On audio input

I've developed a new habit/addiction.

I used to listen to Spotify on my way to and from work, but as much as I love music, it would eventually get boring as music frequently works more as a way of shutting out the world than to entertain or otherwise engage me. I've tried reading - while listening to music, even - but it doesn't really work (and the music or lack thereof has nothing to do with it). If I take the bus I will get travel sick from looking down too much, and if I'm on the subway it's frequently so crowded that it is difficult to find a seat, and reading standing up isn't really my thing.

However, a while back a friend told me about "Serial". The podcast. As I'm sure everyone in the entire world has heard of it by now I won't go into details, but if there are anyone left out there who hasn't listened to "Serial" I think they should. Go find it online. It's free. Listen. Get hooked.

Anyway, "Serial" is over (or at least the first season), and I needed more. With little over half an hour travel time each direction, I need more than an hour per day to fill my needs. Hence, I would need a lot of podcasts. I've tried several, and while others such as "This American Life" or "Radiolab" are good, they don't hook me the way "Serial" did, and with all of them there is a quantity problem. I need more. (I really do sound like an addict...)

Thus, I discovered audiobooks. First, I got a free trial one from Audible (which turned out to be "free", as they automatically connected that to my Amazon account, took my credit card details from there and proceeded to charge me monthly without me being aware that I had signed up for any kind of membership... Bastards!). After that, I moved onto an app called "Storytel" [sic - not a typo - one L only].

Storytel doesn't have the greatest catalogue, but for now I am satisfied. I've been through quite a lot of memoirs, which are made infinitely better when the person having written them also is the one reading (so far, I've listened to Lena Dunham, Stephen Fry, Kaitlin Moran and more). Love that! I wish I could find such audiobooks from the politicians I am writing my dissertation on. Would be so interesting (I did buy another book from Amazon, since they had already charged me I might as well make use of my "credit" - but I'm not sure Jimmy Carter reading about something other than the topic I am researching will have the same effect, and at any rate there is no hope to find anything from Nixon or Ford, and I don't think Kissinger is the greatest audio performer - though he is unmatched when it comes to the written word).

I like thematically appropriate listens, so when I was meadering around on a U.S. university campus (specifically University of Michigan in Ann Arbor) this spring, I listened to Stoner by John Williams. The world of academia is more than a mere setting in this novel; it's almost a character of its own. Thus my circumstance made an already interesting book even more captivating, though I am sure I must have looked odd to the people around me - walking around with my ear plugs staring at campus buildings as though I saw them in 1915 rather than 2015.

When I came home I went back to podcasts for a while, having discovered Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Star Talk", where he enter into discussion about topics reaching far beyond the extent of his field of study (which is saying something, seeing as he basically is studying the universe...). Funny and interesting. After having gone through the entire backlog of this podcast, however, I went back to audiobooks. 

This time I've finally settled for something that will keep my addiction covered for a while. After the season finale of "Game of Thrones" a few weeks back I realized I craved more. Thus far I'd been staying far away from the books, or rather, I started reading them, but they did not appeal to me, This was way back when the first season aired, and the show was following the book closely enough for me to feel it redundant to read them. In addition, the books felt "wordy" to me, which is weird, because I normally really look big, fat, wordy books. 

Anyway. Now everything is different. First of all, it's been four years since I saw that first season. Even if the first book is following it closely, it doesn't matter, as I've forgotten a lot. A lot. 

Secondly, it's almost an advantage that the books are wordy. It means they last longer, and seeing as I listen to them during my commute where constant distractions might interfere, it isn't so problematic if I miss a detail here or there. 

Finally, I really like the guy who is reading (which is a BIG deal for audiobooks). He even does different voices, which I adore. I could listen to him forever (a good thing, seeing as each book is about 30 hours,,,) 

Yeah, that's right. Each book is about 30 hours. And there are five of them (with two more in the making, but as everyone knows by now the release dates of those are anyone's guess). 

I'm already halfway into book number two, though, so I'm wolfing them down a little faster than I'd planned. Somehow, my commute time tends to stretch out these days... The way it looks, I'll be hunting for more sustenance to feed my addiction come autumn. (Insert mandatory "Winter is coming") 

Any suggestions? 

On orange books

There are two different meanings to the term "orange books". First of all, it can simply refer to the colour of the cover of the book. An orange book is a book with a predominantly orange cover. Metaphorically speaking, however, "an orange book" is an unexpected delight. Such as a book you randomly pick up in a bookstore without ever having heard of it before, and then when you read it you find that it is pure gold (or rather, pure orange).

Orange books I've come across include Chris Cleave's The Other Hand (the original orange book, and one of the few that are actually orange in both meanings of the expression. You can read all about my escapades to find it here), Mark Zusak's The Book Thief, Albert Sánches Piñol's Pandora in the Congo, and actually - the first Harry Potter book was orange before I knew there was such a thing as orange books. 

One book that only almost falls into this category is Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. This books isn't quite orange, since it was recommended to me, but I didn't expect to like it, and yet I reallyreally did. So I guess I would categorize it as more of an apricot book.

Also - orange doesn't just apply to books. I've had orange book meals, bought orange book CDs, found orange book blogs and one day I hope to meet a guy to whom I will feel comfortable saying "You're an orange book".


Have you come across any orange books lately?

On true happiness

Not that I have too much time for anything like this. If I could choose, I probably would spend about an hour each morning like this - on Starbucks, with my Kindle (product placement, much? *snort*), having a relaxing start of my day. But alas, my mornings tend to be far more stressful than that. I frequently sleep too little (especially in Tokyo), so I get up too late. I run to the shower, try to make time for both breakfast and basic make-up, and then I'm off to work. I can only dream of having the time to pick up a coffee most days, little less sit down to drink it.

In a perfect world I would have that kind of time. Or I would make that kind of time. But then... If this was my daily routine, perhaps I wouldn't appreciate it as much..?

On the Tiger's Wife

The Tiger's Wife: A Novel by Téa Obreht
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Despite the fact that this book did everything "wrong" in terms of what normally annoys me, it didn't annoy me. To quote a man whose name shall be unrevealed since I am ashamed to admit I know quotes of his: "If loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right."*

Let me explain.

Obreht uses lengthy character descriptions. Lengthy as in chapter-long ones. Chapters that derail completely, utterly, shamelessly from the main story. So much, in fact, that it is difficult to remember what the main story is. It is difficult to know if the main story is the main story. Much alike a reader taking time in a limited book review of a very brilliant book to talk about something else entirely, like 80s pop music.

And yet, I find that I am not derailed. I find that each story weaved into the others - even the really obscure ones - make sense. They intrigue me. And instead of putting the book down in anger when I reach a crossroads and find myself transported 50 years back in time; when I'm not sure if the ambiguous term "the war" means the first or second world war, the war in Yugoslavia, or other wars still; or when I have no idea why the narrator in the important grandfather sequences sometimes is the main character Natalia, and sometimes the (dead) grandfather (in flashbacks) - instead of putting the book down I kept reading, eager to learn what would happen in this new (or continued) strand of the story.

Finally, I should have been annoyed with Obreht's extensive use of magical realism, drawing heavily on local lore in the Balkans. (If anyone is curious just how annoyed I normally would be at magical realism, it is possible to find out here.)

Anyway. No. It didn't annoy me. And not just because the good sides of the novel outweighed the bad. Because there were plenty of good sides too. Such as excellent writing. Beautiful language. An emotional backdrop (I'm a sucker for war, in books). Interesting characters. Lots of history, neatly tucked in without feeling forced.

In the end, the reason the good sides didn't outweigh the bad ones was that the things I'd normally put onto the "bad" side of the scale weren't bad. Obreht managed to handle several complex and advised-against tools and techniques in such a fashion that I didn't hate it. I didn't even dislike it. I think I actually might approve.





(*For the record, I'm not really ashamed now that a quick Google-search revealed that this song is an old classic, made famous by Luther Ingram. I'll just refrain from telling you that the version I'm familiar with is Rod Stewart's. Oops.**)

((** Oh, who am I kidding? Rod Stewart, I <3 you! ))

(((And no, this novel has absolutely nothing to do with that song.)))

View all my reviews

On "Read me a story?"

My five-year-old nephew rarely has the patience to sit down quietly for more than a couple of minutes at the time. The exception is when he is being told a story, whether it is through television, a book, or one I make up ad hoc.  

A while back he came dragging an elaborately decorated book he had found in the bookcase. “Read me a story from this book?” he demanded.

I could not resist, of course. We share a love for stories, my nephew and I, and reading has been an important bonding experience for the two of us. The book he had picked, however, offered some challenges. 

One Thousand and One Nights. I am not overly familiar with these stories, because I grew up with Norwegian folktales and a selection from the Grimm collection. What I know of Arabian tales is mostly what Disney has taught me. Obviously, I know the basic concept and a few of the stories, but I wasn’t familiar with this book. However, I assumed it was similar to the Norwegian and German stories that in their modern versions have been “child proofed”. The Norwegian collectors, Peder Christian Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, actually censored the stories that had been orally transmitted to them, and they made separate collections of tales with adult content.

Apparently the Arabs were less prudish. 

 

As my nephew handed me the book, I picked a story I knew, but not word by word. “Ali Baba and the Robbers” in my memory was a story about a boy who outsmarted some villains, and I figured it would be both entertaining (and morally acceptable) for a five-year-old. Well…

I didn’t realize Ali Baba had a brother. Or that this brother is a jealous man.

I’ll spare you the details but it suffices to say that I discovered mid-read that a decapitation puts a rather definite end of the chilly relationship between the brothers. This was most certainly no children’s story! 

Open sesame...

Like my countrymen 150 years ago I took to censoring. I skipped the gory parts, and added a nice moralistic end where the brothers make up and decide to split the treasure. I even made the story more interactive my teaching my nephew the difference between sesame seeds and sunflower seeds (I’m TONS of fun, I know…) The boy was happy, I was happy. I’m pretty sure old Scheherazade is turning in her grave, but that’s not really my problem…

Giraffame! 

On the Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had to give it five stars even if I sort of wanted to give it four. Five for effort. Five for subject. Five for imagery, language, research, how it touched me emotionally, and shallowly enough - five for the gorgeous cover and binding.

But the structure bothered me. The different narrators - a tricky tool. The reader will almost inevitably prefer some to others, and then an inborn annoyance with the way the book plays out is formed. I eventually learned to appreciate the variety of perspectives it provided, but I also continued to feel annoyed whenever the narrator changed. Furthermore, I question the necessity. We get that Rachel is foolish and shallow. We get that Ruth May is naïve (though her age alone makes me wonder if underscoring this wasn't redundant). We get that Adah is weird, and we get that Leah is our troubled heroine. I think I preferred the mother's perspective, which of course makes it a shame that this only surfaced a handful of times throughout the book.

Also, even if I gradually got to accept the structure and the constantly shifting narrators, I felt that the author eventually got tired of it as well. Towards the end of the book, I wondered if I had reached the end maybe 50 times. Not because what still came wasn't interesting - it was, and this is why I wouldn't dare to suggest the book was under-edited since I believe any editor would have a tough time excluding any of the tails (and details) from the last 100 pages due to their relevance for the subject - but the main story seemed so closed, so finished. Over and over again I expected "The End", but all I got was "The next chapter". I wonder how wise this was, at the same time as I too - like the imaginary editor - couldn't say where to stop and what to cut.

In the end, these things bothered me enough to keep me from reading the book at top speed (though my gazillion years of finishing it also has to do with reasons unconnected to the book). They bothered me enough to make me focus slightly less on what you should focus on when finishing this book: the terrible, terrible historical facts that form the backdrop of the plot. But in the end they didn't bother me enough to take away that last star.

Five for making me want to give it five stars, despite reservations.

View all my reviews

On Musicophilia

”Have you read Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia?”

“I haven’t finished it. Read about 120 pages.”

“But you’re currently reading it?”

“Ehrm. That’s a matter of definition. I still keep a bookmark in it.”

“And when did you last move this bookmark?”

“Sometime late 2009? December? Or February-ish 2010?”

“So you’re not really reading it, currently?”

“You know, it’s a quite long book. A lot of pages. Non-fiction pages. With a lot of examples on them.”

“Sure. But you knew this when you bought it, right?”

“I bought it at Harvard!”

“Sorry?”

“Harvard! I can verifiably say that I went to Harvard!”

“To the Harvard bookstore, yes. But they don’t give you a Harvard degree just because you visited the bookstore.”

“Duh. But I don’t have to specify that.”

“Very well. You went to Harvard. But back to Oliver Sacks. You like him, don’t you?”

“Very much. Which is why I bought the book in the first place. At Harvard.”

“If you like the author so much, why didn’t you finish the book?”

“It took me about a decade to finish The Island of the Colorblind, another of his books. I really liked that one.”

“So you’re a pretty slow reader?”

“Not really. I just read a whole lot of other stuff in between. There is a limit to how much non-fiction I can be bothered to read.”

“Don’t you have a history degree..?”

“I have. Don’t see your point.”

“So are you saying that you like Musicophilia, but that it is a slow read?”

“It’s not a page turner. But it’s very interesting. And funny. And occasionally slightly repetitive. But definitely entertaining.”

“And you’re definitely going to finish it?”

“I definitely might do that.”

“Why write a review about a book you haven’t finished anyway?”

“This is a review?”

From better times

On Goodreads

Last year, my friend, Mark, introduced me to one of the cleverest websites I know. Most of you probably know Goodreads, but for anyone else, let me explain (or rather, let Goodreads do so) :

Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 4,500,000 members who have added more than 120,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006. 

A network for readers sounded like my thing. Thus, I then spent a considerable amount of time plotting in all the books I could remember having read (not nearly as many as I'd imagined, so either my memory fails me or I'm not as avid a reader as I like to think). The networking part of Goodreads isn't necessarily all that effective, at least not to me. After a year I now have about 40 "friends" - most of which are contacts I'd already made here in the blogosphere. Also, I don't visit often enough to actually make it very useful, and when I do I hardly participate in any interaction (other than the occasional comments on friend's reviews). 


However, I still really, really like it. I guess the idea of a website devoted entirely to books has an enormous appeal to me. Further, keeping track of what I read (and more importantly, what I don't read) has a positive effect on me: I've long felt I don't read as much as I'd liked (and used to), but with a website tracking my progress I at least feel some "pressure" to pick up a book rather than turn on the TV... 


In the end, though, the real appeal (to me) of Goodreads is the opportunity to find new reads, get recommendations and find books or authors I otherwise would not consider.


Also, if you are the book review-posting type (which I'm not really, since my reviews tend to drift off into somethingelseness), Goodreads have excellent templates for this, which makes it easy to copy&paste into your blog. Since I have committed to the whole A-Z thing this month, I have decided to re-use a couple of my Goodreads reviews (even if I do stray off the main topic...), so you'll have ample examples of how that can be done (check back in on "P" and "T").  


For all these good reasons, I have vowed to myself to be more active on Goodreads. I should, for instance, link my account up with this blog. It's on my to-do list... 

On "The Secret Garden"

One of the things I do appreciate about being back in Norway is spring. In Tokyo, it was already spring by my standards when I arrived. During the two months I spent there we had both cool and warm weather - even snow - but nothing even close to the dramatic process that is Norwegian spring. Without the melting snow, the "ad hoc" creeks in the middle of the road, the return of migrant birds and sunshine after what feels like an incredibly long absence - Tokyo spring just didn't feel like spring. 

Because of my lack of spring mood, I also didn't indulge in one of my annual spring activities - reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was my favourite book as a child, and I've continued reading it every spring. The timing is essential. It cannot be too early, since a return to winter after I've started reading it will always put me in a terrible mood. At the same time, I cannot read it too late, as the turn of spring into summer completely ruins the experience. I want the world around me to wake up to spring along with the garden in the book. 

Now I've been given a new opportunity to perform my ritual this year. When I returned to Norway it was winter. In just little over a week, it is definitely spring. The snow is melting faster than I've ever seen. The sun is warming, and my nose is as freckled as it only gets this time of year. I feel the urge to take off my winter coat and boots again, and it won't be long till it's time to look for the first brave flowers. 

This is the perfect timing for reading The Secret Garden. 

" 'I like you! I like you!' she cried out, pattering down the walk; and she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to do in the least. But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped and whistled back at her. At last he spread his wings and made a darting flight to the top of a tree, where he perched and sang loudly."

"Mistress Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,

And marigolds all in a row."

"In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had found herself digging up a sort of white root rather like an onion. She had put it back in its place and patted the earth carefully down on it and just now she wondered if Martha could tell her what it was.

'Martha,' she said, 'what are those white roots that look like onions?'

'They're bulbs,' answered Martha. 'Lots o' spring flowers grow from 'em. Th' very little ones are snowdrops an' crocuses an' th' big ones are narcissuses an' jonquils and daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all is lilies an' purple flags. Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a whole lot of 'em planted in our bit o'garden.'"

"It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass of a wintry brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rosebushes if they were alive. There were numbers of standard roses which had so spread their branches that they were like little trees. There were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and had crept  from one tree to another and made lovely bridges of themselves."

"There was a laurel-hedged walk which curved round the secret garden and ended at a gate which opened into a wood, in the park. She thought she would slip round this walk and look into the wood and see if there were any rabbits hopping about."

"When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, she was startled by a curious loud sound. It was the caw-caw of a crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat a big, glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very wisely indeed." 

" 'This here one he's called Nut an' this here other one's called Shell.' 
When he said  'Nut' one squirrel leaped onto his right shoulder and when he said 'Shell' the other one leaped on to his left shoulder."

"And the roses - the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled around the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades - they came alive day by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and buds - and buds - tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air."

All excerpts from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, from The Collected Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett (Kindle edition). All pictures taken by yours truly, on three continents.

On magical realism

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction ^[1] in which magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality. These magical elements are explained like normal occurrences that are presented in a straightforward manner which allows the "real" and the "fantastic" to be accepted in the same stream of thought. 

Above is a direct quote from the Wikipedia article on magical (or magic) realism. I even included the original links, in case you're fuzzy on the definition of "fiction" (I know I am). If the Wikipedia article had been written with magical realism, it would have read something like this:

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction ^[1] in which magical elements are giraffed into a realistic giraffe in order to access a deeper understanding of giraffe. These magical giraffes are explained like normal occurrences that are presented in a straightforward giraffe which allows the "real" and the "fantastic" to be accepted in the same stream of giraffe. 

Actually, I'm being silly. Magical realism rarely have anything to do with giraffes.

However, elements that to the average reader seem far out will occur, and while it is a powerful tool for many writers, it is equally challenging for many readers. My concern is that magical realism often for a reader will feel like the author takes the "easy way out". As any writer will know, we occasionally write ourselves into corners it is hard to get out from (and unlike with painting, it's not always sufficient to wait until it dries...). It seems to me that certain writers choose to get out of these corners by adding fantastical elements into otherwise realistic stories. If you're a fantasy writer - fine, you're allowed to have characters that can fly (at least if it fits with the "rules" of your magical universe). But if you're writing literary fiction, it seems like you're grasping at straws if the main character suddenly develops wings...

Anyway, I realize I am being superficial here. Magical realism can be used as a means of conveying a deeper meaning of the story. It can be used to evoke images of mythology or a cultural background the text otherwise would lack. In fact, many would argue that my issues with magical realism has to do with my cultural background: often, Western readers are more dissociated from their mythological roots than non-Western cultures (or, again, so Wikipedia informs me). Perhaps. Perhaps I just prefer to compartmentalize my genres and find that magical realism pushes me out of my comfort zone as it's neither this nor that.

Either way, many talented and popular authors have used it successfully. Paulo Coelho comes to mind (though he is no favourite of mine, he certainly has a large following), as do Isabelle Allende, and the Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

Murakami is, incidentally, the subject of today's blog over at Burrowers, Books and Balderdash. Well, not so "incidentally", actually, since I wrote that blog too. You see, I prefer the "magic" in my writing to have a natural explanation... Why don't you stop by and see if and how my dislike for magical realism and fondness of Murakami's books can coexist?

On digital reading

There are many opinions about the digital reading devices that have become the big opportunity and headache for the publishing industry and customers alike. Judging by it's name, the Kindle intends to start a fire, but it's popularity seems to spread like wildfire. We can only hope that book burning won't be the result.

I was skeptical at first, not listening to voices explaining digital reading was the future; that it was environmentally friendly; that it felt just like a book once you got reading. But then I caved. This Christmas, the Kindle was my only major wish, and I got it. I have so far been very happy with it, and I see no reason that would change.

I do, however, see some reasons why the Kindle might change me as a reader and a book buyer. In this age of digital reading, you might be interested to know what these reasons are too, but I am not going to let you in on it here, of course. I am being tricky again, leading you to think you will get a full post here while it is actually located over at Burrowers, Books and Balderdash, where I am this week's Reading Monday host. Join me there, and don't forget to let me know how you feel about digital reading - will you stick to paper or has technology lured you into its seductive claws?

On bloodvampiresthoughneverbuffythinglikelovetwilightwerewolvesprobablytrue

I am so confused. I have never been a fang-girl, but since vampires have been hard to avoid these last few years, I haven’t managed to escape them entirely.

I watched Buffy when I was growing up, and I sort of liked it. I didn’t *l♥ve* it like some of my friends, but I enjoyed it. Mostly because of the girl power message, and more importantly, I adored Spike and the quirky relationship between him and Buffy. 

When Twilight became a thing, I deliberately stayed away. Especially because one of the first people to tell me about these books confessed she was in love with Edward. I wanted to tap her shoulder and tell her that not only was he dead, and sort of creepy, but he was also fictional. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy her delusion, though…

However much I loved to hate Twilight, I caved this summer. I watched the first two movies in shameful solitude, and I was talked into seeing the third in a theatre with friends (which was sort of fun, because we kept laughing at unintentional jokes. This probably was more fun for us than for those who were there because they actually wanted to see the movie, though…). 

I first heard of True Blood through a friend who loves fantasy literature and movies. Thus I never really took much notice of it, because she tells me about a lot of books and shows that never really become a thing (and that definitely isn't my kind of thing). This one became one, though. I haven’t read the books (I’ve looked at them, but they didn’t strike my fancy), but I have watched the show, and I love it. Not for the vampires per se, but because of the feel of it. That swampy, creepy, clammy, vintage, Southern, sexy feel of it. The music, the lighting, the actors (“Hallå, Alexander Skarsgård!”), and sure – the vampire thing too. But mostly because the vampire stigma is used as a clever parallel to real life discrimination. The poster shown during the opening credits says it all: “God hates fangs”. Doesn’t that sound oddly familiar? If True Blood can help even a little bit to raise awareness or make someone reconsider their prejudices, it's all good in my book. 

However, there is a problem with all this vampirety we're dodging on a daily basis. 

I am getting my mythology all messed up. I can’t keep True Blood vampires from the Twilight ones. I keep thinking that Buffy taught me that vampires can be killed with a wooden stake and then they turn to dust, but in Twilight they break like porcelain (what’s that all about?) and then you set fire to them. In True Blood there appears to be several methods, but they ain't dead 'till they turn into mushy goo.

Also, as far as I can remember vampires aren’t supposed to be able to go out in daylight. In Twilight this is just a myth – they can and they do, they just don’t do it in public because then their skin sparkles. (Basically, the Twilight vampires are sparkly porcelain figurines, yes?) In True Blood they can, for a little while, but direct sun will burn their skin (however, a taste of human blood will heal them quickly). Also, they get nose bleeds if they don’t sleep during the day. Edward never sleeps, but that is probably because he is afraid to mess up his make-up. It must be tiring to wear those yellow contact lenses 24/7, though.

As for werewolves… Vampires = cold, werewolves = warm appears to be a universal truth. Everything else, however, is different from one fictional universe to the next. In Twilight werewolves never wear shirts. In True Blood they dress like bikers. In Buffy they still transform only when there is a full moon (hello, isn’t that common were-lore?), but both Meyer and Harris has their furry friends transform at will. 

Basically all the inconsistencies make me worried. How will I know how to react if I meet a real vampire? How can I be sure if the vampire is of the turn to dust/goo/porcelain variety? Will garlic work at all or will he then offer to cook? (And if he does - do I accept?) How about a cross? Or a silver bullet? The way this is going, the vampire will probably kill me before I even have time to ask for his autograph...

And yes. I got the title for this post from a Wordle. If you want to read it again but disapprove of the way I have arranged the words, I can recommend the picture below:

On colour

I recently read Oliver Sacks' The Island of the Colorblind, where he describes two journeys to islands in the Pacific Ocean - some of which has a unusual rate of people genetically disposed to develop achromatopsia, colourblindness. Like Sacks I wonder what it would be like to never having seen colour. It is one thing being colourblind in the sense that you cannot distinguish a red ball in the middle of a green lawn (a condition relatively common, especially among men), even if this can cause enough problems (watch Little Miss Sunshine if you need further proof). But having absolutely no perception of colour, that your entire world consists of shades of black and white and grey, is unfathomable to me (though if you want a glimpse of what the world looks like through the eyes of someone who knows, you should check out the incredibly talented Meghan Sims). It sounds oddly like living in an old movie. However, I learned from the book that it is slightly less glamorous than that, since people with this condition also tend to have other problems with their vision, as well as the social implications it might have "being different".

It might seem like a strange jump to go from this to the current Burrow feature, which is a tribute to colours.  We have picked pictures relating to a colour and organized them in a specter, where one drabble unlocks every day for the month of October. Even if someone with achromatopsia would only see the pictures in shades of grey, or even blurry shades of grey, however, they might enjoy the drabbles which in one way or another are tied to the colour it's representing. No one can describe colours in words, perhaps, but we're never afraid to take on a challenge in the Burrow.

So, whether your colour vision is perfect or not, I urge you to visit www.the-burrow.org this month and throughout November to get an idea how we see the world through colours.

On girl-crushes

I have a girl-crush, on a guy.

You all know what a girl-crush is, don't you? When a girl meets another girl and the chemistry is just right, the talking goes very smooth, and you just want to be best friends forever (I'm not using the abbreviation BFF, because I've friends who use that in a completely different context...). Basically, it's the friend-equivalent of "love at first sight".

I've always thought that this only worked with girl and girl, since it would automatically lead to "potential love interest" problems if it was a girl and a guy, but that is not the case here. He is cute and adorable and everything, but I am pretty sure he was gay. And even if he wasn't, it doesn't really matter. It was still a BFF (not BFF) kind of connection.

The problem with girl-crushes is that they often entail the same problems as regular crushes. "Is she (now he) as interested as I am?"; "Should I call her (him), or will that be too pushy?"; "What if she (he) isn't as into giraffes as I am?" (or is this just me...?)

In the end this was probably just a girl-fling on a boy. It won't grow into girl-love. I probably won't see him all that much, and come to think of it, I can't call him, because I don't have his number (though I can Facebook him, but I am thinking that would be a little creepy, since we don't really know each other that well).




































I predict that 97% of the males reading this entire post did so because they hoped "girl-crushes" would be described in a somewhat graphic way.

I also predict that 78% of the readers (of both genders) only scrolled down this far in hope that I would explain the alternative usage of the abbreviation BFF...






Sorry...
.

On this fine day in October...

...it is time for take off. NaBloWriMo is starting today, and I look upon the task of writing blog posts for every day of October with a mixture of glee and dread. I find myself having much of the same problem as I did this time a year ago. I don't really have anything in particular to say. And that makes for lousy bloggery (I'm not fishing for compliments; I really mean it. It is the sad fate of many a blog when it eventually winds down to only posts along the lines of "I have nothing to blog about today, so I'll blog about that" and then "I have nothing to blog about today either, but let me post this picture of my cat" [I'm planning on joining Wordless Wednesday next week... No cats as of yet, though] and eventually "Oops, it's been three months since my last post. I am not dead. But I just don't have anything to blog about. Add me on Facebook, though!". We've all seen blogs like that). 


So instead of taking that route I thought I'd write down the first three things that pops into my head, and let that be today's post (and hope for better days ahead). 


1) Dear Cruella. You don't like cortado. Yeah, the coffee. Every time you are feeling brave in a coffee shop that's what you ask for, and every time it's a big, awful failure. You walk away disappointed in every way - of its size (eeny tiny small! Sometimes size does matter), of its taste (how can it be too coffee-y and not enough coffee-y at the same time?) and of the fact that you keep repeating this mistake. Every other coffee variety there is = fine. Cortado = not. 




2) I once had a semi-regular feature on this blog called "currently reading/listening to" (it's true - look it up in the topic cloud in the sidebar). I'm not entirely sure why I didn't keep it up, but it probably was a combination of not reading enough books (I felt terribly self-conscious whenever I didn't get around to finish a book before my next update - not unlike how I feel whenever I update my Goodreads status only to see all the books where I've made no progress whatsoever in the longest time...); listening mainly to Spotify where I generally end up mindlessly going through random playlists; and perhaps most importantly: I didn't really have anything to say about what I was reading or listening to. Okay, you're having a Bob Dylan week. So what? 

Well, today that is different. I have been reading a lot of nonsense lately, page turners intended to offer a certain escapism in my constant combat with thesis-ness. Running low on supply of that genre, however, I picked up Aryn Kyle's The God of Animals, a book I originally bought in my very first visit to a bookstore in the US. There I pulled it out of a shelf at random - going for gut feeling and nothing else. I kind of liked the cover, but I can't really recall if that was the only decisive factor (I suspect there might have been a "take 3, pay for 2" deal in play... This might have been my number three). Anyway, I never got around to read it, and thus it came unread back with me a year ago. It didn't even make it among the small selection of books that fitted into my tiny (why do I always feel the need to signify size by usage of font sizes? o_0) Also, am I using the word tiny too much?) apartment when I moved this spring. 


Last time I visited my parents, however, I rediscovered the book, and decided to give it a go. From the very start two things struck me: a) this book reminded me strikingly of "To Kill A Mockingbird"; and b) I was about to read a horse book for the first time in fifteen years. 


Yes. It's a horse book. Not one of the mass-produced "romance-meets-mystery-meets-pretty-animal" things for young girls - though this book can be read by young girls (I don't recall it being in the YA section in the bookstore, though, but then again, I was pretty jetlagged and high on my first visit to a US Starbucks...). 


I'm not sure how much more I should say about this book - reviews isn't really my thing - but let me at least say that I didn't put it down when I left the house the other day. Which explains why I nearly got myself killed by a car that morning... 


And for the record (no pun intended), I am listening to Wes Montgomery's "Whisper Not" right now. But there isn't all that much more to say about that... 




3) Awards! I got some lovely awards! First of all, the Versatile Blogger award. I keep getting this one, and I love it, because I feel it is one of the few blog awards I really get why people want to give me. I'm not a category blogger (which, incidentally, might be the cause of today's problem - if I'd been a "mommy blogger" I'd know I was supposed to write about my kid all the time (but then I would probably have to actually have a kid first... So that is sort of out of the question). If I had been a food blogger, I would write recipes (but then I'd have to follow recipes. Which I don't. Ever). Instead I am left with whatever pops into my head at any given time, and sometimes that is naught. (Which reminds me of the saying "If a messy desk equals a messy mind, what does an empty desk mean?" - not that I'm in danger of EVER having an empty desk. I am lucky to find the space to plop down my laptop most days - in between towers of books, instant coffee, packs of gum, post-its, [unused] tea bags, hand moisturizer, pens and hair clips - and my laptop is tiny [there we go again... ])


(Fortunately, even when my mind if blank, I have enough digressions in there to fill up a parenthesis or two)

Well. The awards. The Versatile Award was given to me by Debbie of words 'n' whimsy. Debbie claims she's a newbie since she hasn't been around the blogosphere all that long, but I'd rather say she's a fast learner, because her blog is great. Go visit her to find out for yourself. I won't be passing this award on this time, since I've already done that in the past, but I'd still like to thank Debbie properly :) 


As for the other award, I have definitely not gotten it before. You see, it's brand new. Leigh, of That's Write (and she usually is!), made the "Strangely Irresistable" aka "Yo Gabba Gabba" award. Thank you, Leigh, I love it! The only rule for this award is to give it on to three bloggers who are - surprise, surprise - irresistible! I know a bunch of those, but the first three that popped into my mind are... *drumroll*


Georgina Dollface. This is one of the places I visit even on days I don't have time to visit blogs. Georgina masters the difficult art of being both organized and creative at once. On a scale from one to funny, she is hilarious with a side of thoughtful. 


Nonamedufus. I am fairly certain that deep down he knows how funny he is. But just in case: he is one of the funniest bloggers there is. Now you all know. 


Finally, and appropriately considering that today is the first day of NaBloWriMo, Heather (who is NotHannah - I will never tire of typing that, tee hee) is pretty darn irresistible too. In a way she reminds me of myself in that she appears to write on whatever subject that pops into her mind - from her kidoodles to her garden to her writing to Hell-Mart (makes me giggle every time). Unlike me, however, Heather always mixes her humourous musings with a foundation of seriousness. She bravely tackles difficult topics, and I always feel that I am a little wiser whenever I've read one of her posts. 


So there. You guys are irresistible! 


And I guess for a tiny post about nothing, this became rather   l  o  n  g   (and about a lot). 

On Summer Reading

I'm on a mini-vacation back in my hometown for a few days, so I hope no one will think terribly of me for spending more time with my family than in the blogosphere... In addition I am also hoping to get some reading done. I have finished the first four Percy Jackson books, and I am craving the fifth. If you happen to work in a bookshop in Oslo that carries it, can you please hold it for me until Wednesday? (My own shop is out, and the publisher is out, so I can only hope that there are stores that still have them in stock, or I will have to order it from abroad and that will take FOREVER!) I have also brought another book - Mark Zusak's "I Am The Messenger", which also should be very good if I am to judge from the other book of his I have read - "The Book Thief".

Summer reading is on my mind, then, more than writing. This should also be evident in the little something I have written today over at the Burrow Blog. It's my first "real" post there, (yesterday's Drabble Dare - which you should also check out, there are still four days left to churn out 100 words - didn't really count as a "real" post...), so please head over and take a look. Don't hesitate to leave a comment there - we are a friendly bunch, and we're most happy with any sort of attention ;)

Hope the rest of you are having a great day and that you are able to get some reading or writing or whatever you'd like to do to praise the summer (or winter, if you're down under...). Have a great Monday, everyone!

On Neil Gaiman vs Neil Gaiman

The movie Stardust came out three years ago. I was hesitant at first, being a natural born skeptic towards fantasy. Sure, I’d read all the Harry Potter books multiple times. I had also forced myself through Lord of the Rings, though I prefer the movies (shame on me). I might even have read a few more fantasy books and certainly watched several other fantasy movies, and it is safe to say that I enjoyed both. But I was nevertheless convinced that fantasy wasn’t my thing. So Neil Gaiman shouldn’t be either.

I went to see the movie anyway, and I loved it. Of course. I have yet to hear someone who has seen that movie claim that they didn’t enjoy at least one aspect of it – Robert De Niro’s part. I’ll get back to that in a bit. But Stardust has more than Oscar winning actors going for it – it is a fairytale adventure with love, sword fights, fantastic creatures, magic… Basically, it has all the splendor it takes to make an epic movie.

Since I loved the movie so much, I was definitely hesitant to read the book. I almost always love the book better than the movie whenever I get the chance to compare, and I didn’t want what I assumed would be an awesome book to ruin what was soon becoming my favourite “feel good” movie. Thus I avoided the book for a long time, even though several of my friends read it and loved it.

I had come to the conclusion, however, that I might not be as opposed to fantasy literature as I had led myself to believe. Thus I asked a good friend of mine (who is an avid fantasy fan) to recommend a book within the genre. Her suggestion was Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Now,  American Gods may not be your typical fantasy novel, but it sure is a very good novel. After having read it, I was convinced that I wanted to read more of Gaiman’s books, and so I read The Graveyard Book (which I loved), and Fragile Things (which was okay, but I have never been fond of short stories). I still avoided Stardust. The book, that is. The movie I’ve seen a number of times.


Then, a few weeks ago I was in the market for a nice and friendly read. I went to a bookshop and the book that stood out from all the rest I looked at, was, indeed Stardust. I decided to give it a chance after all, hoping that I wasn’t ruining one of my favourite movies. As it turns out, I wasn’t.

Neil Gaiman did not write the script for Stardust the movie, but he was involved in the process. The movie still has Gaiman’s fingerprints all over it, but there were made certain changes both in plot, structure and characters. Being so familiar with the adaption I had a hard time not comparing the book with the movie when reading. Usually it goes the other way around. You watch a movie after having read the book, and you flinch at every detail the movie makers changed. This time I flinched whenever there were details in the original book that mismatched with the movie adaption.

One thing that threw me off was the ending. I knew that the book had a different conclusion than the movie, but it was different different. That's all. I'm not going to say what made it different, or why this made me unhappy (I'm going to allow you the courtesy of watching the movie and read the book yourself, and then figure out which ending you preferred. See how nice I am?).

Another thing that bothered me with the book was the action sequences. Or lack thereof. Now, I know this is a format thing. It is WAY easier to make a great action scene in a movie where you have all sorts of fancy effects (including sound), than it is in a book. It might even be argued that the failure here is my ability to picture what I read and not Neil Gaiman's lack of action writing skills. My guess, though, is that it is neither. I don't think Gaiman incapable of writing a good action scene, but I think he deliberately chose not to. Stardust the book is not packed with action. The movie is. Both are results of conscious decisions. Gaiman deliberately made the book a little less packed with action, a little more filled with philosophy. However, to me it worked better in the movie. As shallow as that may sound, I missed the swordplay and explosions when reading the book. It was simply too slow-paced for my liking. I don't have a general grudge against slow-paced books, but in this case I knew what the alternative could (should?) have been.

The final point I will adress which separates the book from the adaptation, and which is another major reason why I prefer the movie, has to do with one of the characters. According to the "Making of" video on the DVD, Captain Shakespeare is an invention of Neil Gaiman's. But he is not in the book. Robert De Niro's performance as the pirat captain makes it worth watching the movie alone. Stardust without Captain Shakespeare is like Harry Potter without Dumbledore. Just. Not. The. Same! I realize that Captain Shakespeare without Robert De Niro would not have been the same either, so in this instance the book was bound to loose even if this character had been included.

The bottom line is that I preferred the movie to the book. Partly because I saw the movie first, but probably even more because there were elements in this story that made it better told in the medium of a movie and not in a book. My verdict, then, is that if you are looking for a feel good love story, you should watch Stardust. If you are looking for a great book, you should read American Gods.

On marketing strategies (part two): why you should give my mother your book for free

My mother, who turned 63 a few weeks ago, is fond of reading. She doesn’t wolf books down like her youngest daughter, but unlike me she has the time to read, so she gets through a fair share of books every year. Since I work in a bookshop it's convenient for me that I can always buy her a book for her birthday or Christmas – I get a discount; but more importantly I don’t have to rush around in other stores desperately trying to find her a gift since I can just pick up a book when I’m at work anyway.

Over the years I have figured out what sort of books my mother likes to read. She is fairly versatile genre-wise, but the books she tends to prefer are often of a certain type. She doesn’t like her books to be too “weird” or too experimental, for instance. Any sort of postmodernism probably falls out of her preferred category. She likes her books to have strong, likeable characters, often female protagonists. She likes a good story, firmly set in an interesting setting – but it doesn't necessarily matter whether that setting is Latin America or 19th century Norway.

Books that she likes and which fall into the above loosely defined category, thus, include anything by Isabelle Allende, anything by Cecilia Samartin, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, and The Island by Victoria Hislop. She has also read and liked a number of suspense/mystery books, such as the Millennium trilogy, books by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø, or Swedish mystery novelist Liza Marklund.

The most common denominator of these books, however, is that I have been able to sell them to customers after having explained that “I haven’t read them, but my mother has. She loved them.”

I have recently written about the importance of making the bookseller like your book in order for it to reach its customers. Well, this is also true by proxy. By referring to my mother’s reading preference I am able to sell books that I have not read myself, and for which I might not even be in the target audience.

Thus, the morale of the story is that authors and publishers need to target their audience. Also, if you want to make sure your books sells, you might want to send it to my mother.



Disclaimer: I feel the need to include two things... First of all, I didn't actually mean it literally. Before you all rush off to the post office, let me just explain that I don't expect the mailbox to flow over with free books anytime soon (though I wouldn't mind either).  Secondly, it would also be relevant to include that while I am more than happy to read books in English, my mother isn't. She does speak a little English, but I don't think she has ever read a book in a foreign language. So unless your book has been translated into Norwegian, using my mother as a marketing strategy would probably have a very limited effect.

That being said I still think my story holds a universal thruth. The fact that one bookseller does this probably means a lot of others do too. So perhaps your marketing strategy would be to seek out the friendliest looking clerk at the local bookshop and ask him/her what his/her mother likes to read!