Reading in Reykjavík

Originally published in September 2004, in 2 parts. Book 30 in my first 52 books challenge. Slightly edited for clarity. Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery Year published: 1908 Pages: 280 Genre: Literature, classic, coming of age story Where got: Amazon.co.uk I was quite young when I discovered L.M. Montgomery’s Anne books. The first four books were translated into Icelandic a long time ago and my mother had all of them. I loved reading about Anne’s escapades and her growing up on Prince Edward Island. I was only allowed to read the first three books as a child, as my mother considered the subject matter of the fourth book to be too serious and beyond my childish understanding. I only got to read that book when I was in my teens and found it to be rather melodramatic. This will be the first time I read any of the books in the original English, and it will be interesting to see how it compares with the translated text. In the past, some Icelandic translators and/or publishers...

About 10 years ago, as I waited in a Canadian airport lounge for my flight to be announced, I found some unused Canadian currency in my pockets and went to browse in the airport stores to find something on which to spend the money. I chose a small bottle of Canadian maple syrup, and then decided to get a book to read on the plane. Among all the usual bestsellers and other typical airport books, I found a small shelf of Canadian literature and gave it a browse. One of the books I picked up had a whimsical image on the front, of a block of small shops. The title was Home from the Vinyl Café and the author was Stuart McLean. I opened the book and found myself engrossed in reading a story of a hapless husband charged with cooking the turkey for the family's Christmas meal and running into all sorts of difficulties, starting with forgetting to buy the turkey. I promptly bought the book and read most of the short stories therein on the flight home, with frequent giggles and stifled laug...

Genre: Mystery Year of publication: 1983 No. in series: 1 Type of investigator: Police Series detective: Inspector Charlie Salter Setting & time: Toronto and Montreal, Canada; 1980's Story: When a college professor from Toronto is murdered in Montreal, the Montreal police request help from the Toronto police, as the man spent his last hours in the company of his Toronto colleagues, who have all returned home. The case is assigned to Inspector Salter, whose career has stalled because of office politics. He sees this as his chance to get back in the promotions game and starts work on what turns out to be a complicated case, not the least because many of the witnesses have something to hide. Review and rating: This is a nice little detective story, not quite a police procedural and not quite a cosy, but something in-between. In Charlie Salter, Wright has managed to create a very likeable character, and it’s refreshing that while there is some minor conflict within his marri...

Year published: 1990 Genre: Travel (non-fiction) Setting & time: Norway, the Shetland Islands, The Faeroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Canada (Newfoundland); 1980's In the mid 1980's the author took a journey tracing the route thought to have been taken by the Vikings in their quest for new lands to settle, from Norway to Canada, through the Shetland Islands, the Faeroes, Iceland and Greenland. It took him four months and he visited the countries in the same order as the Vikings did, in each country visiting lonely places and trying to find and understand the Viking heritage. In the Shetlands he searched for speakers of Norn, the old Nordic language of the islands that was all but eradicated by the British and is not spoken fluently by anyone any more. In the Faeroe Islands he visits the loneliest place he can find, and later witnesses a grindadráp , a slaughter of pilot whales. In Iceland he visits Askja, a spectacular crater lake in the hightlands, and in Greenland he ...

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: Isabella Lucy Bird Year of publication: 1856 Genre: Travel, USA and Canada Time period: Mid-19th century I have mentioned my love of travelogues before. I don’t just like to read new or newish books about places I would like to visit some day but also about places I have visited and historical journeys. Historical travelogues are especially interesting when they draw up a snapshot of places as they were at a given point in time, even though one always has to keep in mind that travellers often write about what they think they should have experienced or what they think the readers will want to read about rather than their actual experiences. I have a great admiration for the leisure travellers of the past who often went through amazing hardships just to be able to briefly visit a place, and I respect the commercial travellers who sometimes had to travel for many months or even years to get to their destination. Before the advent of aeroplanes and express trains the actual get...

Title: Déjà Dead No. in series: 1 Year of publication: 1997 Availability: In print Pages: 544 Setting and time: Montreal, Canada, summer of 1996 or 1997 Type of mystery: Murder, thriller Type of investigator: Forensic anthropologist/amateur detective Some themes: Serial murder, friendship, stalking. Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire de Medecine Legale in Montreal, handles mostly cases where bodies need to be identified by means of forensic examination or the cause of death needs to be established for remains that are too decomposed or otherwise messed up for a regular autopsy. When she notices suspicious similarities between the dismembered remains of women found in various places around the city, she begins to suspect that there is a serial killer on the loose. Working on that suspicion, Tempe (as she is called) begins an amateur investigation of her own, and unearths yet another body, thus catching the attention of the killer. She has diffic...