Reading in Reykjavík

Have you read this book? Why not leave a comment to tell me how you liked it 😊 What's in a name challenge category: Compass direction. Author : Beryl Markham. Genre: Memoir. Originally published: 1942. Beryl Markham was a remarkable woman. She grew up on a farm in Kenya and learnt to train racehorses from her father, working at that profession intermittently throughout her life and becoming a respected trainer. She also learnt to fly and worked as a bush pilot in Africa and was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic ocean by airplane from east to west. West With the Night is a memoir about her life from childhood until after her record-setting flight, but could not be called a biography, because she only touches down here and there in her life and leaves much unsaid and unexplained. The writing is lovely, flowing, graceful and poetic, with a strong sense of nostalgia. The text gives an interesting insight into the lives of white expatriates in Kenya in the f...

Have you read this book? Why not leave a comment to tell me how you liked it? What's in a Name challenge category : Alliterative title. Author : Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz Sub-title : A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine. Genre : Biography/history. First published : 2014. The 19th century saw many revolutionary changes in medicine, and Thomas Dent Mütter was one of the men who contributed to these changes. While he was not the one who actually discovered bacteria, he did teach his students at Thomas Jefferson University that cleanliness was important to the well-being, and indeed the increased likelihood of survival, of patients, and he also stressed treating them with sympathy. It seems neither of these things could be taken for granted at the time, and there are some gruesome descriptions in the book of major surgeries, like amputations and reconstructive surgeries on conscious patients with little or no analgesia, and also of the inh...

Genre: Adventure memoir. Subjects:  History, mountain-climbing, self-discovery, fear, friendship, death, survival. Reading challenge: The 2016 Nonfiction Reading Challenge , hosted by The Introverted Reader Challenge tally : 1 book. I read Simpson‘s best-seller, Touching the Void , a couple of years ago and enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps „enjoyed“ is not the right word, rather I found it a thrilling and yes, touching, account of the ability of the human spirit to not give up when all hope seems lost. (There was also a lot of bloodymindedness involved). This book is written with the same stylistic skill as Touching the Void , but suffers somewhat from being more of a series of loosely interconnected accounts of separate climbing expeditions and adventures, ending with an attempt to scale the Eiger that would be end up being tinged with tragedy. The thread that holds the book together is Simpson‘s growing realisation of his mortality, the discovery that he doesn‘t rea...

"Is not Lindos the official beauty-spot of Rhodes? The contrast with Cameirus is remarkable—for where Cameirus is refined, turned in upon itself in sunny contemplation, Lindos is bold, strident. Cameirus has all the stillness of an amphora in a Museum, with its frieze of dancers caught in a timeless dancing; Lindos, under the sweetness of its decoration, is like a trumpet-call, beaten out in gold-leaf and vibrating across the blue airs of time." Novelist Lawrence Durrell was the oldest brother of naturalist Gerald Durrell, and they shared the ability to write beautifully evocative texts about things that interested them. I must admit that I have never read any of Lawrence's serious fiction, but I have enjoyed his humorous works about life in the diplomatic corps, Esprit de Corps and Stiff Upper Lip , and did not have much left of Bitter Lemons , his travelogue about Cyprus, when I had to return it to the library and then somehow never remembered to borrow it ...

This book is the memoir of Maria Grammatico, owner of a famous pastry shop in Erice in Sicily where she uses recipes learned while living as an orphan in a convent in the town. Simeti recorded her story, translated it and organised it for the book, which is the narrative of Grammatico's life, her 15 year stay with the nuns and a little of her impoverished childhood in the Sicilian countryside before that.The loss of her father threw the family into even deeper poverty, and her mother was forced to send her and one of her sisters to live with the nuns, who took in orphans, so she could could feed the rest of the family and ensure the two girls were well looked after. What followed were years of hard work and deprivation, but also of opportunity. Grammatico learned to form and prepare the pastries the nuns sold to supplement the convent's income and, being a clever girl, she was able to learn the recipes - which the nuns guarded from the girls - by simply watching them bei...

Originally published in July 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. This is the account of Bill Bryson’s (broken up) journey around Australia, to visit its biggest cities and some interesting sights, natural and man-made. Bryson is obviously an australophile. This book is a virtual love letter to Australia, especially its natural beauty, and in a lesser way to its people. Even though he writes in his usual humorously mocking style, and criticises certain things, especially environmental policies and the less than helpful staff at hotels in a certain city, the book is for the most part a very positive and affectionate, sometimes glowing, account of this interesting country. Besides covering his impressions and travel experiences, Bryson gives some account of Australian history and the country’s attractions, and the book can, in fact, be used as an informal guide to some of the places he visited. He seems to have been very diligent in hunting down and exploring unusual little museums and...

Originally published in June 2005, on my original 52 Books blog . This slim collection of essays by journalist Anne Fadiman was originally published in a literary magazine, but adapted and in some cases rewritten for the book. It was recommended to me by several people who know I love reading, and I would just like to say thanks to them for the recommendation. I have been trying for ages to find the book - according to the library database it was always in, but I couldn’t find it where it was supposed to be shelved. I finally came across it where it had been filed on the wrong shelf, probably by some browsing library patron. The book is basically about several different aspects of reading and owning books and an analysis of the author’s reading habits. She discusses, among other things, the problems of uniting libraries, her addiction to collecting books about doomed polar expeditions, her habit of proofreading everything she reads, those pesky gender pronouns that turn everyone in...

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 March 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. This is a wonderful, sweet memoir about mature love, between the author, a divorced American food writer and chef, and Fernando, a Venetian bank worker who fell in love with her from afar but only found the courage to approach her when she returned to Venice a year later. Within a few months she had tied up her life in the USA and moved to Venice to be with him. The book tells of their first three years together, getting to know each other, marriage preparations, their life together, adjustments to a new culture, and Marlena’s other love affairs, namely with Venice and food. At the end there is a chapter of recipes for some of the food she mentions in the books, with some truly mouth-watering recipes. Rating: A lovely, tasty combination of true romance, travel and food. 4 stars.

Originally published in March 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. 84 Charing Cross Road has been described as a “love affair between a woman and a book-shop”. For 20 years, Helene Hanff conducted a business correspondence with a second-hand bookshop in London that developed into a friendship between her and the bookshop staff, especially between her and Frank Doel (and later his wife and neighbour as well). The two main correspondents, Hanff and Doel, quickly seem to have reached an understanding of each other, and one sees in their correspondence a pair of people with a similarly witty sense of humour, although Doel is more restrained (for obvious reasons). This is one of those books in which nothing much happens on the surface, it is just a little slice of life, as is the companion story, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street , Hanff’s journal from her visit to London. She had been planning the visit for nearly 20 years, but always kept getting put off, usually because of financial ...

Originally published in March 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. Persepolis is a memoir, a look under the veil and behind the high walls and shuttered windows of post-revolution Iran. Parts of it are very shocking, parts are funny, and the stark black and white graphics make it play almost like a movie before your eyes. The drawings are dark - there’s a lot of black - and simple, but they are simple enough to appeal to they eye and the emotions and there are no unnecessary details to draw the eye away from the main points. Rating: A stark, strong, insightful memoir of life in Iran in the years after the revolution. 4 stars. I'm hoping the library will also get part 2. I want to know what happened next! Since writing this, I have also read part 2 and seen the film. All are recommended.

Originally published in July 2004, on my original 52 Books blog. I’ve been on a reading spree lately - a book per day on average - mostly books I'm too lazy to review, but here’s one I recommend: Author: Monica Dickens Year published: 1939 Pages: 140 Genre: Autobiography, memoir Where got: Public library The story: This is Monica Dickens’ memoir of her one-and-half years as a cook general and housemaid in the 1930’s. She started this work because she was bored and didn’t have anything to do with herself, rather than from any real need for money. This is quite a funny glimpse of a profession that doesn’t exist any more in Britain. Dickens mostly worked for respectable middle class families that today would at the most have someone come in to do the cleaning, but she also got a taste of working as a cook at a country manor. She tells of her own kitchen accidents, sloppiness and incompetence with good humoured sarcasm, and doesn’t spare her employers or co-workers eithe...

Genre : Non-fiction, memoir/travelogue Year of publication : 2001 Setting & time : Iceland; 1996 and 1997 Nancy Marie Brown and her husband, writer Charles Fergus, came to Iceland with their young son to spend the summer of 1996 while still reeling from a family tragedy. Fergus recounted the story of their stay there in Summer at Little Lava , which I reviewed some years ago. I reposted the review yesterday. When I became aware that Nancy was also a writer, I decided to read one of her books and of the two available in the National Library, I chose this one, as to me it’s the more interesting of the two. In a way it picks up from where Fergus left off, showing how Nancy fell in love with the Icelandic horse breed and returned to Iceland a year later determined to buy a couple of horses of her own and take them home to Pennsylvania. She recounts her adventures and experiences among Icelandic horse people (a unique breed in themselves) and her search for the perfect horse (for ...

Originally published in June 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. I chuckled when I first came across this book. The title, plain and serious as it is to an outsider, is unintentionally funny to an Icelander. Little Lava is the abandoned farm in NW-Iceland where Charles Fergus, his wife Nancy and son William spent the summer of 1996. But Little Lava, or Litla Hraun as it is known in Icelandic, is also a prison in southern Iceland. In fact, it’s THE prison - the one where the majority of Icelandic criminals are sent to serve out their sentences. Fergus even mentions it in the book, and it is probably the reason why he chose to translate the farm’s name into English, in order to distance it from the prison image. I can’t say he has quite succeeded, but gives the reader who is in the know something to smile about. Fergus’ original plan had been to write a simple nature study, but when he found his mother murdered in her home, the plans changed. Instead of becoming just a place to stay ...

Originally published in January 2005, in 3 parts. Book 48 in my first 52 books challenge. Author: Gerald Durrell Year published: 1958 Pages: 180 Genre: Memoirs, animals and animal collecting Where got: Bought it somewhere This is a collection of essays about animals that naturalist Gerald Durrell recorded for the BBC in the 1950’s. Some of the essays are original material, and some are about animals he had written about before in his books, so this will be partly a new reading experience for me and partly a return visit to old friends (I've read about 90% of Durrell's non-fiction books). Part of the book is about animal habitat and animals in general, part is about specific animal characters (some or all of which he has written about in his other books), and part is about interesting people. My love-affair with Gerald Durrell’s books It’s strange to read Gerald Durrell’s wonderful books knowing that he hated writing and only did it to finance his animal collectin...

Year published: 1996 Genre: Travelogue, journalism, non-fiction Setting & time: Cambodia, ca. 1992-1994. Carol Livingston arrived in Cambodia in the early 1990s, along with friend who was hoping to find work for one of the many international aid and development organisations that were working towards stabilising the political situation in the country and redressing some of the many problems caused by the Khmer Rouge regime. Livingston herself was hoping to earn a living as a freelance journalist and quickly got the idea of writing a book. Supporting herself with her advance payment for the book and by writing stories for various publications, she travelled around the country in search of material for the book and stories to feed to the press. I don’t understand the reviewers who have called this book funny. Sure, there are the occasional wry observations about the smoking of marijuana (and its use in cooking), cultural misunderstandings and expatriate misbehaviour, but for...

"Explaining the moment of connection between a reader and a book to someone who‘s never experienced it is like trying to explain sex to a virgin." Sara Nelson on the phenomenon when a reader gets sucked into the book. Bibliophilic book number 11. Only one to go. Not that I‘m counting ;-) Year published: 2003 Genre: Memoir At the end of 2001, Sara Nelson decided to set herself a reading challenge, a simple book-a-week affair for one year, and keep a diary about it. The result was this book, which most readers should be able to, on some level, to enjoy. Although she is a seasoned, professional writer of book reviews, this is not a collection of reviews or even of literary theory or analysis, but more of a meditation on and a revelling in different aspects of reading, interspersed with snippets of information about whichever book she was reading at the time each essay was written. She covers issues most readers will be familiar with, like trying to turn a non-reader in...

This makes 10 books in the Bibliophilic Books Challenge, which means I have only 2 to go. Year published: 2002 Genre: Biography, non-fiction Charles Dickens isn’t so much a biography as an attempt by one author to understand and interpret another. Dickens’s adult life is painted in the broadest of strokes, with plenty of speculation about the effects of his public and personal life on his work, extrapolated from known facts, with some excursions into psychoanalysis and literary theory. This is a nice introduction to Dickens as a person, giving just enough information about him to either satisfy a reader’s curiosity to know a little bit about the man behind the novels, or to serve as an amuse-bouche - a little something to awaken and prepare the taste buds for further reading. It is well-written and short enough to make for light reading, but it’s really neither one thing or another, being unable to decide between being a portrait, a biography, or an analysis. 2+ stars.

My 9th book in the Bibliophilic Book Challenge, and one that doesn’t need any justification as to why it’s bibliophilic. Genre: Memoir Year of publication: 2002 I didn’t know who John Baxter was when I picked up this book in the bibliobooks section of the Icelandic national library and I would never even have noticed the book, let alone given it a second glance, had it been filed in the biographies. But someone was inspired enough to put it in the section reserved for books about books, which is usually the first shelf I gravitate towards when I visit that particular library. After reading it I still don’t know much about John Baxter, except that he is an Australian-born dedicated bibliophile and book collector who has, through his career as an entertainment journalist, film critic, biographer and fiction writer, been lucky enough to meet and in some instances befriend a number of book people, literary figures and authors, sometimes while in hot pursuit of their signature for...

Genre: Memoir Year of publication: 1959 No. in series: 1 of 3 Setting & time: The Cotsworlds, England, 1910’s and 20’s In this book, Lee lovingly describes his early life in the small village of Slad, in thematic chapters that cover different aspects of his childhood and upbringing. This memoir had been languishing in one of my TBR bookcases for much too long when I finally decided to read it. It had been repeatedly recommended to me by people who knew I liked to read biographies, and I would like to thank them for it, because in it I have found a new addition to my “perennial reads” list. This is a wonderful and often funny account of a somewhat unconventional upbringing in a small village that in many ways seems to have been like a close-knit family. It is beautifully written and often poetic, but still always remains down to earth. It’s sweetly nostalgic and can with some justification be called a prose-poem in remembrance of a simpler time gone by. It was fortuna...