Books I finished in 2011

Well, here we are again old love, here's to me and thee...

I did this in 2010 and enjoyed doing it so I’m doing it again. Here’s a list of all the books I finished reading during last year and I’ve written a tiny review of the books I think deserves special attention. Since this blog is mainly in English (If people are wondering why I can explain that later) I’ve used the English titles in my list and whenever I couldn’t find a title in English I used the original title. One exception would be Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’ve read it before and this time I deliberately read the Norwegian version so I added the Norwegian title to my list.
16 books. That's just like last year...

The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
To me, this book is THE book. I read it for the first time when I was around twelve and it was the very first book that kept me reading the whole night despite my mother’s bedtime rules. I’ve been up reading books the whole night many times since, but no book or allnighter really succeeds that one first time. Besides holding this memory the book itself is awesome. I’ve read it several times and its magic hasn’t bleached one bit. It is everything a good fantasy ought to be. Twelve years later I’m still somewhat in love with the clumsy Schmendrick. I still adore the Unicorn. And I can still relate to Molly (maybe even more now, when I think about it). Oh and the cat! I love this book. Lovelovelove.

- Little Lord Fauntleroy - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Coraline & Other Stories - Neil Gaiman
Coraline was the first story by Gaiman I ever read and it’s still my favorite. It’s a great story about courage and gratitude. This book also included some of his short stories and in my opinion they’re all good. I especially liked “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”. They’re all marvelously strange. Need I say more? It’s Neil Gaiman after all…

Another Way to be Young - Per Nilsson
I remember reading another book by Per Nilsson when I was around 14 or so (Yes, Let him smile … huh?). There’s something about the way he captures the casual everyday life of youth and combines it with the weird thoughts and ideas of teens. This book is both thrilling in some ways and comfortably philosophical in other ways. Like many books for teens it rotates around finding your identity and role in life, but it’s not cliché at all.

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
It’s a story about the real vampires. Not the glittering ones. Not the raving predator ones. The real ones. The whole book builds on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and weaves a story about the actual Vlad Tepes (aka The Impaler, aka Vlad III, aka Wladislaus Dragwlya, aka count Dracula) and his librarian minions (heehee XD). I have two minor issues; It is too detailed to make sense (how can a grown woman remember that when she was young her father told her that when he was young his teacher told him that when HE was young, on this specific day he was wearing this specific sweater and eating this specific dish at this specific time?) and it stops being scary too soon (The whole book is entertaining and fascinating but only the first part is really scary, I missed that as I read the actual climax of it). Otherwise it’s a good book and I really enjoyed it. It’s one of those books where you learn tons of funfacts about subjects you didn’t know you were interested in. I loved that.

- Deathvariations - Jon Fosse

- Alice i eventyrland (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, translated to Norwegian by Zinken Hopp) - Lewis Carrol

- Teori og praksis - Nikolaj Frobenius

- The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis

- Bli hvis du kan. Reis hvis du må. - Helga Flatland

Kafka on the Beach - Haruki Murakami
Oh, what a bizarre book! I’ve heard so much praise for Murakami, but I never heard or read anything about his specific books. Ergo; I knew nothing about this book when I started. I work in a library and I usually pay attention to the authors and titles people “have to read”. Once in a while I read some of the titles myself and most often there are good reasons why people recommend them to each other; they’re mostly good. But most of them seem to follow the same patterns and genres so when I started reading Kafka on the Beach I expected some kind of bland book. Probably very good, but bland. I was surprised. Even to me, who loves nonsense and weird stuff, at first this book felt just too weird. And I was like “why is he naked all the time?”. But it hypnotized me and kept me reading and I wished the book would just continue forever. It’s really enjoyable. And there are several philosophical moments where I just felt like “this book gets me” or it made me think. It was fun.

- Downfall: a love story - Per Olov Enquist

- Kjærlighet - Hanne Ørstavik

The Book of Dead Days - Marcus Sedgwick
Do you understand what I mean when I say sewer-fantasy? Or maybe graveyard is a better word than sewer. This book is dark and wet and you’ll definitely get dirt under your nails. Still I’d say it fits children of, I dunno, ten years and up. It’s got magic and illusions and orphans and gravedigging and mad science. All wrapped up in an alternative Victorian atmosphere. It’s kind of like a fantasy-version of Oliver Twist, except it’s not like that at all. I liked it.

- Morning and Evening - Jon Fosse

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley
If I were twelve, this book would be the perfect kind of wicked. The kind that would scare me just right, without being too grotesque. Seeing as it’s been twelve years since I was twelve (How did that happen?!) it didn’t really scare me at all, but I still enjoyed it very much.