Merci and Disgrace (?) by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Hurray for the North of the world for the crime novel authors. Here's another brilliant mind!

The series, which contains 3 books so far, plays around Detective Morck in his special operation "force" (haha, it's himself and his lovely assistant) for open cases. The characters are simply wonderful. They have fights, and crisis (massive crisis!) and problems like normal people. No perfection within the police. Far from it.

In Merci Carl and assistant get the case of a missing woman on the table. Everyone thinks she is dead because it's years and years ago. Carl goes after it anyway, in his very own way. The story doesn't only explain what he does why, it also goes into the mind and surrounding of the woman. And that's the creepy part. It's not so much a story of trying to guess who the 'murder' is, it's more of shock-horror thing when you hear what that woman has to go through. Brilliantly written!!!

In his second case (which I translated from the German book as Disgrace) he is trying to get his mind around a solved case. Weird. Starts kind of boring, gets a lot better, once you got to know how everyone is supposed to be and what actually happened. The case is of course not solved, and it's a lot more difficult to get it that way. It kind of reminded me of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo ... but I'm still not exactly sure why. It's not as exciting and grabbing as the first one, but it's still and easy and fast and well worth read!

However, if you're in the UK or the US you'll have to wait to get it. It's supposed to come out in May this year. It's worth waiting for though. Or you can try learning German until then.If you're German or are able to read it (go you!!) you can run out to your favorite bookstore now and grab a copy of both.

Something for protection

Keep safe out there with which book? Witz (which hilariously means joke in German). Check it out, it keeps you safe!

My arty farty disappointment aka. Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer

It was sad! Very very sad.

I have to say I like arty farty things! Honestly, big fan of arty farty movies (if their not too experimentalist and not too much David Lynch), arty farty novels (if they don't try too hard) even arty farty minimalistic music. And the best of it all is the expression itself. Arty farty for the go!

As you maybe know I am adoring Mr. Safran Foer for his writing. And I think I have actually read everything he wrote ... which is why I was so looking forward to his new book.

I also have weird habit of getting the least amount of information about the book possible. Just in case they spill the story ... so I didn't read any interviews or articles about his new book "Tree of Codes".

Well, the day comes. After tracking down every possibility to get the new book, I finally got it (wasn't cheap), ripped open the 2 envelopes with all my excitement, open the book very careful to see...it's an arty farty book. He didn't write anything. Even if he would have, it's almost impossible to read without getting annoyed and/or ripping the pages. So sad. It's 'just' another story cut out. He took Bruno Schultz's "Street of Crocodiles" and left some words/sentences/phrases of it. The rest is an assembly of wholes. Honestly?? Why? He could have as well spend his precious time on writing.

I'm sure the art world will appreciate his work a lot more than I do. For now there is nothing left to do. Except of reading "Street of Crocodiles" as whole. I hope at least that will be worth the read.

World Book Night

Check it out, it's world book night soon. You can apply to give books away, and you can even choose to whom you want to give it (well kind of). I love it. It gives people who are passionate about literature the chance to encourage other people to read. Without annoying your friends who can't listen to you anymore without rolling the eyes.

So go on, check it out and get the world reading :)

www.worldbooknight.org

Jonathan Livingston Seagull — a story by Richard Bach

Hmmmmmmmm ... apparently it's HUGE in the US. Not so huge in Europe but people 'have heard of it' at least. It's a fable and it's philosophical, trying to bring the meaning of live to the reader.

Maybe I just didn't get it, but I thought it's a weird novel.
Jonathan is a seagull, bored with being ordinary. While the rest is only concerned about flying from a to b to get some food, he practices flying everyday. In all possible constellations, really fast, really slow, really high, really low. Of course the others don't like that and say bye bye to the weirdo. He doesn't really care and continues his flying.

He then (I think after he died) comes into a form of personal heaven and learns more and better flying. He also starts to learn a lesson about freedom.

In the last part of the he tries to get this freedom into other seagulls...partly successful.

So even though the other seagulls were mean to him and didn't care about him, he goes back to them (from his heaven) to bring a meaning to their lives.

I'd have rather read the message in a shorter short story (the book I had was 74 pages, 30 of those were pictures of seagulls but it could have been shorter), and I honestly think it would have had more effect on me. But than, maybe I'm just not a big fan of those 'find and love yourself and you'll repair your live' stuff ...
or maybe it was the translation, as I read it in German?!

This is the End ...

Uch I hate it so much. You're nearly there, the story is almost over. But not quite yet. It's those last 10 pages, that really annoy me. You know who the murderer was, that they kissed and got married, that they saved everyone from dying, or that they all died. And then? Then there is this last bit with a couple of blablas and blublus but there is nothing in it. All you want is the book to be over, but you can't just put it away because there are only a couple of pages left.
This is why I love books that end with the peak of the climax. Murder is solved, end of the book. No celebrations or promotions afterwards, because they don't matter! They kiss each other? Good, I will assume that they spend the next days in bed, move in with each other and have a happy ever after life. But please don't make a never ending end out of it!

Transgression: A Novel of Love and War by James W. Nichol

If you have some spare time and like crime novels, this one is quite enjoyable.
It's the story about Adele in 1941 in occupied France. She meets a German soldier (who is of course not all German and soldierish, but nice and handsome), they fall in love and the relationship is not allowed to work easy. The story drags on until World War II is finished ... and continues with a search.

The other story is a search in itself. There was a murder in a small town in Canada in 1946. The police chief tries to find evidence, which is of course what they do ...

As you will imagine the stories link into each other at some point. I found the first part of the story more interesting than the second half, but that might just be me. There is an interesting story in all of the characters. I didn't think it was an awesome book to read, but it was fun! I liked the way the end makes you think about the story and everyone in it. In fact I think if the ending would have been different the book would not have been so good ... so finish it, even if you get bored at some point. It's worth it and it's an easy read. Good for holiday time.

I also just found out that Mr. Nichol is a massive star in Germany (where I got the book from) but almost unknown in his home country, Canada. So if you're Canadian - give him a chance.