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

Invisible Monsters Remix

Title: Invisible Monsters Remix
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Published: 2012 by Vintage
Genre: Palahniuk.
Pages: 301


I've been itching to read Invisible Monsters again for a while now, and decided to finally get the Remix. Oh, joy! It's basically the same book as before, only a 'director's cut', with the chapters organised like one of those Choose your own adventure -books. Every chapter ends with a request to Now, please, jump to Chapter X, but if you don't get lost every once in a while you miss all the extra bits in between! There's more insight to the characters, plus Chuck's comments on writing the book, some of its backgrounds, and other materials that were totally worth buying the book again.

Umm, is there anything I can say about the book I haven't already... (First and second reading) I'm pretty sure this is my second favourite Palahniuk book by now, if it hasn't quite pushed Lullaby from its Numero Uno spot.IT has grown on me, and always makes me think a lot. It's good to think sometimes.


   Jump to this one time, nowhere special, just Brandy and me in the speech therapist office when Brandy catches me with my hands up under my veil, touching the seashell and ivory of my exposed molars, stroking the embossed leather of my scar tissue, dry and polished from my breath going back and forth across it. I'm touching the saliva where it dries sticky and raw down the sides of my neck, and Brandy says not to watch myself too close. 
   "Honey," she says, "times like this, it helps to think of yourself as a sofa or a newspaper, something made by a lot of other people but not made to last forever."


Oh, I also read Chuck Palahniuk's Phoenix, a Byliner short story about a cat, her owner, his wife, and their blind daughter. Rachel has gone on a long business trip and keeps calling home from her hotel room every night, to talk with her daughter, but the little girl, April, is upset with her and refuses to say anything. Her silence grows to such extent that Rachel becomes convinced that something's wrong at home, that this goes way beyond a little kid's annoyance. At only ~260 little Kindle pages, it's a really short story, but still captivating and just as twisted as Mr. Palahniuk makes 'em.

The Graveyard Game

Title: The Graveyard Game
Author: Kage Baker
Published: 2001 by Tor
Genre: Historical timetravel science fiction yay
Pages: 298


It's the fourth Company-book! Yay! And where I had trouble reading the last one, Mendoza in Hollywood, because of pacing and reading schedule, this one I could barely put down. Might be because I prefer Joseph as a character to Mendoza, or because this one was hopping around in time and place, with Company politics and fresh visions of the future of our world.

The Graveyard Game follows Lewis, one of Mendoza's very few friends, and Joseph, her something of a father figure, as they try to figure out what exactly happened to her at the end of the last book. This isn't easy without alarming the Company, who are able to monitor their employees around the clock and world. Time is moving swiftly towards the year 2355, where the Company's recorded history ends, and more than one of the immortal cyborgs have gone missing lately.

Like I said, this one was hard to put down. I'm still reading Michelangelo and American Psycho -which I don't really care for much, it turns out- but I kinda want to jump straight into the next one of the series. Maybe I will.


   Joseph sighed. "We may not be able to do anything for her. Even finding out where she is will be dangerous. I may have some chance, on my own. What I do, what we do, depends on what I turn up. But I may not turn up anything for years. You see what I'm saying?"
   "Yes, I do." Lewis set his chin. "But you have to understand my position. There she was, about to walk into tragedy, and I knew it but there was nothing on earth I could do."
   "Oh, I think I know how you felt," said Joseph bleakly.

Pikku Prinssi

Nimi: Pikku Prinssi
Alkuperäinen nimi: Le Petit Prince
Kirjoittaja: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Julkaistu: Originaali 1943, tämä painos WSOY:ltä vuonna 1970
Genre: Lastenkirja
Sivuluku: ~95 sivua kuvituksineen


Vähän rauhoittavampaa lukemista muutaman viimeisen jälkeen... en mene vannomaan oliko eka kerta kun Pikku Prinssin luin, voi olla että olen sen lapsena lukenut/se on minulle luettu, mutta kaunis (ja nopea) oli lukea nytkin. Tämä kirpparilta löytynyt opus on tekijän kuvittama. Kaunista se kuvituskin.

Kertoja joutui tekemään lentokoneellaan pakkolaskun Saharan viidakkoon, ja korjatessaan konettaan hän saa äkkiä yllättävän vieraan: pienen, pieneltä planeetalta maahan päätyneen prinssin, joka vaatii kertojaa piirtämään hänelle lampaan vietäväksi pienelle planeetalleen. Tarinan kuluessa selviää miten pikku prinssi oli lähtenyt matkaan pieneltä planeetaltaan, ja kuinka hän päätyi maahan monen muun yhtä pienen planeetan kautta. Kirjassa on lapsille ja aikuisillekin monia opetuksia, ja kummastelua siitä miten outoja aikuiset voivat olla.

Ehkä sitä nyt jaksaa taas aikuistenkirjoja. :)


Pikku prinssi meni takaisin katsomaan ruusuja. 
- Ette te olekaan samanlaisia kuin minun ruusuni, te ette ole vielä mitään, hän sanoi niille. Kukaan ei ole kesyttänyt teitä, ettekä te ole kesyttänyt ketään. Te olette aivan samanlaisia kuin minun kettuni oli aluksi. Se oli vain aivan tavallinen kettu, samanlainen kuin satatuhatta muuta. Mutta minä tein siitä ystäväni, ja nyt se on ainutlaatuinen maailmassa.
Ja ruusut olivat hyvin noloja.

The Wasp Factory

Title: The Wasp Factory
Author: Iain Banks
Published: 1985
Genre: Mommy I'm scared disturbed...
Pages: 244



There's this guy, Frank, 16 years old, who lives with his rather odd father on a small island in Scotland. His older brother Eric is in a looney bin, and his younger brother Paul is dead. Because Frank killed him. Him and two other kids, but that was just a phase he was going through. Eric likes to set dogs on fire, and guess what, he just broke out of the bin and is coming home!

Queasy book. Really queasy. I almost gave up when there was just cruel, pointless violence towards animals, but even though it disturbed me more than many things I've ever read, Mr. Banks' (Banks's? I never remember/know...) writing keeps you going. There's dark humour to all of it, and I can honestly say I had no idea what would come next. There are a few pages of critic's comments from newspapers and such in the beginning. Can't say critic's praise, since most of them say Don't read this book. No, really, don't. I, for myself, might add, that it is a very bad idea, I repeat, VERY. Bad. Idea. To eat while reading the chapter What Happened to Eric. Oh. My. Good. Giggly. Googly-eyed. Gollum. I couldn't even read all of it.  I had to peer at it through my fingers, taking in a few words at a time, trying hard to keep dinner down. And that visual will haunt me.

But still. All that, and I couldn't put the book down. I read half of it in one sitting, all of it within three days or so.

Damn. I need a children's book or something next...


"All our lives are symbols. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people's, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid. The Wasp Factory is part of the pattern because it is part of life and - even more so - part of death. Like life it is complicated, so all the components are there. The reason it can answer questions is because every question is a start looking for an end and the Factory is about the End - death, no less. Keep your entrails and sticks and dice and books and birds and voices and pendants and all the rest of that crap; I have the Factory, and it's about now and the future, not the past."

Death of a Chimney Sweep

Title: Death of a Chimney Sweep
Author: M.C. Beaton
Published: 2011
Genre: Murder mystery
Pages: 228


One more of the Hamish Macbeth -books! Wohoo! One of the newest ones, becaaause I read the list the wrong way. D'oh.

The book opens with an English Captain Davenport found stuffed into the chimney of his house. Not very much alive. The obvious suspect is the chimney sweep, working in the house that day. And then the bodycount starts to go up faster and higher than I've rarely seen outside of war or disaster movies. I honestly lost count. Deaths per page ratio is very high with this one.

Hamish, again, has to try and solve the murders before there are more, and to do it so that he won't get a promotion out of his beloved Lochdubh. And it's not easy, not with such a ruthless and inventive murderer.

These books are so fast and fun to read! And they're pretty cheap, even in the local book shops. And I've still got over 20 more to read! Lovely.


   "He swept the horizon with his binoculars, first towards Western Fearn Point on the Kyle of Sutherland and across the kyle to Creich Mains and then focussed them on the burnt-out wreck of a car far down one of the braes below, just before he was preparing to put the binoculars away.
   His eyes sharpened as he adjusted the focus. He could see a black mass inside the wreckage which looked like a body; a little way away on the heather was one shoe."