Nurse Ratched.

That's who the train conductor reminds me of! Beautiful but stiff like.

What? It's a literary comment!

She's not very quick, is she?

My sister, that is. Who clearly doesn't have my blog on a feed because no comment as of yet on the parcel that has arrived. Lordy lord.

The last exclamation brings me to the Sookie Stackhouse novel Living Dead in Dallas, which was part of my last library haul. This is the one where Sookie infiltrates the church belonging to The Fellowship of the Sun, also the one that finds Lafayette dead. The tv series really does a better job of that (I like Lafayette). No. 2 in the series.

The other day I wrote a post on my phone...

... but the phone sorta ate it. You have to get it just right when blogging via the Blogger app, I'll have you know. It breaks down and just keeps asking you to switch accounts. Useless thing. Anyway, the post is gone, but what I wanted to tell you was that I went to a second-hand book shop and saw these super-darling paperback editions:

But at 50 kr apiece I'm not buying them, since I'm not, after all, very keen on Agatha Christie. But they were sweet. The next day I went to the Red Cross and checked out their selection and they had NOTHING. I was utterly disappointed.

I've read the new hit fantasy novel Cirkeln (it's being translated and will probably be called The Circle, right?) by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergmark Elfgren - it's a breath of fresh air on the Swedish fantasy scene, but mostly for doing a great job on describing the kids that make up the coven of witches. The actual witchy bits are so-so really. But worth a read! Very exotic to foreigners I'm sure. Then for the book discussion club we read Sommarboken by Tove Jansson. It was okay. Didn't sing to me. Then I know I've read some other things that I've forgotten now. A shame that. Today I went to the library and I got a heap of paper-back crime fiction I hadn't read - I'll be back.

So I'm re-reading Jane Eyre

And there is always something new to discover in good books isn't there? It hasn't been that long ago since I read Bryson's At Home,  and there he writes about how dark life was before electricity. Literally. Whole big rooms lit only by a fire,  a passage from someone's letter or journal describing a dining room dazzlingly illuminated by four candles. For some reason, now, I'm seeing this all through Jane Eyre. So many winter evenings spent in the dark indoors with only firelight. Getting dressed with only the last rays of moonlight to see the buttons by. It's so very specifically described: the school rooms at Lowood with long tables crammed full of girls of all ages, lit by a pair of candles per table. That scene where she meets Mr Rochester at the stile - it's almost dark then; my memory has been fooled by films I think into remembering it as daylight. When Jane returns to Thornfield she goes into Mrs Fairfax's room and sees Pilot by the light of only the fire. Everything so shadowy, always. She needs a candle, and rings for the servant. A candle. To walk upstairs with and change by.

When in doubt...

... re-read Jane Eyre.

Squeeee!

Very excited about new Hunger Games trailer! Although it looks a bit average really. Not like it's going to be Kubrick taking on The Shining or anything. But I'm so going to see it. Win win win.

Spoiled

Keep losing track of what's happening on stage, because I'm waiting for the murder mystery. This is the fault of Nicola Upson (more on that tomorrow). Also maybe I've read too much Ngaio Marsh in my life. Maybe. 

Incidentally

Parked my bike next to the window of a second-hand book shop ten minutes ago, and walked past their display on my way to the station. Among the children's books I noticed a book by Christianna Brand, about a little Matilda. Huh, don't think I knew that she'd written books for kids. That would be interesting to read ... but I'd want it in English obviously. Note to self, however.

I done gone did a good deed

A colleague and I got to talking today about how she'd seen all the Twilight films recently and ended up reading the final book to see what would happen. She was surprised at herself because the book was so thick (cue me "one should never judge a novel in advance based on the number of paaaaaaages it's all about the stoooooooryyyyy...") and because it was fantasy. So she was rather pleased with this venture into a new genre, and I immediately tipped her off about the Sookie Stackhouse series. And I wasn't snarky about Twilight.
And now I'm off on my holidays. Good times.

A seriously collaborated mystery

Will this be readable? Clicky. I am intrigued.

Summertime

Summertime means changes in the train schedule, so the 7.13 departs directly from Uppsala instead of coming in from the North (i.e. Tierp), which means that those of us who are always there early have the pleasant luxury of being able to step aboard a waiting train and choosing our seats, instead of jostling like it's the last lifeboat off the Titanic. This is off topic, but it needed to be crowed over. 

Happy Anniversary Day + 1!

Our wedding anniversary was yesterday, we've been married fifteen years. To celebrate, my journey home after work was marred by a late bus and a cancelled train. But no matter! Mr Bani got me a lovely surprise present: Bill Bryson's At Home. Just perfect! -  I was looking at that myself on Amazon, wondering whether to hit the buy button. He's a genius for getting good gifts. (I bought him an orchid, which - well, at least it was something.)

Artikel om Dorothy Sayers i SvD

http://www.svd.se/kultur/gatfull-deckardam_6218343.svd

Kommentera gärna om du är positiv, så dränker vi den märkliga person som tycker att Läckberg (!?!?!?!) är bättre. 

Community

And later that afternoon the ticket inspector (conductor?) checked my commuter card, then leaned over and said "that's one of my favourite books".

RIP Diana Wynne Jones

I'm just after reading on Neil Gaiman's blog that Diana Wynne Jones has died. And this is terribly terribly sad. She'll be missed, even by those of us who never had the pleasure of knowing her in person.

Read and be rude

Despite still being a commuter, this year travelling even further and for longer (for my sins), I'm having trouble finding time to read. The reason being that I have colleagues who travel the same way. And if we sit together then I can't in all decency immerse myself in my book, because that would be rude. The train part of the trip is alright. Since the train is packed to bursting point it's every human for h**self, in an inhumane fashion - no holds barred in the struggle to get a seat on the train. Thus, no-one expects to choose who to sit next to. We are all islands on Upptåget in the mornings. I'm perfectly capable of reading no matter how uncomfortable I am, so I can use those 25 minutes to my advantage. The bus trip that follows is a different matter though, since we often re-find each other and sit next to one another.

Just writing this post feels terribly rude, but my intent is not to complain really. I've (almost) come to terms with having more limited reading time. And the colleague I most often travel with is lovely. It's more a case of, yet again, noticing how different the work-place culture is compared to my last job. There were several of us who commuted at my last job, but by tacit understanding we never sat beside each other while travelling. That time was private time. We slept, tried to work a little sometimes, we read. Nodded at each other, said hello, but we didn't encroach on each other's privacy, oh no no.

Although ... okay, slight complaint. This commute is different in that it's more broken up and I can't sit and relax for the full hour or so what with changing buses and trains and stressing over whether I'll make the connection or not. So it does affect me a little to not have all that time to myself, to wind down or mentally prepare myself for the day ahead. While I in theory have those three hours (oh dear Jesus that's depressing) to myself each day, in reality I don't, and it makes me feel like I Never Get Time For Myself - you know. Normally a book = two commuter days. Now - I have no idea. It takes some getting used to.

*whimper*

Reading in Norwegian is bloody hard.

Today is the first day of the future

And the future in Sweden, both locally and nationally, is a little bit browner. The racists got in. It is unutterably depressing. Let's hope they make fools of themselves sooner rather than later, and that the other parties don't work with them.

Surely relevant in a blog with a lot of crime fiction

Idaho woman suspect in library condiment vandalism.

The nerve.

Treasure!

Found a whole stack of Ngaio Marsh novels, ratty old paperbacks with lurid seventies covers, at the Red Cross charity shop yesterday. Am very pleased.