Another month has gone by and it was a rather slow one for me. Weather not inspiring and I feel I have hardly done anything. Easter passed by with a couple of excursions, otherwise weather kept me in. For a reader it is really not a big problem. I did read 12 books, and some from my TBR shelves so happy with that.
The books
Handbok i livets konst (The Handbook) by Epictetus (NF)
Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano
Augustus by Eva Queckfeldt (NF) (Audio)
A Lost Man by Jane Harper
Gruppen by Sigge Eklund
Undsättningen, Det danska fälttåget till Kristianstad 1678 (NF) by Stefan Persson and Jimmy Juhlin Alftberg
Sveriges stormaktstid by Dick Harrison (NF)
De försvunna by Magnus Carling
The Lion's Skin by Rafael Sabatini
Three of the books above have individual reviews. Half of the books are nonfiction and the other half fiction, of which three are classics, Mishima, Modiano and Sabatini. Still reading a lot of history nonfiction, of which the Roman Empire still holds a fascinating. Two stoic novels this month and a biography of Emperor Augustus. All very interesting.
The fiction books
A variety of books, which could put under a common title of 'Searching for someone or something'.
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima is a love story, but the three main characters are all looking for something.
Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano is not one of his typical books. His characters are always seeking something, mostly memories. In this book he ventures into, if I understood it correctly, a real story about a girl who disappeared during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Still looking for something.
A Lost Man by Jane Harper, where the mystery is a man who died in the desert like wilderness in Australia.
Gruppen (The Group) by Swedish author Sigge Eklund is a newly published novel about a young girl looking for something not revealed. She is getting attached to a group of young jet setters in Madrid, which leads to a surprise revelation at the end of the story.
De försvunna (The Disappeared) by Swedish author Magnus Carling is a very different kind of detective story. The main protagonist, a police, is badly injured during a call to a flat suspected of domestic violence. While recuperating, and morning his dead daughter, he 'hears and sees things' which leads him to an old case of disappearing children. Slightly super natural tones in this book, and a different approach to a case which I found interesting.
The Lion's Skin by Rafael Sabatini, a classical adventure author. I have not read anything by him earlier, and I think the story does not really stand the test of time, although I slightly enjoyed it. A man looking for the father he has never known, and promising his stepfather to revenge his mother. He is setting off from France to England, but life comes in between and the revenge? Well, you can always change your mind. Especially, if love is in the air.
Best books
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima and En sommar med Homeros (Un été avec Homère) by Sylvain Tesson (NF) will also be on the list for best books this year. Excellent, both of them, in different ways.
Jane Harper is always good and with A Lost Man she is at her very best. I have read Force of Nature, The Dry, and The Survivors by her. I still think the first one I read, Force of Nature, stands out, but A Lost Man comes a good second.
What about you? Have you read any of these books?