Reading report for February 2010

I finished 15 books in February. 4 were crime novels, 6 were romances, 7 were historical.

A special mention must be made of The Song of Bhagavad-Gita. It is a chapter from the great Hindu epic, The Mahabarata, where Krishna, one of the many manifestations of God in Hinduism, explains religious philosophy to Prince Arjuna on the eve of a great battle. I don’t know how accurate the translation is, since I don’t know Sanskrit, but I do know that it is beautiful and mixes prose and verse in a nicely balanced way. It took me nearly three months to read it, as it soon became apparent that it needed to be read slowly and each chapter thoroughly digested before moving on. I can’t say that much of its message stuck, but I do know that after reading a chapter – always at bedtime – I would have a wonderfully restful night’s sleep, because it had such a soothing and calming effect on my mind.

Challenge count:
Top mysteries: 0
Global Reading Challenge: 1
Bibliophilic Book Challenge: 2
TBR Challenge: 8

Rereads: 2
Icelandic books: 2

The Books:
Maggie Black & Deirdre Le Faye: The Jane Austen Cookbook (historical cookery book)
Agatha Christie:After the Funeral (murder mystery)
Jennifer Crusie: Welcome to Temptation (romance)
Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer: Agnes and the Hitman (romantic thriller)
Halldór Laxness: Úngfrúin góða og Húsið (historical novel)
J.J. Marric: Gideon's Month (police procedural)
Orhan Pamuk: The White Castle (historical novel)
Ellis Peters: St. Peter's Fair (historical mystery)
Julia Quinn: When he was Wicked and It's in his Kiss (historical romance)
Nora Roberts: Irish Rebel and Sullivan's Woman (romance)
Unknown: The Song of Bhagavad-Gita (religious philosophy)
Jason Wilson (series ed.) & Ian Frazier (book ed.): The Best American Travel Writing 2003 (travel articles)
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir: Aska (murder mystery)

Tentative reading plan for March:
I didn’t make any headway with the Top Mysteries challenge in February, but intend to do better this month. I have started reading The Anatomy of a Murder and will review it as soon as I finish it. I also have another book on the list lined up which I may even finish before Anatomy... because it's short enough to read in one session.

In the Global reading Challenge I am halfway through The Mulatta and Mister Fly by Miguel Angel Asturias, an entertaining, magical picaresque novel set in the author’s native country, Guatemala. I will have to finish it soon, because I must return it to the library in 10 days time.

For the Bibliophilic challenge I want to get my hands on The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It remains to be seen if I am successful, as it is very popular and I am planning to get it from the library. Just because a copy is available right now, when the library is closed, doesn’t mean it will be after I finish work tomorrow.

I have the latest crime novel by Arnaldur Indriðason lined up and plan to read it soon.

And finally I would like to try to get my hands on more of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton romances, having read 2 of them in February and liked them very much.

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down

Icelandic folk-tale: The Devil Takes a Wife

Stories of people who have made a deal with and then beaten the devil exist all over Christendom and even in literature. Here is a typical one: O nce upon a time there were a mother and daughter who lived together. They were rich and the daughter was considered a great catch and had many suitors, but she accepted no-one and it was the opinion of many that she intended to stay celebrate and serve God, being a very devout woman. The devil didn’t like this at all and took on the form of a young man and proposed to the girl, intending to seduce her over to his side little by little. He insinuated himself into her good graces and charmed her so thoroughly that she accepted his suit and they were betrothed and eventually married. But when the time came for him to enter the marriage bed the girl was so pure and innocent that he couldn’t go near her. He excused himself by saying that he couldn’t sleep and needed a bath in order to go to sleep. A bath was prepared for him and in he went and

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove

Reading in Reykjavík

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