Book haul for last week and the week before

I acquired 4 books in the week before last: 3 non-fiction books and one novel, and have already read two of them.

The big red book is a richly illustrated history of the Vikings. It was fist published back in the 1960s, so I expect some more stuff has come to light since it was written, but it's a gloriously beautiful book worth owning.
Common Grounds is a book on the natural history of a small area of land in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Click on the link to read my review.
Alice is about what might have happened to Alice after her adventures in Wonderland. Clink the link to read my review.
The Devil in the White City is another history book.I expect I will read it soon, as it has been on my TBR list for several years.

Then I acquired 12 books last week and have already read 2 of them and started reading a third.

First photo:

The book in the top left corner is titled Deutschland, and is a photo book about Germany. It was published in 1964 and all the photos are black-and-white. As I have mentioned before, I am going on holiday to Germany next year and I have been gathering reading material, mostly guide books, to prepare for the trip. There is some text in this book, all of it in German, and I plan to read it in order to prepare for the trip. I studied German for 4 years when I was in my teens, but have not used it much since. My vocabulary has therefore become sadly eroded and I want to beef up on it before I set off.
Animalwatching is a gorgeous natural history book by zoologist Desmond Morris. It will go nicely on the shelf next to my David Attenborough books.
Historic Costume in Pictures is a Dover Publications reissue of a series of sumptuous costume plates originally published in Germany in the 19th century.
Leonardo da Vinci's Machines is full of da Vinci's drawings of his inventions, with explanations and discussions. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching TV shows where people have built some of these machines, and was fascinated by an exhibition of scale models of some of them that I visited some years ago, so the book is a happy addition to my library.
Live Alone and Like It is a guide to the single life for women. It was first published in the 1930s, so I expect some of the advice will be out of date, but it will be fun to read. I just wish I could return the photograph I found inside it to it's rightful owner.

Second photo:

Top left: An Icelandic translation of The Joy of Sex.
Centre, top: An old book of crochet designs. I crochet quite a lot and this book contains several classic designs.
The Man Who Loved China. Simon Winchester is among my favourite authors of history/biography books and this is one I have not read before.
The Long Earth - I thought I had a copy of this, but I couldn't find it in my library database, so when this appeared on the exchange bookshelf at work I pounced on it.
Nótt is an Icelandic translation of Eli Wiesel's classic book about life in a German concentration camp during World War 2.
A Dubious Legacy. I was delighted to discover a Mary Wesley book I had not read before.
The Solace of Open Spaces. This one I have already read and thoroughly enjoyed. (See the Weekly report).

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Reading in Reykjavík

Search This Blog