Fourth Sunday of Advent: Nøddebo Præstegård Review

This is definitely my favourite Christmas read this year. Ved Nytaarstid i Nøddebo Præstegaard [eng: Around New Year at Nøddebo Vicarage] by Henrik Scharling is a Danish Christmas classic from 1862. The book has also been turned into several plays and movies, so there is a version for everyone. Though it is a Christmas book, the story starts on Boxing Day, so technically after Christmas (the plays and movies, however, takes place during Christmas).

The story is about three brothers and is narrated by the youngest brother, the 18-year-old Nicolai. Nicolai it turns out, is not the most unreliable of narrators (not on purpose of course), but he manages to miss some important facts. The story goes like this; the three brothers Christopher “Oldie”, Frederik “Corpus Juris” and Nicolai, who are all students, travel to Nøddebo Vicarage to spend the last of their Christmas holiday there. The two older brothers have visited before, but it’s the first time that Nicolai joins them. Nicolai is absolutely delighted to discover that the vicar has two lovely daughters, because he knows that he is irresistible, and he is very distressed over the fact that he is going to have to tell one of them that he’s engaged to her sister (once he figures out which one, he likes best).

Book Bingo Reviews 2022

Guess who won Book Bingo this year. I will attribute my victory to, on the one hand, the fact that one of the first books I read was Offline, which made me change some of my internet habits, and thus gave me more time to read. On the other hand, I really wanted to win this year, so I made a dedicated effort not to get too distracted by other books. Now, I better get started on the reviews. (No spoilers below)

An Asian novel – Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

It is really four “short stories” which weave together into a greater narrative. The story takes place in a small back-alley café in Tokyo, where if the circumstances are just right, you can travel back in time, but only as long as it will take your coffee to grow cold. It is interesting to see how differently the various character uses this opportunity to go back to the past, knowing that they cannot change it or the present. It’s a very emotional story/stories and I found myself tearing up a couple of times. I would recommend it, if you are looking for heart-warming and heart-wrenching stories, and want to feel Emotions.

Bram’tober: Dracula

Finally, I have reached the novel Bram Stoker is most famous for; Dracula. Everybody has probably heard about Dracula, and it hardly feels like it needs any introduction. The first time, I read it, I did not have a lot of expectations to the story, except (you know) vampires, and I was a bit sceptical at the beginning, because I could not quite figure out what was happening. Although, once I got further into the story, I was hooked and I ended up absolutely loving it.

Book Bingo Reviews 2021: I Guess There is Always Next Year

I didn’t win, so next year will be the tie breaker. I’m not exactly surprised, because I cannot finish a book without starting three others. I guess I’m just not a one book person. Anyway, the reviews are below.

A Classical Science Fiction Novel

En verdensomsejling under havet [eng: Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea] by Jules Verne is the story of how professor Ignores-all-the-red-flags-for-SCIENCE! Aronnax together with his two companions, his assistant Must-categorise-everything Conseil and the Canadian Only-sane-man-here-why-don’t-anyone-listen-to-him? Ned Land are kidnapped (or saved from drowning, it’s debatable) by Captain All-the-red-flags Nemo. I loved it. It’s been a couple of years, since I’ve last read Jules Verne, so I knew I’d probably like it if it was like the other books, I had read. Jules Verne is a hard science fiction writer, so there tends to be lot of science stuff and calculation and in this case marine biology in his books. If that’s not your thing, you should probably read an abridged version. I’ll admit, I got a little tired of Conseil categorizing everything all the time, and there was many description of the food they ate, so I got hungry every time I was reading. However, I did really appreciate the lifelike descriptions of the Nautilus and the sea. Originally, I planned on reading Asimov for this category, but unfortunately there were no digitally available copies of his books at the library. Once I had finished the book, I discovered that there is a sequel, where the mysterious past of captain Nemo is revealed, I briefly considered reading it, but decided that I like my Captain Nemo as a mysterious crazy person. I would definitely recommend Jules Verne, if you want to read some classic science fiction, or an abrigded version if you want to skip some of the longwinded science.

A Book from NPR’s Book Concierge 2020

Best Reviewed Cold: The Count of Monte Christo

I’ve watched the movie some years ago (one of them), but the book is just so much better. There will be some spoilers in this review, not for Edmond Dantès epic revenge, but I’ll be talking about the background and the characters and such, so spoilers for around the first fourth of the novel, and in the last paragraph there will be some spoilers in general for both the movie and book, but is it really spoilers if the book has been out for more than a century.

First of all, I really liked the way the novel was written, The Count of Monte Christo has several POV characters, and due to this the reader starts of knowing more about the plot against him than Dantès himself, as we follow the conspirators’ POV. So, we get the “joy” of experiencing Dantès slowly coming to the realization of what actually happened to him. In fact, Dantès isn’t really the POV for that much of the novel considering the story is about him and his revenge (I’d say he’s the POV character for maybe 25% of the novel), mostly the story is told from the POV of the other characters. Thus, when he begins his revenge plan, we know almost nothing about what the plans entail and can only follow along as the plan unfolds. There were moments where I thought for sure that he was going to get discovered, but he was always ten steps ahead.

Book Bingo Reviews: Didn’t Win This Time :(

Alas, no hat trick for me. But Hunter was  on fire this time, she has been done for months at this point. Whereas I started each book with enthusiasm and then got distracted by other shinier books, before I was halfway through. Also, there were a couple of the bingo books I didn’t like at all, but were too stubborn to dnf like I usually would. Basically, I have a thousand excuses, and I’m totally going to win next year. Here are my Book Bingo reviews for 2020 in reading order.

A Book With a One Word Title
Originally, Middlegame by Seanan McGuire was the book I’d chosen for the time travel category,

Podcastmania: Short Stories (mostly)

Here are some more podcast recommendations for you, these are (mostly) podcasts with self-contained episodes, so you won’t get caught up in a serialised story that just goes on and on and on… not that there is anything wrong with that, but it is nice to jump into a podcast sometimes without having to listen to every episode.

LeVar Burton Reads is an amazing podcast, where THE LeVar Burton reads a piece of short fiction for you (usually, but not always, it’s fantasy or sci-fi). He has a great voice for narration, and he starts each episode with a deep breath, it’s just instant de-stressing, and the stories he reads are really great, so it’s also a great way to find authors, whose writing you might like.

Dickens vs. Andersen: Christmas and Life Lessons

Many stories have been written about or surrounding Christmas over the years; and two that stick out to me, whenever I think about Christmas Classics, are Charles Dickens’, ”A Christmas Carol” and Hans Christian Andersen’s, ”Grantræet” (eng. “The Fir-Tree”). Both are stories that I have heard or seen adapted one way or another, since I was a child. And now that the Christmas season is upon us, I thought it could be fun to take a look at both of those stories, their messages, and whether or not they have anything in common at all.

[Spoilers for both stories below the cut]