White Teeth

Title: White Teeth
Author: Zadie Smith
Published: 2001 by Penguin Books (orig. in 2000)
Genre: Family chronicle kinda thing
Pages: 542


 Ooh, I've been wanting to read this one for yeaaars. Why I haven't gone and bought it off the big internet book store I don't know, but I finally found it in a used book shop in Helsinki. Yay! The miniseries from this came out in 2002, and I saw it when it was shown on Finnish telly. So, about ten years. Yeah.

So, in White Teeth, we get to follow two (no, wait, three!) families through two-and-then-some generations, from Jamaica to India through poorer parts of London. There's the Joneses, and the Iqbals. Archie Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal met during WWII, and 30 years later end up living in the same neighbourhood, with their new, young wives. White Teeth is a great book about mixing and clashing cultures, families and religions, leaving your roots and trying to plant new ones, and how all this affects not only the one building a new home but also the generations to come. But it's also very funny and sweet, and I'm already missing the characters. Recommendations, and I'm gonna have to check out Ms. Smith's other books as well!


A dark line would now be drawn underneath the whole incident, underneath the whole sorry day, had not something happened that led to the transformation of Archie Jones in every particular that a man can be transformed; and not due to any particular effort on his part, but by means of the entirely random, anventitious collision of one person with another. Something happened by accident. That accident was Clara Bowden.

Lords and Ladies

Title: Lords and Ladies
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1993 by Corgi
Genre: Humorous fantasy
Pages: 382


Ah, Terry Pratchett. Light of my teenage years, the merriest of christmas presents. Many were the christmases when I opened a hard present and found one of these lovelies. But this one, Lords and Ladies, is special, since it's one of the first books I ever bought and read in English. In August 1994, apparently. That's 19 years, people. 19. Years. Shit. I'm 300 % sure, though, that most of the puns and other funnies went waaay over my head on the first read-through. Now I giggled mightily.

Diskworld, Lancre, Midsummer. The line between here and there, the world of the... I guess I dare say it now, elves, is thin. They want to break through and wreak havoc on poor little Lancre. The three witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick are three no more, after the King Verence has decided to marry Magrat at Midsummer. Without asking her. Royalty from all around, plus some familiar wizards -and a librarian- from Ankh-Morpork, are arriving to celebrate while Granny and Nanny do their best to stomp the elf-invasion.

Laughing out loud makes me cough and choke, so this one nearly killed me. But it was worth it!


   'This is the bridge, in fact, where--'
   Ridcully turned around.
   'Are you coming or not?' said Casanunda, with the reins in his hand.
   'I was actually having a quality moment of misty nostalgic remembrance,' said Ridcully. 'Not that any of you buggers noticed, of course.'
   Ponder held the door open.
   'Well you know what they say. You can't cross the same river twice, Archchancellor,' he said.
   Ridcully stared at him.
   'Why not? This is a bridge.'

That one. That one made me cough for two hours straight. :D