Mariann sin blogg

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 ...

Why sleep? spør Siri Hustvedt i den utmerkete essaysamlingen Living, thinking, looking . Jeg skjønner forsåvidt spørsmålet hennes, men et mye mer relevant spørsmål for meg er: Hvorfor skal det være så vanskelig? Når det er så nødvendig, mener jeg. Hvorfor klarer jeg ikke å sove, selv om kroppen en trøtt som en strømpe. Hodet også, for den saks skyld. Tankene kverner rundt som i en tørketrommel på varierende hastighet og jeg roterer i senga som en grillkylling på ICA. Jeg får ikke sove. Det er ikke førjulstida som stresser meg. Jeg har alltid vært sånn. Så lenge jeg kan huske i alle fall. Det går rykter om at jeg var et vanskelig spedbarn, når det gjaldt søvn. Men det husker jeg altså ikke. Det er rett og slett tidkrevende å sovne. Om man legger seg rundt midnatt (for det prøver man jo på, helst litt før, til og med), går det gjerne en time eller to før øynene blir værende lukket. Når vekkerklokka ringer dagen etter har man fått alt for lite søvn. Noe som resulterer i at man er nød ti...

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 ...