Orlando

Title: Orlando
Author: Virginia Woolf
Published: 1928 originally, this edition 2004 by Vintage.
Genre: Biography
Pages: 215


One last book for 2012! Started with a classy note, ending in a similar way. Jolly good. *puffs on an imaginary pipe*

Born in the times of Queen Elizabeth -the one who lived 1533-1603, not the current one- Orlando is a young nobleman who, as the years and lovers pass, doesn't seem to age. He is a beautiful man, a dreamer and a poet, and thanks to his noble birth, when his heart is broken in England, he takes off to Turkey, to become an ambassador, only to return home years later, as a woman.

Turkey might be an interesting holiday destination...

Anyhoo. One could go on about how Virginia based Orlando on her lover, Vita Sackville-Baggins West, and all the gender issues which are really interesting to read about, frankly, from the point of view of someone in whose times these things, differences between men and women and their strict roles, were such a bloody big issue. And to see them through someone who has lived both sides of the coin. At times the writing felt long-winded and there were moments when I wanted to slap Orlando a little, but I enjoyed the whole ride. Woolf's tone was very humorous at points, and she can write rambling sentences like a boss.


Nature, who has played so many queer tricks upon us, making us so unequally of clay and diamonds, of rainbow and granite, and stuffed them into a case, often of the most incongruous, for the poet has a butcher's face and the butcher a poet's; nature, who delights in muddle and mystery, so that even now (the first of November 1927) we know not why we go upstairs, or why we come down again, our most daily movements are like the passage of a ship on an unknown sea, and the sailors at the mast-head ask, pointing their glasses to the horizon; Is there land or is there none? to which, if we are prophets, we make answer "Yes"; if we are truthful we say "No"; nature, who has so so much to answer for besides the perhaps unwieldy length of this sentence, has further complicated her task and added to our confusion by provding not only a perfect rag-bag of odds and ends with us-a piece of a policeman's trousers lying cheek by jowl with Queen Alexandra's wedding veil-but has contrived that the whole assortment shall be lightly stitched together by a single thread.

And that's when I kinda fell in love with Virginia Woolf a little. I think I'm going to re-watch the movie made of Orlando now that the book is still in somewhat fresh memory, although that one sentence, and writing it out, has pretty much killed what was left of my brain after the christmas holidays and all the sweets, oh the bloody sweets! I remember liking it, the movie, the first time I saw it, and what's there not to like? Orlandy os played by Tilda Swinton! rowr.

So, bye bye 2012! Thank you for reading, and, umm, let's be careful out there!

Death of a Dustman

Title: Death of a Dustman
Author: M.C. Beaton
Published: 2002 by Grand Central Publishing, originally in 2001.
Genre: Murder mystery dipped in dark humour.
Pages: 226


Oh man, I really should write about these books when I finish them, one by one, not in a big lump like this.

Death of a Dustman is a Hamish Macbeth mystery. Like I said last time I read one of these, almost two years ago, Hamish Macbeth is one of my favourite TV-series. I recently watched it, from start to finish, and didn't want to part with Lochdubh and its people so soon. Even though Hamish, his ex-girlfriend and her father are the only people from the series that I recognised in the book.

Lochdubh's dustman is a right asshole called Fergus, who likes to boss people around, get drunk and beat up his wife. When he gets a proper title of Environment Officer and even an uniform from an over-eager councilwoman who wants to make Scotland green, he becomes worse. So no wonder that he soon ends up dead. The whole village hated his guts, so Hamish and his food-loving constable Clarry have a lot of people to interview.

I read this as a snack in the middle of The Hobbit and Orlando, in only a few days as this was such a light, enjoyable treat between the heavier reading. Funny, also, in a bit of a creepy way. Ended up laughing out loud in the lunch room at work, again. But that was by far the coolest way I've ever read of how to bring down a helicopter. I'mma gonna have to start reading more of this series. I'm not going to mind.


Hamish drove slowly around the network of one-track roads joining the outlying crofts, and then out on the main Lochdubh-Strathbane road. The rain had stopped and the clouds had rolled back from the mountains. The blazing heather on either side of the road glittered with raindrops. He rolled down the window and breathed in the scent of wild thyme, heather and pine. The magnificence of the glorious landscape reduced the nasty little doings of men to insignificance. 
And then, as he crested a hill, he saw the shambling figure of the tramp on the road ahead of him. He drove up and stopped just in front of Sean and jumped down.

Proven Guilty

Title: Proven Guilty
Author: Jim Butcher
Published: 2006 in book form but this was an audio book
Genre: Noir urban fantasy
Pages: 406 says Wikipedia.


Aah! It's the 8th Dresden Files -book already! This time, movie monsters are coming alive at a horror movie convention called SplatterCon!!! Molly Carpenter, daughter of Harry's friend Michael, comes to him pleading for help and bail money. Her friend Nelson is wrongly arrested for an assault which, on a closer look, seems almost supernatural. They end up at the convention, where both Molly and Nelson are working at, and shit promptly hits the fan.

Of course, that's not all that Harry needs to concern himself with. There's a war going on, continuing from the earlier books. There's fairy court politics and schemes, and there's wizard council politics and schemes Harry has to pay close attention to these days. He's also kind of smitten on his old friend, to make sure that things don't become too easy for the poor guy. Your basic everyday wizard stuff, a wild rollercoaster ride narrated by James Marsters. Mmm. James Marsters... I think that my favourite bit was when the baddies were trying to sell Harry on Ebay. I remember sitting in a train when it got to that point, and giggling to myself.

Wikiquote has only one tiny quote from this one, the opening line:


"Blood leaves no stain on a Warden's cloak." In Proven Guilty, this gets tested again and again.

The Angel's Kiss

Title: Doctor Who: The Angel's Kiss
Author: Melody Malone with Justin Richards
Published: 2012. Or, 1938.
Genre: Detective stories!
Pages: 873, but you can't get further than 864. So you're stuck at 99%. How annoying!


I got a Kindle! Or, a Kindle application on my phone. Yay. This was read on that. I can also English.

So, I'm a fan of the long-running TV-series Doctor Who, and this book ties in with an episode of the current season. I won't say much, because, you know, spoilers. I'm sorry, I just giggled a little at that. So, yeah, this book ties in with one particular episode, and I jumped at the chance to get to read it when I figured out this Kindle-application.

The plot's pretty basic:one day, Melody Malone receives a client in her New York office. A handsome movie star called Rock Railton is convinced that someone's out to kill him. And when he mentions the kiss of an Angel, she can't but agree to take the case. She is, you see, very familiar with Angels.

The Angel's Kiss is your classic private detective story with the exceptions that a) the protagonist, Melody Malone, is female, and b) it won't make much sense unless you're acquainted with the show Doctor Who, and the way the Angels operate. It's a show for the whole family, so the tone of the book is such that even the younger ones can read it, but I enjoyed it as well. The Angels were my first Doctor Who monsters, and it helps that they're spooky as all living fuck. I also adore the character of Melody in the show, so, it's all good.

Kill Your Friends

John Niven - Kill Your Friends


Well. Umm. I bought this one mostly for the name, and because it was claimed to be just as good as Trainspotting, along many levels, and Trainspotting is one of my absolute favourites. So I picked this up from the shelf and gave it a go. Got up to page 50+ and lost whatever little interest I'd had so far. I just didn't like it. But I'll probably give it another go at some point. In case it was just because I haven't had much time or attention for reading lately. Which is absolutely true. But at least I've been writing a lot!

Slaughterhouse 5

Title: Slaughterhouse 5
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Published: 1969, this ed. 1991 by Vintage. I seem to have a LOT of books from Vintage.
Genre: War with heaps of dark comedy.
Pages: 157




I thought I'd like to read something cheerful and fun after Atonement. So maybe a book about WWII and the bombing of Dresden, thousands of civilians dying, wasn't the best of ideas.

There is humour and dark comedy in the life story of Billy Pilgrim, which is told chronologically very out of order. That's all right, though, as that's how Billy himself experiences it as well. His life is full of normal things -marriage, children, career, death- and not-so-normal things such as being a prisoner of war during the second World War and being beamed up onto a space ship and taken to a planet called Trafalmadore.

When I picked up the book I thought I'd give it a go, see what it's like, and decided to read a page or two. Then one paragraph more. And one more. And one more. Even though Billy's a bit of a fool, or maybe because of it, I wanted to keep on reading, to find out what happens to him. Reading this also made me read up on the bombing of Dresden. Finding out about history is never a bad thing, in my opinion.


So, even though it wasn't exactly the pick-me-up I was looking for, I really did like Slaughterhouse 5. I should have read it years ago, man.




"And then it developed that Campbell was not going to go unanswered after all. Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life. There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters. But old Derby was a character now."

Atonement

Title: Atonement
Author: Ian McEwan
Published: 2001 originally, this ed. 2002 by Vintage.
Genre: Family drama
Pages: 372




I'd been wanting to see the movie made of this book for a good, long while, and then it just happened to be on the telly when I was visiting my parents last summer, and I finally did see it. And then I wanted to finally read it, as well. And I finally did. And I'm glad I did, both, as I really enjoyed. Both.


On the hottest day of the summer, 13-year old Briony, frustrated by her ailing play in the honor of her big brother, sees something she's still unable to understand between two adults, and draws her own conclusions. Aaand acts upon them, causing some shit.


Okay, I've started a new paragraph three times now and have become stumped. What to say about this book? For one, I really should have read it in longer bits. As it is, I read the first half or so at lunch breaks at work, which meant that just as I was getting into the book, I had to go back to work. A few train trips got me deeper into the story, and even though I'd seen the movie, which is a very faithful adaptation, as far as I can remember anyway, I was pretty hooked. And touched. The book takes the reader deep into the thoughts and actions of the main players, both during the initial incident and through its consequences. I'm trying not to give out any spoilers. But, for a good, depressing time, read the book or see the movie!




"Briony leaned back against a wall and stared unseeingly down the nursery's length. It was a temptation for her to be magical and dramatic, and to regard what she had witnessed as a tableau mounted for her alone, a special moral for her wrapped in a mystery. But she knew very well that if she had not stood when she did, the scene would still have happened, for it was not about her at all. Only chance had brought her to the window. This was not a fairy tale, this was the real, the adult world in which frogs did not address princesses, and the only messages were the ones that people sent."

The Crow Road

Title: The Crow Road
Author: Iain Banks
Published: 1992 originally, this ed. 1998 by Abacus.
Genre: Family mystery drama
Pages: 501


Crow Road, man. Friggin' Crow Road... I read this when the book first came out in Finnish, in the late 90's, and it's been in the back of my mind ever since. Not like, can't stop thinking about it: more like hmm, that was a darn good book, I ought to read it again one day. And this August, the book just fell into my lap twice within two weeks: first, for 50 cents in Finnish, and then for a few euros in the original lingo. And yeah, it was still a friggin' ride.

Friggin'. What a weird word.

So, what's it about then. Prentice McHoan is this young, Scottish guy with a family full of mysteries. For one, his uncle Rory apparently disappeared into thin air some years before, when Prentice himself was still a kid. His father Kenneth still believes that his younger brother Rory is alive somewhere. Prentice, currently not in speaking terms with his father, takes it upon himself to figure out what the hell happened to Rory.

The book jumps almost dizzyingly between the time it's set in and various pasts: for example, we have both Prentice's and Kenneth's childhoods and a lot of their teenage years. And it all comes together, telling the story of a whole messed-up family.

You know what? This book's like the TARDIS. It's so much bigger on the inside. Man, I wish I could write stuff like this.

I've been trying to figure out which one came for me first, the miniseries or the book. The miniseries came out in 1996 and the book in Finnish in 1998, so it could've been either. Anyways, I remember really liking it the first time around, and really liked it the second time around, too. I was a little annoyed when I could remember the solution to the mystery, although the details had escaped me after... 14 or so years.

Oh! Oh! Oh! I have to mention this!!! This book has one of the best opening sentences ever:

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

Brilliant, eh? You just go, wait, what?  

Thinking about it, though, aren't all books kinda like the TARDIS?

Okay, okay, I'm gonna reign my ADD in check now, give you a nice quote, and get back to staring at the wall. But yeah, definitely one of the books I'd recommend to just about anyone.


I leant on one of the chair's wheels. 'Let me get this right; your moles itch when one of us is talking about you?'
She nodded, grim. 'Sometimes they hurt, sometimes they tickle. And they can itch in different ways, too.'
'And that mole's Uncle Rory's?' I nodded incredulously at the big mole on her right wrist. 
'That's right,' she said, tapping the stick on one footrest of the wheelchair. She held up her wrist and fixed the raised brown spot with an accusatory glare. 'Not a sausage, for eight years.'
I stared at the dormant eruption with a sort of nervous respect, mingled with outright disbelief. 'Wow,' I said at last.

Dead Beat

Title: Dead Beat
Author: Jim Butcher
Published: 2005 in book form but this was an audio book
Genre: Noir urban fantasy
Pages: 396 says Wikipedia.


I'm trying very hard not to jump straight into the next book, because I don't want the series to end/end up waiting for the next book for too long, but hey. Here's book #7 (in audio form, because James Marsters). 

More than one meanie is after the Word of Kemmler, a book that will allow the user to control the dead. So, it's Zombiepocalypse Now unless Harry stops all this nonsense.

Umm. I'm finding it quite hard to think of something to say about the plot since I'm all caught up in the book I just finished, but since I insist on doing these in the order I've finished them... so, I'll just say that, again, this was a ride that took my friggin' breath away. Especially during the big showdown in the end. That... woah. Or maybe the breathlessness is because my lungs are in a poor order right now. But man, I really wanna start the next book...


"Polka will never die!"

Mendoza in Hollywood

Title: Mendoza in Hollywood
Author: Kage Baker
Published: 2000 originally, this paperback ed. 2006 by Tor.
Genre: Historical time travel science fiction!
Pages: 334


Oh man, this one took far, far longer than such a relatively short book had any right to take. I started this long before I went on summer holiday from work, in August, and during the holiday I read the fourth A Song of Ice and Fire -book, plus Mrs. Fry's Diary, and the couple of Dresden Files audio books too.

Our acquintance from the first book, botanist Mendoza, is sent to Hollywood -which some of you probably guessed from the title- to gather samples of rare plants. But not the Hollywood we know: the year is 1862, and the west is quite wild. Quite empty, but wild.

There was a lot of insight to the lives of Dr. Zeus' immortal operatives, new and old. But those breaks, those damn long breaks coupled with the relative uneventfulness of the book made me not like it very much. Partly I also blame the text on the back cover: it promised this very specific, spoilerrific action, which didn't start until the book was 4/5 over! The last ten pages were the most eventful ones, but they left me with a lot of curiosity for the coming books, and with an overall nice taste in my mouth. Figuratively. I don't lick my books. Except, umm. Maybe once or twice. Mostly I just cuddle them.


But yeah, that was the third book in Baker's Company series, and I am looking forward to the next. Gotta finish these few ones I've started first, though...


   "Now, señors, I think some of the reason for my subsequent lamentable behavior is evident right here in the next scene. I hung up my oilskins and shrugged into dry clothes, meditating smugly to myself that it didn't take much to make me happy nowadays. I was an old hand now, wasn't I? A couple of tamales and a dry place to put up my feet and read a novel were enough. I could make my own space anywhere they posted me, as a good operative should. Wisdom at last. Perhaps I'd attained enlightenment after tramping through that beautiful desolation all these years collecting specimens alone. Certainly I had equilibrium.
   "Well. Where pride flaunts such scarlet banners, blares such brazen trumpets, you know what follows."
 

Blood Rites

Title: Blood Rites
Author: Jim Butcher
Published: 2004 in book form but this was an audio book
Genre: Noir urban fantasy
Pages: 372 says Wikipedia.




This book opens with a scene of Harry rescuing a box of puppies for a Brother Wang from a monkey demon hurling its fiery poo around. From there we move on to the set of a porn movie where people are dying strangely. Drop in a family of White Court vampires, some nasty Black Court ones as well, and Harry's up in it to his neck again. And it is awesome.


Listened to about half of the book in one sitting, while drawing on my summer holiday, trying to ignore the guy wreaking havoc in our poor bathroom which kinda has to be built again from the basics. Didn't even notice the time going by, Mr. Marsters' voice is so hypnotic. And the story was such a wild ride once again.




There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard. It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed. By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder. The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire's crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil. The vampire gasped and writhed a little more. The timer popped out of the turkey. Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice. "For my next trick," I panted into the startled silence, "anvils." 

(Courtesy of Wikiquote)

A Feast for Crows

Title: A Feast for Crows
Author: George R. R. Martin
Published: 2005 originally, this paperback ed. 2011 by Voyager.
Genre: You win or you die.
Pages: 776 + family trees and such until the page count is 852




Welp, back into the saddle with A Song of Ice and Fire! This was the fourth brick, and I hurt my wrist with it, trying to hold the bastard up with one hand while lying on the sofa, reading. Should have stopped when it started to hurt, but like the previous books, it was a hard one to put down.

Happening simultaneously as the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, A Feast for Crows concentrated on a bunch of characters in and around King's Landing, whereas the fifth will concentrate on the rest. Therefore there weren't so damn many characters running around as before, and it was easy to keep track of everyone. But it's going to be a looooooong wait for the sixth book, to find out what happened to some of my favourite characters from this book, who were left hanging in some really nasty spots. Literally, for some.

Tempted to start the fifth straight away, but considering I just started two other books, I should probably finish some of those first...


"What little peace and order the five kings left us will not long survive the three queens, I fear."

Mrs Fry's Diary

Title: Mrs Fry's Diary
Author: Mrs Stephen Fry
Published: 2010 originally, 2011 in paperback by Hodder.
Genre: Well it's a diary...
Pages: 346


Finally! The truth is out on Stephen Fry and his secret life! Never mind the books and documentaries and movies and TV-shows (I've been hooked on Qi the whole summer), here's the chance for the world to find out what the real deal is! Mr. Fry is not the national treasure he's made out to be, oh no: he's a womanizing drunkard of a window cleaner, and has six -or possibly seven- children with his wife Edna, who's diary I'm holding in my hands right now. Well I would be if I weren't writing this.

Mrs Fry's Diary takes us through a year in her life: marriage with Stephen, troubles with children, poetry classes, seeing Mrs Graham Norton and Ex-Mrs John Barrowman and her other friends, Spam, trips around Europe, and her relentless hunt for the truth about her husband. It's a touching book, the true story of a courageous woman, and it brought many a tear to my eye. 


April
1 Friday

We told the kids a homicidal clown lives in their wardrobe today. It wasn't an April Fool, we just thought they should know.

Death Masks

Title: Death Masks
Author: Jim Butcher
Published: 2003 in book form but this was an audio book
Genre: Noir urban fantasy
Pages: 374 says Wikipedia.


I love how the Dresden Files books are basically just a huuuuuge helping of And Then It Got WORSE. Ive been listening to them as audio books now and then, and this is the fifth book in the series. Listened and reviewed the first one in, let's see, September 2009. Wow. I'm slower at listening than Mr. Butcher is in writing...

In this book! Professional wizard Harry Dresden is in his usual state, which is broke, so he appears on a TV program regarding all things magical. The other guests seem veeeery interested in talking to him, except for the one he actually went there to talk to. And soon enough, Harry's hunting for the Shroud, being challenged into duels with nasty Red Court vampire dukes to start or avoid a war between the vamps and wizards, battling fallen angels with Knights of the Cross and if that's not enough, his old sweetheart Susan is back in town.

And if that's not enough fun, it's read by James Marsters. Mmm. I could listen to him for hours. And hey, I just did. Halfway through the next one, actually...

The Good Fairies of New York

Title: The Good Fairies of New York
Author: Martin Millar
Published: Originally in 1992, this edition in 2008 by... umm, Tor?
Genre: Urban fantasy
Pages: 273 pages and over too soon




Whee, finally! There are only a few books by Mr. Millar that I haven't read, so I'm kinda saving them for a rainy day, but I've been looking forward to reading this! Oh, wait, I still have all the Thraxas-books to read!

(Three sentences, all ending with exclamation marks. You know, the first time I rented The Big Lebowski, the Finnish VHS tape cover had only a three-sentence description in the back, and all three ended with exclamation marks. The description was utter crap, but the movie rocks.)

A bunch of fairies from the British isles accidentally end up in New York, including Scottish Heather and Morag, who just love to hate each other and are constantly fighting. This costs them several family heirlooms, and not just from their own families. Which just creates a whole lot of other trouble. They soon find themselves pursued by local Chinese, black and Italian fairies. Solace can luckily be found at Kerry's, who's desperately trying to finish her Celtic flower alphabet to win an arts competition, and at Dinnie's, where there really isn't so much solace as there's drunken swearing and bad fiddling. Plus there's a struggling performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a bag lady on a roaring rampage of WAR!, a dead musician after his guitar, and a lot of drinking. Oh, and the Cornish king of fairies really wants two of the New York escapees back. Opressing all his subjects just isn't enough.


Like with other of his books, Millar has about a dozen characters running -or flying, especially after that damned poppy- around the place, but everything comes together to tell a lovely story which makes me all happy inside.




"Two fairies just came through my window and were sick on the carpet!" he screamed on reaching Fourth Street, not fully realizing the effect that this would have on the passers-by till the men sweating with sacks round a garbage truck stopped to laugh at him.
"What'd you say?"
"Upstairs," gasped Dinnie. "Two fairies, with kilts and violins and little swords... green kilts..."
The men stared at him. Dinnie's monologue ground to a halt.

The Back Passage

Title: The Back Passage
Author: James Lear
Published: 2006 by Cleis Press Inc.
Genre: Murder mystery and sex of the gay variety
Pages: 199 pages


Yes! Again! I'm fairly sure this is the third time I've read The Back Passage since I started this blog, but I can't find the entry for the second time around. Oh well. I'd borrowed this one to a friend, and once I got it back last... Tuesday, I immediately read it again. Jolly good times.

I still agree with everything I said about this book in the first proper entry to this blog, and find it somewhat amusing that I still, third time around, couldn't remember who the killer was. I'm starting to remember the order of Mitch's sexual encounters, but murderer? Umm...? Ehh, details. This book is very much of a case of the journey being much more important -and interesting- than arriving at the destination.



"How was that, copper?"
"I fucking loved it, sir. Please don't stop."

Fight Club

Title: Fight Club
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Published: Originally 1996, this edition 2003 by Vintage.
Genre: Someone describes this as "...American urban nightmare..." on the back cover. That sounds good.
Pages: 208

"We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact," Tyler said. "So don't fuck with us."

Sputnik Sweetheart

Title: Sputnik Sweetheart
Author: Haruki Murakami
Published: 1999 in original Japanese, 2001 first time in English. This edition 2002 by Harvill
Genre: Murakami.
Pages: 229




Oh, I really should write about each and every book as soon as I've read it, to remember everything I wanted to mention. Not after I've already finished another book after it. But there were circumstances. Aren't there always?


This was, I think, the third time I read this book. First time around was in Finnish, as soon as it had come out in Finnish. Second time sometime after I bought this copy from Berlin, in 2004. Third time now, obviously, and I think I'm finally understanding very many things. Or then I just forget the Ohhh!!! -things every time and think I'm only realising them whenever I read it again.


See? This is why I should write about books as soon as I've finished them.


Sputnik Sweetheart, first book I read from Mr. Murakami, is told by the narrator known only as K. He tells us of his long time friend and secret love, Sumire, a productive yet not very accomplishing author-to-be, who suddenly finds herself head over heels with a much older woman, Miu. She can't even write anymore, but with Miu close by, she doesn't care.


And then things get weird.




Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking for others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the Earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Title: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Author: Robert C. O'Brien
Published: 1971
Genre: Children's book
Pages: 268


That awesome cartoon movie about mice and super-intelligent rats which you saw as a kid and it gave you nightmares? This is it! Legend tells that my parents took little brother and me to see this in the movies, but it was so scary we had to leave halfway through. A few years later we got it on VCR tape, and watched it many times.

If you haven't heard of Mrs. Frisby (or Brisby in the movie) and the rats of NIMH, it's... well, it's about Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH. Spring has come, and Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse, mother of four little kids, has to get ready to move her family to their summer home, away from under the oncoming plowing of the field. But one of the kids, little Timothy, becomes ill with pneumonia, and is too sick to get out of bed, let alone move over the field. So Mrs. Frisby goes to look for help, and is eventually sent to talk with the rats living under the rosebush. There isn't much time, the farmer's getting his tractor ready already, but luckily the rats come up with a plan.

I watched the movie again a few months back, and was still a little scared at points, even though I knew how things would turn out. And I'm glad I read the book, too. It's mainly a children's book, but definitely the kind that adults can read as well. It doesn't talk down to the reader, and even though I still knew how things would turn out (even though they changed a few things for the movie), it was full of suspense. 


"You are joking, sir; you are not serious. No rat could move my house. It is far too heavy, much too big."
"The rats on Mr. Fitzgibbon's farm have - things - ways - you know nothing about. They are not like the rest of us. They are not, I think, even like most other rats. They work at night, in secret. Mrs. Frisby, do you know their main entrance?"
"In the rosebush? Yes."

The Last Samurai

Title: The Last Samurai
Author: Helen DeWitt
Published: 2000, this one by Vintage in 2001.
Genre: 
Pages: 482


 I read this one in Finnish about as soon as it had come out, and really liked it. A little while back, I saw an English copy at one of the used book shops in Helsinki. I didn't buy it that time, although I was tempted. But I kept telling myself, I already have it in Finnish, and my book shelves are full as they are, so no. Went in to the shop again a few weeks later, it was still there, waiting patiently on the shelf, and I was thinking, it's so much better to read books in their original language, and I really liked this one, so...

Okay, so, this has NOTHING to do with the Tom Cruise movie. It's about this woman, Sybilla, and her young genius of a son Ludo. They live in London, and because they're very poor, they spend days riding on the Circle Line trains to keep warm. Sybilla types up old magazines to make some money, and Ludo learns languages from Japanese to Arabic way before he should even be in school, dazzling and confusing other Tube passengers.

Ludo has no father, so Sybilla keeps Kurosawa's movie Seven Samurai playing on the VCR through his childhood, to show him one damn good movie, and more importantly, to give him not one but seven father figures. Ludo isn't exactly satisfied with this, and eventually goes in search of his real dad. You have to read the book yourself to see how that goes, but it's pretty awesome.

Since both Sybilla and Ludo are pretty damn smart, so's the book. But it's also funny and really hard to put down. And oh, DeWitt has published another book just six months ago! Yay!



It was much easier when he was small. I had one of those Kanga carriers; in warm weather I would type at home with him in front and in cold weather I would go to the British Museum and sit in the Egyptian gallery near the changing room, reading Al Hayah to keep my hand in. Then at night I would go home and type Pig Fancier's Monthly or Weaseller's Companion. And now four years have gone by.

Annabel

Title: Annabel
Author: Kathleen Winter
Published: 2010. This edition by Vintage.
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 461




I saw this book several times in one of the big book shops in Helsinki, became instantly intrigued, and finally remembered to buy it once I found a cheaper copy. Books in Finland, sadly, tend to be damn expensive. And wow. I'd read that Winter's writing style is, at times, rather... what would be a good word for it... poetic? Kind of like a painting. And I was initially a little wary about this fact, but once I started the book and got used to her style, man. I was pretty much hooked. Read it in buses from work, between buses, in the evenings and in bed until I reached the end.


So yeah, I liked Annabel. It's about a child born in a remote part of Canada, in 1968, who is both male and female. The kid's parents more or less grudgingly decide to grow him as a boy, and name him Wayne, not telling him that there's a very real girl part to him as well. Only a few people know of this: the parents, a few doctors, and a neighbour who was present at the birth. She secretly gave Wayne the name Annabel, after her own child.


Wayne grows up taking pills he has no idea what they're for, but always feels that there's something in him that makes him different from the other boys. The book's mostly serious, but there were a few laugh-out-loud bits, and all the main characters are written beautifully. They're so real I felt I could just reach into the book and poke them. And, like many good books, it was over way too soon.




Wayne knew Donna Palliser could not see into the glass ball. He knew she was in the business, tonight, of being cruel. He did not like to see Agatha Groves made fun of  and did not mind giving Donna Palliser a change of topic. 'I dreamed I was a girl,' he said. 'I could see my sweater. It was a green sweater with glimmery buttons, like light changing underwater. I looked at my sandals and they were white. I was walking by a river. I tried to see my face in the river but I couldn't. No one was with me. I tried to run with the river. I picked one peak of water and ran beside it and I thought it was the same peak. But then I wasn't sure. I didn't realise I was a girl in the dream until I woke up. While I was waking up I remembered I'm a boy, and I was surprised for a minute, until I remembered that's what I always am when I'm awake.'

A Study in Scarlet

Title: A Study in Scarlet
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: 1886 originally.
Genre: Detective stories!
Pages: 395 little mobile phone pages.


The first Sherlock Holmes story, and one of the very few novel-length ones! This baby introduces both Holmes and Watson, how they met and came to live together, and, of course, the big mystery.

An American man is found dead, apparently from suicide, in an empty room in an empty house in Brixton, but when the coppers call in Ghostbusters Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Smarty-pants starts to find many things to prove that it was, indeed, murder.

(I've seen the modern-day Sherlock BBC series episode made of this a couple of times: I hope I'm not confusing/remembering things from that instead of the novel. It was quite faithful in execution, but also took many liberties.)

I was reading along happily, trying to figure out all the details, when suddenly the story jumped to Utah, USA, and a group of Mormons traveling towards what would be Salt Lake City. I was sitting in a bus, far from the internets when this happened, and since I couldn't check if this was supposed to happen, wondered if someone had -by accident or intention to utterly confuse- replaced the book with Something Completely Different. But it all tied in together in the end. Hope I didn't spoil anything for anyone. Sorry, hypothetical readers.  

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Title: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: 1894 originally.
Genre: Detective stories!
Pages: 738 little mobile phone pages.


 This new layout thing is confusing.

Another collection of Sherlock Holmes stories! You can read the list included in this one here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Memoirs_of_Sherlock_Holmes

Oh, it's been a while already since I read these, I've just become really bad at updating things again. It's surprisingly easy (to someone who loves books so much) to read from such a small screen and be so ... technological. I guess that it helps that the stories are so intriguing, and that a phone is easy to carry around in your pocket, all the time, everywhere.

I don't think I figured out any of the stories before Watson this time. Holmes has some kind of a mind, figuring everything out. Sir A. C. D. even more so, for writing all this. Ah, it's hard trying to remember what I thought when I was reading these, since it has been a while, like I mentioned. And since I'm reading such an interesting book now, it's occupied my mind.

I do remember, however, snickering every time Watson gets excited over Holmes' deductions. The word obviously had a different meaning back then, and I understand what was meant with it, but I can be immature and am amused when I read something like this: "Most excellent, Holmes!" I ejaculated.

*giggle*

Digging up corpses

Title: Digging up corpses
Author: James L. Grant
Published: 2007 by Stonegarden.net publishing
Genre: There's zombies and vampires and the whole works in this baby.
Pages: 148


I bought this collection of 13 stories about as soon as it came out, I think, and read a few back then. Picked it up from the shelf after finishing Sherlock Holmes and going a few days without reading anything. Those were some damn scary days, man. And busy: the last three, four weeks have been the busiest at work since... fuck, ever? So I've quite overfried my brain and have been at a loss at what to read. This? Was just what I needed.

Short bits with interesting or kickass or interesting and kickass characters, like the two zombie armageddon survivors or the macho man who did bite off more than he could chew with the hot redhead. Mr. Grant sets up a story effortlessly and quickly, creating within a few pages both a good scenario and real characters to play it out. And there's no cliched bullshit happy Hollywood endings. Nope, but there are endings that make you grin like a mad pedestrian wolf.

(See what I did there? If not, you really should read some James L. Grant. It'll be good for you.)


He sat down in the chair, opened a side drawer of the desk and pulled out a tan shoebox. The cardboard lid hit the floor like a tiny dropped coffin, and one of Robbie's meaty hands retrieved a big, shiny hunting knife. He held the seven-inch blade between his forefinger and thumb, and turned the handle toward me. It looked sharper than a midnight wind in December. "You know what to do, Danny," he murmured, and a lone bead of sweat rolled down his cheek.
I grabbed the knife. "You ready?"
He nodded, and leaned forward in the chair until his face was pointed at the carpet. I had a perfect view of his hairless pate.
"Okay, go ahead," he whispered.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: Haven't the foggiest.
Genre: Detective stories!
Pages: ...881.


This one was a first in many ways! First time I read Sherlock Holmes -stories, and first time I read a book on a mobile phone. Okay, that's just two firsts, actually. But I bet Sir A. C. D. didn't imagine as he wrote these stories that one day, 100+ years in the future, you could read his writings on this small thingie that fits into your palm, and sometimes makes turning a page a pain in the ass.

This bunch was a collection of 12 (I think...) Sherlock Holmes -stories, and I don't think they were in any particular order. The narrator, doctor John Watson, would start with a story, and in the beginning of the next one would say how this one happened yeaaaars ago. But then again, I don't know if this is how it was supposed to be, if this really is the real order the stories were written in.

Anyhoo, yeah, I was hooked. Both by the brainteasers and the thrill of newness of reading a book. On my mobile. I'm sure I remembered to mention that I can read books on my mobile to everyone I know about three times. I've been averse to getting a Kindle or something like it since I love the feel of an actual book in my hands, and also because of th price, but after this experience, maybe it wouldn't be such a horrible thing...

The stories? Yes, I definitely want to read the rest as well. I've seen both recent Sherlock Holmes -movies and became an instant fan when I saw the BBC Sherlock-series set in modern times. Other than that, my reason for not picking up these classics before is probably due to my slight aversion to classics, thinking them long-winded or boring. This is a silly aversion, as I've quite enjoyed the few classics I've read. So I shall be checking those out one day, trying to figure out what's going on before Watson gets it.

Lonely Werewolf Girl

Title: Lonely Werewolf Girl
Author: Martin Millar
Published: 2007. This one's by Soft Skull Press
Genre: Urban fantasyyyyyy!
Pages: 558


I started reading this on my trip to London last July, but then got distracted by A Song of Ice and Fire. Now I decided to pick it up again, and finish it! Yay! So I did just that.

Like all Mr. Millar's books (at least the ones I've read so far), Lonely Werewolf Girl is written in shortish chapters which alternate between the many characters filling the book. Our title character is the laudanum-addicted teenage werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch, a member of the ruling family of the Scottish clan of MacRinnalch werewolves, born in wolf-form on a full moon. She's living on the streets of London after she attempted to kill her father, the Thane, and is being pursued by not only the werewolves who are just a tad upset over this, but also werewolf hunters.

Once the Thane dies, the whole clan is pushed on the brink of war: Kalix's brothers Sarapen and Markus want the title, while their sister Thrix would rather just concentrate on the clothes she's designing for the Fire Queen Malveria and have this family business sorted out as soon as possible. There are many other members of the clan in the book -the cousins which the family does not talk about probably my personal favourites- and also two human students, Daniel and Moonglow, who end up rescuing Kalix from the streets and protecting her. Well, as far as two humans can, from powerful werewolves and a guild of werewolf hunters. They succeed quite admirably!

Oh, and there's a sequel! Curse of the Wolf Girl, if I remember correctly, which I just bought yesterday from that big internets bookshop.

It's most likely due to the fact that I started the book in July, and just glanced through the first 90 or so pages when I picked it up again, but I got to a bit of a slow start with this one. But soon enough I was swept up with werewolf politics though, and the lovely Millarish characters. Looking forward to the sequel, though I guess I have to find something else to read until it arrives...


"Kalix felt that she really should be moving on. She wasn't safe here. But she wasn't safe anywhere. She gazed longingly at the bath, white and clean, then nodded. While Moonglow ran the water Kalix slipped out of her rags and for the first time since Moonglow had met her, something resembling a smile appeared on her face. Moonglow went to hunt through her boxes for her shampoo and bath oils. Downstairs Daniel was finally bringing in the last of their possessions. He was very red in the face. As a first year English student he wasn't used to a lot of exercise. Two days a week his lectures started at nine in the morning and he always felt that this deprived him of a lot of sleep."

Sky Coyote

Title: Sky Coyote
Author: Kage Baker
Published: Originally in 1999, this ed. 2007 by Tor
Genre: Historical science fiction!
Pages: 310


Remember when I said I'd take it slow with this series? Yeah...

Sky Coyote is the second book in Kage Baker's Company-series, and I picked it up as soon as I'd finished A World without End. Read it in a week or two, buuuuut didn't get around to updating. So I'm doing it now. Yeah.

The lead of this book is Joseph, who had a small role in the first book (an important one, though). The Company has decided to save a whole Chumash tribe with most of their belongings before ze Europeans get there, and Joseph, masked as one of their gods, the trickster Sky Coyote, is sent in to prepare the snarky tribe for their fate.

The book is light and pretty humorous, a joy to read, even though there are undercurrents of immortals becoming increasingly concerned over what exactly is going to happen in the year 2355, and the fact that some old immortal operatives have gone inexplicalby missing. And then there's the penis puppet show. It's very hard trying to keep a straight face when riding a full, traffic hour bus and reading about the penis puppet show.


"So here I am, Mr. Sky Coyote.
" I like this role. Trot trot trot on my new feet, leaving strange prints along the creek bed. A seagull floating inland gives a high far-off cry, and I cock my ear most comically. Up the winding canyon, and any real beast meeting me here in the gloom under teh oak trees will have the fright of its life. If I wanted to give chase, I wonder how I'd do? The muzzle points, the sharp teeth bare, and they snap and slash. We had to compromise on the tongue so I could speak, but I've practised panting in the mirror. I'm confident I'll make a good impression."

World Without End

Title: World Without End
Author: Ken Follett
Published: 2007 by Pan Books (at least this edition is...)
Genre: Historical fiction!
Pages: 1237


It says on both covers something along the lines of You can't put this book down once you pick it up, and, well, that's pretty much 100% accurate. This epic just suck you in.

It's been, oh, some 12 or 13 years since I first read Follett's medieval epic Pillars of the Earth. I was really into things medieval back then, and even used the book as a part of my Finnish matriculant essay exam. World Without End is its sequel, as in it's set in the same place, Kingbridge, around the same cathedral which was built during Pillars of the Earth, but some 200 years later. It's Halloween 1327, and four young children happen to witness the murder of two men in a forest near the cathedral. World Without End follows these four kids, the ups and downs of their lives.

And man. Every time, EVERY SINGLE TIME someone gets an up, they immediately get whacked down. Oh hey, he's doing good, isn't he? Nope, not anymore. But she's figured out how to--- Nope. Well how about him, is he--Nope. Oh come on, at leas---NOPE!!! And then it's HAPPY FUN PLAGUE TIME! \o/ Fun fact: this was the first time ever I actually shouted "Fuck!" out loud because someone sneezed in a book.

Don't get me wrong, I loved every fricking second of reading this book. I spent one weekend on the sofa reading it. Well, some 500 pages of it. I got anxious around page 900 because it would be over soon! World Without End sucked me in good and proper: the characters were such that every time one was whacked down, I had to keep on reading to see that they'd get up again. I think I'll miss them, now that it's over.

So yeah. Good times!


"I'll keep your secret, if you'll keep mine."

In the Garden of Iden

Title: In the Garden of Iden
Author: Kage Baker
Published: 1997 by Avon Books
Genre: Historical science fiction!
Pages: 294


My better half's been telling me to READ THIS SERIES!!! for a long while now, and I finally obeyed! In the Garden of Iden's the first book of Kage Baker's Company-series. Let's see if I can explain it a little.

Okay, so, a few centuries in the future, there's this organisation, the Company, who aim to preserve extinct species and plants, protect works of art and so on. They do this by traveling in time, to the past, taking orphans and making them immortal. These kids are brought up to work for the Company; for example Iden's main character, botanist Mendoza, on her first assignment rescues valuable plants from extinction from Sir Walter Iden's famous garden in Elizabethan England. She and a few other operatives stay as Sir Walter's guests, and young Mendoza is immediately smitten with the Sir's gloom cookie of a secretary, Nicholas Harpole.

So, it's kind of a historical romance -Baker being an expert in Elizabethan England- with lots of science fiction elements. And a fake unicorn. And nice amounts of humour.

According to the SO, the series gets better along the way, the first few books taking it slow. But I really liked this one, too, with all its introductoriness, so the series is looking to be pretty darn good. Like with the Song of Ice and Fire, I'm going to try to take this slowly. Read a book now, another in a while. Make it last. Like with the Song of Ice and Fire, I'm most likely going to fail fantabulously in this endeavour and finish the series before summer.


We crossed a lot of water and flew over a dry red land, remote and silent. We touched down within the high walls of Terra Australis Training Compound 32-1800. It had been there about fifteen hundred years when I was enrolled, and had had time to install all the little amenities: air conditioning, laser defense, a piano in the gymnasium. Within its towering walls were gardens and playgrounds and the domes of cool subterranean classrooms. And hospitals. And warehouses. In fact, most of the place was underground.
It wasn't all that different from any particularly demanding boarding school, except that of course nobody ever went home for the holidays and we had a lot of brain surgery.

Haunted

Title: Haunted
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Published: Originally in 2005, this edition by Vintage in 2006. I seem to have a lot of books by Vintage.
Genre: Chuck does scary stories
Pages: 404 + afterword.


Well well well. About a decade since I've become acquainted to Mr. Palahniuk's work by seeing Fight Club for the first time, and he finally makes me want to take a bath between my ears. Well played, Chuck. But not with Guts, the infamous story from this book, reading of which has caused over 70 people to faint. That one made me laugh out loud nigh hysterically. No, it was Speaking Bitterness, and also, to a lesser degree, Hot Potting. I was eating while I read the latter one. Not a good idea, that.

Soooo, Haunted. It's about a bunch of people saying goodbye to the world for three months, while they go on a writer's retreat to finally write That One Book Which Will Make Them Famous And Rich. Or, at least, that was the idea. What actually happens is very different. The book consists of short introductory poems of characters before they tell their big stories to the others while waiting for death or salvation. Between these the unnamed narrator tells what goes on at the retreat, which is, basically, a wave of mutilation.

This book is awesome. Chuck is awesome. I don't know where he pulls these ideas and stories from, but just when you think that the one you just read is the most horrifying/funny/gory thing you've read, on comes the next one. And the scariest thing is, it's all pretty much just... human nature. What a fucked-up bunch we are.


"And someday soon, any day now, the world will come open that door and rescue us. The world will listen. Starting on that sun-glorious day, the whole world is going to love us."

Goodbye to Berlin

Title: Goodbye to Berlin
Author: Christopher Isherwood
Published: Originally in 1939, this edition by Vintage considerably later.
Genre: Drama!
Pages: 256


Okay, so THIS is blog post #100! Yay! Nice way to start 2012! And it's a classy book, too!

2/2 of the books Santa brought me. I discovered I like Mr. Isherwood's style while reading A Single Man last year, and these new editions have absolutely gorgeous cover art. This one is a collection of short stories which tie together through people in the early 1930's Berlin. There's six stories altogether, told in first person. The person's name happens to be Christopher Isherwood, but the reader apparently shouldn't assume this to mean that the stories are purely autobiographical.

The book tells in honest details how people of that time lived, when Hitler didn't really seem all that bad yet. There are, for instance, the Nowaks, a family of five living in an inhabitable attic room where Christopher also stays for a while, and the Landauers, wealthy Jewish family who own a famous department store. The bottom and top of the society, and oh, the society can be so decadent. There's also the rather mismatched couple of Peter and Otto, and Sally Bowles, perhaps Isherwood's most famous character, an upper-class English girl trying to make a legend of herself in Berlin.

What else could I say... well, nothing smart, apparently, since I've erased every attempt I've made so far, and I have to run in a minute! So, a small quote:


Sally made no reply. She lit a cigarette, slightly frowning.
'You say I seem to have changed,' I continued. 'To be quite frank, I've been thinking the same thing about you.'
Sally didn't seem surprised: 'Have you, Christopher? Perhaps you're right. I don't know... or perhaps we've neither of us changed. Perhaps we're just seeing each other as we really are. We're awfully different in lots of ways, you know.'
'Yes, I've noticed that.'
'I think,' said Sally, smoking meditatively, her eyes on her shoes, 'that we may have sort of outgrown each other, a bit.'

Book meme thing for 2011

Right-o! I snagged this from http://blog.catherinepope.co.uk/2011/12/end-of-year-book-meme-2/


How many books read in 2011?
23. 23?! I’m ashamed of myself. But, in my defense, I’ve also drawn a few dozen comic pages this year, plus written ~20 short stories and one 170-page long one. And I read most of the books on lunch breaks at work, and on the buses home. Plus, full-time job. So not too much free time for reading. Which makes me sad. Except that drawing and writing makes me really happy.
Also, I’ve left out all the comics I’ve read/re-read, since I haven’t kept tabs on those.

Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
All fiction, although Paul is Undead is music history. Kind of. With zombies.

Male/Female authors?
Oh gosh, only 3 females versus 15 male. Although I don’t know for sure how many people had their pencils in Teleny, and whether any of them were female.

Favourite book read?
I can’t decide. There’s books in the list I’ve read so many times, and new favourites, too. Let’s say, though, that it’s a tie between Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters and Martin Millar’s Lux the Poet. Both re-reads.

Least favourite?
Paul Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God. I wanted several times to just quit reading because… I don’t remember what it was exactly with the book, but something just was off. Maybe it was because of the fact that it was so hard to get a grip of the main characters, although that was how they had been brought up. To be unreadable. But I finished it since it kept going in surprising directions all the time. There’s a sequel out there, but I think I’ll skip it. Too many other things to read.

Oldest book read?
Must be Teleny, from 1893, written by Oscar Wilde and friends. Victorian porn of all sorts, and then some.

Newest?
Alan Goldsher’s Paul is Undead, from 2010. A zombie Beatles history.

Longest book title?
The above: its full title is Paul is Undead – The British ZomBie Invasion.

Shortest title?
Teleny with six letters.

How many re-reads?
Let’s see… Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk, Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, The Night Watch by Sarah Waters and Pedestrian Wolves by James L. Grant for the second time, Lux the Poet by Martin Millar for the third, and I’ve no idea how many times I’ve read Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, or parts of it.

Most books read by one author this year?
George R. R. Martin wins, with the first three huuuuuge bricks from the Song of Ice and Fire saga. Third one was separated into two volumes, though, so one could argue it was four books. But one will not.
Chuck Palahniuk, James Lear and Martin Millar take shared second place, all with two books each, although if I’d finished Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl instead of hopping into Martin’s A Game of Thrones on my visit to London, dear Mr. Millar would be on the shared first spot.

Any in translation? *
Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen is translated from its original Japanese: I read the English translation this time, but I’ve read it in Finnish as well. John Irving’s Garpin maailma, The World According to Garp, and Neil Gaiman’s Unohdetut Jumalat, American Gods, plus Teleny were also translated into Finnish from their original English.
I liked Garp’s translation, and Kitchen, was a bit iffy about American Gods, but enjoyed the Finnish version, too. Teleny? Sooo much purple prose. And porn. Would be interesting to read in the original language, but this Finnish version fell into my lap for one euro. One does not look near-free porn in the… uhh… yeah. Next question.

And how many of this year’s books were from the library?
None. I own them all. ALTHOUGH. I did borrow four gay and lesbian anthologies over the summer from the local library –which is a very small one- but I didn’t blog about them, since I didn’t read the whole things, just a story here, another there.
I really should go to one of the bigger libraries in Helsinki more often. I mean, I went last week and found ElfQuest collections from the beginning of the 80’s. In practically mint condition, for their age. So, who knows what the hell else I could find there!


Onwards to 2012!


* This question may have meant how many the original blogger had translated herself, I'm not sure. I just mentioned all the translations I'd read.