September is gone and we have been travelling this month, and still are. We did Sardinia with our camper van and am now in Corsica. Fantastic islands and I managed to read a few books connecting with Sardinia so far. Corsica reading will come and will of course be a biography of Napoleon, having visited his birth place yesterday. But, now it is time to look at what I read in September. I managed eight books.
Agatha Christie x 2
After a very slow reading in August, due to lack of time, and thick books that never seemed to end, I was ready for a couple of light reads in the beginning of the month. I went to my Nextory app and dowloaded Murder at the Vicarage and The Body in the Library. Both easy reads, and entertaining.
Kala by Colin Walsh
I think this will be the best book I read this year. A fascinating story of Kala and her teenage friends. Starting with a prolog from past times and then jumping to present day. The story is told by three friends of Kala and jumps from past to present, making it a very thrilling read. This is Colin Walsh (Irish) debut novel and I can't wait to see what he will be up to in the future. There will be a review soon, I hope. I just wanted to tease you with the following paragraph, or long sentence reminding me of Henry James, from the prolog.
"Kala's front wheel noses its way over the edge and her bike tips into the fall and time dilates into something unstable once the rest of us pedal after her, turning the world beneath us, our bikes peeling off the top of the hill into the nothing, where immediately there's no need to pedal any more, gravity's taking care of everything now, coiling us through itself and tearing the path apart beneath our tyres as we go faster and faster, the cars growing louder, the gap getting larger, the lads yelping and shrieking, the bike chains beneath us screaming, when we see that Kala has begun to pedal furiously, all of us shouting and her leaning deeper and pulling out ahead of us, gathering herself into a surge, hair streking back at us like dark lightning as the path suddenly runs into road, and the sounds become noise, and in the roar of the moment it feels like we're foam becoming ocean."
It is a beautifully crafted novel.
The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson
I found this book at the harbour in Livorno, Italy, as we were camping overnight to catch the ferry to Sardinia the next morning. It is an English version of a Swedish thriller. I have not heard of either the author or the book, but the story sounded good. And it was. It was a little bit strange in the beginning to read it in English, because I could only think of the Swedish words, but IThe Prin got over that. It is a different story from the usual one, I really enjoyed it and it kept me guessing until the very end. . From Goodreads.
This spellbinding new thriller opens when a young father fails to show up for supper on a snowy night just before Christmas. His is not the only sinister disappearance, and before the final breathtaking climax, a secret killer terrorizes an entire frightened town.
Despite being on maternity leave, Inspector Ann Lindell is determined to find John's murderer. The cruel cat-and-mouse game that follows leads Ann to a deadly confrontation with a treacherous killer. Ann must decide whether to take a huge risk that could result in many more dead bodies in the snow, including hers and that of her unborn child.
Boktjuvarna, Jakten på de försvunna biblioteken by Anders Rydell
(The Book Thieves, The Hunt for the Lost Libraries). An interesting nonfiction book on the lost libraries after World War II. Well researched and rather scaring in the determination that the Nazis had in either destroying books or stealing them for their own purposes. Rydell has travelled all over Europe to find out what happened. Unfortunately, so many libraries are still lost.
The Queen of Darkness and other stories by Grazia Deledda
Grazia Deledda is a Sardinian author from Nouro, of whome I never heard of. To my big surprise she is a Nobel Prize Laureate and got the price in 1926 "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island (i.e. Sardinia) and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general." I found one of her short story books on my Nextory app and downloaded it. It was a pleasant aquaintaince to read her book. She writes about ordinary people who ends up in extraordinary circumstances, and how they deal with their problems, with grace and and an inner strengh that help them through life. The short stories, although written almost a hundred years ago, still felt that they belong to today's world.
Howards End by E.M. Forster
This book probably does not need any further introduction. It is, I would think, a typical Forster novel, slowly taking us through the lives of two sisters and a brother who happen to be aquainted with the Wilcoxes, the owners of Howards End. Enters a poor, young man who wants to educate himself, but have a lot of problems pursuing his studies. It is about relationships, intellectual versus entrepreneurial, different classes as the world is changing. Forster slowly goes forward with his sharp eye for society, life and a changing world. Only in the end, the story seems to speed up and become quite exciting. Margareth is the only one of the characters that I really liked, the rest of them seemed to be 'floating' around without any goal, or aim, in life.
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Finally, finished Goethe's Faust that I have been reading for a few months. It is a book that has to be read slowly, and I would even say, that I have to re-read part of it anyway to really grasp everything. It was a much easier read that I had anticipated and I appreciated the poetry of the text. I somehow thought it was written in prose. It is satirical, and sometimes hilarious and I really enjoyed it. When you read the introduction and comments you can see the bigger picture of what Goethe wanted with this story.
That was my eight books of September. I have already read a book about Garibaldi, in connection with the Sardinian trip. He had a house there, now a museum, and it was beautiful to walk around there. But more about this man and biography in October.
Oh neat! I studied Faust a few decades ago. I need to reread some Goethe for sure. Emma @ Words And Peace
I love Howard's End - I last read it after reading Zadie Smith's On Beauty, which was inspired by it. I do always think I am going to die as LeonBast died, though!