Reading in Reykjavík

Genre: Expat memoir. Subjects: Spain, farming, country life, daily life, people and animals. Reading challenge: What's in a Name 2016 Challenge book no.: 1, a book with the word "tree" in the title. This is the sequel to Stewart’s bestseller, Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia , which I read and enjoyed not long after it was published, but did not review. I can’t really compare the two books, because it has been over 10 years since I read the other and I can’t really remember much about it. This is one of the books in the popular genre that Peter Mayle (another successful expat author) calls “being there” books (and I have sometimes called "Brits abroad" books, because so many of the authors are British). Such books can be either enjoyable or annoying, and fortunately this one falls into the former category. This is not one of those “ good life ” books that some people like to deride. At the point in time portrayed in the book - beginni...

Original title: Pequnas Infamias Translated from: Spanish Translator: Christopher Andrews Genre: Crime, literary novel Year of publication: 1998 (original); 2003 (translation) Setting & time: Spain, contemporary Chef Nestor Chaffinch (speciality: sweet desserts) finds himself stuck inside a walk-in freezer in the middle of the night after catering a successful private party and is found dead and frozen in the morning. At least four people in the house had reason to want him dead, but who killed him, and was he even murdered at all? After this first, terrifying chapter, the narrative flashes back to the events that lead up to the death, showing how Fate tangled together the lives of several people and finally led them all together in one place for a grand finale. The translation is seamless and according to reviewers who have read it in both languages Andrews has managed to preserve the author’s style, which is, as any good translator knows, a commendable feat. This...

I decided it was time I finished at least one challenge. As you may remember, I decided to stop trying to finish the challenges I had signed up for (Gothic novels, mythology and What's in a Name), without actually quitting them. The plan was to stop actively looking for books that fit and just wait and see if something I read fit a particular challenge. Well, I didn't realise it at the time, but I actually finished my last What's in a Name challenge book 2 months ago. That's the one with travel or movement in the title, which this book fits perfectly. So here is the review: Year of publication: 1969 No. in series: 2/3 Genre: Memoir, travel Setting & time: England (London) and Spain, 1934-36 Laurie Lee set out on foot from his home in Slad, in 1934, and ended up in London, working as a labourer for a while, before taking a ship to Spain. Starting out in the northern port of Vigo, he walked across Spain, visiting various cities and towns and ending up in th...

Originally published in April 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. The Flanders Panel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte is a murder mystery tied up in a chess-game in a painting and in reality. The painting is a 15th century panel by a Flemish master, which the heroine, an art restorer, must clean and restore before it can to be auctioned off. She discovers a hidden inscription in the painting, and when her ex-lover is murdered and a mysterious person starts leaving cards with chess moves on them where she can find them, it looks as if the two events are connected. She receives assistance in solving the mystery from a chess-player, and from her two best friends, an art gallery owner and a slippery antiques dealer. This is a good, spooky, twisty mystery with a chess game at its heart. Even if you know nothing about chess, you can still enjoy it - I only know how the chessmen move around the board, and I liked it. 3 stars. --- The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö is a tota...

Year published: 2004 Genre: Non-fiction, travel Setting & time: Spain, 21 century The Story: In 2002 or 3 or thereabouts, travel writer and journalist Tim Moore set out to trace the Camino de Santiago, the medieval pilgrim trail from St Jean Pied-de-Port in France to the shrine of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela in Spain, with Shinto, a pack donkey, in tow. Unable to find stabling for Shinto in St Jean, they actually stated the journey about 10 km up the road. What followed were 40 days and 750 km. of slow travelling. While some of the dangers braved by medieval pilgrims were no longer available, such as robbers, bears and wolves, the weather was still there to inconvenience them just like it did their predecessors, sometimes with blistering heat and sometimes with pouring rain, as were such age-old annoyances as snoring roommates and moochers. Then there were hardships undreamt of by the pilgrims of old, such as cars and the overpowering heat of asphalt under the sun. O...

I have a bit of a problem with the two Robert Barnard books I read for the challenge. The endings of both were not to my liking for a reason a regular reader of this blog will be able to guess, and I want to read a third and maybe fourth Barnard to reassure myself it was an unlucky coincidence and not something that happens in all of his books. I may even slip someone into the challenge ahead of him. But here is a review of a book by an author already included in the challenge: Author: Sister Carol Anne O’Marie Series detective: Sister Mary Helen, w/ Sister Eileen No. in series: 5 Year of publication: 1993 Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Amateurs, police Setting & time: Santiago de Compostela, Spain Number of deaths: 1 Some themes: Abuse, jealousy, family Story: Sister Mary Helen wins a trip for two to Santiago de Compostela in a sweepstake she doesn’t remember participating in, and invites her friend (and sidekick), Sister Eileen, along. At the airport they...

Author : Polly Evans Year published : 2003 Pages: 304 Genre: non-fiction, travel, Spain Polly Evans, fed up with her stressful job as a journalist/editor in Hong Kong, decided to take a nice, long holiday. The obvious choice was Spain, where she had once spent a year, and so spoke the language after a fashion. She had a road bicycle built, light and strong, that would be her conveyance for the journey, and set off. The book tells of her journey, her adventures, people (and animals) she met, places she visited, along with some snippets of history. The first leg of the journey took her along the border with France, and the second through the Extremadura region in southern central Spain. It was the title that grabbed my attention when browsing for books on TitleTrader. I checked the reviews on Amazon, saw the book was about travelling in Spain, where I spent two enjoyable weeks a couple of years ago, so I sent in a request and got the book within two weeks. For once, I was not disap...