Booketries

When I first came across Eliot Pattison’s mysteries set in Tibet, I was thrilled. Tibetan culture is something I’ve been interested in for years, in fact ever since I first read Tintin in Tibet. My love for Tibet only increased when I discovered Tibetan dogs (but that’s another story.)

Like the two earlier books in the series, Bone Mountain was fascinating, but sad. Parts of it read like a fantasy because of the incredibly interesting and unique culture and lifestyle of (some of) the Tibetans. Pattison’s ‘sleuth’ Han Chinese Shan, first came to Tibet when he was deported to a gulag. He survived the harsh conditions in the camp by embracing Tibetan religion and culture (the two are completely interwoven, so it’s hard, if not impossible to separate the two).

Bone Mountain deals with the desctruction of Tibet’s nature, by the Chinese occupation force. Reading about it almost made me cry. The ‘hero’ of the book is really Tibetan culture, in many ways illustrated by the characters. They’re all unique, fascinating and mostly sympathetic. It’s obvious that Pattison has come to care about his Tibetan friends and their culture, that, like the country it originated, is threatened by extinction.

Some time after I watched Cranford (see earlier review), I discovered another tv series set in nineteenth century Britain. In fact, it reminded me of Cranford, not merely because the two names Cranford/Candleford are similar. Like Cranford, this series is set in nineteenth century England (though roughly half a century later.)

The initial premise is smiliar too. A young woman, Laura Timmins, moves to live with an older woman – in this case her mother’s cousin, Dorcas Lane – to work in miss Lane’s post office, in a small town.

Again, like Cranford, this series is both funny and sad and most of all interesting. It too features a number of memorable characters, mainly female. In fact, that’s one of the few complaints I have. While there are.a few interesting male characters, the great majority are female.

Apart from Laura, the main character, and her relative and boss, Dorcas Lane, there are their two neighbours, Pearl and Ruby Pratt who own a shop selling the latest fashion, sometimes all the way from Paris. They are perhaps not exactly pleasant, but interesting and have their secrets, some of which are exposed in season 2 (which is as far as I’ve watched).

One of my favorites is Queenie (who lives in the hamlet Lark Rise, that Laura comes from). Queenie is easily the most likeable character in the whole series. She’s a wise old woman, who keeps bees, grows herbs and vegetables in her garden and knows much about healing. Over the years she’s taken in children and raised them as her own. Sadly, Queenie was never able to have children of her own. She lives with her common law husband (later they marry, properly in church), Twister. Twister is a bit excentric, perhaps going senile. He’s a good man, but he leaves the responsibilities of running their household entirely to Queenie.

Another favorite is Minnie, a girl taken in by Dorcas Lane, to train as kitchen maid. Minnie is funny, charming and filled with wide-eyed curiosity about her new world. She listens attentively and picks up new, long words like extra-ordinary and learns to use them. Minnie, like many of the other characters, has her own dark back story, but despite all that, she remains happy and outgoing.

Mailman Thomas Brown, strict Christian, comes across as rather rigid and cold, but hides a heart of gold under his strict exterior.

Finally, I’d like to mention James Dowland – another favorite of mine. He shows up early in season 2 and he and Dorcas Lane end up arguing about just about anything, but it’s obvious that they’re attracted to each other. I won’t go into what happens between them. I will only mention that he’s one of Queenie’s foster children, who’s left Lark Rise, gone to London and returned to his native Oxfordshire, having made a fortune. James too has his secrets, but again, I won’t spoil the series for those who haven’t seen it. There are plenty of other interesting characters, but I think this will do as an example. If you like historic series, I can defintely recommend it.

Desperate Romantics is another tv series set in the nineteenth century. It’s about the so called PreRaphaelite Brotherhood – a group of artists and poets who decided to challenge the current ideals of beauty and launched a new painting style (among other things). In private, many of them led tumultuous lives. They drank, took drugs, were involved with prostitutes and had affairs with each other’s wives. The series is narrated by a friend of the artists – Fred Walters – (I’m not sure if this man existed in real life or is a convenient invention to tell the story).

There’s a lot of sex and drama, and a bit of history, especially art history, but my remaining impression is the sad situation faced by women in those days. They either had to lead sheltered, anemic, boring lives or risk losing their reputations and end up as prostitutes. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (from a family of famous artists and poets) seems to have been a sex addict, chasing prostitutes and barmaids, as well as his own models, some of which were prostitutes and barmaids, but he married a young milliner’s assistant, Elizabeth Siddal. She becomes Rossetti’s model, wants to become an artist like him, but is frustrated both by the lack of interest in her work and her husband’s constant infedilty, and later dies of a drug overdose. It’s pretty much all like that. You get to see a lot of Aidan Turner’s naked body, and believe me, I’m not complaining about that, but also all those women. It made me sad.

All the men, except John Millais, who had his own premarital problems, were more or less in love with the same women, but usually the charismatic Rossetti had the best luck with them. For years he had an affair with his friend and ‘brother’ William Morris’ wife, apparently with Morris’ full approval.

At the beginning of the series, the ‘brothers’ are trying to get the art establishment’s attention and eventually are able to gain the famous critic Ruskin’s approval. Ruskin is married to a frustrated young woman, Effie, but apparently he hasn’t consummated the marriage – he finds the female form unattractive. During the course of the series, it’s suggested that he might be a paedophile, but he strenuously denies the accusation. Perhaps he was what today would be termed ‘asexual’, but on the other hand, who would admit to being a paedophile? In the later part of the series, Ruskin goes everywhere with a young art student of his, a fourteen-year-old girl. Effie has the marriage annulled, after a humiliating physical examination to confirm the fact that she is still a virgin. Soon after, John Millais marries her. Apparently their marriage is both normal and happy and in the end they have eight children (but you don’t get to see that in the series). As far as I can tell, it deals with about ten years of the ‘brotherhood’s career.

The only really likeable character in this series is John Millais, and I suspect that’s partly because he’s not really a main character. He was never the rebel the others were, and even from early in his career gained recognition by the art establishment.

The others, especially Rossetti, claim to understand women, but end up hurting their feelings, through lack of understanding of their situation. Ultimately all the women, except Effie, formerly Ruskin, later Millais, are more or less unhappy.

I’ve always liked historic series/movies/books and whenever there’s something like that on tv, I want to watch it. Cranford was no exception. The series was on a few years ago, and after it ended I read that there would be a ‘Christmas special’. I was hoping we’d get to see that too, but the Christmas of 2009 came and went and there was nothing like that. Fortunately, I had more luck last Christmas (2010). At least I assume it was the ‘Christmas special’ we got to watch.

At first I thought the tv adaption was focusing a little too much on (unintentional?) humour. Despite that, I found it interesting though rather sad. Some of the characters were really likeable, others less so, but still interesting and/or funny and definitely real and believable. Undoubtedly this was partly due to the cast. I’d especially like to mention Judi Dench, Julia McKenzie and Imelda Staunton, but the others too, famous or not so famous.

Cranford is a little town in mid-nineteenth century England. It struggles with the changes their country is going through, not convinced that all change is for the better. For instance, railways are considered a threat. In the end, though, the people of Cranford find that nothing can stand in the way of ‘progress’ and perhaps they were wrong to try. The town is populated by a number of memorable people. Especially the women are described in detail.

At the beginning of the series, two elderly sisters, Misses Deborah and Matty Jenkyns, invite a young woman, Mary Smith, daughter of a friend of theirs, to come and live with them. You get to see Cranford and its inhabitants through her eyes. I suspect she’s the author’s alter ego. (I understand that Cranford is based on a series of books by a woman named Elizabeth Gaskell. I haven’t read them, but I think I might like to.)

Looking back on the series, my strongest impression is that it’s mostly about women who have never married, are widowed or whose prospects of marriage are poor, either because of lack of money or connections. Another theme seems to be the position of women in nineteenth century Britain.

Since I found out that library books are available as free downloads here in Sweden, I’ve wanted to try. For various reasons, I’d really prefer not to have to go to the library and pick up actual books (though when it comes to buying new copies at the book store, it’s the other way around.)

Anyway, last night I decided to have a go. I did a search for a couple of mysteries I’ve wanted to read, but not felt able to buy – a combination of lack of money and doubts about the quality of those books – and found five titles. I thought ‘Great!’.

Most of the books were supposedly available in several different formats, including mobi and epub. I’d read that you could download the books from your computer to a portable device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, any kind of e-book reader…). That’s interesting, even though I don’t own any such device, not personally. However, it was soon evident that all those symbols next to the title didn’t mean a thing. Adobe Digital Edition was the only software that worked. It gets worse.

I typed in my library card number and borrowed the first book on my list. So far, so good. I checked that I could at least open it on the computer and I could. Then I went on to the next two books and unfortunately, I got them in the reverse order of publication. When I’d finished the download of book nr 2 in the series, I get an error message saying I can only download three books in a seven day period. Three? I looked over the download window and the file where the books were saved. No. Just two. But the site was convinced. I’d already downloaded my three books. Since I refuse to read book 2 in a series before book 1, for all intents and purposes, I only got one book out of the whole frustrating experience. Three books might have been enough for seven days, one definitely isn’t.

Then my sister tried to transfer the book to her iPhone, just to see if it could be done and – to make a long story short – it couldn’t. Well, to be clear, it could be transferred, but then it couldn’t be opened. She went to check on the newspaper article where we’d found out about electronic book borrowing, and eventually found a couple of solutions that were supposedly going to work. Again, to make a long story short, neither of them did.

By that time, I was beginning to regret thinking of this idea in the first place, but at least I’ll now be able to read book three in a series where I’ve actually read books 1 and 2. And I’ll be able to try again in seven days time.

All this has also given me food for thought.

After our successful experiment with the Kindle, I had begun to plan ahead to a time when I’ll be able to afford an e-book reader and/or an iPod Touch or possibly an iPad. Now I’m wondering if I should bother. I love the Kindle. I’m sure I’d like the iPod Touch and the iPad, but would I actually have any real use for them?

I’m a book lover first and foremost even if I do love a shiny gadget, but the way I see it, I’d primarily be getting the e-book reader so I can download all those free books from Project Gutenberg and similar sites. I don’t see myself spending any money on new e-books. For one, they’re actually a lot more expensive than a paperback, and as far as I can understand, I won’t be able to read my free downloads on the Kindle. Secondly,  in my opinion, nothing beats the feeling of holding a ‘real’, printed paper book in my hands.

I could get an iPod Touch when my old iPods (very old) stop working, which might be relatively soon, judging by the time it takes to charge them and how long they last before the next charge. But if I can’t even read my library books on it, maybe it won’t be worth it. As it happens, I really prefer listening to something with better sound quality. I’m not into taking all kinds of gadgets along when I go out. It’s just not worth it.

Maybe I should just be grateful I’m leaning towards an option that will save me a lot of money, but somehow that doesn’t seem very cheering. At this time I could really use some cheering up.

Oh, well, I should probably just wait and see. For all I know, my financial situation could change in the near future and then I could take the whole thing under consideration again.

My sister and I are working on getting our own books published. Eventually, we hope to be able to publish other people’s books too. In the course of our work, we decided that we’d need an e-book reader to optimize the file formats.

So I set to work doing a bit of research online.

To begin with, the Kobo was my primary choice and my sister was preferred the Nook. Unfortunately, we found out that neither are available here in Sweden, or at least that they’d be very hard to get. The only readers we can easliy get our hands on are some European ones, that were probably great when they were first made, but are beginning to look old. The iRiver Story looks great, but for various reasons I won’t go into now, eventually we decided against that too.

So we were back to square one. Early on, I’d looked at the Kindle and been very impressed, but I didn’t like the fact that you can’t change the internal battery. If the battery dies you need to send your Kindle back to Amazon and get a replacement, which will cost you almost as much as buying a new one, if I’ve understood correctly.

But since we felt that the Kindle was our only really positive option, we looked into it again. Apart from the battery issue, everything else I’d read about the Kindle was fantastic, so in the end, we decided to get one.

Ordering one to have it shipped to an address in Sweden was no trouble at all. We just had to get an adapter, but that was easy enough.

Then we just settled down to wait. Can you imagine our surprise when we got a notification only two days later? Two days after we ordered it, it was delivered to our house. All the way from America.

Alright, I’ll stop gushing now. LOL.

Perhaps I should mention that I’m a major book lover, if you didn’t know that already. Books (and animals) are my life. Printed books, that is. However, there are thousands of free books available on Project Gutenberg, and though in the past I’ve read some of those on my computer, I thought it might be time to get something more lightweight. (Not that my laptop weighs more than about two kilos.)

I don’t think e-book readers will ever replace the feeling of holding a paper book in my hand, but I’m also a bit of a tech freak, so the thought of another gadget is rather appealing.

In any case, iearning how to use it was very easy. I only glanced at the manual, because the controls on the device are more or less self-explanatory. Easler in fact than handling my sister’s and my mom’s iPhones.

It’s also really cute. And not very heavy. Holding it with one hand for a long time, might get a bit much, but you can always switch hands or put it on the table or on your knees etc. We named it Spock, because my sister’s iPhone is Uhura. (Ok, enough with the geek talk.LOL)

My sister promised she’d get round to writing a more detailed review of the Kindle including a comparison with an IPhone as an e-book reader, and also, if we’re lucky, and some store near us begins to sell it, with an iPad (at least as much as they’ll let you play with it without buying it. LOL:)

Last week I watched the last episode of the Danish cop series ‘The Crime’ (Forbrydelsen 2, 2009). It was season 2 in the series and though I watched season 1 (2007) and liked it to some extent, this one felt like a big improvement on the first. That could be partly because season 1 was made up of 20 episodes (and to put that into perspective, I’ll have to mention that the series only dealt with one case) and season 2 only  had 10 (again, dealing with only one case).

As most (or even all) Danish series I’ve seen, this was of very high quality. The acting, the plot, the scenery. For instance, one of the last episodes was (ostensibly) set in Afghanistan and though I’ve never been there, I thought, judging by the news footage I’ve seen, that it was made very realistic. I’m guessing it was shot in the Balkans somewhere. (Slovenia?)

One of the ‘problems’ I had with season 1 (one that I have with many otherwise great cop series) is that there were too few main characters. In this case, there’s only one, detective Sara Lund though there are recurring minor characters, for instance Sara Lund’s mother and son, as well as her boss, Lennart Brix.

She’s considered a brilliant cop, but not very socially competent. The first season ends with her in disgrace. Season 2 opens with her ‘exiled’ to the border police, where she lives alone, in a bare rented home.

A series of brutal murders puzzling her former homicide detective colleagues leads to her being called back to Copenhagen. Many people dislike the decision and fight to keep her out of the case. Her boss reluctantly tries to balance his position between her and his own bosses, one of which seems to be his lover (Ruth Hedeby).

Soon there are leads pointing to the army and a suspected war crime committed in Afghanistan. Even from the start it’s clear that there’s also a tie-in with the government.

I won’t go into the twists and turns of the case, I’ll just say that though some of the politics (a parallel plotline is set in national politics) were a bit boring, the plot was nowhere near as complex (as in too complex) as in the first season. All in all it was exciting and fascinating to follow the police work and the lives of the politicians too.

In fact, I will say something about the politicians. Unexpectedly, there were some very sweet slash vibes between two unlikely people, as well as some male/female bonding.

Another plotline dealt with the Danish army and there too, was some pretty cool (platonic) bonding between two rather unexpected people.

The ending was excellent, with the suspense building then declining temporarily, to climax in a brilliant finale. This time, I approved far more of the ending, I might add. No disappointment lingering after the last scene.

Fortunately, there’s already a season 3 on the way and I can’t wait to see it.

I also just found out that Swedish and Danish tv are working on a joint project, another cop series, ‘The Bridge’ (Broen/Bron, estimated release 2011) that promises to be just as good as ‘The Crime’. (The bridge mentioned in the title is the bridge crossing the sea between southern Sweden and Denmark.)

I know I’ve been complaining about the tv series from the second half of the 00′s until now, but I guess I’ll need to revise my opinions a little, thanks to the Danes (and to some extent Swedish tv).

If you get a chance to see Forbrydelsen 2 I think you should. Maybe even buy the DVD box. Since I’ve already seen it and know the ending, I probably won’t, but I don’t think it will disappoint anyone.

Because it’s World Book Day, I’d like to share a little story about a few of the first books I read myself, as opposed to all the others grownups read to me. Of course I didn’t love those any less.

When I turned four, I got – among other things – Tintin in Tibet and two little paperbacks about a girl named Camilla who solved mysteries in her little town. The first ended up in shreds, after I’d read it so many times. It also ended up giving me a lifelong interest in Tibet and the Tibetan culture.

The Camilla books were fun, because we shared a name, though I had a bit of trouble understanding why she was ten years older than me… They were cosy and a little exciting.

The BBC predicts most people have only read 6 out of 100 of these books.

01 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (seen the movie, tv series and read the book)
02 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (of course)
03 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
04 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
05 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
06 The Bible (assorted chapters…)
07 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
08 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (read The Golden Compass. didn’t like it)
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (maybe, don’t remember)

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier (seen the movie)
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot (seen the tv series)

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald (yes, had to for school, but liked it)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (seen the tv series, great)
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (saw some of the movie, hated it)
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (had to for school, hated it)
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (maybe, don’t remember)
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (and the movie.)
34 Emma – Jane Austen (and the movie and/or tv series)
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen (one of my favorites)
36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis (and the movie.)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell (had to for school)
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding (sort of for school, hated it)
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon (will read some day)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (liked it, except for one chapter at the beginning and one at the end)

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie (don’t remember, maybe)
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (and at least one movie.)
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (seen the tv series)
80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens (probably saw it as a movie)
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (had to for school, didn’t like it)
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (most of them)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton (no, but many others)

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams (and the movie)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I haven’t really listened to any podcasts and very few audiobooks. Generally, I prefer to read – ordinary paper books, and tv series and movies. However, I think I could get into podcasts (or video podcasts), at least a little, if the subject was one that I’m very interested in. Audiobooks on the other hand, they’re probably not for me. Mom likes them and I’ve tried to listen to some of hers, but I never really got into them. One reason is that the translated ones are by necessity read by Swedish actors. They’re reading books that have been written in another language – these days almost exclusively English.

I never read the first book in the series about The Ladies’ Detective Agency, I listened to it on a cd player. The actress reading it could be said to be ideal in most ways – like Mma Ramotswe she’s ‘of traditional build’ and she’s very funny, or at least used to. However, when the topic of lady detectives came up, the British mystery writer Agatha Christie was mentioned and the actress pronounced that with the stress on the second syllable. That was it for me… Funnily enough, I think she got the African names about right. At least as far as I can tell.

The other memorable audiobook I tried was one about Jeeves and Wooster (I’ve forgotten the title). Again, the ‘cast’ – a group of famous comedy actors – should have been ideal, and maybe they would have been, if someone had adapted the entire book to a Swedish setting with Swedish names. As it was, naturally they hadn’t. One member of the ‘cast’ was able to correctly pronounce the UK county Worcestershire (I hope I spelled that right), the others couldn’t. No one could pronounce the more unusual personal names – like Bertie’s friend Barmy Fotheringay-something or other (?) which I think is to be pronounced Fungy- Phipps? In any case, they all botched the names. One of them, who is really famous, and a movie maker/director as well as an actor let one of his characters (he played two) use a southern Swedish accent. Never again, that’s all I can say.

Of course, that’s not really why I don’t like audiobooks, I just – well, don’t. For me, books are about reading, not listening. If I want to listen, I’ll turn on my iPod for some music, or I’ll watch tv/dvd.