SaraPepparkaka

Well, if they're full of love and drama then I'm all for it! Classics are different from each other just as any books, so I can't say I'll love a book just because it's a "classic".

Roast elk, boiled potatoes, a lovely brown gravy made from dark beer, blackcurrant juice and cream, fried funnel chanterelles and a salad made from cucumber, grapes and lettuce. Autumn food. This is one of the best dinners I can make!

I've read books two and three in Anne Bishop's Tir Alainn trilogy, "Shadows and light" and "The house of Gaian". A rare treat, since Anne Bishop is one of my favourite authors. (.. if anyone wonders, I've actually read the first book too, but it was quite some time ago.. so I've read this trilogy starting from the first book and ending with the last, which, as some of you may know, is VERY unusual for me ). Some of Anne Bishop's books aren't for the fainthearted, but this trilogy isn't as dark. A shame they had to end. Coming back to this world feels much like waking up to the alarm clock on a Monday morning.

Apple juice and dry biscuits. That'll be on the menu for today at least. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like eating some boiled eggs.

My holiday is 4 weeks in summer, 1 week in winter, plus 2 days compensation per year for working a few minutes more per day than the national agreement is. And did you know what else I learned? Holidays are earned per month worked, and being on sick leave also earns days off just like when I'm working. So I have a nice 4 week summer holiday waiting for me, to be held "as soon as possible" after I return to work, and it doesn't make my holiday next summer shorter. I can also make a deal with my employer to hold my days off at a later time. I believe I will use my holidays to get a soft start after all this time away. We have a "gentlemen's" agreement NOT to take extra days off around Christmas though, since we're usually extremely busy then.

George Orwell "Animal Farm". It was a long time since I've read a "classic". I must say that I felt I missed many references to the Russian Revolution, even if that should be something I know a fair deal about. Otherwise an interesting read, and I could see how this is relevant to many -isms, not just communism. The role of Benjamin puzzled me, I would have wanted him to be more active and try to explain things to his comrades. Also, I wonder why there wasn't a second revolution, one should think that since there's been one, it would be easier to do it again. Well, one could agrue that that second revolution did indeed come but much much later thatn the book was written. Victoria Clayton "Dance with me". Entertaining, warm book about Viola Otway and her work at the Society for the Conservation of Ancient Buildings.

I do think I'll read them, especially since my Trusted Local Library seems to have most of them. I wasn't on the lookout for Sister Pelagia last time, but it's a fair guess TLL will have them as well, in which case I'll certainly give them a try. I must have read A LOT more than usual this year, only this year I haven't been counting my books. Last year I read about a hundred, average pace of two books a week. But that was with a full time job.

Chewing gum, strawberry flavour.

I read "Azazel" by Boris Akunin, a new author to me, and a good one at that. I'll read more of Erast Fandorin's adventures, I'm sure. Oh, and this really IS the first book about him. Must be the first time I've actually started with the first book in a series. Also read "Marley&Me" by John Grogan. OK, a bit sentimental. (I bought this one on our trip to London!) "Håpas du trifs bra I fengelset" (Hope you like it in jail) by Susanna Alakoski. The author was born in Finland, but moved to Sweden with her parents. This is one of the better books I've read about poverty, immigration, alcoholism, drug abuse and having a relative in prison. The main character has a brother who gradually starts to use drugs, does criminal things, slowly disappears from her life.. The best thing is that it's not even trying to be neutral, it's unashamedly about how the sister feels, right or wrong as that may be. The title is taken from a letter that the main character's daughter writes to her uncle. This is fiction, but Susanna Alakoski is a social worker and has seen her fair share of what life has to offer some of us.

Spaghetti, Parmesan cheese and GARLIC, LOTS of garlic.

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Peppermint tea and a sandwich with cucumber and cream cheese.

A book for my challenge. "Den stulna drömmen" (The stolen dream) by Alexandra Marinina. I thought I'd read all of her books in my Trusted Local Library, but when I started to look closer I hadn't read this one. This is a book in a series about Russian police officer Anastasia Kamenskaja, and so it represents Russia.

Added a book for Russia, one in a series featuring Russian police officer Anastasia Kamenskaja by Alexandra Marinina. I honestly thought I'd read them all, but not this one. And there it was, in the Trusted Local Library no less, and me walking past it for who knows how many times, thinking I'd read it. Well, now I have.

Leftover shrimp risotto. Quite good actually since I put lots of garlic in it!

Mixed reading.. as in one Terry Pratchett ("Going Postal"), one thought-provoking ("Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro), one refreshing autobiography ("A round-heeled woman" by Jane Juska) and one item of fluff ("The pregnancy test" by Erin McCarthy). Also one DNF "Lessons in duck hunting" by Jayne Buxton. I usually don't mention my DNF's, but bear in mind that I have a flair for fluff, chick lit and the like- but I thought this one was boring, so for once I thought to mention it.

Unforgiven II by Metallica. (Before that One-Metallica, and Fade to black-Metallica.) (Yes, I'm a fan)

More books read. "The house at Riverton" by Kate Morton. From Amazon: In her cinematic debut novel, Kate Morton immerses readers in the dramas of the Ashbury family at their crumbling English country estate in the years surrounding World War I, an age when Edwardian civility, shaken by war, unravels into the roaring Twenties. Grace came to serve in the house as a girl. She left as a young woman, after the presumed suicide of a famous young poet at the property's lake. Though she has dutifully kept the family's secrets for decades, memories flood back in the twilight of her life when a young filmmaker comes calling with questions about how the poet really died--and why the Ashbury sisters never again spoke to each other afterward. With beautifully crafted prose, Morton methodically reveals how passion and fate transpired that night at the lake, with truly shocking results. Her final revelation at the story's close packs a satisfying (and not overly sentimental) emotional punch. My thoughts: It's sometimes a slowpaced book, and I'm not normally fond of that. But occasionally, a book comes along that's written well enough to make me forget that. This is such a book. It also has a lot of fairly complicated people in it, and I like that, even if these characters aren't the best complicated ones I've read. I also sometimes get tired/bored when I read a book and have the feeling something bad is about to happen, and that it will be absolutely awful- I'm not a patient person and it happens that I read the ending pretty fast, and only then can I go back and appreciate just how the writer gets to that ending. I'm glad I didn't with this book, and instead suffered the suspense all the way to the firework ending. I also very much appreciated the insights into an old person's life, it seemed fairly realistic to me, as far as I can tell. And, having just visited a big old house in the English countryside, in my head it was the house at Riverton, and that also did add to my enjoyment. An 8/10. Also read "Natural Born Charmer" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and that's a lovely book too. SEP's people, they don't fall in love very easily. But when they do, I believe every word of the happily ever after. And I happen to think self-centered, stubborn, mean people also deserve love and happiness. This is a hit-and miss author for me, so far two hits and one miss.

Linda Gillard Haruki Murakami (so far) Selma Lagerlöf Terry Pratchett (so far) Anne Bishop .. wait, I'm seeing a pattern here- I REALLY REALLY like reading about complicated people. This is an epiphany. -note that even though they're two of my favourite writers ever, neither Neil Gaiman nor Kelley Armstrong appear on the list. The books about Nadia Stafford weren't as good as I'd expect from Kelley Armstrong, and for some reason, "American Gods" wasn't a hit with me.

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