I was walking along, minding my own business. Then this happened...
(It says “Giant bookfair” in Danish)

The book was published in 1900 after the authors death and tracks the attempts of Goncalo Ramires, last son of an ancient Portuguese noble family, to find his way in life. Should he write a historical novel? Should he pursue a political career? Should he concentrate on his business?
So much is possible but he struggles to make up his mind and actually finish something. There is intrigue and trouble but things never get truely dire. #portugal

When the king of Portugal decides to give his brother in law an elephant all kinds of things happen. An expedition sets out and it has to deal with both politics and the very practical problems in travelling with an elephant. It is a great piece of storytelling in typical Saramago style but it feels lighter - in a good way. Definitely a pick.

Back at work also means back to commuting in train most days. Which means back to reading on the train most days! 🤓🤓

The oldest bookshop in the world is located in Lisbon - or at least the place where there has been sold books from the same adress for the longest time. It all started in 1732, more than twenty years before the devastating earthquake which wiped out the lower parts of the city.
Today it is part of ‘Bertrand‘, a chain of bookshops, and though it is a beautiful shop it doesn‘t look THAT old. I bought the tagged book which I look forward to.

This was a tough but really good read. Tough because the composition is complex with four narrators and intersecting memory and present but also tough because the subject is hard to take.
Isilda sendes her children from Angola to Portugal in 1978 and stays behind beacause it‘s her home - except it is not after independence. The story fleshes out the moral corruptness and violence of colonial rule. It is a rewarding book with great carachters.

Fifty years after his death the great Portuguese poet was moved to the beautiful monastary Mosteiro dos Jéronimos in Belem, Lisbon.

It is cool to see people honour their authors and from what I have read by and about Pessoa, I think he would be pleased with the discreet monument.

I forgot to rate this book when I finished it. It is the story of Ronnie and Christina who meet in contemporary Denmark and are thrown across time and space where they like Orpheus and Eurydike have to rescue eachother from hell.

As long as Michael just tells the story in his usual magical realism style it is entertaining. Trying to explain the time travel is silly and hinting at a conspiracy behind everything doesn‘t do anything good either

Rowling lived some years in Porto when she was working on the first volume of the Harry Potter series. Apparently she wrote a lot in the Majestic Café which should be wonderful but had a long line when we passed by.

So that‘s the last update from Porto. Now it‘s on the train and next up is Lisboa?

As a booklover going to Porto I obviously had to visit the famous and incredibly beautiful bookshop Lello with the famous red staircase in the middle.

It is as wonderful as advertised but it is also a perfect example of how tourists spoil what we visit. We all seek this authentic feeling, but when there are too many of us the authenticity is lost.

(Continued in comments)

Not a typical book for the beach, but so far it‘s pretty good.

Guess where we have just started vacation...

An enjoyable read. Rachel is a wonderfully unreliable narrator and as a regular train commuter it is easy to recognize the fascination with the houses you pass. Also: I thought the description of Rachel‘s alcoholism was both realistic and depressing. Not everything is believable, but it kept me on my toes and that is what a thriller should do.

#bookhaul or should I say #bookrescue ? My local library had given up on these comics even though they are in almost mint condition, so I had to buy them (4 $ for six volumes) and give them a new home.

Guess the locals are just not into speculative French sci-fi comics... 🤔

There is some decent stories and some outstanding artwork in the Blacksad series, but this is by far the weakest album. There is no real plot, and the art is substandard. (Which is not terrible. Guarnido is too talented for that.) It is understandable that the series is on a break now.

This is the third installment in a mystery series featuring Copenhagen policeman Roland Triel. Since there is a story spanning the whole series as well as a case to be solved in each volume, that might not be the best place to start. The writing is funny and original and the book was generally pretty good but not great.

I have read a number of Shute books and most of them are pretty average. Here Captain Stevenson gets involved in a weapon smuggling affair with political implications and with a young dancer from the working class. As such it is an interesting take on English society after WWI but as a thriller and as literature I wasn‘t impressed.

F for falseness, F for fiction, and F for fooling yourself. Before the financial crisis in 2008 three brothers are living on a lie - and it‘s all coming crashing down. Kehlmann writer with psychological insight a sharp criticism of a society losing its way.

Definitely a good read!

Seems like the right place for this one...

A moving novel about growing up in a dysfunctional family in Jutland. Tue is a teenager trying to cope with adolescence and a tough life. The farmer is nearly broke, his mother is suffering from depression and he is invreasingly isolated in school. Being gay might be the least of his worries. Powerful story and a succesful debut.

I‘m very much a fan of content over wrapping but I do appreciate a good cover. This poetry collection is titled “Shaken Mirror” and the front is a reflecting mirror in silver on a black background. 👌

I enjoyed this book. Delisle really shows the repetitiveness and the struggle to stay optimistic as the knidnapping of a French NGO-worker in the Caucasus just drags on and on. The art work is good too. Delisle uses simple drawings and great colour work to show his beard growing longer and the days passing by one after the other.

Marko and Alana are lovers from different races who have been at war throughout the galaxy for millenia. Now they are fleeing with their daughter because both sides want them dead and the child handed over. Why? That‘s not explained. There are many loose ends and I didn‘t love the art work as much others.

Sigmund portrays eight women who were close to the Nazi elite. Here are the wives of Göring, Magda Goebbels and Eva Braun. It was interesting to read their different stories but also to see the similarities. A lot of them were fanatic believers in Nazi ideology even though it assigned them an inferior status. It also made me think about their guilt. They had no official positions to order people killed, but they supported those who could.

This is a brilliant novel. David Lurie has lost touch with the world around him when he is dismissed from his University in Cape Town after an affair with one of his students. He knows he is wrong but he doesn‘t realize HOW wrong in South African society that is passing him by after the end of apartheid.
Lurie is annoying and sometimes likeable but he is above all human. #1001books

The young Frédéric goes to Paris in the 1840s to fulfill his dreams about a rich social life with erotic relations. He is drawn to the artdealer Artoux and falls hopelessly in love with his wife. Frédéric is indecisive and in many ways annoying, but Flauberts writing is beautiful and full of psycholigical depth. Not Madame Bovary but still a great book. #1001books

After a loooong day at work it‘s time for a little spare time reading. It is a pretty interesting read so far. Craziest detail so far: Emmy and Hermann Göring kept lions as pets. Bringing it to their house in Berlin it was installed in the basement but it got out and opened the door to their bedroom i the middle of the night! Sadly it didn‘t bite him...

My favorite cat detective goes to New Orleans to help music promotor Faust Lachapelle find his missing star Sebastian. The story is well told but hardly original. The art, however, is gorgeous. Guarnido draws light masterfully and New Orleans looked just the way I think it should.

My local library has a display pushing Steinbeck books to its visitors. When I was in my late teens Steinbeck was one of my favorite authors - maybe it‘s time to revisit some of his novels? 📕📗📘😊😊

Sex, postapocalyptic violence and strange mutations are the main ingredients of the Druuna series. This volume contains the first two albums where Druuna fights to keep her mutated boyfriend as well as the whole city alive. I liked the story and the art is beautiful but not for the prudent. Druuna dresses sapringly and Serpieri gives her lots of reasons to take them off.

The novel is a chilling story inspired by an actual crime in 1994. A disturbed young man is releashed from prison and murders a woman, her child and a priest. It is well-written but also heartbreaking as O‘Brien shows how society let Mich down - he is horribly abused in institutions - and fails to protect innocent people when he is released. Hard but rewarding read. #1001books

I know I‘m in the minority here, but I thought the book was pretty boring. The narrator lives alone in rural Ireland and spends her time thinking about her past and everyday life, but I wasn‘t really touched by her reflections.

It‘s time for another #1001books !

Travelling back from Ireland yesterday - and in gold company with one of my purchases. It is a grim and troubling book about how boys are hurt and how they bring havoc when they become men.

A novel deconstructing the idea of the novel, a story of a young man living a bohemian life without ending up in the gutter, writings both using and making fun of Irish mythology - there are so many layers in this book. It was funny and not that hard to read - but it tried to do so much that I wasn‘t blown away by any of it.

You know the writer is famous when the birth place of his wife becomes a museum - even if it‘s only open “randomly” as a note in the window says...

I‘m certain Flann would aprove...

Lots of drama in this tale from the gold rush in 19th Century New Zealand. Joseph Blackstone has gone there with his wife and mother but they soon discover that succeeding is only for the few. My problem with the novel is, I never really believed the characters and therefore didn‘t really care about them.

Overall I enjoyed this book. Some parts were beautiful and fascinating - especially the motorcycle parts - and Kushner generally writes well. The parts about the New York art scene got a little long in the tooth, however.

Having fun with some good old ruling class satire...

Designing covers which shows the point of a mystery without giving it away, is difficult. I don‘t think this one succeeds.

I absolutely LOVE the cover of my 1941 edition of Night Flight!

72-year old Aaliya is looking back on a life lived through literature. After a failed marriage she has workshop in a bookshop, read, read, read and every year translated another work into Arabic. Now she faces a crisis and in book-filled flat in Beirut.
The story is well-told and the many book references are a joy to read.

Summer. Reading.
👍

Pick, pick, pick. I loved this book. Great plot, great characters, great writing. T.S. Eliot might have been right when he called it “the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels.”

Volume one was very promising. Beautiful artwork and an engaging story about the girl Amir who gets married at the ooold age of twenty to a younger boy. Great characters and an interesting setting in 19th Century Central Asia. Looking forward to the next installments. 🤗

“So I passed that blissful night. On rising the next morning, how young I felt! I might add, how young I looked, if I were capable of dwelling on the concerns of my own perishable body. But I am not capable - and I add nothing.”
Miss Clack is just the perfect hypocrite!

Harold seems like a thinly veiled excuse to tell what Byron himself has seen. It is a reflection of places he sees, of the struggle between freedom and tyranny, the Napoleonic wars and characteristic traits of the places he visits. It is also a celebration of the past as it expresses itself in ruins and memorials. In that sense Byron is more tourist than anthropologist.
Stylistically impressive, but large parts were just pathos topped with pathos.

Ooops I did again!
Nice bookhaul today. A couple of old Saint-Exupéry fly books and a couple of shiny new ones. #classics #bookaholic #happiness

Time for some train travel & reading🤓👍