Top Ten Tuesday: Books For the Book Club!

Today we are looking at the Top Ten Books That I Think Would Make Great Book Club Picks. If you are new to the Top Ten Tuesday concept head over to The Broke and The Bookish and explore.

10) "The Bröntes Went to Woolworths" by Rachel Ferguson
A short, sweet book that reminded me a lot of "Anne of Green Gables". The main question of this book is whether or not you can have too much imagination and whether dreaming can be dangerous.
Perfect for a January night discussion over a cup of tea.

9) "The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber
A different story to the Victorian novels you know. This one features a prostitute called Sugar who changes her life for several reasons, some of which are obvious and some that do no reveal themselves until the very last moment. A modern classic with lots to talk about.

8) "Lucky" by Alice Sebold
This one will probably be a difficult one to discuss so it should probably only be used in book clubs where you know each other well and where discussing difficult topics is not an issue. "Lucky" deals with rape that Sebold suffers as a teenager and with her fight to get her life back. For a non-fiction book club, this would be a great pick but it is not for the faint-hearted.

7) "Snobs" by Julian Fellowes 
This one is great for a book club because the main character Edith is someone who would probably divide people. Either you will think her a golddigging scheming woman with no morals or you will think her a product of her upbringing. It should be good for a heated discussion about values and morals.

6) "I Am Charlotte Simmons" by Tom Wolfe
This book deals with some of the really difficult parts of being a teenager: being an outsider, being new, not fitting in, being a geek, being a virgin, being poorer than the others. It is the story of village wonder Charlotte who wins a scholarship to an elite university where she is no longer a prodigy but a nobody.

5) "Valley of the Dolls" by Jacqueline Susann
This is another modern classic. Written in 1966 it is the predecessor of "Sex and the City", a book about young women struggling with love, careers and finding the right dresses in New York. A great book for a girls' book club.

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3) "The Privileges" by Jonathan Dee
Each chapter is like a little short story and there is lots to discuss. In these "Occupy" times, this book raises some interesting questions about wealth, capitalism and love.

2) "Purge" by Sofi Oksanen
If you don't know anything about the recent history of Estonia (which I don't), this book will give you something to think about. It raises significant questions about loyalty, love and the human nature and it is a must-read if you have any interest in eastern European countries or human trafficking.

1) "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver
This one is perfect for book club. The topic is nature versus nurture and Eva, the main character, will give alienate some and find the pity of others. It is a long book and could be difficult for some but it is also a must-read (if you ask me) and I would have loved to have shared the reading experience with others. Plus, you can follow up by watching the movie together.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Want To Give As Gifts

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. Love it. I am in quite a Christmassy mood this December which fits in perfectly with the theme for this week's Top Ten Tuesday. Today we are talking about Top Ten Books I Want To Give As Gifts and who I want to give them to. Love giving books away, it is like giving a part yourself when you give a book that you love to someone. So in no particular order:

10) Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - to my goddaugther's older sister
Because she is ten years old, just like I was when I got my first copy of this wonderful book.

9) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - to my girlfriend who teaches a university class about feminism
Because it is the ultimate dystopian fiction novel about gender inequality and the terrible consequences of extremism.

8) The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch - to my little sister
She will be visiting me in London in January and this is a really fun way to learn about London. Covent Garden will never be the same again.

7) The Bonfire of Vanities by Tom Wolfe - to any of my male friends who dreamt of becoming (or became) investment bankers
Because it is the ultimate story of the banker who loses his cushioned life as he does not face up to his responsibility.



6) We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - to my friend, the psychologist
Because this book is all about nature vs. nurture and I think she would find it fascinating.

5) The Little Black Book of Style by Nina Garcia - to my mother
Because my mum has really good style and she loves reading about and discussing clothes. And because this is one book that I would love to borrow!



4) A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness - to my little sister (again, she reads a lot)
Because she and I share a secret love for "Twilight" (guilty pleasure) and "Pride and Prejudice" (proud pleasure) and I know that she will love Matthew Clairmont as much as I do.



3) The Dinosaur Feather by Sissel-Jo Gazan - to my mother-in-law
Because she loves crime fiction and this one is a really great piece.



2) Purge by Sofi Oksanen - to my father
Because he loves historical novels that deal with difficult topics and because we share an interest in communism and the effect it had on Eastern Europe.

1) How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran - to myself :-)
Because I wonder about this topic every day. What is it to be a woman and why is there still such a difference between men and women and the way we are being perceived.

Top Ten Tuesday: You Make Me Feel

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is one that will have us all remembering those books that just made us feel a little bit more. It is: Top Ten Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About. If you haven't already, remember to head over to The Broke and The Bookish ´http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/ - who are behind this amazing Tuesday tradition. They are one of the best blogs out there if you ask me.

10) "The Crimson Petal and The White" by Michel Faber
This is one amazing story. It is about a prostitute in 19th century London who falls in love and to some extent loses both her identity and her freedom. It is very touching and it made me incredibly APPRECIATIVE that I a women today, not 150 years ago...

9) "The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic" by Sophie Kinsella
This is not a book that I like. Actually I was so ANNOYED by the frustrating lack of self-awareness and common sense of the character that the story ended up being irrelevant and all the fun parts of the book were lost on me because I was so ANGRY with the airhead heroine.

8) "The Book, The Film, The T-shirt" by Matt Beaumont
Told from many many angles with several characters, all of them with their own voice. One of the FUNNIEST books on my shelves, it never fails to make me LAUGH.



7) "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by J. K. Rowling
Probably the Harry Potter book that touched me most deeply. The dictatorship of Umbridge and the absence of light was almost too much for me. It was so tough to read through, I almost couldn't deal with the pain that Harry went through and it almost HURT physically to read through it.



6) The Sooke Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris
This series never fail to make me feel COMFORTABLE. I love Sookie and her southern charm and she never makes to make me feel all WARM inside.



5) "The Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I was quite young when I first read this one and the other in the series and it was a book that stayed with me for a very very long time. One of those that I kept coming back to, reading over and over again and marveling at the strength of the characters. The family values displayed in it really really MOVED me.

4) "We Need To Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver
Scary, so scary. If you are pregnant and even just a little bit worried about whether or not you will be a good mum, it is not the right time to read this one. Or maybe it is. The ultimate fictional story about nature vs. nurture, questioning whether or not a person can be born evil. Really made me WORRIED about becoming a mother.

3) "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J. K. Rowling
Read the last pages of this book on a train and cried. I could not stop myself. It was so sad, the end of an era and I was so not ready to say goodbye to Harry. Luckily this is one of those books that can be read and re-read because because it was both SAD and HAPPY at the same time.



2) "Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" by Christiane F.
I was thirteen when I first read this one - the truthful and heartbreaking account of a teenage drug addict and prostitute in 1980's Berlin. It was the book that really made me realize that what I saw on the news actually happened to girls who were just like myself. Such an eyeopener and very very emotional read, it made me really SAD.



1) "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
Most be the scariest book I have read in the sense that it all seems so real. This could happen. Reading this book actually scared me, not in the thriller-sense, but in the what-is-the-world-coming-to-sense and I actually ended up writing an article about it for a political blog as well as buying it as birthday presents for friends. Amazing book that really had me SCARED.

We Need to Talk About... a really amazing film!

Right so it's been a long long time - or at least many days - since I've done any blogging. The reason for this absence is not that I no longer love blogging or reading but that I have moved to: another job in another industry, another city and another country. Quite a bit of change in one go. So at the moment focus is on settling in, getting to know my way around etc. etc.

Last weekend after a rather tough week in new position in a new department, my boyfriend took me to the cinema and even let me choose the film so we went for "We Need to Talk About Kevin". I read the book by Lionel Shriver a year or so ago and loved it so I was quite worried about the film actually. Would they be able to tell this horrible story without resorting to overdramatizing or focusing too much on Kevin and too little on the family. The book is so special. Even though it is all about Kevin, he is hardly in it. A minor character that the entire plot centers around. And the narrator, Eva, is unable to see outside of her own context at all which means that the reader has to do his/her bit to understand what is at play here. It is a difficult book to translate into a movie.

When we left the cinema, I was more or less stunned by the fact that the director had managed what I had in no way expected: to make the film a natural extension of the book. A lot of this is down to the incredible Tilda Swinton, who is probably the only actress on earth able to rightly portray Eva. Distressed, broken Eva whose life has been taken from her and left her with a shattered existence as an outcast. Much of story is not told outright but by her actions, her facial expressions and she takes this movie to another level - it is not sensational or cliche or over-emotional as one could have feared. It is silently strong, it made me physically uncomfortable in the best possible sense because it is so obvious that this is a family doomed to tragedy. Ezra Miller as Kevin is beyond amazing. A great career awaits this actor, I am sure, because he does a great job of portraying a range of emotions from sadness to a burning rage.

If you are wondering what to do next weekend, going to the cinema to watch "We Need to Talk About Kevin" would definitely be my suggestion.

Top Ten Tuesday: Jerks, asshats...

This tuesday the top ten list is counting down a list of the top ten jerks and asshats that we have met while reading. Not in real life obviously but on the pages.For more info on Top TenTuesday and to read a really great blog, go to The Broke and The Bookish (who started this fantastic meme) at http://www.brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/

Here comes my top ten - some of them worse than others:

10) Keir from "Inexcusable" by Chris Lynch. What is really interesting about Keir is that he is the main character and narrator as well as being a real jerk who has a problem with understanding that a no is a no.

9) Edward and Jacob from "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. Both are pretty controlling and both seem to think that being in love is an excuse to treat a girl rather badly. Still, the books would be rather boring without them :-)

8) Mr. Collins from "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. One of my favourite minor characters ever - he is an eternal source of laughs and I never tire of reading the proposal scene over and over again.

7) Greg Fuller from "The Book, The Film, The T-shirt" by Matt Beaumont. Easily swayed by a skirt and constantly nursing a hangover/migraine due to some problem that he himself has created - and always counting on his wife and PA to bail him out. Such a jerk.

6) Professor Sturrock from "All in the Mind" by Alastair Campbell. Will not say why because of spoilers but if you've read it, you know what I mean...

5) Kevin from "We Need to Talk about Kevin" by Lionel Shriver. Why Kevin is a jerk is the question that this book revolves around and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you do - it is great!

4) Mr. Vuoso from "Towelhead" by Alicia Erian. Such a creep, a real asshat. Gave me chills down my spine when I read it because he repulsed me so.

3) Cardinal Richelieu in "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas. Oooh he is a really nasty one, always has a trick up his sleeve to try to get his way. A bit of a perfect literary villain.

2) William Rackham from "The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber. I will not give any reasons as I am afraid to reveal spoilers

1) William Hamleigh from "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. Not even just a jerk but a real nasty piece of work. I hate this guy, really absolutely hate him.

Which jerks have you met on the pages of books?

Top Ten Tuesday: From book to film

How many great books out there have been ruined by being made into a film? It's like the stars, you can keep counting but you will never get to the final tally because there are so incredibly many. However, there are a few successes as well and I have to admit that I often get really excited when it is announced that a book I like will be made into a film. Today's Top Ten Tuesday topics is just that: books that I would like to see made into films!

10) The Eleniad series by David Eddings. An absolute favourite series of mine that features knights, stubborn horses, cool ladies and lots and lots of action.

9) The Book, The Film, The T-shirt by Matt Beaumont. Advertising agency filming a commercial with two divas, lots of crazy assistants, a boss with a major ego and PA who is doing more than her share of the work. And that is only the beginning. Would be a great comedy!

8) The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff The history of the mormon church and the mystery of a murder.

7) The Exception by Christian Jungersen Adult women in an office environment bullying each other... Could be made into a really thrilling, dark movie.

6) Anything steampunk. I am only just getting to know this genre but already I can see that there is huge potential for great films here!

5) The Fingersmith by Sarah Waters Who's fooling who? And why? Set in a dark England full of crooks, this could be a great costume drama.

4) The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce. When Ariel is abducted by a huge winged creatures and taken to his castle to serve as maid to his ghost wives, Ariel has to overcome to her own shyness and fear to help the ghosts become free of their captor. One of the best paranormal/fantasy romance/action books I have ever read.

3) The Sopranos by Alan Warner. A Catholic girl school choir on a crazy road trip - should make for a great movie!

2) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Harry Potter for adults - what more can you want?

1) We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver The nature or nurture dilemma is at the heart of the scary novel about a child who becomes a high school killer and his mother who seeks to understand why.

Which books would you like to see made into films?

"The Exception" - an exceptional novel

It was my mum and dad who recommended "The Exception" by Danish author Christian Jungersen. So if you are part if the Scandinavian Reading Challenge, you have to read this review because this book is amazing. It is really really good.
The story line is quite complex and the story is told from the view points of four women, Anne-Lise, Iben, Malene and Camilla. The four women work at Danish Centre for Information about Genocide and one day two of them receive death threats.

As the story unfolds it becomes clear, the much more is happening beneath the surface and that these women are not who they appear to be. Iben is the dedicated academic who has devoted her life to work and her best friend, the man-eater Malene who from a very young age has suffered from crippling arthritis. Camilla is the quiet mother from the suburbs and Anne-Lise is the new woman in the office. As we get further into the story, it becomes very clear that the office atmosphere is rotting from a severe case of adult bullying. Events become more and more disturbing and what starts out as "mere" verbal bullying turns into criminal actions and life-threathening circumstances.

The book also focuses a lot on the nature of evil and the story is spiced with scientific facts and tales from the world of psychology. So not only is this a really disturbing and disturbingly good story about bullying and the evil inside all humans but also a great way to learn more about the way we perceive evil.

It is hard to tell more about the actual story without giving too much away. However, I really recommend this book. It is very very good and very exciting and it also made me think a lot about the way in which we can bully without actually really doing anything. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing - i.e. ignoring someone - is the worst form of bullying. Just like "We Need to Talk about Kevin" by Lionel Shriver, this is a book that is scary on so many levels that it is hard to sum it up - so therefore: just read it!

New additions to my library

Lately I have been book shopping more than normally and this has resulted in quite a pile of books to read on the bus every morning/afternoon. Here are my newest additions to my ever-expanding library:



Black Swan Green by David Mitchell



The Imitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse



Fat Is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach



The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver



Rape - A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates

"We need to talk about Kevin" - Why?

When "We Need to Talk about Kevin" was published few years ago, it stirred up a lot of hype and the author Lionel Shriver became a celebrity in the literary world. I think all that hype scared me a bit, at least I never got around to reading the book. Maybe I was also scared of the epistolary form, something I am normally a bit repelled by. Not sure why. But the other day I felt like I really should read it and my curiousity won over my scepticism about the form. Luckily. Because this book is seriously good! An absolute classic.

The story is one, we know only too well. A boy brings a weapon to school and kills both school children, a teacher and a canteen worker. This leaves his mother, Eva, with the big question. Why?
Eva tells the story from her point of view in a series of letters to her estranged husband. It is a mother's anguished feelings put on display and Eva honestly and openly confesses that actually she never wanted Kevin in the first place and when he came into her life, she never warmed to him. Eva's story about Kevin is that he is inherently evil, a child that does everything to wex or hurt her.
However, Eva is not a reliable narrator. Her story obviously differs from the way her husband sees the family and she is biased in her interpretations of Kevin's actions.
It is a moving, disturbing, beautiful story.

The book raises several questions about parenting. It is the classic nature versus nurture dilemma. Does Keving go on a killing spree because he is inherently evil? Or because life has dealt him a tough hand and he is shaped by being brought up by a cold, loveless mother?
"We Need to Talk about Kevin" does not offer answers, only questions and the reader is left with the ultimate questios: why? Only one questions is actually answered: why did this book win the Booker Prize? Because it is a very very good book, beautifully written with a strong story.