Henrik_Madsen tries to get to the ROOT of his TBR

Well, I'm back for another year of ROOTing. There is certainly enough books waiting on the shelves (and pretty much every where else) so I have my work cut out for me. As I have done in previous years I will count everything owned as ROOTs. The really tough ones (acquired before 2014) will be labelled DROOTs (Deep roots).

I barely achieved my goal in 2018 so I will maintain my goal of 40 ROOTS. Happy ROOTing everyone.




ROOTs
1. Dörte Hansen: Altes Land
2. Ida Jessen: Telefon
3. Elizabeth Bowen: The House in Paris
4. Anne Sibran og Emmanuel Lepage: Landet uden ondskab
5. Tove Ditlevsen: Pigesind
6. Vittorio Giardino: Fatale ferier
7. Alice Munro: Fjendskab, venskab, ægteskab
8. Alan Moore: Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Six
9. Karen Blixen: Ehrengard
10. William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
11. Anders Raastrup Kristensen og Michael Pedersen: Strategisk selvledelse
12. Johan Wolfgang Goethe: West-östlicher Divan
13. Flann O'Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds
14. Claire-Louise Bennett: Dam
15. Edna O'Brien: In the Forest
16. Montgomery van Wart: Leadership in Public Organizations
17. Gustave Flaubert: Følelsernes opdragelse
18. Sæt borgerne først
19. Guy Delisle: Hostage
20. Daniel Kehlmann: F
21. Paula Hawkins: The Girl on the Train
22. António Lobo Antunes: Portugals ære
23. José Saramago: Elefantens rejse
24. Eca de Queiroz: The Illustrious House of Ramires
25. Agustina Bessa-Luís: Kvintessensen
26. Carsten Greve og Anne Reff Pedersen: Reform og forandring
27. Apostolos Doxiadis: Logicomix
28. Christopher Pollitt og Geert Bouckaert: Public Management Reform
29. Chris Carter a.o: A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Strategy
30. Anna Degnbol: Grus
31. Tage Skou-Hansen: De nøgne træer
32. Charlier & Giraud: Blueberry - de samlede eventyr 1
33. Christin & Mézières: Retur til fremtiden
34. Sten Wijkman Kjærsgaard: Den monsterstore bog med hylesjove vittigheder og gåder
35. Han Kang: Vegetaren
36. Trillo og Mandrafina: Det store svindelnummer
37. John Hird og Peter Kvistgaard: Oplevelsesrum
38. Craig Frank: Cool Valley
39. Jean C. Denis: Den japanske blondine
40. John Williams: Stoner
41. William Shakespeare: Romeo og Julie
42. Henrik Toft Jensen, Viggo Plum og Peter Skriver: Udkantsdanmark - myte eller realitet
43. Arne Jysch: Der nasse Fisch
54. Præmierede huse i Nakskov 1984-2001

DROOTS
1. Jan de Hartog: Junglelægen vender hjem
2. A.D. Jørgensen: 40 fortællinger af fædrelandets historie
3. J.M. Coetzee: Vanære
4. Anna Maria Sigmund: Die Frauen der Nazis
5. Søren Ulrik Thomsen: Rystet spejl
6. Nevil Shute: Blind vej
7. Ib Michael: Orbit
8. Karen Hjorth og Anette Warring (red): Handlingens kvinder
9. Yann Martel: Beatrice og Vergil
10. Paul Auster: Mr Vertigo

Welcome back, Henrik. It's good to see you again. Happy ROOTing.

DROOTs. Love it.

Welcome back and good luck with those deep ROOTs!

Welcome back, Henrik - have a good reading year!

Thanks all!

I just did my annual blogpost on the best reads of 2018. There were lots of great ones, and I'm convinced the same will hold true for 2019!

Hi Henrik, happy new year and happy ROOTing in 2019!

So nice to see you're back, Henrik. Love the DROOTs!

DROOTs always makes me think of A Clockwork Orange, because of the droogs.

(also, Freudian slip there, I originally typed 'chocolate' instead of 'clockwork'!)

>8 MissWatson: Thanks! I hope to be a bit more active in the group this year, but life and work do tend to get in the way

>9 Jackie_K: For me it is easy to let go of the Christimas food (too fat and heavy for full-year consumption) but it's soooo hard to stop eating Christmas sweets…

>10 Henrik_Madsen: I get that! My mum sent a bunch of Christmas cookies home with me and I just finished them yesterday -- now I don't want to *look* at cookies for a while.

1. Dörte Hansen: Altes Land

Acquired: I bought this 1½ years ago in Berlin as a "what is popular in Germany right now?" book. The theme - eastern refugees to the west after world war II - seemed interesting.

Vera has lived in the same rural house since the end of the war. She came there as a little girl with her mother, Hildegard von Kamcke, and when she moved on, Vera stayed behind. She seems content with her life in the country, and she returns after studying to become a dentist. 60 years later her niece shows up at her doorstep. She is also on the run from a cheating husband and a family who seemed more interested in her more talented younger brother.

It is not just a portrait of two women inspiring each other but also of a typical rural area which can be found in all Western countries. Farms are becoming bigger, people fewer and the wishes of the new urban consumers are sometimes hard to understand.

I enjoyed the book and the people portrayed in it. Sometimes it touches the stereotypes of romantic comedy, but the characters are deep and nuanced enough to make the book worthwhile.

3 stars

2. Ida Jessen: Telefon

Acquired: A Christmas gift from just over a month ago. Jessen is one of my favorite authors and one of the few ones I read pretty much as soon as their books are published.

Lisa is working as a volunteer at a hotline where depressed and lonely people can find a person to talk to. The conversations are hard but have become routine until she gets a call from a middle-aged woman. It is gradually revealed that they know each other and there is a connection to Lisa's personal tragedy 15 years earlier when her son was killed in a traffic accident.

I love Jessen, and she doesn't disappoint here. The conversations are small psychological studies of unhappy and desperate people, and the final conversation is heartbreaking. Is it also helpful and healing? I'm not so sure about that.

4 stars

Hi Henrik, just stopping by to see what you have been reading. Got to search for a book by Jessen now. And I found one. De kinderen in Dutch, meaning The Children. No Touchstone!

Yes, it is a precise translation of the Danish original “Børnene”. I enjoyed it a lot!

3. Elizabeth Bowen: The House in Paris

Acquired: I bought this one along with some other Irish classics when we visited my daughter in Dublin last year. It was in a charming little bookstore called The Winding Stair - how could you not go buy something there?

Henrietta, an eleven-year old girl, is in transit in Paris. She is on her way to her grandma in Southern France but has to spend a day with the Fisher family. There she meets Leopold, who is nine years old, and has come to Paris to finally meet his mother, who has left him in the care of an American family in Italy. The two children are mostly left to themselves and despite the advice of the adults their conversations circle around their complicated families.

The second part tells the story of Leopold's parents who met and fell in love ten years before. Both of them were engaged to other people but a casual meeting, which might not have been all that casual, complicates things. They are irresistibly drawn to each other, but tragedy gets in the way of their happiness.

In the last part we are back in the Fisher house where Leopold learns more about his family and a surprising guest shows up.

I really enjoyed this short novel. There is not a word too many and every character is written with psychological insight and complexity. The love story was beautiful and the interactions between the children interesting.

4½ stars

4. Anne Sibran og Emmanuel Lepage: Landet uden ondskab

Acquired: Two weeks ago we went to Copenhagen to buy a new bed for my daughter - and I continued to the Copenhagen Comics festival and bought a bunch of comics and graphic novels. This was one of them.

Eliane Goldschmidt is in Paraguay in 1939 to study the language of an Indian tribe. When a mysterious religious leader shows up and lead them away on a quest for the land without evil, she goes along out of curiosity. She is lucky to do so, since the war has broken out in Europe and her family is killed she wanders for months and years through the South American jungle.

I enjoyed the story and the beautiful drawings by Emmanual Lepage. Well worth a read!

3½ stars

5. Jan de Hartog: Junglelægen vender hjem (Return of the Jungle Doctor)

Acquired: I don't know exactly where I picked this one up 25(?) years ago, but I think it was at a fleamarket close to where I lived. One way or the other, this was definitely one of the most deeply rooted DROOTS in my library, so it feels good to have it behind me.

This novel is part three of a trilogy called Gods geuzen in Dutch. I read the second part six years ago, and this one pretty much picks up where that one ended. The young doctor Anton Zorgdrager is mentally broken after his adventures in the jungle on Borneo, and he is send home to recover in Holland. Europe is on the verge of the second world war, but that is the least of his problems. He is alienated from normal human interaction, and after seeing his wife and son he flees into the arms of his old girlfriend Bert. That is not a safe haven either. He fantasizes about killing her, and after the war has broken out he is forced to move on once again.

de Hartog writes powerfully, and his argument that the barbarism of the colonies crept back into Europe with the war is interesting. (You could argue, of course, that it happened 30 years earlier with WWI but that is a subject for another day.) The book is more tightly written than volume two, so I'm glad I finally got to it.

3½ stars

6. Tove Ditlevsen: Pigesind (Girl-mind)

Acquired: My parents in law are moving from their house to an apartment, so they are downsizing. Crazily this means giving up on their book collection (oh the horror!) so I was allowed to pick out a few tomes. Actually I could take as many as I wanted, but my wife sort of insists we have enough books already, so I just picked a few. One of them was this 1945-edition of a Tove Ditlevsen poetry collection, which I have wanted to read for a long time.

The book was her debut and it shows in a couple of ways. First of all she immediately shows her brilliant grasp of language and her ability to describe the world from a vulnerable and distinctively female point of view. There are poems on loss and death, there are beautiful poems of love - but even those have a dark undercurrent of the possibility of male failure. Secondly the collection is rather uneven. Some of the poems have some uninspiring parts, others seem concerned with intellectual debates of long ago.

I'm looking forward to more Ditlevsen works in the future - she is having quite a renaissance here.

3 stars

>19 Henrik_Madsen: The thought of downsizing my book collection makes me break out in a cold sweat! I'm glad you were able to rescue some books from your in-laws' collection.

>20 rabbitprincess: Same here. I rather give up furniture! I only need a bed and a comfy chair with one little table ad ALL my books.

>20 rabbitprincess: >21 connie53: It's good to know I am among likeminded people!

Actually I'm getting used to the idea of moving some of my books on. Especially those run-of-the-mill novels that I know I won't get back to. It's not downsizing of course. Just making room for other books!

7. Vittorio Giardino: Fatale ferier (Fatal holidays)

Acquired: This is another one of the comics I bought at the Copenhagen Comics festival a month ago. It was used, but I payed just 1½ Euros. I have read quite a few books by Giardino before, but I had no idea he had written anything like this, let alone that it was available in Danish

The album contains six small stories of erotic attraction and the dangers therein. We are among the young and the beautiful, where adultery is commonplace and arranging dangerous games can be a way of spicing up a complicated marriage. But it is also a world where jealousy and revenge still exists, and where beautiful women often come with a prize.

Small stories, well told. It's nothing special, but it was definitely an ok read.

3 stars

8. Alice Munro: Fjendskab, venskab, ægteskab (Hateship, Friendship, marriage - a shorter version of the English title)

Acquired: I bought the book on a complementary offer with Munro's last short story collection Dear Life in 2014, the year after she was awarded the Nobel Prize. As noted above I started registering my new books in 2014, and this one was the oldest one on the list. And now it's off the list! (Or more accurately: It's been painted nice and green in the spreadsheat.)

I just love Munro as a writer. Her short stories are not all that short - which I prefer - and the psychological portraits of all kinds of crazy, special, funny, tragic, in short: normal people who live their lives and try to the most out them. The collection is the work of a crafted writer and a mature human being. There are many stories of looking back on a full life lived, people dying or losing loved ones, but even the tragic stories are a celebration of life. There is always a glimpse of hope or a beautiful experience to be had.

4 stars

9. Alan Moore: Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Six

Acquired: Wednesday I got another exam on my master out of the way and decided to treat myself with some new books. Among others I bought this one in the wonderful Fantask comic book shop in Copenhagen.

The final volume of Moore's tenure on Swamp Thing continues the new ideas launched in volume 5. Our hero continues his adventures in space as he is unable to return to earth and has to jump from planet to planet in search of plant life. He encounters the old hero Adam Strange, gets violated by a conscious planet and causes terror as he visits a planet of intelligent plant life. Those are good stories, and so is the finale when Swamp Thing finally gets back to earth and reunites with Abby.

The science fiction stories bought new life to the series, but I still have the distinct feeling that Moore had his best ideas for the series behind him. So, the final volume is a fitting end to a great run, but it was also the right time to call it quits and move on.

4 stars

10. Karen Blixen: Ehrengard

Acquired: Another book which wasn't allowed to collect dust on the shelves before it was read. I found in a local secondhand-shop last week, and it was good fit for a short Friday night read.

Ehrengard is the young daughter of a general, who is asked to be the maiden of a princess in a fictitious German country. The princess has become pregnant a bit early and the painter Cazotte has devised a plan to keep them hidden in a faraway castle. He is fascinated by the young woman, who is portrayed as a force of nature in contrast to the delicacies of artistic life. All is set up for his attempt to seduce her and let her be consumed by a tragic downfall - and then something else happens which is kind of surprising knowing Blixens' other works.

Karen Blixen is a master of Danish literature (and English under her pen name Isak Dinesen) and it shows even in minor works like this one.

3½ stars

11. William Shakespeare: En skærsommernatsdrøm (A Midsummernight's Dream)

Acquired: I keep going through volume 2 of the new Danish translation of Shakespeares plays which I bought a couple of years ago. Two plays to go in this volume, which should be done this year as well.

It is a romantic comedy. Hermia and Lysander loves each other but her father disapproves, Helena loves Demetrius, who wants to marry Hermia. The setting in Athens is not important, but using elves to spice up the plot and the light summer breeze in the woods to set the mood works really well, even on paper. I enjoyed reading this play more than his other comedies, and I wood really like to see it on the stage.

3½ stars

12. Anders Raastrup Kristensen og Michael Pedersen: Strategisk selvledelse

Acquired: This was the text book for my latest MPG course. I bought in February and put it to good use in March!

The knowledge worker is figuring ever more prominently in modern organisations. They don't need or want detailed instructions, because they are also living their potential through their work. But they still need leadership to ensure their private aspirations are in line with the goals of the organisation. Analyzing and discussing the dilemmas and challenges in doing this is the theme of the book.

It was a refreshing perspective on the work of leaders, and the book is not badly written. It just uses a very commanding style when addressing leaders - sort of what the authors recommend avoiding when dealing with employees. Overall an interesting read, though.

3½ stars

>27 Henrik_Madsen: This is probably my favourite of the comedies as well. A great adaptation is the 2013 Shakespeare's Globe production, with Michelle Terry as Titania. The Globe has a neat service called the Globe Player where you can rent or buy digital broadcasts of their productions. I haven't tried it out yet, but it's a great idea.

>29 rabbitprincess: That sounds like a great idea.

A local theater regularly produces plays in an openair setting in the woods, and it would be perfect for A Midsummernight's Dream. Alas, they have to focus on plays with more public appeal to break even financially...

13. Johan Wolfgang Goethe: West-östlicher Divan

Acquired: This is the first book in this year's anniversary reading, and I downloaded it two weeks ago from Project Gutenberg for this purpost.

This poetry collection was first published in 1819. It is inspired by Persian poet Hafi, and Goethe enthusiastically writes about Muslim beliefs and history, wonders about love and discusses the relationship between east and west. He is a master with words and some of the poems were both beautiful and interesting. Generally, though, it was bit of a struggle to read. Early 19th Century poetry is not really my thing.

2 stars

14. Flann O'Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds

Acquired: Bought last year in Dublin this was an obvious choice as a travel book when I visited Ireland during Easter with my daughter.

This is such a hard book to say anything about, really. The narrator is a young man living with his uncle in Dublin, where he drinks stout, writes literature and argues with the uncle about his work ethic. A young man suffering and throwing his life away is hardly original - but it is an original trait that the life style is a cover for a serious young man!

Most of the book is made up of his writings. It is not a novel but a deconstruction of the idea of the novel. Three separate starts come together as made-up characters starts plotting against their author and finally puts him on trial to gain their freedom. It's a bit wacky but it's humorous and well-written and I enjoyed it. I think I would have stopped enjoying it if it had gone on another hundred pages.

3 stars

Hi Henrik, just trying to catch up on threads! Good job with the ROOTing!

>33 connie53: Hi Connie, thanks for stopping by. I'm woefully behind threads myself, but hope to catch up in the future.

15. Claire-Louise Bennett: Dam

Acquired: Another book I got last year, shortly after the Danish edition came out. I liked the reviews a lot and looked forward to reading it on my trip to Galway where the author lives and where the novel is set in the vicinity.

The narrator lives alone in an old stone house i Western Ireland. She tends her garden, has a little connection with a few friends, but is mostly estranged for society. Her academic career has failed, and she struggles to move on. Her time is spend remembering and speculation in a meditative way.

Many readers really have enjoyed this, but I never got into the story or the narrators thinking, so in my opinion it was just a bit boring.

2 stars

16. Edna O'Brien: In the Forest

Acquired: Visiting Ireland during Easter i read Irish authors - and I bought books. One of them was this little novel which I picked up in Charles Byrnes wonderful bookshop in Galway. If you visit that nice city in the West you should absolutely visit the bookshop as well. Used and new books stacked from floor to ceiling, small connected rooms to get lost in and good-humored people. I really recommend it. Only the fear of flying, or, more to the point, the fear of overweight stopped me from buying more than I did.

The novel is inspired by a true 1994-crime. Mich O'Kane is released from prison, but he is already deeply marred. His mother died when he was young, and he was abused during internment in some institutions run by the Catholic church. The history of child abuse i well-known now, but was still a touchy subject when the novel was published in 2002. There might be some bad in Mich from the beginning, but his psychopathic traits are brought to the surface by the abuse and he is a ticking bomb, when he is released.

Previously he had seen a cottage in the woods as his base, and when he learns that a young mother with a small child has moved in, he is both aroused and enraged. Eily Ryan is a modern woman living a normal, modern life as a teacher getting back on her feet after leaving the child's father. She knows what will happen, when Mich shows up one morning, and it only adds to the terror of reading the book.

The novel is a sharp comment on a society that collectively and individually lets a young boy down and afterwards fails to protect an innocent woman and her child from his madness. It is also a well-written novel and an interesting portrait of a small town and the anatomy of a crime.

4 stars

>36 Henrik_Madsen: Darn, I missed that bookshop on my one trip to Galway! Just going to have to go back :)

>37 rabbitprincess: Well, it might be a bit much to go there JUST for the bookshop, but it is a nice town which could bear revisiting as well!

17. Montgomery van Wart: Leadership in Public Organizations

Acquired: I got this book for my very first course on my MPG in 2016 - and I have struggled a bit with actually finishing it.

It is a typical textbook / introduction to a discipline which means there is a huge amount of theories, names, and frases to remember. That made it a hard read, but I have grown to appreciate it over time. An introduction just has to cover a lot of ground, and even though it is not very inspirational, there is comfort in his systematic approach. In the first half a great number of leadership theories are introduced, in the second half the everyday behaviors and tasks of the leader are discussed.

3½ stars

18. A.D. Jørgensen: 40 fortællinger af fædrelandets historie

Acquired: The book was originally published in 1882 but this edition was printed in 1998 and I probably bought it a couple of years later at a book sale. Then it became a DROOT - and now it's read!

Jørgensen wrote the book in 1882 to mobilize Danes in what had then become the German province of Slesvig after a disastrous war in 1864. The book argues the Danish side of the story, but it is also a textbook for everyday use. It was meant to be read aloud and discussed in the Danish homes to keep the language and the hope of reunification with the Danish kingdom alive. (This actually happened as the province was divided after the First World War.)

Jørgensen writes well but his focus is mostly on political history and the great men who shaped it. That was typical of the discipline at the time, so it is hard to blame him for it. I would not recommend the book as an introduction to Danish history, but as a legacy of different era it was an interesting read.

3 stars

19. Gustave Flaubert: Følelsernes opdragelse (Sentimental Education)

Acquired: I bought the novel in late 2017 when there was a sale in my book club and I was looking for good offers on 1001 books. I read it now as one of my anniversary books as it was published 150 years ago.

The young Frédéric goes to Paris to study law but much more to fulfill his dreams of romantic conquest. Much like another Flaubert character, madame Bovary, he is crammed with ideas about how life should be, and even though he tries hard his romantic ideas are constantly keeping him from actually doing anything.

Frédéric is attracted to Artoux, an art dealer, and his wife, whom he falls hopelessly in love with. The novel is the story of his pursuit of her and his (failed) education to become a superfical dandy, but it is also a portrait of a city and a society build on deception and resting on shallow ground as revolution is first a possibility and then a reality.

Flaubert writes brilliantly and even though Frédéric is an annoying main character, I really enjoyed this book.

4½ stars

20. Sæt borgerne først (Put the citizens first)

Acquired: I got this one from work. It is a report from a Danish commission on leadership in the public sector which was published last year. I read it now as part of my work on organizational development in the municipality where I work.

The report is short and well-written. The length is a strength, because many people will actually read it and relate to the recommendations, but it is also a problem because many complex problems are treated sparingly. The overall recommendation - put the citizens first - seems obvious on face value, but looking closer it is more complicated. The administration administers laws and are ultimately run by politicians, and their ideas about the public sector is represents the view of the majority - not all the citizens. And that is just one example which could be elaborated further.

So, the report is probably not the answer to all questions about leadership in the public sector, but is well-written and has some pointed and necessary things to say on specific aspects of public leadership roles.

3 stars

Hi Henrik. I see you are reading almost only work related books this time.

>43 connie53: Yes, I do read a lot of work-related stuff right now, but I have read more fiction that appears here, because it's been library books and I don't write about them in this thread.

21. J.M. Coetzee: Vanære (Disgrace)

Acquired: I got this one from a book sale at the local store - probably in 2012 or 2013. So it counts as a DROOT per my rules!

David Lurie is a middle aged literature professor in Capetown that has lost touch with the world around him. His academic career is pretty much over, and after his second divorce he gets sexual satisfaction with a prostitute. He seems content but he really isn't. When he recognizes the woman in the street she breaks off the connection and he discovers he is much more attached to her than he thought. After being turned down he starts a relationship with one of his students even though he knows it is wrong and that he is taking advantage of her. After admitting his guilt but refusing to give an apology he is dismissed and goes to his daughter, who lives in the countryside where she shares a small farm with a black man who is her helper / rival / protector. David doesn't understand their relationship and after a brutal attack it becomes ever more obvious that he has lost touch with society around him.

Disgrace is a brilliant portrait of a man and a society who have drifted apart. He doesn't understand that admitting wrong is not enough and he doesn't understand the new world that is emerging after apartheid. I both liked, loathed, and understood him - and often all three things at the same time. Much recommended!

5 stars

22. Anna Maria Sigmund: Die Frauen der Nazis (The Nazis' Women)

Acquired: My sister gave me this volume 10-15 years ago. She had visited some friends who did some trading and she was allowed to pick some books from the unsellable pile. She chose this one for me, because I'm a historian and this was about history. I have had it on my shelves ever since but never got round to it.

Maybe that was a mistake. Anna Maria Sigmund writes interesting biographies of eight women close to the Nazi elite. Here are the wifes of Göring and Goebbels as well as Leni Riefenstahl and Hitler's secret girlfriend Eva Braun. Her name is well-known today, but until the end of the regime she was a tightly guarded secret, because the Führer was officially only married to his work.

Reading the portraits it is obvious that not all of them were convinced nazis, but most of them were. They believed in the nazi ideology and they worked hard to ensure the coming-to-power of the party. Magda Goebbels is probably the best-known because she murdered her children before committing suicide in the last days of the war, but she was not the only fanatic. Those who survived the war doesn't seem to regret much and some write memoirs defending themselves and their husbands.

I really liked the book. It is well-written and sheds new light on a period of history we will never be done with.

4 stars

23. Guy Delisle: Hostage

Acquired: Another buy from my trip to Copenhagen Comics in February.

Delisle tells the story of Christophe André who worked with an NGO in the Caucasus in 1997 when he was kidnapped buy Chechnians and held hostage for several months. There is drama but not much violence in the book, which is most of all a study in the emptiness and repetetiveness of the days passing by without knowing what will happen.

Delisle draws Christophe again and again, handcuffed to a radiator in the appartment where he is kept. It sounds boring, but it is actually fascinating to see him getting through imprisonment as his beard grows longer and his faith in being saved deminishes.

3½ stars

24. Søren Ulrik Thomasen: Rystet spejl

Acquired: I started recording my book shopping in spring 2014. This was one of the last books I bought before getting systematic about it as I could pick three books for almost nothing when joining a book club.

Rystet spejl is actually a re-read for me. I borrowed it from the library shortly after i came out in 2011 and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to pick up when I had the chance. I'm glad I did because even though it's been waiting its chance for five years a thoroughly enjoyed reading the poems last night. Thomsen was one of the wild young poets on the Danish literary scene in the 1980s but he has grown into a reflecting man looking back on his life. Friends are dead, the body has grown fragile but it is life and it is all good. The poems are not sentimental, they are just celebrating life from his new point of view and it's brilliantly written and beautiful.

4½ stars

25. Daniel Kehlmann: F

Acquired: This is another of the books bought in 2014 after I started registering systematically. My wife read it a couple of years ago, but I only got round to it now. I'm hoping to finally wrap of the 2014 books this year…

This was a great read. Kehlmann portrays three brothers shortly before the financial crisis changed everything i 2008. Martin, Eric and Iwan are seemingly succesful, but all of them are in their own way living on lies and deceit. Maybe they are following in the footsteps of their father Arthur, a nihilistic author and a selfabsorbed prick, or they are just taking part in the lying culture of the society that surrounds them. Either way, they are not happy (maybe Iwan, but most of the time he has to maintain a false life) and they are on the verge of breaking down.

I really enjoyed the psychological insights in Kehlmann's writing which also reflects an unhealthy society where the financial markets rested on illusions.

4½ stars

26. Nevil Shute: Blind vej

Acquired: I don't know how I got this book, but I was quite fascinated by On the Beach in high school and apparently bought a bunch of Shute books at a flea market or something. I don't really remember. I have one more on my shelves, this one is ready to find a new home.

Captain Stevenson is an upperclass bachelor and WWI navy veteran living in the south of England in the 1920s. He is involved in a traffic accident and wakes up with some confusing memories in the hospital. After a trip to Scotland he meets Mollie Gordon, who works as a professional dance partner in a night club in Leeds, and he gets involved in a police investigation about weapons smuggled into England de interfere with the upcoming election. In an incredible coincidence Mollie is involved in this affair, and the police asks him to bring her down for questioning. Obviously he is falling in love with the girl.

Lonely Road is not a great thriller and not a great piece of literature, but it was quick read and an interesting take on class relations in England after the war.

2½ stars

Hi Henrik! Good to hear you not only read work related books but some books for pleasure too. Keep it up!

>50 Henrik_Madsen: Lonely Road is probably one of those Shutes I keep passing up at the used bookstores because it doesn't seem to have enough airplanes ;)

>51 connie53: Hi Connie! Absolutely - it wouldn't be any fun, if there was no time to read for pleasure.

>52 rabbitprincess: There is a bit of flying but not much in Lonely Road. Stevenson's brother in law is a famous pilot and aircraft salesman, but the book is more about sailing and driving than flying. So your assessment is correct!

27. Paula Hawkins: The Girl on the Train

Acquired: This is a book I bought in an airport in Ireland a couple of years ago. I was there with work to study how they developed their tourism industry and decided I needed a couple of books out of the trip as well. There is not particular reason for reading this now. I just felt like a quick exciting read.

That is what I got. Rachel is a drunk and failure who watches a house from her commuter train between Ashbury and London. She is fascinated by a couple and when the woman goes missing she starts her own investigation. Her interest is fueled by the fact, that her ex-husband lives with his family a couple of houses down the road and even more by the blackout she had the night Megan disappeared. All Rachel knows is that she woke up with af bloody wound to her head and that she herself had been there.

I enjoyed the book which kept me on my toes to the end. Rachel is the main narrator and as unreliable as they come. She is also a woman with a lot of problems in her personal life and an alcohol problem which is depressing, and that portrait is very well done.

3½ stars

28. Ib Michael: Orbit

Acquired: It's not my fault! It is one of the books my wife has bought, probably 5-6 years ago.

Michael is the primary Danish writer of magical realism, and the magical traits are also prevalent in this story. Ronnie and Christina meets and fall in love even though he is caught up in an gang war and she in her family's complicated history. When they are attacked by bikers they hide in the well and discover they can travel in time and space using small devices they have found in her old vacation home. They visit her ancestors a hundred years earlier and travel to the future, where they are torn apart by accident and have to go on a quest to find each other again. It is Orpheus and Eurydyke, and classics from The Divine Comedy to The Shining are quoted.

I was fine with all this. The problem was overdoing it and trying to make up an explanation for how the magic was done. This didn't do anything for the story and trying to make everything add up made the last third a bit dull.

3 stars

>55 Henrik_Madsen: Just blame the wive! ;-)))

29. António Lobo Antunes: Portugals ære

Acquired: We just got home from two weeks of wonderful vacation in Portugal. Every year I try to read books from the country we visit, and there was not much Portuguese literature on my shelves, so I had to by a few before going.

Antunes took part in the war in Angola which let to democracy in Portugal and independence for the colonies, and he uses these experiences to write a complex novel showing how corrupt and amoral colonial rule was. It is told by Isilda and her three children after they went to Lissabon and she stayed behind in 1978. They look back on their lives in Angola as part of the white elite which systematically oppressed and lived on the work of the black population. Shown is also the many secret and not exactly moral actions of the family. Adultery, violence and drinking were just part of it.

The composition is complex with four narrators and at least two stories intersected in each chapter. (Typically a memory as the main part and some action in the present as the secondary story.) Still, the book is worth the effort. It is a great portrait of an unhappy family and a country falling apart.

4 stars

>57 Henrik_Madsen: Portugal! That's on my wishlist. Where did you stay?

>58 MissWatson: We were one week just outside of Porto by the Sea and one week in central Lisbon. Both were fabulous with great food at reasonable prices. I probably like Porto the best, but it's close.

>59 Henrik_Madsen: Thanks. Making a note of this!

30. José Saramago: Elefantens rejse (The Journey of the Elephant)

Acquired: Another one bought for the vacation i Portugal...

In 1551 the king of Portugal decides to give his powerful cousin Maximilian of Austria a present. It has to be big and impressive so he settles on the elephant Solomon, and the novel describes it's journey to Spain, with ship to Genoa and over the Alps to Vienna. It is a travel with both political and logistic challenges, but it's all solved. The elephant keeper Sobhro is a resourceful person, who knows much more than elephants, and he plays a significant role in the journey.

Saramago writes a dense prose, but he seems to be really enjoying himself here. The story is quite straightforward, but he uses it to tell important stories about servants and their masters, about Portugal and Spain and about the consequences of imperial rule.

4½ stars

I read you had a very good holiday in Portugal. That's so good to hear!

>62 connie53: Thanks, yes it was really good. I would definitely recommend it as a holiday destination. We usually don't go that far south in the summer because it get's too hot, but it was not a problem in Portugal because of the Atlantic. We had really good weather all the time but were not melting like people were in France, Germany and Belgium at the time.

I hope you had at great summer as well.

31. Eca de Queiroz: The Illustrious House of Ramires

Acquired: In Porto I visited the famous Livraria Bello bookshop. It was gorgeous but there ridiculously many tourists, which didn't stop me from buying this book.

Goncalo de Ramires is the last man in an ancient noble family in Portugal. He is still young, but his father has died leaving him with a lot of debts, and he really has a hard time figuring out what to do with his life. Every time he settles on something it seems to vaporize between his hands and having a long list of ancestors doesn't make him brave or able to cope with modern life. When he is asked to write a historical novella and has a chance to enter politics, he goes for it, and in the end reflecting on his forefathers does set him free.

The novel was published in 1900 and is still worth reading. It never gets really dangerous for him, but he is an interesting character.

3½ stars

32. Agustina Bessa-Luís: Kvintessensen

Acquired: This is the third and final book I bought for my trip to Portugal. Good to finish those!

José Carlos is the son of a rich family who loses most of their wealth and property after the revolution i 1974. He feels wronged by the person who signed the document which allowed demonstrators to occupy his home and to get back at him, José Carlos decides to seduce his daughter. She lives in Macau, however and as he goes there he is fascinated by her and by the complex, cross-cultural history of the city and beyond that China's history as well.

After reading the book I'm deeply fascinated by Matteo Ricci and the culture meetings in China, but I was less convinced of the novel's merits. I didn't really believe José Carlos and his alleged quest for revenge. Still, an interesting read and a reminder of how complicated the world is.

3 stars

33. Carsten Greve og Anne Reff Pedersen: Reform og forandring

Acquired: I bought this book a year ago for course on my master. Now I finished the course - and the book.

Change and reforms have become the name of the game in Danish public sector as in many other countries. Striving for efficiency and digitalization have resulted in a continuous wave of change which affects both employees and public leaders. The book reflects on change and the enevitable resistance to it, and it discusses the nature of reforms. The message is simple: All public leaders must be able to lead with public value (in Mark Moore's sense) in mind.

The book is a quick read and a good introduction to the subject. There is lots of hand-on advice and the book introduces much of the relevant theory in the field. It does not, however, reflect on the desirability of reforms or on the fundamentally different views on organisations in different theories. But as an introduction it works really well.

4 stars

34. Apostolos Doxiadis: Logicomix

Acquired: This was one of many purchases when I visitid Bogforum, the annual bookfair, in Copenhagen.

What is truth? What is logic? And how can the foundations of mathematics be proven? These are the question which the book wrestles with. The story is told by Bertrand Russel in a lecture in 1940, and it becomes both a story of his life and of the major challenges faced by mathematics around the turn of the last century.

It is an interesting story, but the book wavers between telling the story of mathematics, telling the story of Russell, and discussing with itself the significance of what happened. The text is well supported by the drawings, but in the end it looses focus as it attempts to do too much at the same time. Change and reforms have become the name of the game in Danish public sector as in many other countries.

3 stars

35. Christopher Pollitt og Geert Bouckaert: Public Management Reform

Acquired: Another book bought for my master studies.

Public Reform is constantly debated, but what are the trajectories over the last fourty years and to what degree do all Western countries buy into the same ideas of reform? Those are the questions debated in Pollitt and Bouckaert's book. They master a huge literature and are able to compare reforms in twelve countries and the EU commission. They demonstrate, that there has never been ONE model of government reform, and that countries have always diverged. But they also demonstrate that certain tendencies cut across these lines and they reveal a powerful theoretical framework for studying reform.

It is one of the best books I have read about the broad development of government. It is wellwritten but hardly an easy read. It challenges it's reader and that is one of the best things about it.

4½ stars

36. Chris Carter a.o.: A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Strategy

This was a re-read. I read this book two years ago for a course on strategic management, but had to postpone my exam for various reasons. That is now, so going over the book again was in order.

And is still what the title suggest - a fairly short and pretty interesting book about studying strategy.

37. Anna Degnbol: Grus

Acquired: I bought the book this spring in Copenhagen. I had finished an exam for my master degree and decided to celebrate with a bit of book buying. Sunday I was finished preparing for another exam and needed af quick read to relax, and this seemed like a good choice

Grus is a Danish graphic novel and the first book by Anna Degnbol. Mathilda is called home because her mother lies in a coma in the local hospital. This is obviously tough, but it is also the first time since her teen year that she spends a lengthy time in the place where she grew up. She meets old friends, sees strange things and finally confronts the experiences which made her leave in the first place.

The present is drawn in blue nuances and the past in red. It works very well with the Degnbol' style and the artwork was generally really good.

At first I was a bit put off by the familiar subject, but the book grew on me and I really enjoyed how Mathilda didn't just confront her past but came to peace with it.

4 stars

38. Tage Skou-Hansen: De nøgne træer (The Naked Trees)

Acquired: Last week I got through two exams (woohoo!) and decided to treat myself to some books and just happened to run into a book fair. This was one of the books I found - a Danish classic, which I have wanted to read for a long time.

The year is 1943 and the young student Holger Mikkelsen is drawn into the resistance against the German occupation. His choice is radically different from his old friend Kjeld, who argues that war as such is terrible and that the world needs spiritual contemplation and poetry instead of more fighting. The book obviously sides with Holger, who is recruited to a group of saboteurs. As they become more efficient, security is tightened and the job gets a lot more dangerous.

Sabotage is just one of Holger's passions. He is also drawn to his group leader's wife Gerda, and this forbidden passion is somehow also made possible by the suspension of peacetime norms.

The novel is a Danish classic and deservedly so. Holger embodies the dilemmas of occupation but also the need to act.

4 stars

>71 Henrik_Madsen: Good idea to treat yourself to some books after getting through exams! Hope they went well :)

>72 rabbitprincess: They went well - and considering the effort invested they went great!

>63 Henrik_Madsen: I had a great summer, mainly because the weather was good and I could read outside (in the shade of course). We did not go anywhere because Peet is still not well and not up to being away from home.

Congrats on the exams!

39. Charlier og Giraud: Blueberry - de samlede eventyr 1 (Blueberry - the complete stories vol 1)

Acquired: Did I mention I bought some books to celebrate an exam well done? This is another one of those. The publication of the Danish edition of the complete Blueberry stories was announced half a year ago and I have really looked forward to it. It was one of my favorite comics as a kid, and now it's time for a revisit.

Blueberry is stationed at Fort Navajo on the border between Arizona and New Mexico when the Apaches are wrongfully accused of attacking a farm. Retaliation starts a major war, and soon the garrison is left isolated. Blueberry sets out on a mission to get help and he manages to find the farmer's son who has been abducted by another tribe. In the last story he leads a convoy from Texas to Camp Bowie in New Mexico where he has to duel on wits instead of guns with a cruel traitor.

Charlier writes long and complex stories. The volume contains three albums, and they are part of one, long story which will not be resolved until volume two. The art work is great and will only get better as the series evolves, so I look forward to reading the last part of the Navajo cycle.

4 stars

40. Karen Hjorth og Anette Warring (red): Handlingens kvinder (Women of Action)

Acquired: I got this book in 2001 to - this is a bit embarrassing - review it. Well that didn't happen then, but at least it happened now!

A group of Danish historians have written this anthology. The goal is to demonstrate that women through history have not just passively accepted their place in life, but have indeed been subjects taking control of their own lives and actively shaping the world around them. This is obvious in all the texts, but they also show, that something new happened in the second half of the 19th Century. Industrialization meant urbanization and progress meant new opportunities for women. In Denmark they were instrumental to developing health care, schooling, and social work - all professions which provided new job and career chances for women.

The articles demonstrate that women themselves shaped these developments and pushed the limits of what women was believed able to do. It was for the most part good reads.

3½ stars

And so, with a book on my shelves for nearly two decades, I reached my goal for the year. I look forward to contributing to the group total and basking in the glory of the overachiever!

Well done on meeting your goal! It must be very satisfying to have such a deep-rooted book done!

>77 Jackie_K: Very satisfying. And there is more where that came from, so I'll definitely sign up for another season when we get to that point.

Congratulations, Henrik!!!

>79 connie53: Thanks!

Congrats!

>81 MissWatson: Thanks 8-)

41. Christin & Mézières: Retur til fremtiden (Return to the Future)

Acquired: I bought this book along with a bunch of other books at a comic festival in Copenhagen in February.

Linda og Valentin (in French Valérian ét Laureline) is one of the most iconic French comics of the postwar era. It is also one of the most influential in shaping our ideas of what life in the future and on other planets might look like, and I would definitely recommend it to everybody - especially the first ten albums or such.

This is a collection of short stories placed in different parts of the overall universe. Well-known places and characters are shown again. This is fun for fans, but the album doesn't add anything to the whole, and I didn't think the stories were anything special either. So: Skip this one and head for the reason this series is so famous!

2 stars

42. Yann Martel: Beatrice og Vergil

Acquired: I bought the novel at a sale in my local bookstore, probably in 2013. I had read Life of Pi and was interested to see more from the author. It took me another six years to actually read it, but at least it was worth waiting for.

Henry is a successful author who hits the wall. He settles in a large city and uses his funds to live a comfortable life away from literature. One day he receives an odd letter form at taxidermist / author who sends him a short story by Flaubert and asks for help with a play.

Once Henry visits him he learns that the play is about a donkey called Beatrice and a monkey named Vergil. They are named after Dante's guides in hell and paradise, but they are also stuffed animals in the store. The old man will not give up the manuscript of the play and remains a mystery. He does read from it, and it seems like a piece of absurd theater without any discernable plot.

Still, Henry is drawn to the man and his project. He visits him several times until the story behind the play is suddenly revealed in af shocking and disturbing way.

Martel is a great writer. The book is very well composed and a fast and easy read. I thought it was rather ordinary until everything blew up and made me see the text in a new light, but the ending has left me wondering about it since I put it down.

4 stars

43. Sten Wijkman Kjærsgaard: Den monsterstore bog

Acquired: This is not my book. My son got it for Christmas a couple of years ago, but he never really got to reading it. I picked it up over the last months to see if it was worth keeping.

It is a collection of jokes and riddles for children, so I have read it in small doses from time to time. It is not a good book. Jokes can be nice or sinister, slapstick or absurd, but they have to be funny and these ones were not. I realize the book is meant for children, but I doubt they would like them more than I did. I know my son didn't.

1½ stars

44. Han Kang: Vegetaren

Acquired: I bought the novel last year and read it on holiday last autumn. Now I re-read it because I had chosen it for my real-life book club.

I remembered the book as strange and fascinating, and that was also my impression now. It was as good a read as the first time and it sparked a great discussion, so everything worked out as planned.

4½ stars

45. Trillo og Mandrafina: Det store svindelnummer

Acquired: Remember I went on a book buying spree in August after a couple of exams? This is one of the books I got.

This is classis noir. The drunken detective is looked up buy a beautiful woman who needs help, and obviously he cannot refuse. The detective is Donal Reynoso and the woman is Melinda Centurion who is famous for two things: She is the dictator's niece in a small American republic and she is a virgin with healing powers. Unfortunately she is also having an affair and is being blackmailed with very graphic photos. As they search for answers they have to make their way through bars and brothels, seeing Nazi leftovers and being hunted by a frightening killer in the process.

I liked the book alright. It was good entertainment, and there were a few twists in the parade of well-known elements. Still, only a couple of characters were really fleshed out and the book doesn't really rise above the average.

3 stars

46. John Hird og Peter Kvistgaard: Oplevelsesrum

Acquired: At work we cooperated with one of the authors at one point and he gave me this book so I could look more into his way of thinking. Duly done, but a few years later.

As the Western world has gotten wealthier basic material needs are already fulfilled for most people. Therefore we look for other things to spend our money on, which means eating, travelling and experiences have become growth industries. Tourism has become a key sector in many parts of the world including the part of Denmark where I live and work.

The book is intended for both students and practitioners. It explores the key features of the experience society (Erlebnisgemeinschaft in German) and more specifically provides a method to analyze places and their potential for experiences which can be explored commercially. The point is not, that every town should build a fair with rollercoasters. Instead it is all about identifying and supporting the key values of the place and communicate its history to visitors.

The book is easily read but the chapters on theory is perhaps a bit over the top for the busy practitioner.

3 stars

Hi Henrik, just popping in to say Hi.

>89 connie53: Hi Connie, good to see you.

47. Craig Frank: Cool Valley

Acquired: Another volume from my August book haul in Copenhagen. It was a good one!

Craig Frank lives in Copenhagen, but he grew up in Missouri and this book is based on his formative years in the early 1970s. He lives with five (!) brothers and his parents, and even though they don't have much money, it's a good life. The children get to explore the nearby forest and they have room to find their own way without adults constantly watching their every step.

Growing up is always painful. It's tough to find your place in the world, and facing your own and others' mortality is hard. Craig first faces death in church as a choir boy, but soon he has to face it much closer to home.

The book combines the innocence of the boy with the melancholic reflections of the grown man, which is reflected in the artwork. The drawings are not too complicated, but the coloring is dark. Frank's memoir is not a masterpiece lige Bedemandens datter but it is an interesting and quite powerful book.

3½ stars

Here I am again waving. ;-)

>92 connie53: Hi Connie - thanks for dropping by. I'm not that much on the threads these days, so it's great to see a hello when I check in.

48. Jean C. Denis: Den japanske blondine (The Japanese Blonde - the French original is Le Nain Jaune, The Yellow Dwarf)

Acquired: I was browsing in the second-hand bookshops in Nakskov a month ago and thought this one looked interesting.

The album was published in 1986 and it is distinctly 80-ish. Luc Leloi is an aspiring author living in a flat, which is being renovated, so he sort of lives in his car at the moment. He also knows how to get in trouble, and when he goes to a bar one night he is fascinated by the stripper Miyeko, who turns out to be half Japanese. She is also harassed and followed by some mysterious types. Luc obviously falls in love, offers his help, and soon they are digging into her past to find out what is really going on.

It was ok for an evening read with good but not great art work accompanying the story.

3 stars

49. John Williams: Stoner

Acquired: This is a book-of-the-month I got in august 2014 when the novel was relentlessly hyped
.
John Stoner was born in the late 19th Century in Missouri, where he grew up on a farm. Originally he was supposed to study agriculture, but he falls in love with English literature and spends the rest of his life teaching English at the University of Missouri in Columbia. It is a life like many others, but Williams writes about them in such a beautiful prose and with such psychological depth that his catastrophic marriage, the infighting in the English department, and the love he finds after giving up hope becomes a glass to see the first half of the twentieth Century through.

It is just great, and if you put it off a bit to get beyond the hype, it is well worth getting back to.

4½ stars

>95 Henrik_Madsen: I have this on my shelf and I am waiting for the hype to cool down. I'm glad to see your praise, now I can move it a little up the pile.

>96 MissWatson: Well, I think it was worth (most of) the hype it got. All his three novels have been published in Danish a couple of years ago, so here it has been replaced on the hype train by other books.

50 William Shakespare: Romeo og Julie

Acquired: I got volume two of the new Danish translation a couple of years ago. Next up is King John and then on to volume three!
.
There is hardly any reason to retell much of the well-known story of young, tragic love. I was again stunned by the beauty of the writing in the dialogues between the lovers. It might not be "realistic" among such young persons but it really didn't matter because it was so wonderful. The story seemed a bit less coherent than when I read it decades ago, and that took some of the credibility out of the tragedy.

Father Lorenzo, especially, seemed like a very shady character. Over the course of the play he - SPOILER ALERT! - marries two minors without their parents' consent, keeps the marriage secret despite another marriage for Juliet being planned, thinks up a plan to nearly kill a young girl with poison to stop the second marriage and leaves the desperate young girl in a tomb with a dagger and the still-warm body of her lover.

That is just irresponsibility taken to a new level.

4 stars

51 Henrik Toft Jensen m.fl.: Udkantsdanmark. Myte eller realitet

Acquired: Part of my work is dealing with regional development and migration, so I ordered this for work when it came out a couple of months ago.

The short publication tries to assess the state of urbanization af regional development in Denmark. This is done by analyzing demographics, labor markets and housing markets which all suggest there i strong urbanization taken place in Denmark. Hardly a surprise, but it is pointed out, that it is actually taking places slower that could be expected. Agriculture's need for labor has decreased rapidly, but at the same time better transport has enabled people to live on the land and work in the city to a much greater degree.

The book is probably only interesting for a Danish audience, and if you have actively followed the debate, there is not much new in this volume. If you are not, it is a decent introduction, though.

2½ stars

52. Arne Jysch: Der nasse Fisch

Acquired: I bought this in Modern Comics in Berlin two years ago when we were on holiday there.

Der nasse Fisch was first a novel by Volker Kutshcer, then it became both a TV series (Babylon Berlin) and this graphic novel. It is mystery set in Berlin i 1929, just before the depression and the descent into the chaos of nazism. At the time, Berlin was on of the most modern cities in the world, and the young policeman Gereon Rath sinks himself into both women and socializing, when he moves there from Cologne. Soon he is caught up in a complicated story involving Russian gold, war veterans, political factions and oldfashioned crime. The mystery part is very, very good and it is a wonderful portrait of a city and its people. I really can't recommend it enough.

5 stars

53. Paul Auster: Mr Vertigo

Acquired: I saved this from certain doom by buying it at a sale at the local library. Then it rested peacefully on my shelves for eight or ten years before I got to actually read it.

Walter Rawley is a small kid growing up in Saint Louis in the 1920s. One day he is discovered by Master Yehudi, a mystic man who claims he can teach Walt how to fly. Walt doesn't have much to lose so he accepts and becomes part of Yehudi's family of friendly outcasts. Ma Sue is Indian and Aesop is a black boy, just a few years older than Walt, whom Yehudi is preparing for university.

It is quite a tale and the fact that Walt actually finds himself levitating one day is hardly surprising. He and Yehudi starts preparing his great act, but when everything is set for succes, tragedy strikes.

I really enjoyed the story about growing up and learning to love the family you can get. The last parts about what happened after the story was less interesting but not bad.

4 stars

54. Præmierede huse i Nakskov 1984-2001

Acquired: There is a small local museum working to keep old crafts of printing alive. For Christmas they sold their books in the shopping street, and I thought this one looked funny.

Well, funny is probably the wrong word. Curious might be closer to the point, because the book is rather inconsistent. It is a list of the houses in Nakskov which were rewarded for good renovation 1984-2001. There is a small sketch of each house with a list of owners and/or the shops which have been placed in the houses over time. But there is no really story of these houses. Instead there are short texts about seven other remarkable buildings.

As is plain it is not really a good book. Still, since I live in the town there were information which I enjoyed and it is a fast read.

2 stars

This was ROOT #54 for the year. It will likely also be the last one. Overall it's been a really good reading year, and have made it through a lot of my own books, both new and old. Perhaps I should upgrade my goal for next year?

I'm planning on doing just that, Henrik. From 36 to 42.