Vidunderbarn

I'm reading in Norwegian again.  Christmas gift from my husband: "Vidunderbarn" (The Child Prodigy) by author Roy Jacobsen.  I've read one of his earlier novels: "Seierherrene" (The Champions) and so far this read is really promising.  It's a story set in the 1960's Oslo, with the world as a backdrop to the childhood of a young boy, living on the outskirts of the town.

Reading in French

Yes, for the first time in several years, I'm trying to read a French novel.  I've chosen "La Prochaine Fois" (The Next Time) by Marc Levy.  This author has lived seven years in San Francisco, and in all his books (at least the ones I've read) some of the plot takes place in the US.  I've allready read "Et si c'était vrai?", "Où es-tu?" and "7 yours pour une éternité".  

He often weaves stories with elements from the supernatural, and in this one, there is supposedly a friendship who outlasts centuries...  I've just started, so we'll see.

Jenny

Reading Zafón is intriguing. I don't get all if it, and sometimes I keep going back to try and find some loose threads. I didn't find all of them, but still, I liked the book. A real story, a universe of it's own.

Now, I just finished reading "Jenny", by Norwegian author Sigrid Undset. This was her breakthrough novel, and it was first published in 1911. Then, the novel was scandalous in many ways, but is now among the classics of Norwegian literature.
It is about Jenny, a woman in her late twenties. Living for her art, painting, she leaves her day job and goes to Italy.
Throughout the story, she will experience the agony of not being able to love the way she desperately wants to, and she ends up having a child, but rejecting it's father.
It is about the nature of love and friendship, and it is about being an artist.
I read the book many years ago, before marriage and children, and I have to say, I read it in a totally different way now.

Sigrid Undset

Reading Block

Yes, I think I've experienced something like that.
I've been reading the same book now, for weeks and weeks, can't seem to really get going,
and it has nothing to do with the book not being interesting, absolutely not, because it is a great novel. I'm talking about
"The Angel's Game"
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. He is a rather young writer, Spanish, from Barcelona, and his home city is extremely present in the book. I'm reading the Norwegian translation, and I realize while I'm writing this, that I haven't been reading a book written in my mother tongue for a long, long time.
If you haven't read his former novel, "The Shadow of the Wind", you should. The one I'm reading now is written as the second book in a triology. It is not exactly a sequel, but the author has a reason for writing it after the other one.
It is in many ways what we would call meta-literature. A book about books, just like the other novel. It is a story about the art of writing, about finding your way through the wilderness of possible words out there, about becoming a writer.
I'm halfway through it now, and I want to read, I really do.
I'll keep you posted.

Summer holiday read

I'm reading Warning of Gales again. Read it three years ago, in Leeds, England, and I'm having a great time reading it again. It is so funny, so well observed, so recognizable, this story about three different women and their families, renting a vacation home together. Cornwall, July, beach, personalities, relationships, baggage...

Who would have thought?

Yes, I'm hooked. I started reading Twilight, because I wanted to know what it was all about, and now I'm done with the 3rd book in the saga, and, of course, impatiently started the last one, Breaking Dawn.
I can hardly stay away from the universe of rainy, suspenseful Forks...

Refreshing, funny, and with a serious edge.

Yes, I finished the second Shopaholic book, and I had a blast.  It was so refreshing reading about this silly girl, who makes me laugh so hard that my husband can't sleep...  I feel I sort of know Rebecca Bloomwood, and even if we are rather different, she sounds like she could have been a good friend!  

Her relationship with Luke is important in this book, as is New York, the glamourous lifestyle, and then, towards the end, a sort of wakeup call for our heroine, and a few points to think over...

I just finished the book when there was a parcel from Barnes & Noble at my door, and now I'm reading the third book in the Twilight Saga: Eclipse.  I just have to keep going here.  I'm sold, helplessly, witout any say in it, addicted to see this story though, all the way to the end.  I'm there, with Bella, with the others.  I feel and smell the wetness of the forest of Forks.  I love it.