Booklist 2007

[baleanoptera]

Inspired by richlayers list over books read in 2007.
Sometimes by month, sometimes jumbled together.

Fiction:

January, February and March 1-12th.

Christopher Logue: War Music (re-read)
Megan Whalen Turner: The Thief
Catherynne M. Valente : The Orphan’s Tales: In the night garden , Vol. I
Sarah Walters: The Nightwatch
Homer: The Iliad(Robert Fagles translation)
Karl-Ove Knausgård: En Tid for alt. (in English: a Time for Everything. )

March 13-31

April
Cees Nootebaum: In the Dutch Mountains

May-June

Lawrence Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet
Sherman Alexia: Flight

July

Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park


Non-Fiction:

January, February and March 1-12th.

Christopher Clark: The Iron Kingdom – The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
Christopher Tyerman: God’s War – a New History of the Crusades
Emma Hartley: Did David Hasselhoff end the Cold War – facts you need to know about Europe.
Neil Oliver: Not Forgotten – War Memorials of the Great War
Joanna Bourke: An Intimate History of Killing
Toby Clark: Art and Propaganda
Moritz Wullen: Die Deutschen sind im Treppenhaus – Der Fries Otto Geyers in der Alten Nationalgalerie
Thomas Doherty: The Projections of War
Jeanine Basinger: the World War II Combat Film
Rod Green: The Real History behind Foyle’s War.
Aleida Assmann: Zeit und Tradition. Kulturelle Strategien der Dauer.
Paul Cartledge: The Spartans
Wolf Lepenies: The Seduction of Culture in German History
Rosamund Mckitterick: Perceptions of the Past in the early Middle Ages.

March 13-31

Michael de Certeau: The Practice of Everyday Life
George S. Williamson: The Longing for Myth in Germany - religion and aesthetic culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche
April
Andreas Huyssen: Present Past: Urban Palimpsest and the Politics of memory
Andreas Huyssen: Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia
John Reader: Africa - a biography
Paul Ricoueur: Memory, History, forgetting

May - June

Robin Cormack: Byzantine Art
Crowly Heyer: Communications in History
Studs Terkel: The Good war
John Julius Norwich: Byzantium Vol. 1
Stephen Runciman: The History of the Crusades Vol 1. (reread)
John Adams: The Best War Ever
Jay Winters and Sivan: War and Remembrance in the 20th Century
Hans Khan:The Mind of Germany

July

Lawrence Nees: Early Medieval Art
Duncan Anderson: Glass warriors - the Camera at war
Peter Garlake: Early African Art and Architecture
David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson: Film Art - and introduction

There are some recurring themes here huh? Also the Fiction section is a bit thin, so any suggestions about fiction would be very welcome. And possibly something not in connection with the Second World War. It might be healthy to read about something else as well. ;)
(but if any of you have a suggestion about a WWII book I wouldn't mind hearing about it...)

Comments

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

How is The Thief? I've heard it's good from one friend and that made me curious but I haven't gotten ahold of it (yet). What did you think?

Most of my fiction recommendations these days have to do with fairy tale adaptations. :)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

"The Thief" is very, very good! And apparently the next two books are even better. (but I am still waiting for them from Amazon. Mumble, grumble..)

The plot is good and the characters are simply wonderful. The fantasy world was also based on Greek myths and that gave it a fresh feel. I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

And hey - there is nothing wrong with fairytale adaptations. ;D

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

Well you just saw (theoretically) my recommendation for Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine. I might recommend something else, soon, too, if I could ever get anything finished... Well, sometimes I do.

[sunnyskywalker]

I recently read The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, and liked it a lot. If you haven't read it - fantasy, death magic and its unexpected consequences, some inspiration from 15th-century Spain in the worldbuilding, a smart princess, and a neat family curse, among other things.

I also read Michael Chabon's The Final Solution, which I also liked, though not as much. It started as more of a mystery and ended as more of a character piece, which threw me. But it does feature a brilliant parrot and an elderly Sherlock Holmes (though you never hear his name in the book).

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

I've got The Thief on my paperbackswap wishlist, so hopefully I'll get ahold of it before TOO long.

You should post a link to this list http://richlayers.livejournal.com/237249.html <-- here so I can find it again! :D

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

The Thief is on the way! I should have it within a week.

Are you still adding to this list???

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Yup! Will be adding tomorrow. :) And yay for "The Thief"! I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

Hi! I've seen you around my extended flist, and you seem interesting, so I'm friending. Also, I am now totally intrigued by the David Hasselhoff premise. Heee!

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hello! Right back at you, so I'll add you back! :)

As for the David Hasselhoff incident; apparently David was visiting the Check Point Charlie museum in Berlin, and commented that he felt he was lacking in the exhibition. The curator was a little surprise, but asked politely why that was so.
Well, David could tell her, he had performed "I'm Looking for Freedom" in Berlin just weeks before the Wall fell, and surely his concert and awesome singing had inspired both the leaders and the common Germans to think about their situation and "tear down that wall!"
History has not recorded what the curator answered to that, but it must conclude that he is a humble man that 'Hoff. ;P

As for the book itself it deals with this as well as other odd stories about Europe, and was very interesting. Though nothing topped the David Hasselhoff anecdote.

And you have a Knut icon! Hooray!

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry - I completely forgot to reply to this. *hangs head in shame* Hopefully later is better than never. ;)

Thank you for the recs. I've heard many great things about Bujold, especially her Vorkosigan series - but for some reason they are an absolute pain to get here in Norway. I'll give it another try though - so the title is noted.

And I love Chabon so I'm definitely checking out "The Final Solution". you've read "Kavalier and Clay" yes? I think that is one of my favourite books of the last few years. Touching, well written story that dealt with historical events, folklore and comics!? So my thing. ;D

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, that's awesome about The Hoff! Though I will say, 'Baywatch' dubbed in German is far better than the original English, so maybe there's something there.

And Knut has been the highlight of my week, I swear.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

It feels like ages since I last spoke to you. HI. That's all I dropped by to say. * scurries back to work *

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hullo! Yes, its been a while! We must try to do something about that. I hope life is good and no (vital) pieces missing. ;) I'm currently trying to avoid RL kidnapping of the over-worked kind, but I think I'm winning so all will be good.

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

Speaking of richlayers, I just had to save this for you:

[13:09] pla_old_m321: hi
[13:09] richlayers: hi
[13:09] pla_old_m321: how r u
[13:09] richlayers: fine
[13:10] pla_old_m321: 25/m/Miami NE Okla
[13:10] pla_old_m321: where in se ks r u?
[13:11] richlayers: I moved, I don't live there anymore
[13:11] pla_old_m321: ohh ok
[13:11] pla_old_m321: where u live now?
[13:11] richlayers: Norway
[13:11] pla_old_m321: ohh ok
[13:12] richlayers: yeah it's nice
[13:13] pla_old_m321: thats kool
[13:13] richlayers: yup


He never said anything after that.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

LOL! I love that - the unknown uses of Norway. ;D

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

Surprise! Betcha didn't know your country rids me regularly of internet jerks!

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hee. "norway - the land of skis and snow, now with extra repellent factor." ;P

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

I just finished The Thief. I liked it -- although I felt like it was a little slow the first half... I loved how it came together in the end.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is slow in the beginning, but in a way I rather like that. The book takes its time, and I think the slow start (all that riding and eating yoghurt) also helps to hide the twist. because once you know the twist it's fairly easy to see right from the beginning. But I think Gen's focus on things like yoghurt and how miserable he is helps to cloud the narrative in mystery.

Also it could be argued that Gen's focus on the mundane aspects of their journey is a way for him to to help himself maintain his cover. He has to be believable as a low class thief, and if he started focusing on political aspects and such he would be more likely to slip. After all it is when he does stop focusing on the boring and slow sides of travel, and starts telling stories that he also starts to slip and loose his cover.

But the ending really adds a lot to the book and gives it that extra touch that makes me love it. I still have not found the Queen of Attolia, but I'm very much looking forward to that as well.

[sunnyskywalker]

I forgot to rec Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japan by Arai Shinya for fiction. I had to read it for a class, and was dreading it a first - "businessman reconnects with youthful idealism" has been done so many times and so badly, after all - but I ended up loving it. The author doesn't take the easy route of "Big Company = TEH EBIL," for instance (the president of the company is actually a really good guy who cares about his employees, although it's hard to tell sometimes beneath his reserved demeanor), and the romance subplot didn't work out at all the way I expected. And it has lovely writing, even in translation. Unfortunately, it might be hard to get ahold of a copy - even big chain bookstores in my area usually don't stock it.

For non-fiction that isn't connected to WWII, two more books which, once again, I read for school. Since they're not WWII or Germany, I'll recap in case you haven't read them before. The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice by Robert C. Davis is about regularly staged fistfights on the bridges of Venice, and all sorts of things connected with them - honor, factionalism, social cohesion, all sorts of things.

The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzberg is full of Ginzberg's ideas about a pagan, peasant culture surviving until quite late; regardless of whether one agrees with him on that or not, the story about the miller is fascinating. This miller put together quite an unusual cosmology, and in some of the excerpts from the Inquisition trial records, you can almost hear the Inquisitors asking, "Is this guy for real?"

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Oh THANK YOU! These sound great - especially the Venice one sounds very interesting! I love cultural history like that - and Venice is one of those places I've always wanted to go to, but never have. So in the meantime I content myself with reading about the place.

[sunnyskywalker]

You're welcome! I enjoyed the Venice one a lot. Sometimes the city officials staged the fights for visiting dignitaries to show off, and sometimes they were more spontaneous, so there was a whole range. And the history of the factions and how the fights evolved from far more lethal stick fights was great. And the city geography is a huge presence in the book, especially the bridges spanning the territories of rival factions. I've never been there either, but this gave me a vivid picture of what a city built around islands and canals would be like.

The miller book, on the other hand, was a bit frustrating after a while, because I felt the author was using the oral peasant culture to explain the miller's ideas and then using the miller's ideas to prove the existence of the oral peasant culture. Not quite kosher, I think... But the miller's story was neat.

hello :)

[talkingpotato.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I'd like to add you to my friends list if you don't mind. Your love of folklore has really captured my interest, I enjoyed looking at the illustrations you've found.

My blog is rather boring, so please don't feel obligated to add me back. :)

Re: hello :)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hello there! Such kind words - thank you. :D And I'll add you right back.

Re: hello :)

[talkingpotato.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much :)

[lilybythelake.livejournal.com]

I was hoping that you wouldn't mind friending me; I found you through another's post on John Baurer, and your discussions on fairy tales and art are really interesting.

But hi! I'm Ellie, a freshman at Carleton College. I don't post much on livejournal, but I do like literature a lot, especially folk interests.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

*waves back*

Hello, hello and always nice to meet new people. I'll add you back.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hello, hello!

And thank you for such kind words. I'll add you back, no problem. :)

And is that a Shoebox icon?

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

April... July...

Yeah I'm still checking your list. :)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hee! It's a good thing you did. I can be so absent minded sometimes its a little scary. At any rate it should be partially updated now. I think I missed a few books, but I'll ad them as soon as I find them.

[dianora77.livejournal.com]

You seem a very interesting person and I believe we share a few interests. I found you on alexandral's journal. Mind if I friend? :)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hello! Always great to meet new people. I've added you back. And I must say I love the Eva Green icon. She is just so pretty.