Month: September 2020

  • Favorite Friday #2

    Favorite Friday is a bookish meme which was started a couple of weeks ago over at The Midnight Book blog. Since the prompts posed interesting questions I decided to join last week, discussing how my favorite genre is constantly evolving (read the discussion here). This week it is all about an underrated favorite book. I… →

  • How To Be a Woman

    Sometimes there is books you didn’t think you would read. But then you join a book club and their selection is How to Be a Woman. To be honest, it was sort of hate at first sight (the first thing I learned about it was that there was much talk of pubic hair), but I… →

  • Leonardo da Vinci

    For me Vasari’s addition to the little black classics showed once more that reading about great artists can be extraordinarily dull. While it was clear from the writing that Vasari admires Leonardo da Vinci and the other artists described in the book, I found it rather random and never warmed up to his style. I… →

  • #6degrees of separation #1

    I saw this bookish meme popping up all along the feed, but I first saw it last month on Bookstooge’s Reviews on the Road. It looks like a lot of fun, so this month I decided to join. #6degrees is hosted by Books are my Favorite and Best and it is based on the principle… →

  • Wow, No Thank You.

    I am new to reading essays. But everyone around me was reading essays, and completely in line with the essays in this book, I felt like I should try it. You can’t have the opinion before you gave it a try. And this one had a cute rabbit on the cover. It being my first… →

  • How Much Land Does A Man Need?

    Tolstoy may be known for his gigantic works like Anna Karenina and War & Peace, but this is a very neat short story, a parable of man’s greed and ambitions. What we have is never enough, we always want more. While it was clear where the story was heading – I am pretty sure someone… →

  • Noah Barleywater Runs Away

    It has been said that Noah Barleywater Runs Away is a mere children’s book. An adventure but not more than that. It has also been said that Noah Barleywater is a thought-provoking novel, even for adults. What side am I on? It’s aimed on children aged 8-12, but I believe there is so much more… →

  • WWW Wednesday #3

    Reading is still slow. Last week I said I was hoping to do nothing in the long weekend, but it was not to be. My television was delivered and I spent the Saturday installing and playing with it. The I had sort of forgotten the online conference that I was taking part in, so I… →

  • The Life of a Stupid Man

    The Life of a Stupid Man collects three stories by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. The first was the nicest, a short story about a murder told from the perspective of several witness, including – strangely enough – the murder victim. This one I quite liked. The other two stories were autobiographical and very fragmentary. Those… →

  • The Very First Damned Thing

    This short story in the St Mary’s series focuses on the very beginning of the institute when Dr. Bairstow is trying to secure funding for the project and try to convince them of the usefulness of it all. While this all takes place, some series favorites also happen to show up at the same time… →

  • Antigone

    I had actually never read Antigone until this point, although the story was familiar of course. Antigone, the titular character, goes against her uncle the King’s wishes and buries her brother who died in rebellion. →

  • Breath from Salt

    (Scroll down to see some science at work) As a PhD researcher working on Cystic Fibrosis I immediately knew I had to get this ARC and read Breath from Salt, which will be published tomorrow on September 8, the 31st anniversary of the publication of the CFTR gene →

  • Socrates’ Defence

    I couldn’t read this without hearing the song from Horrible Histories. Either way this was a very interesting read. I have read some Plato before for school, but never his more famous work on Socrates. Here he really tries to keep the style rather simple – for he is accused of bedazzling the audience with… →

  • Call Me By Your Name

    3rd read for the #ReverseReadathon I saw the movie first – as a part of watching all the Best Movie nominees I was ticking boxes and one of them was Call Me By Your Name. I remember I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, since romantic movies are not one my favorite genres. However, I… →

  • Anthem For Damned Youth

    I saw some of Owen’s work in class, but it was a while ago and I can’t really recall it. However, his tragic end just before the armistice stuck with me, especially since his poems are very anti-war. Poetry in the Little Black Classics has not been the easiest for me. However, I found this… →

  • Shelf Control – New Arrivals August 2020

    What is that ginormous thing blocking out the sun?! Well, it is only my TBR… When it comes to shelf control – alas, I have none. I am still a bit the little child in the candy story who doesn’t get why she can’t have all of them, and sooner rather than later. I have… →

  • Dead Guilty

    Missing children cases are the worst. I also don’t like to read about them in books, to be honest. Nevertheless, it is a missing child that forms the spine of Dead Guilty. Of course, there is still a lot of other stuff going on as well. It was another quick read which I needed, but… →

  • The Figure in the Carpet

    I didn’t really like this and I think it is mainly due to the fact I disagree with what it proposes. It features a writer who cannot enjoy all the positive reviews for his latest work since he feels that all reviewers are missing the most important point he is trying to make. When one… →

  • Favorite Friday #1

    Midnight Book Blog recently started with these Favorite Friday posts and they are a lot of fun to read, so I wanted to give it a try myself. This week’s prompt is favorite genre. This is a question I get asked a lot and still I don’t have an answer ready. Or, well, the answers… →

  • Fangs

    I only found out that Sarah Andersen was publishing another book next month recently. It was on Netgalley, so I immediately dropped everything and set to reading it. I don’t follow the social media too much so most of the comics from Fangs were new to me. Fangs offers what you’ve come to expect. Short… →

  • The Reckoning

    This edition contains two short stories by the American author Edith Wharton. The first is on marriage and falling in and out of love. And while I quite liked the concept, I liked the second story a bit better. It’s about an old woman who’s main pleasure in life is watching the world pass by… →

  • Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet

    Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet. A cake filled with magic, it sounded like a recipe for success (pun definitely intended). Maire is a baker with a troublesome past (in the sense that she can’t remember it). Her cakes are magical – literally so – as they can convey feelings to the eater. I guess more intense… →

  • The Great Fire of London

    I thought it would be a no-brainer I would like this. It’s a historical account of London around and during the great fire of London in 1666, which burned down much of The City as well as burned out the plague (to name one good thing that came from it). The signs of the fire… →

  • WWW Wednesday #2

    It’s 10.30 PM already, and I am finally done working for the day – so this will be a rather short update. It’s still very busy out here, so not that much time for reading. I hope to spend the long weekend doing absolutely nothing though! WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme which is currently… →