Reading in Reykjavík

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...

This is one of those books where I saw the movie first, so comparisons were inevitable. It’s funny, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what Delysia LaFosse looked like in the movie when I started reading the book, but Miss Pettigrew will forever look like Frances McDormand to me. First Published : 1938 Miss Pettigrew, a middle-aged gentlewoman who works as a governess-for-hire, is down on her luck and reaching the end of her tether. Almost broke and desperate for a job she really has nothing to lose and so when she is sent to the wrong house for a job interview and discovers her prospective employer going through a crises, she steps in and saves the day. This so endears her to the young woman that she is soon called on to solve more problems and gets whirled ever more deeply into the social circle around Miss LaFosse, who, it turns out, is an actress and night-club singer with serious man trouble. Miss Pettigrew, over the course of a day and a night, undergoes a tr...

Originally published in March 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. Year originally published: 1976 Read this a while ago. The story: A basic coming-of-age story. In 1930, Little Tree, a boy who is part Cherokee and part white, becomes an orphan at age five. He is taken in by his Cherokee grandparents who bring him up in close touch with nature and teach him the ways of their people. He is briefly taken away and put in an orphanage where he is mistreated, but is able to return to his family after a while. Technique and plot: The book is written in the simple, straightforward first person narrative style of a memoir, and sounds so honest that it’s easy to see why so many people believe(d) it to be non-fiction in spite of some rather unlikely events. Spellings reflect the speech patterns and accents of the people, but not so much that it makes the book difficult to read. Little Tree is very much a child of nature, and from it he learns lessons, both harsh and gentle, at the side...

Originally published in March 2005, on my original 52 Books blog. Just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. For the sake of all the people who recommended it to me I wish I could say I liked it, but I didn’t. It was one of those books that I found to be okay, but nothing more than that. It was too predictable, often superficial and sometimes felt contrived, like Kidd felt she had to show the whole range of human emotion and just didn’t know when enough was enough. There are redeeming points, however. The characters, narrator Lily, her surrogate mother and best friend Rosaleen, and the Boatwright sisters, especially August, are rounded and real. The story, of Lily’s coming of age in the American south during a hot summer in the tumultuous 1960’s, rambles somewhat, and could have done with a little sprinkling of magic realism. The tone it is told in screams out for something like that, and you kind of expect it from a book with such a mysterious title. Added...

Originally published in November 2004, in 2 parts. Book 39 in my first 52 books challenge. Author: Ray Bradbury Year published: 1962 Pages: 215 Genre: Horror Where got: Second hand shop By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes . William Shakespeare: Macbeth, act 4, scene 1 I was only familiar with Ray Bradbury as a TV scriptwriter until a few years ago when I read a short story by him that appeared in an anthology of funny science fiction stories. Then I found this book while browsing in the Red Cross charity shop in Reykjavik, liked the Shakespearian title, and bought it. It’s been sitting on my TBR shelf for several months and I think it's about time I read it. The Story: Will and Jim, two teenage friends who live in a town somewhere in the USA, witness the arrival of a mysterious and creepy carnival in the dead of an autumn night, long after the carnival season has ended. They witness something terrifying in the carnival grounds after cl...

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...

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...

Today we Icelanders wish each other a Happy Summer. The third Thursday in April is the designated First Day of Summer in Iceland, and a public holiday, one of the few that are non-secular. In the era when people only had experience and superstition to rely on for weather forecasts rather than scientific meteorology, one of the ways in which the weather the coming summer was predicted was by putting a bit of water in a shell on the eve of the First Day of Summer, and going out just before dawn to check if the water had frozen over. If it had, the summer was supposed to be a good one. If not, then God help us. I am pleased that today is a holiday, because while I have a cold and a sore throat and feel rather tired, I am not really sick enough not to go to work. Having today off is going to give me a chance to rest and hopefully I will be feeling better tomorrow. I have already finished two books today, both, I hasten to add, ones that were already half read. Below is the review for one...

Year published: 2005 Genre: Fantasy for older children/younger teens (especially girls), coming of age story The Story: In a medieval type fantasy country, Miri, a young girl, is coming of age among the quarry workers of the mountains. They quarry linder, a valuable kind of rock that is in demand as building material for palaces and fine houses in the lowlands. Traders come to the village once a year to trade food and other necessities for linder, but in Miri's 14th year a messenger comes from the king, proclaiming that a prophesy has foretold that the bride of the crown prince will come from the mountains. Therefore, all the mountain girls aged 12 to 17 must attend a princess academy to prepare them for meeting the prince, who will choose one of them as his bride once they are ready. Miri's father has never allowed her to work in the quarry for reasons she doesn’t understand, making her feel like an outsider, so in a way she welcomes the chance to experience something diffe...

(I finally gave in and cheated on the shelf challenge...) Year originally published: 1948 Genre: Novel Setting & time: England, 1940s The Story: The book is written with 17 year old Cassandra Montmain as a narrator. She is keeping a journal in which she tries to capture the character of castle she lives in and all its inhabitants. Her father once wrote a very important book, but has not written a thing in 12 years, her artist's model stepmother is wildly eccentric but also rather domestic at heart, her sister Rose is willing to sell her soul to the devil to take herself and her family out of their poverty-stricken situation (they have no regular income), and Stephen, who is a sort of servant and sort of family member, is very much in love with Cassandra, who cares for him very much but is not romantically interested in him. The arrival of two brothers in the neighbourhood bodes changes in the family's fortunes, and here I think I will say no more, as this book is hard t...

Today I am going to recommend a movie. I have just finished reading Mávahlátur (The Seagull's Laughter) by Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir, and loved it. I had previously enjoyed the movie and can now with certainty say that it is the most faithful movie adaptation of a book I have seen. It’s a combination of mystery, satire and coming of age story, with the central character Agga turning from girl to woman in the course of the book, while observing her mysterious cousin Freyja, who may or may not have murdered two men, and her struggles with the class system. The class-conscious society of an Icelandic fishing town in the 1950s is beautifully drawn (Freyja is working class, the man she marries is as close to being an aristocrat as is possible in Iceland), and while Americans have been puzzled over the catty class clashes (I have been reading movie reviews), people from more class-divided countries like Britain should be able to enjoy the story on a more equal footing with Icelanders....

Author: Judy Blume Year published: 1970 The Story: 12 year old Margaret Simon has conversations with God, but doesn’t belong to any religion, because her mother is Christian and her father Jewish and they want her to choose her religious orientation for herself. When she is given an assignment where she has to keep a journal about some self-chosen subject for the whole winter, she decides to investigate religion. She and her friends are getting to the age when boys are becoming exiting, and they are all looking forward to the moment they will start to menstruate. Basically, religion and budding sexuality are the main themes of the book, along with friendship and prejudice. Technique and plot: I decided to read this story mostly because it is among the most banned or challenged books in the USA and has been since it was first published. It seems to have been challenged mostly for it’s portrayal of budding sexuality, but probably also for the controversial religious content – Margar...