Reading update

posted by Sari

I have been reading, honest - well, as much I can when I have to work and play Civ II. There must be priorities after all. My mom nicked the History of the Universe book before I could finish it so I'll get back to that later. Now I just want to say that those of you who have not been at Kari Enqvist's lecture "Physics for Poets" have missed a great deal. I actually think I now understand relativity and quantum theory as well as it is possible without mathematics. Enqvist also got one of this year's eight State Information Prizes for his book on Kosmology. (And not to brag, but our dad got one too, for his biography of Paasikivi :-) )

But back to books I have actually read (no I have not read Paasikivi, I typed it from dictation), Robin McKinley's Spindle's End was quite good re-telling of Sleeping Beauty. Her style is delicious and you chuckle more than once while reading her descriptions, and there is enough of subversiveness and invention in her version to make it seem refreshing. I did think, though, that the final third was not quite as succesfull as the early parts of the book.  The story gets more exciting,  but at the same time more predictable and less fun. But all in all, very well worth reading.

I have also been re-reading Robertson's Mars trilogy and Antarctica. The first is so massive I had frogotten a lot between readings. It is still a breath-taking in its breadth, but the whole does not quite work for me. I also missed better maps. The best parts of the trilogy are those describing Mars and how it changes, and I really could have used more references. Antarctica I remembered better, the last third being very much a rehash of some characters and sociological ideas from Mars Trilogy (or vice versa, which was published first?), but the meditations on the antarctic and its history were very good. It helps Robinson has actually been on Antarctica in some exchange program for artists or some such.

Och jag läste alla återstående Liza Marklund's Bengzon deckare som är ute i paperback: Studio Sex, Paradiset och Prime Time. Kanske inte den klokaste beslut för att böcker är lite för likadana men deckare är ännu en trevlig väg at förbättra sin språkkunskap.

Now, Mary Gentle's swashbuckling alternative history and Man's extremely readable and interesting book about the birth of the alphabeth.

Comments

[Néa]

Jag märkte inte ens att du bytte språk! :-) Undrar vad det säger om min språkkänsla egentligen.

[Sari]

Jag gör det hela tiden. Jag kan börja att skriva nånting på finska och byta till engelska mitt i mellan utan att märka det als. It shows especially in my dissertation notes which truly are written in a mixture of Finnish and English, sometimes I even switch languages within a sentence...