Mariann sin blogg

I usually wait until Christmas before starting to assemble my lists of favourite music. Throughout the year I add music to various playlist on Spotify, which I listen to every day when walking to work. Still, when the time comes for me to sit down and sort the good from the boring, it takes me a lot of time. So much brilliant music to listen to, so many choices to make. But I love it of course. As usual, my inspiration comes from BBC 6Music. But also from Spotify, that keeps sending me e-mails with recommended music, based on what I'm listening to. This actually works very well, and I've discovered a handful of new names though this method. What can I say in general about 2013? Well, a few of my old "heroes" released an album in 2013: Goldfrapp, Editors, The National and Johnny Marr, to mention a few. Not all of them very successful. I've tried to put them in some sort of order, but their ranging could almost equally be random. Anyway, here it is - my top 20...

Documenting all the books I read in 2013 turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Suddenly time flew and I was to busy to write about the books. And some were forgotten for other, mystical reasons. Better luck in 2014, is all I can say. When going through my Kindle titles the other day, I realized that I've completely forgotten to include Julian Barnes' Levels of Life in my 2013 reading list. Julian Barnes is one of my favourite contemporary authors. There is something light and refershing about his writing. I can't quite explain it, but I find him a joy to read. This is in a way not a typical Barnes book. It has three stories, one about photography 19th century photographer Nadar), one about ballooning, love and Sarah Berhardt and one about Barnes' own grief after losing his wife. It's been a few months now since I read it, so the detailes of the stories are lost to me. What I do remember is that I liked reading it. As always, when it comes to Barnes. ...

The last book of the year was this essay collection by Siri Hustvedt, an author I like very much. Halfway through the book I was ready to pronounce this my favourite book of the year, but I changed my mind during the last part, not because it wasn't any good, but because it turned out to be more demanding than I wanted. The first part, Living, is, as the title says, about life in general. It is Hustvedts thoughts on different aspects of life. She writes in such a clear and illuminating manner, that I frequently find myself thinking 'Yes, i agree! She writes what I'm thinking too!' The second part is Thinking, and here we moves heavily into the area of neuroscience and psychology. I can follow her writings to a certain degree, but must admit that some of it was a bit boring for someone who has absolutely no background in this field. The last part, Looking, is more or less about art, about artists, paintings and our perception of art. Interesting to read, especially if ...

The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2013 was Alice Munroe. This is an author who has been on my reading lists for a decade or two, but who has somehow never made it to my bedside table. Or my Kindle. Until now. Luckily for me, I've made a promise to myself to read all the Nobel prize authors. Sometimes I don't quite agree with the Nobel judges, but this year, I found the author an absolutely worthy winner. Munro is mostly known for her short story collections, and my choice fell upon Something I've been meaning to tell you , originally from 1974. The book contains 13 different stories. The strange thing is that after reading them all, I felt like I'd read a novel. Somehow it felt like all the main characters really was one person, no matter how different they all were. I think this says something about Munros strong voice as a storyteller. This particular collection has a strong sense of quietness, of longing and of melancholy, but is never sentimental. Tha...

In order to learn more about MOOCs (massive open online courses), this autumn, I've done two courses on Coursera, The history of rock, part 1 and 2, both presented by John Covach at the University of Rochester. The accompanying book, What's that sound , written by Covach, was an optional feature of the course, which otherwise consisted of video lectures and quizzes. I loved the course, just to make that clear! This little review is about the book, however, though in many ways, my views on the course also reflect my view on the book. The book is a chronological overview of the history of American rock. It takes us from the early beginnings of rock up to around 2010. I find the first part much more interesting, probably because it is easier to write well about periods more distant in time. The coverage of the 2000s is very much just a listing of bands, record companies and chart positions. Which can get a bit tedious after a while. What I don't like about the book is its ...

I try to read every winner of the Nobel prize for literature. The rest of the winners I leave to others. But this summer I've enjoyed reading a bestseller written by another Nobel laurate, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who won the prize for economics in 2002. His book, Thinking, fast and slow became incredibly popular when it was published in 2011, and is about the reserach that resulted in his winning the prize.   This is quite far from my subject area, but his book really resonated with my views. "Yes, that is exactly how it is", was my standard thought on almost every chapter. He writes well, and he writes for a non-scientific audience. You certainly don't have to be an economist or a psychologist to enjoy this book.    Much of his research is actually quite useful in my job as a librarian, working with information literacy. To simplify, one could say that his book is all about critical thinking and about using our brains. And how we all ...

My beach novel this year was Revenge wears Prada . I was looking for something very easy and light to read and simply stumbled across this sequel to The Devil wears Prada . I seem to remember that the first book wasn't too bad. I might be wrong. In this chapter of Andrea Sachs' life, (sorry, spoiler alert!) she has founded her own sucessful magazine, met the man of her dreams, gets married, has a baby. The things one tends to do with one's life in this kind of novels. There is actually quite a lot of things happening in this book, and plenty of stuff to make it exciting. The problem is that the author doesn't manage to seduce the reader one bit. It is utterly boring, and I was at times amazed that she managed to get so little out of so much. The tough and smart woman from the first book has become insecure and silly, verging on 50-Shades-Anastasia Steel-stupid. As a sequel it is truly unnesessary. The subtitle is "The Devil Returns", which makes me ...

Neida, jeg har overhodet ingen problemer med å velge hvilket parti jeg skal stemme på. Det er selve valgkampen jeg virkelig misliker. Leste et sted at ordet kvaler visstnok er beslektet med kvalme, så jeg finner det ytters dekkende for politiske valgkamper. Og før noen misforstår: Jeg setter stor pris på å leve i et fritt og demokratisk samfunn der folket kan velge sine styrere. Jeg synes bare det er større fokus på kamp enn akkurat valg for tida. Og jeg synes ikke at valgkampen trekker fram det beste i folk - verken hos politikere eller Folk Flest. (Dette er faktisk en av hovedgrunnene til at jeg foretrekker monarki framfor republikk - jeg orker ikke tanken på presidentvalg!) Det som bekymrer meg aller mest er den tilsynelatende mangelen på perspektiv hos folk. Og den tilsynelatende manglende evnen til å tenke framover og til å tenke på konsekvensene av de valgene man gjør. I Troms, for eksempel, synes fryktelig mange å være opptatt av veiene våre. Her om dagen var det intervju med...

I started reading this book more than a year ago, then got busy and forgot all about it until now. My friends laugh at me for enjoying reading this kind of literature, but it is really interesting. But I guess you need to have a certain relationship to England to see the joy in it! This is, as the title suggests, a book about place names. The author, Caroline Taggart, has structured the names according to geographic regions and you can jump back and forth between your favourite places, or read it from a -z, like I did, starting with the South-West and ending with the North-East. I like etymology, and I like to know the meaning of place names. And it's not boring at all. Taggart writes for you and me and everyone interested in the history of place names. You certainly don't have to be an expert to enjoy it. Here are lots of examples of how place names changed because the Normans couldn't pronounce the original name, which is why we get Skipton and Kirk in the north (Scan...

Der finnes søndager helt uten mål og mening. Søndager uten avtaler eller plikter eller utflukter eller andre aktiviteter. Slike søndager elsker jeg. En slik søndag dukket opp nå i juni. Grå og kjedelig og aldeles vidunderlig perfekt til å tilbringe i sofaen med en ukomplisert bok. Valget falt på en ekte papirbok - riktignok ikke helt tilpasset mitt alderssegment, men hva gjør vel det? Ild er en ungdomsbok skrevet av svenske Mats Strandberg og Sara B. Elfgren, og er del 2 i Engelsfors-trilogien. Jeg har ikke lest del 1 og kommer sikkert ikke til å lese del 3 heller, men det gjør absolutt ingenting. Boka havnet i hus fordi jeg på mine eldre dager er blitt enda mer glemsom enn tidligere, og til stadighet glemmer å avbestille bøker fra Bokklubben. (Skal melde meg ut snart...) Anyway, jeg kastet meg ut i et univers med utvalgte hekser og demoner og what not og la ikke fra meg boka før jeg var kommet til side 634. Da var det også slutt. Handlinga går i korte trekk ut på at en gjeng ungdomm...

Kombinasjonen solskinn og fridager i mai er en ytterst god ting. Som nordlendinger flest har jeg lært at solskinnsdager ikke er en selvfølge og bør dermed nytes til fulle. I morra kan det som kjent bli regn og sludd. Så når man står der en fritorsdag og sola skinner vurderer man bare noen få sekunder på om man skal vaske rundt eller rydde i skap, før man tar med seg solbriller, te og bok og setter seg på verandaen. Godt kledd, selvsagt. Det er jo bare mai. Denne torsdagen tok jeg med meg en barnebok som har blitt liggende i stua alt for lenge uten at noen har giddet å lese den, Mirakel (Wonder) av R. J. Palacio. Jeg tenkte det ville være enklere å overtale 11-åringen til å lese den om jeg visste hva den handlet om. Så jeg leste alle 426 sidene ute i sola denne torsdagen og ble fullstendig oppslukt av historien. Heldigvis hadde jeg store solbriller på, så naboene slapp å se tårene som trillet når jeg leste de mer rørende partiene. Men det er altså ikke en gråte-bok. Det er ikke en sp...

After finishing with Knausgård's 6 volumes, I needed something different. And I must admit, I only bought James Bowen's book because I adore cats. Which, I suppose is the key message of his book. Would I have bothered to read a book about a recovering drug addict without a cat? I fear not. The book isn't exactly Shakespeare. The story is told in a simple, and surprisingly unsentimental way. It's not a book that makes you cry. If anyhting, this story will make you slightly ashamed of yourself, if you're anything like me. If you haven't already heard about this bestseller, it's about how the author, James, meets a homeless cat, Bob, and how they stay together and help each other. Bob is truly helping James get a sense of meaning in his life, if we are to believe the story. Which I do. As I said, it's not a literary masterpiece. But it really made me think about all the people we see, or rather not see around us. Not just Big Issue-sellers in bigge...

Folk jeg stoler på (litterært sett) påstår at Knausgård skriver knakende godt. Jeg bestemte meg derfor tidlig til å lese salgssukessen Min kamp . Kom bare litt seint i gang. Som vanlig! 3600 sider tror jeg det et tilsammen. Et formidabelt verk i 6 bind. Om og med Karl Ove Knausgård og nærmeste familie og omgangskrets. Og ryktene stemte. Han skriver svært godt, selv om jeg irriterer meg over hans noe arkaiske språk. "... bølger, nesten fuktige i sin av kveldsunkletes frambrakte fargeintensitet ..." (bind 3), "... den tørre, av gatelykter opplyste asfalten ..." (bind 5), "... i dagene av skjebne tunge." (bind 6). Slik skriver han hele tiden. Men til tross for alle slike kronglete formuleringen skriver han forbausende lett. Du leser om hverdagsliv og annet liv og kjeder deg ikke. Hans store appell er nok at leseren vil kjenne seg igjen i mye av det han skriver. Kanskje særlig vi som tilhører Knausgårds generasjon. Hans tema er mennesket, og til tross for at h...

I discovered Simon Armitage, not through his poems, but through his book Gig : the life and times of a rock-star fantasist , pop music being one of my true joys in life. Since then he's been situated in my head as an author to like. What I also have a tendency to like is Northern England, so when Armitage published his book about walking along the Pennines from north to south, it was of course bought for my Kindle. Not that I'm a walker myself, other than to pick bilberries in the autumn. Though as excercise goes, walking is not so bad. Armitage sets out to walk along the Pennines, setting up poetry readings at every stop and raising enough money to keep him fed and lodged throughout his trek. The Pennine Way is a trail of more than 400 km, and not done in a day! The book is written as a day-to-day diary where we follow his ups and downs (both geographically and mentally). Surprisingly enough, the landscape described is much more varied than I thought, but then, the only p...

Sometimes I have no idea what makes me pick up a book from the library shelves and take it home. The other day I suddenly found myself holding Mark A. Radcliffe's Gabriel's Ange l in my hand. And without any idea what it was all about, I started reading. I must say I was quite surprised when it turned out that the angel in question was an "actual" angel, you know, the ones that hang around in Heaven. For a second I worried that this was one of those religious novels, but soon found out it wasn't. Phew! The plot is simple enough. Gabriel has an accident and ends up in a coma. He "wakes" to find himself in therapy, which aims to find out if he is to be allowed to go to heaven or not. If this sounds too silly to you, don't read the book. But if you don't mind certain detours from reality, I promise you an entertaining read. I enjoyed it so much, I sacrificed several hours of precious sleep and stayed up half the night to finish it and find out wha...

The first book I finished this year was the crime novel In the Family by Christina James. Now, normally I don't read crime fiction. I simply don't like the suspense. And I certainly don't like reading about violence and horrible actions. But every now and then I give in to peer presssure. This time, the reason was simply that I've met the author. Which actually makes it much harder to write about. You can't praise it too much, as this might be seen as pure flattering. And you can't be too critical for fear of hurting their feelings. Fortunately, in this case, the latter wasn't a problem. The novel starts a bit slow. It took some time before I got hooked on the story. Which is perhaps it's biggest weakness. Her editor could have done a better job here. But once the story finds it's form, it works very well. James writes in an almost cinematic way. I can clearly envisage the television series about DI Tim Yates. In this first novel about him, he ...

Kort rapport fra årets TIFF! Jeg tjuvstartet på torsdag med UiT-visninga av Camille Rewinds - en finurlig, fransk film som var en perfekt oppvarming til selve festivalen, ettersom jeg forlot Verdensteateret sulten på mer. I filmen møter vi en eldre dame som svimer av og våkner opp som 16-åring. Dvs. egentlig er vel dama på min alder, ettersom det var et svært gjenkjennelig 80-tall hun våknet opp i. En film å bli glad av. @@@@ @@ På åpningsdagen, mandag, valgte jeg meg ut In the house , en annen fransk film. Salen var langt fra fullsatt, så det kan virke som om folk ikke har kommet helt i festivalmodus ennå. Jeg tiltrekkes mot koselig filmer med happy ending, men denne hadde en undertone av noe mørkt man bare kunne ane lurte i kulissene. Handlingen dreier seg om en lærer og en elev som bindes sammen av tekster, skrevet av eleven. Skal ikke avsløre om det mørke fikk slippe til eller ikke. Anbefaler i stedet at du går og ser den selv. Jeg likte den godt:) @@@@ @@ Tirsdagens ...