]at the library along with next week's scheduled book and read it in about three hours.
It's written as a story for older kids and teenagers but has appeal for adults as well - at least this adult. It's well written and funny in places, but also contains some nasty scenes of cruelty and injustice that should appeal nicely to kids and teens who love reading stuff like Grimm's Fairy tales (unedited) and Harry Potter. Those same scenes may gross out delicate souls and younger children.
The story tells of Stanley Yelnats, a boy wrongfully convicted of a crime and sent to Camp Green Lake, a miserable juvenile work camp in the Texas wilderness. There, his and the other inmates' days are spent digging holes at random in the dry lake bed. He quickly realizes that they must be looking for something but the reader figures out much sooner than he does what it is, through flashbacks to the past history of the lake and to Stanley's family history.
[b]Favorite quote[/b]: "If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy."
[b]Rating[/b]: Great read, skilfully written and well told.
[i]Chocolat [/i]is a light and fun read and although I have seen the movie (which broadly follows the story in the book), I was unable to put it down.
The story is that of chocolatier Vianne and her daughter Anouk, rootless itinerants who, one day at the beginning of Lent, drift into the small French village of Lansquenet and start up a chocolate shop. Vianne immediately provokes the dislike of the village priest, pére Francis Reynaud, who sees her as a threat to his authority over the villagers, who forget all about fasting and proper Lenten behaviour when they encounter the delights of Vianne's shop. What provokes the priest in the beginning is Vianne's self-professed atheism and the impropriety of opening a chocolate shop during Lent, a time when he expects his parishioners to follow his example and deny themselves meat and all luxuries in food and drink. His dislike turns to hatred when Vianne keeps her shop open on Sundays, something he sees as her wantonly tempting the parishioners away from his influence right after mass, a time when he believes they should be especially humble and obedient to the laws of the church. The outcome is a psychological war, with the participation of the villagers, some of whom back Vianne and some pére Reynaud.
Vianne acts as her conscience and insight tell her to and further enrages the priest and his posse by allowing gypsies into her shop who are not getting served anywhere else, rescuing the battered wife of a café owner in the village, and encouraging an old woman who has long waged a war with the priest over various subjects. The old lady immediately recognises Vianne as a fellow witch, but Vianne has the ability to see what kind of chocolate is the best for each person, and can to some extent read people's minds.
The priest is someone who should really have been born in the middle ages. He is ascetic to the point of nearly starving himself and suffers from a biting bad conscience over something that happened when he was a child and really was not his fault (and over something else that was). He denies himself more and more as Lent passes and at the same time becomes more and more suspicious of and hateful towards Vianne and the gypsies who have moored their boats at the riverside on the edge of the village.
The story itself has a timeless feel to it and could easily have happened at nearly any time during the 20th or even the 19th century. The only indication of it being modern is a passing mention of one of the villages possessing a satellite dish.
The book is well written and engrossing. You keep reading to find out what happens next - not that there is a lot of action and excitement, but the character development and the reader's curiosity about the character's fates are enough to keep the pages turning. Most of the characters are alive and believable. You come to care about what happens to Joséfine, long to know what the priest's secret is, and wonder if anything will happen between Vianne and Roux. The descriptions of Vianne's chocolate creations are sensuous and tempting, and make you want to run to the nearest candy shop and buy a box of luxury chocolates to munch on while you read.
The story is told in turn by Vianne and pére Reynaud. My only complaint is that although Harris manages quite well to portray the differences in their characters through their narratives, their voices and style are too alike. It may be that she is trying to show the reader that they are actually more alike than they would admit themselves. I really can't tell.
[b]Rating[/b]: A delightful and delicious box of chocolates ready to be devoured and savoured by romantics and lovers of magic realism. 4 out of 5 stars.
Joyce it isn't. The language of the story is simple, so simple that young children and semi-advanced learners of English as a second language can understand nearly every word. Some of the flying terms might cause a bit of confusion to some, but they are not that important to the story. It's a quick read - I estimate that it took me less than 30 minutes to read it, sitting on the bus on the way to and from school.
The story is, narratively speaking, a very straightforward parable about a person who happens to be a seagull and who is cast out of his social group/flock for daring to be different and thinking more about flying than food. So far I can relate, having myself experienced very nearly the same thing. Then part 1 ends and the story gets spiritual, even religious. Jonathan transcends his mortal existence, enters another plane of existence where he meets others even more advanced in flight than himself, and perfects his art. He becomes some kind of heavenly gull who returns to the flock to teach others what he has learned about the pursuit of perfection through flight.
[i]Jonathan Livingston Seagull[/i] could almost be taken as a model for how to write uplifting and spiritual texts. The language is ethereal, soothing and gentle and the story is very simple and yet vague enough that it can be taken to be an allegory for a hundred different things, which is probably a contributing factor in its popularity. Personally, I think it's harmless enough, but I really can't understand what all the fuss is about.
[b]Rating[/b]: A misunderstood children's book that you will either love or detest. 2 stars (out of 5)
[b]Author[/b]: Richard Bach [b]Photographs[/b]: Russell Munson [b]Published[/b]: 1970 [b]Where got[/b]: charity shop Cover image
This week's book is short and should make for a quick, easy read - a good thing considering that I'm swamped with school work. I've read it before, when I was a teenager, in an Icelandic translation and can remember nearly nothing about it except it took me less than an hour to read (I expect it will take a bit longer this time). I also saw the film some years ago and all I remember of that is music, pictures of soaring seagulls and a voice telling the story. This books seems to be a great favourite among New Agers and other sorts of spiritually inclined people, like religious groups, none of whom seem to interpret it in the same way. It will be interesting to see what my own impressions will be.
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About me
What this blog is about:
Reading and books.
If you’re wondering about the name 52 books, it stems from a book-a-week reading challenge I set myself. The challenge is over, but I'm still reading, and will continue to blog about the books I read and my reading experiences, and other stuff connected with books and reading.
I rate the books (if I feel like it), giving them stars ranging from zero to 5.
Books I have already read (sporadically updated):Cover gallery
Note: Some of the entries are linked to the months the reviews appeared in, because I made several entries for each book. I have marked those reviews with an asterix (*). If you want to read the whole review from beginning to end, you must scroll down and read from the bottom up (but you probably already knew that ;-) >
