Books – Page 28

The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin – Book Review

August 10, 2015September 16, 2022yggdrasille

This was the only Ira Levin novel I haven’t read yet, so while I was excited to finally get my hands on it, it’s always a bit sad to come to a point where you’ve read all the books by one of your favourite authors, and there are no more to follow, ever. He’s not Harper Lee exactly in terms of output, but I wish Levin wrote more than seven novels in his lifetime. Or make that six, because while Son of Rosemary wasn’t all bad the ending made me wish I’ve never read it; truly a book to fling against the wall while screaming in rage.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin – Book Review

August 6, 2015July 1, 2023yggdrasille

Back in my teens, I read the Russian translation of this book so many times the whole sections of dialogue and descriptions kept popping up in my brain as I was reading it in English. It was fun to revisit in its original language, particularly as the Russian translation couldn’t really capture the 1950s expressions and quirks.

Books I’ve read lately

August 1, 2015March 29, 2019yggdrasille

Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection by Isaac Asimov

I’ve only read one other short stories collection by Asimov before, so this bunch of previously uncollected stories probably wasn’t a great place to start for a relative Asimov beginner. The stories are rather hit-and-miss; there’s a couple which are more like sci-fi jokes culminating with rather unfunny puns; while others are really good, like the first story in the collection called Cal, about a domestic robot who wants to be a writer just like his master.

Julius Caesar by Philip Freeman – Book Review

July 25, 2015December 20, 2022yggdrasille

I love me a good historical biography and I really enjoyed this account of one of the greatest figures in history.

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes – Book Review

July 15, 2015September 13, 2022yggdrasille

I read a few novels by Marian Keyes (a.k.a. the Irish Queen of Chick Lit), but while I enjoyed them all to various degrees most of them fall into the “read once and forget” basket. This book had stuck with me though, I’ve just re-read it for the second time in two years and loved it as much as when I first read it. At nearly 900 pages (set at a pretty large font mind you), it’s a breeze and pleasure to read.

Books I’ve read lately

June 24, 2015June 25, 2020yggdrasille

Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

Hornby novels for me are like pizza: when they’re good they’re great and when they’re not they’re still enjoyable and immensely readable. Luckily, in addition to being readable Funny Girl is really good.

The Book Blogger Confessions Tag

June 22, 2015October 5, 2017yggdrasille

I saw this on another blog and thought it would be a fun thing to do.

1. Which book, most recently, did you not finish?

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, English translation. His novels are ultimately rewarding, but my can they be hard work; I made it to half-point and then just quietly gave up.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent – Book Review

June 18, 2015August 23, 2024yggdrasille

I was very eager to check this book out. It got a lot of attention and praise, and the premise seemed interesting: it’s based on the real-life story of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last person to be executed in Iceland.

Quote of the Day

June 16, 2015yggdrasille

I read out this extract from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet during my speech at my sister’s wedding – I was looking for a wedding-appropriate poem that a) didn’t make me vomit and b) expressed something I personally believed in. I think it puts a very practical advice on the need of space in relationships in a very beautiful way:

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Quote of the day

May 13, 2015yggdrasille

G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories are some of the most original detective stories I’ve read. I didn’t always find them 100% plausible – sometimes the mysteries are solved with pure intuitive leaps that seem a tad too far-fetched – but there’s no denying they have an atmosphere and style all of their own, not to mention Father Brown himself, an unassuming, shrewd, empathetic, endearing character. My favourite passage from the entire series is the speech he gives to the thief Flambeau in The Flying Stars:

I want you to give them back, Flambeau, and I want you to give up this life. There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don’t fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. Many a man I’ve known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime. I know the woods look very free behind you, Flambeau; I know that in a flash you could melt into them like a monkey. But someday you will be an old grey monkey, Flambeau. You will sit up in your free forest cold at heart and close to death, and the tree-tops will be very bare.