Reading in Reykjavík

I am working on my thesis and will therefore not post any reviews until after September 10. I may add some short essays or thoughts about books and reading if the spirit grabs me (I find it's a good way to get myself writing in the mornings to write something unrelated to the thesis). Until then, here's a mosaic of some of the books I read and reviewed in the past:

Today I am going to recommend a movie. I have just finished reading Mávahlátur (The Seagull's Laughter) by Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir, and loved it. I had previously enjoyed the movie and can now with certainty say that it is the most faithful movie adaptation of a book I have seen. It’s a combination of mystery, satire and coming of age story, with the central character Agga turning from girl to woman in the course of the book, while observing her mysterious cousin Freyja, who may or may not have murdered two men, and her struggles with the class system. The class-conscious society of an Icelandic fishing town in the 1950s is beautifully drawn (Freyja is working class, the man she marries is as close to being an aristocrat as is possible in Iceland), and while Americans have been puzzled over the catty class clashes (I have been reading movie reviews), people from more class-divided countries like Britain should be able to enjoy the story on a more equal footing with Icelanders....

It's funny about bookmarks. They belong to that special group of things that also includes keys, pens and one half of any pair (socks, earrings, etc.), i.e. items that keep getting lost . Ergo, readers can always use more bookmarks. According to my web counter, about half the visitors who come to my blog every day do so in search of printable bookmarks. My bookmark posts seem to have a high rating on Google if the right search words are entered, and I only hope the one bookmark I have actually published so far has come in handy for many readers. So as not to disappoint, here are a couple of printable bookmarks. All I ask in return for you using them is that you leave a comment. I would especially like to know what kind of bookmarks you would like to see here in the future. If I get enough comments, I will make this a regular feature, either as bookmark of the week or bookmark of the month. Instructions: Click on an to bring up the full-sized bookmark. The bookmarks should pr...

Genre: Paranormal romance Year of publication: 2004 Setting & time: Toronto, Canada; present day Some themes: Love, jealousy, madness, sex Story: Rachel Garrett has been stuck on the night shift in the morgue for three years and thinks it sucks. A madman is stalking Etienne Argeneau and trying to kill him, 1) out of professional jealousy and, 2) because Etienne is a vampire and the stalker has watched too many episodes of Buffy . One night, after a nearly successful assassination, Etienne is brought to the morgue with a bullet in his heart and Rachel saves his life by pulling it out. The second time they meet is when he is again brought in, and this time the stalker has followed and when he tries to behead Etienne, Rachel gets in the way and is mortally wounded and Etienne turns her into a vampire to save her life. At first she is incredulous and thinks she must be comatose and dreaming, but then she begins to accept what has happened and she and Etienne enter into a sexual re...

Author: Jodi Picoult Year published: 2004 Genre: Family drama The Story: 13 year old Anna Fitzgerald has been in and out of the hospital her whole life, undergoing repeated painful medical procedures. Not as a patient, but as a source of blood and cells for her older sister, Kate, who has suffered from a severe form of leukaemia since she was a child. Now Anna has been asked to give a kidney to her sister, who will probably die anyway, and the kidney harvesting may prevent Anna from ever having a completely normal life. She hires a lawyer to get medical emancipation for herself and free her from the constant demands of her mother that she always be ready to sacrifice herself for her sister. She wants to make her own decision about what she donates to her sister. Meanwhile, her brother has found a destructive outlet for his feelings, and Anna's lawyer and her guardian ad litem have a history that may complicate matters. Technique and plot: I could not put this book down. Once I...

I'm now spending most of my free time reading the translation (see previous posts) with the original to discover translation errors and missed sentences. After than, I will make a third pass and correct the syntax and grammar to remove the translation 'flavour' and make it more Icelandic than it is at present. After all, this is my master's thesis and I want to get good grades and get published :-) I still managed to do some pleasure reading: Reviewed: Lovely in her bones : Sharyn McCrumb The Merchant's House : Kate Ellis Murder on the Yellow Brick Road : Stuart Kaminsky Payback : Fern Michaels Sick of shadows : Sharyn McCrumb These old shades : Georgette Heyer Vetrarborgin : Arnaldur Indriðason Unreviewed: Djöflatertan : Þóra Sigurðardóttir & Marta María Jónasdóttir Strangled prose : Joan Hess (review is already written, will post it some day) Rereads: (unreviewed) Hogfather : Terry Pratchett Soul Music : Terry Pratchett Thief of time : Terry Pratchett I'm...