Most of my reading this month was related to Paris in July. I did read a couple of books outside that meme.
I read 9 books this month and here they are:
Ahrnstedt, Simona - Ett otänkbart öde
Beckman, Margareta - Axel von Fersen och drottning Marie-Antoinette, 1700-talets stora kärleksäventyr (NF)
Orczy, Baroness - The Scarlet Pimpernel
Leblanc, Maurice - Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar
Kylhammar Martin - Ett hemligt liv, Verner von Heidenstam och Kate Bang (NF)
Verne, Jules - Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar
Hemingway, Ernest - To Have and Have not
Bell, David A. - Napoleon - A Concise Biography
Nyberg, Andreas, Red. - Världens största konspirationer
Apart from the books I mentioned in my Paris wrap-up I read Ett otänkbart öde by Simona Ahrnstedt. A romantic, historical fiction. During the last years Ahrnstedt has mostly written modern novels, with erotic under tones, but now she has gone back to her initial historical fiction, which I like. It was a little slow in the beginning but picked up around midway.
Ett hemligt liv (A Secret Life) by Martin Kylhammar is a biography about Verner von Heidenstam (a very famous Swedish national icon and author), and Kate Bang a Danish woman who had a relationship with him for 20 years. They were also living together, although discretely at the time. We are talking beginning of 20th century. It is a fascinating story of two intellectuals, falling in love and arranging their life as it suited them. Heidenstam was furthermore 30 years older than Bang. Not always easy, especially, since Heidenstam was a very famous person in Sweden. Kylhammar has made extensive research, and also managed to get never before privat correspondence from Kate Bang's family. Two fascinating lives, lived out in private for good and worse.
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway - A classic tale by Hemingway. It was not as I remember it from the film, it seems they did quite a lot of changes. I am not a big fan of Hemingway, although I love The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises, and this did not come down as a favourite. I found it rather confusing. I can see though that the way he writes about people would have been quite refreshing in those days.
Världens största konspirationer (The World's Greatest Conspiracies) by Andreas Nyberg. Aren't we all a little bit fascinated by conspiracy theories? Most of the time we probably ask ourselves how people can believe in them, and other times we might believe in them ourselves. Here are eight of them, most of which you will probably recognise.
The Murder of Olof Palme - still unsolved with a lot of theories behind who did it.
Landing on the moon - was it a fake landing or did it really happen?
The Murder of John F. Kennedy - is there still something to conspire in?
UFOs - obviously not finished yet, since as US whistleblower testified in a Congressional hearing just the other day.
The Free Masons - after The Da Vinci Code conspiracy theories got new feeding.
Charles XII - the Swedish warrior king who was shot in 1718 at Fredriksten's fortress in Norway. The question is: was he shot by the Norwegians or by one of his own men, tired of the constant wars? I read recently that the latest investigation, most likely, showed that the shot came from the Norwegian side. Probably still up for debate though.
The Great World Conspiracy - still going on, probably got new nutrition after The Da Vinci Code. Is the Illuminati's main aim to take world control by acting in the background, influencing politicians and other powerful people? And ... who are the people behind it?
Estonia - the greatest sea disaster in the Baltic. It sank in 1994 and a majority of the people aboard died, mostly Swedes. The debate has been going on about explosions or other external reasons for the accident. People are still trying to make it into something else than an accident. Just a couple of weeks ago and unusual dive to check out the front piece of the ship was done. In spite of the fact that in 1995, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia agreed on designating the place where the ferry was lying as a grave site. No new finds were made to the cause of the accident.
It was a good reading month, and I enjoyed the different kind of books. Now I am looking for August. I am travelling for the next couple of months, but did bring around 25, or something, books to read on the way. These are books I leave behind in campings and other places where you can plant a book. I have registered them with Book Crossing labels and hope to find that it has travelled a bit. Thank you Deb Nance @ Readerbuzz for introducing me to BC.
To read in August?
Definitely the books I have brought with me. Since we are heading for Greece at the end of the month, via Croatia, Montenegro and Albania I am set up for books about Greece. The two new books for sure, then we have a huge Greek guide book from The Rough Guide. There will be a lot to read as well.
Following a few YouTubers' book vlogs, I am eager to mix my TBRs and nonfiction with a few newer books. I seldom read new books, and it feels like a discrepancy since there are so many good one published all the time. As you saw from my last blog post, I have three to read in the near future.