Reading in Reykjavík

If you mostly read classics, try reading a modern novel published in the last 20 years or so. Or, if you mostly read modern novels, try a classic, preferably one published more than 100 years ago. Was it as good or bad as you expected? Was it perhaps worse? Or better? After this, will you be reading more classics/modern novels, or will you stick to reading what you have always read? In the last couple of years I have been reading mostly books published in the 20th and 21st centuries, but I have promised myself that I will read more classics this year.

Two interesting facts about the author: Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Cecil Day Lewis who was Britain’s poet laureate from 1968 to 1972, and he was actor Daniel Day-Lewis’s father. Neither fact has any bearing on the following review – I just happen to like trivia. Year of publication: 1938 Genre: Mystery Type of investigator: Amateur sleuth Setting & time: Gloucestershire, UK; 1930s contemporary Story: Full of grief for his son, killed by a hit-and-run driver, mystery writer Frank Cairnes hatches a plan to track down the driver and murder him, writing his plan down in his diary. A coincidence gives him a clue to the identity of the driver and under the pseudonym he uses for his detective writing he manages to get an introduction to the man, but he can not be sure he is the driver. When the man is murdered, Cairnes seeks the help of amateur sleuth Nigel Strangeways to prove his innocence, the incriminating diary having fallen into the hands of the police. Review: This...

Year published: 1982 Genre: Travelogue Setting & time: USA, 1978 This book often makes it onto lists of best or favourite or recommended travelogues, and seems set to become a classic of the genre. Much like Steinbeck's Travels with Charley , to which it has been likened by some reviewers, it provides a snapshot of small-town USA as it was at one point in time. In the wake of a divorce and the loss of his job, which precipitated an existential crisis, Moon set out to travel around America by the small roads - the ones traditionally marked with blue on old highway maps. The journey became one of discovery, not just of himself, but of small-town America. He especially sought out small towns with unusual names and asked around until he found people willing to tell him how they got their names, some of which makes for fascinating reading. He was always on the lookout for interesting people to talk to, and recorded the conversations which made it possible for him to quote them ve...

I got so caught up in the story that I decided not to stop to write notes about parts 5 and 6 and instead went on to finish the story. Therefore I don’t have any notes or thoughts on future developments, but here are my conclusions: While the main thread of the story is predictable – man commits crime, man tries to avoid suspicion, man breaks down and confesses – the parts that flesh out the narrative are not all so predictable. What really makes this such a brilliant story is not the main story itself but the characters and their interactions and dialogues. Each character is unique and separate and there is no danger of ever getting them confused with each other. Raskolnikov, for example, is brilliantly conceived, and one can easily see how someone with his pride, arrogance and tendency toward depression would be adversely affected by his circumstances and commit a crime. It is equally plausible how he can then be driven to confess by an older man like Petrovits, experienced in applyi...

Subtitle: An amateur’s adventures as kitchen slave, line cook, pasta-maker, and apprentice to a Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany. Year published: 2006 Genre: Memoir, food writing Setting & time: New York, USA, and Tuscany, Italy; starting in 2002 Bill Buford became obsessed with learning to cook like a pro and on the basis of his friendship with celebrity chef Mario Batali was accepted into the kitchen of one of Batali's restaurants, Babbo, as an assistant, working his way up to line cook in about a year. Then he became obsessed with learning to make perfect pasta, and went to Italy to learn. Then he became obsessed with meat, and again went to Italy and became an apprentice to a butcher in Tuscany. The story of this journey is interspersed with snippets of Batali’s biography, stories about Babbo kitchen antics and politics, discussions about food and excursions into Italian culinary history. Here is a guy who is just as obsessed with food as Jeffrey Steingarten, but inste...

I’ve taken a long break from the book, but I hope not so long as to affect my memory of what I have already read. I have just a few notes on this part: Svidrigelof is definitely planning something. At first he tells R that he wants to court and marry Dunja, and then when R does not take kindly to that, he changes tack and says he wants to give her some money but will then leave her alone and marry another woman. Then he appears again, listening in on a conversation between Sonja and R. I think he may try to blackmail R, either for money or for help in winning Dunja's hand (he does seem to have honorable intentions towards her now that his wife is dead). As I had guessed (and hoped) Dunja has broken her engagement with Lusjin, and seems to be beginning to fall in love with Rasumikhin, who has proven himself to be a thoroughly decent person. Petrovits has started trying to confuse R into confessing or giving himself away somehow, using psychological methods, and has even described hi...

Find a book that has been adapted into a film. Read the book, watch the film (or vice versa) and compare the two. What did you think was better in the book? What did you think was better in the film? Did the film change the storyline significantly? Did it add anything? Did you agree with the casting? I plan to do this with one of the Top Mysteries challenge books and will blog about it when the time comes.