Reading in Reykjavík

Time for another Friday book list. Last Sunday I finished - in one afternoon - The Next Always by Nora Roberts, in which the heroine is a bookshop owner. However, none of the book titles mentioned in the actual book were mentioned in connection with the bookshop, but rather with the inn which the hero and his family are renovating, in which each room is named after a pair of literary lovers (as is the case with the actual Inn BoonsBoro, which is owned by Roberts and her husband). There was also mention of other books, with no titles mentioned, but if you want to know what they are, just visit the inn's website and check out the list of rooms. The books, novels all: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

Happy World Book Day!

Today's task is to list "Top Ten Books I Thought I'd Like MORE/LESS Than I Did" Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted on The Broke and the Bookish. I recommend heading on over there to see some more answers to today's question when you've finished reading mine. I decided to do 5 of each: 5 books I thought I would like MORE than I (eventually) did: The Alchemist by Paulo Coleho. This is supposed to be a fantastic great revelatory philosophical parable, but I found it to be rater trite. The only reason I got through it was that I listened to the audio book version which was read by Jeremy Irons, who has a soothing and sexy voice that I would   listen to even if he were reading from the phone book. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I love a good thriller and I can overlook a host of writing crimes if the story is good, but his prose defeated me and I gave up reading it after about 50 pages. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. ...

This chair, made from books hung on a steel frame, is currently on display on the 5th floor of the Reykjavík public library. The chair is named Málfríður and was designed by Sunna Ósk Þorvaldsdóttir of SOSK design.  Click here to see the frame without books (slide show). v vv

  Today's question on Booking Through Thursday is: I saw a Latin edition of “The Hobbit” last time I was at the bookstore… Do you read any foreign languages? Do you ENJOY reading in other languages? Answer: I definitely enjoy reading in foreign languages and actually do most of my reading in a foreign language: English. I also read Danish and Norwegian fairly fluently and can get through Swedish and German texts with occasional help from a dictionary. Lately I have also been reading in French (which I am learning), although so far it has mostly been simplified texts. I'm currently reading a Commissaire Maigret mystery in simplified French and plan to use the summer to get through another, unedited one.

Warning : NSFW - Contains "language". Golden moment: The Lord of the Rings comment.

I came across this stack of old M&B romance novels in a second-hand shop recently, and was thrilled to discover that once upon a time they were actually available as hardcover books. If you view the photo full size, you can read the titles. I am considering going back and buying a few of them for my cover art collection. Click to enlarge

  Today's question on Booking Through Thursday is: What’s the last book that made you spring to your feet, eager to spread the word and tell everyone how much you enjoyed it? A: I generally don't have quite such strong emotional reactions to books, but the last book I needed to tell people about having read was  Dodger by Terry Pratchett. I have lent my copy to a number of people and have started recommending it as a Pratchett starter book to people who are overwhelmed by the Discworld series or who want to read Pratchett but are not really fond of fantasy (which is funny, because Dodger is fantasy - it just happens to take place in this universe rather than an invented one).

Announcing a new feature: book lists of written works mentioned in books. I have started compiling a list I have been considering for a while: of titles (and authors) of written works, real and imaginary, that are mentioned in the books I read. Once upon a time I came across a website wherein were listed such titles. I even bookmarked it, but some time later, when I was cleaning up my bookmarks, I found that the website had disappeared. There probably are other such lists out there, but I though it would be fun to compile my own. I plan to list books, short stories, essays, poems, magazines and newspapers, both real and imaginary that I come across in the books I read. To keep some order, I will post such lists on Fridays, but of course it might be weeks or even months between postings. First up is the book I have just finished reading:  The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth. This is the 21st Miss Silver mystery. Links in author names lead to biographical information and li...

I had one of my big reading months in March, with a total of 24 books finished. I had a lot of free time in March, having taken a week off from work at the beginning of the month, and then there was Easter. This gave me plenty of time to read. Romance predominated, but I also read in various other genres, including mysteries (one historical and one historical and supernatural), cultural history, natural history, folk-tales, parapsychology, a travelogue, a classic children‘s book, and a book about pseudoscience and science fraud. Just like last month, one of the month‘s stand-out reads was a reread: Persuasion is by far my favourite Austen novel. The other stand-outs were Spook , which I thoroughly enjoyed, just like the other two Roach books I have read ( Stiff and Bonk ) and Where the Wild Things Are , which I would have loved had I read it as a child and still thoroughly enjoyed as an adult. I also must mention What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss, which was brought to my...