Reading in Reykjavík

I finished a total of 10 books in October, which means that my reading index is slightly up, although it has not yet reached last year’s monthly average. In addition there was one D id N ot F inish, which was rather unfortunate as it sounded very interesting when I was offered it for reviewing. The books were a mixed bag of various genres, and I have reviewed no less than four of them. One review is already published (in 2 parts) and three more are coming up in the next couple of weeks, starting tomorrow. Mary Balogh, Colleen Gleason, Susan Krinard, Janet Mullany : Bespelling Jane Austen . 4 paranormal romance novellas, 2 historical , 2 contemporary . Jim Crace: The Devil's Larder . Short stories with a food theme. Carola Dunn: Death at Wentwater Court . Cosy murder mystery; historical. Rachel Gibson: Daisy's Back in Town . Romance, contemporary. Kay Hooper: Lady Thief/Masquerade . 1 volume, 2 historical romances (1 short novel, 1 novella) Michael Innes: Appleby's E...

Well, I did it. Although I had given up actively trying to finish the challenges I signed up for at the start of the year, I managed to finish this one, and didn't even realise it for a couple of months, so completely had I put it out of my mind. The challenge was to finish 6 books with certain types of words in the title, given in the order I finished them: A Size Something Evil Jewelry or a gem Life stage A number Travel or movement Click on the links to see the reviews of the books I read for the challenge. As might be expected, considering my interest in the genre, four of the books were mysteries. Two of those were hard-boiled/noir detective novels, one a cosy police procedural and one a mystery thriller. The others consisted of a romance novel and a memoir-travelogue. Although I was wasn't actively trying to finish this challenge, I am glad I did. I might even participate in next year's What't in a Name.

Of the books I planned to read in December, I finished the 5 TBR challenge books plus one more. I only finished 1 Top Mysteries challenge book and neither did I finish the third top mystery, The Woman in White , which was also to have been my Chunkster Challenge book for the month. The Buchmesse challenge read was 101 Reykjavík , a comic novel by Hallgrímur Helgason. In the latter part of the month I found myself unable to concentrate on any but short reads that didn‘t require the concentration needed for a long and detailed novel like The Woman in White or a dense read like Lark Rise . As I have already mentioned, I lost two close relatives in quick succession in December. After the first death I focused on short reads that didn‘t require much concentration and were unlikely to set me off crying, which is why I avoided Dickens. In January the plan is to continue the TBR challenge, the Top Mysteries challenge and the Buchmesse challenge. I will be posting about other challenges so...

Of the books I named as possible November reads, I only finished The Three Musketeers and Twilight . I only read one Top Mystery instead of the 2 or more I had planned for, but managed to read 8 TBR books. As to A Kiss Before Dying and Innocent Blood , I am going to have to pay a hefty fine to the library for keeping them too long, so I’ll read them later. Instead I have a mind to read some Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett for the Top Mysteries Challenge, as well as The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which is also my Chunkster Challenge book for the month. All of these have the advantage that they overlap with the TBR challenge. I am way behind schedule with my reporting for the 365 short stories challenge, but I hope to remedy that so I will not be posting those reports far into next January. The theme for November was ‘women only’. I am still reading Lark Rise by Flora Thompson, which has turned out to be an excellent slow read, but I expect to finish it in December...

In September, I didn't read the travelogue I mentioned in the last tentative reading plan, and in fact I didn't read a single non-fiction book for the whole month. I also didn't read We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson, but want to finish it this month. I finished the Global Reading Challenge by reading Red Sorghum and Oscar and Lucinda , and the latter was also the first book in a new challenge, the Chunkster Challenge . Additionally, I finished A Coffin for Dimitrios in the Top Mystery Challenge, as planned, but instead of Our Man in Havana I read The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers, bringing the year‘s total for that challenge up to 9 books. In I September made the acquaintance of two writers I wish I had come to know much sooner: Kenneth Grahame and M.R. James, both masters storytellers, albeit in different genres. I will definitely be reading more of M.R. James' ghost stories, and also books by Peter Carey, probably Parrot and Olivier...

Damn, how I wish The Anatomy of a Murder wasn't so depressingly cynical (I hate reading negative books when I am struggling with depression). I should have finished it by now, but instead I am stalled a few dozen pages in and the trial hasn't even started. Someone please tell me it gets better. In other news: I was able to get The Book Thief from the library, and while I find it interesting enough to keep reading, it is not the page-turner I expected.

The TBR stack keeps growing, mostly because I haven't been reading much lately, or rather, I have been reading library books. I have cut down my visits to the second-hand bookshop to once a week, and have been able to stick to the book-buying quota (max. 2 per visit), so in theory I should be reading them faster than I buy them, but this is not the case. I do have a good excuse: I finished the rough translation of the book I was working on and am now halfway through reading the translation and the original side by side to look for errors and missed sentences. This is much slower than reading two books, as I am also editing as I go. I have the third round left – the final polish where I remove all traces of foreign sentence structure, grammar and wording from the text and make it read like it's originally Icelandic. In-between I read translation theory. Either I have been very lucky, or translation scholars as a rule have a knack of writing academic texts that are not dry, and i...