BINGO Award

Wow. I just received the BINGO-award from Natalie from The Book Inn. I am very honored and pleased - not only for receiving this fabulous award, but also for presenting a whole new blog to me, Bookin' with Bingo. Go check out both The Book Inn and Bookin' with Bingo. Great blogs!

The rules : This award was started by Bookin With BINGO and here are the rules:

This "B-I-N-G-O" BEAUTIFUL BLOG AWARD means that this blog is...

B: Beautiful: Vivienne -Serendipity

I: Informative: Dorte - DJ's Krimiblog

N: Neighborly: Bermudaonion - Bermudaonion's Weblog

G: Gorgeous: Krissi - The Swim Mom

O: Outstanding : Diane - Bibliophile by the Sea

Thanks again to Natalie for giving me this award. Made my day.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The two teenagers, Katniss and Peeta, live in a dark, postapocalyptic future, where their world (USA) has been divided into 12 (originally 13) districts. The first districts are the best ones, with District 1, Capitol, being the best, the richest, the most fancy and the place where the power and the president resides. District 1 is the seat of power, this is where The Hunger Games are planned.

Katniss and Peeta live in District 12, the poorest district where it is not unusual to see people keel over from hunger on a daily basis and just die right there. In the past, District 12 was the Appalachians, whereas District 1 is located in what was known as The Rockies. Katniss lives in the poorest area of the poorest district, and is the sole provider for her family which consists of her, her mother and her little sister Prim. Her family's main income stems from Katniss' abilities to hunt in the forbidden woods outside of District 12.

We meet her on the day of the yearly reaping. The reaping is the day where two kids from each district are being chosen to participate in The Hunger Games, where the only rule is to kill all other contestants and avoid getting killed yourself. The Hunger Games are being broadcastet reality tv-style nationwide in all districts, and it is mandatory to watch it.

When little sister Prim is being selected as a participant, Katniss volunteers to take her place. The other participant from District 12 is the quite son of the the district's baker. His name is Peeta. Peeta and Katniss travel to District 1, where they are being prepared to enter The Hunger Games, together with the 22 other kids from the other districts. Once in the arena of The Hunger Games, it is everybody's fight against everybody. Kill or be killed.

This book is a chilling and amazing 5* read. It is the first YA I have read in years, and the first fantasy I've read in almost as many years. But oh my, it was a great read. And yep, I DID stay up to read it, just had to know what happened on the next page. It is such a bone-chilling and dark read, but it has its moments of rebellion and friendship to make the whole set up bearable.

Earlier this summer I asked for recommendations for YA books. The Hunger Games was recommended to me by Michelle from GalleySmith, Jill from Fizzy Thoughts and Scrapgirl from Serendipity. Thanks!

Did you also read this? And review it? Let me know so I can put up a link.

Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs

I've read all the Tempe Brennan-books by Kathy Reichs. Most were good reads, a few were really great and one or two were just plain bad. This one, Devil Bones, is the number 11 in the series, which can be read without problem out of order. But as always with a series, it pays to read them in order, since there is some character-development, spoiler-hints to previous books etc.

Devil Bones is an ejoyable, easy and entertaining read. Middle of the road. It wasn't bad at all, but there was not really anything new under the sun, and the plot was not overly interesting to me. Its main plotline is about fringe religions such as Santería, Wicca, Voodoo etc. And then of course there are some murders, some forensic work and some tension between Tempe and the police, her male friends/boyfriends etc.

What has begun to bug me slightly is the "lessons" I am being taught when reading the Tempe Brennan-books. I read forensic thrillers because I think its interesting and because I like a bit of gore and decomposed corpses. But since this is the latest book in a long series, and since Ms. Reichs is not the only one writing forensic thrillers (but, admittedly, she is one of the best), its like we have either heard it all before or the forensics involved are so complicated that we are being taught what it is about in a patronizing way, which is beginning to rub me the wrong way. An example could be like this: Tempe tells the police about some complicated, scientific forensic thing. The dumbass-policeman then says: Could you say that again in human language (or something like that). I just annoys me.

Anyway, Devil Bones is definitely worth a read, specially if you are a Tempe Brennan-fan and has read the other books. It is not the best one in the series though.

Twitter has suspended my account

I am upset. Twitter has suspended my account because of suspicious activities, and I am at a complete loss. I only use Twitter on and off, not on a daily basis. I never send spam or pornography or nudity. I do not harrass other users. I have signed up under my real name and a real e-mail-adress. What in the heck happened? Any of you ever experienced this? I just sent a note to Twitter asking them to open up the account again and explain why it was closed in the first place. I am no longer following anyone and no one are following me. How sad is that, being frozen out of the loop? Now that I cannot use it, I REALLY miss it ;o)

Undone by Karin Slaughter

Undone by Karin Slaughter (the UK edition is called genesis) combines the characters from Slaughter's Grant County-series and the series about Atlanta detectives Will Trent and Faith Mitchell.

One of the main characters in the Grant County-series is Sara Linton, coroner and pediatrician in a small town in Georgia. The main characters of the Atlanta-series are, as mentioned above, the detectives Will Trent and Faith Mitchell.

In Undone, Sara has moved to Atlanta to lick her (very deep) wounds from the previous novel in the Grant County-series. That was called Beyond Reach (and Skin Privilege in the UK edition), and if you plan to read this series, or maybe already read some of them, but not Beyond Reach, I do not recommend reading Undone, although they can easily stand alone. Undone just has too many spoilers if you want to read them in order. I shall avoid spoilers here, though.

Combining the two series in this book was a good move, I think. I had personally grown tired with some of the characters from the Grant County-series, and was relieved that I did not have to read about them yet again, although the whole series has grown a lot on me over the years.

We meet the main characters in the first chapter, where Will and Faith visits the ER where Sara is now working as an ER doc. Faith has been passing out and feeling unwell, and finally ends up in the ER. She has not been in the ER for long before the ER receives another patient: a young woman who is terribly mutilated, but still alive - barely. Sara treats her as best as she can, discover some horrible things, and within minutes Will is on his way to where she was found - after she was run over by a car.

Now the story takes up speed, horrendous things are uncovered from the earth, literally, and soon another woman goes missing. Will, Faith (who is being treated for her fainting-spells) and Sara digs into the case, which becomes uglier by the hour.

The case and the plot is interesting, and Karin Slaughter writes well and is good in building up characters. The life-stories (which we also know from previous books in the two series) are being told again, we learn new details about the characters and it all adds to the tension and excitement of the story. I would have liked a plot which was a bit more tight (I did guess most of it about half way through, unfortunately), and I would have liked some of the characters to "snap out of it", but that is a feeling I generally have with Slaughter's books.

All in all I think Undone is a rather good read and perfect for a lazy day - either on the couch or the beach :o) I really cannot write much more without giving away the plot of the previous books, and I think you should read it yourself :o)

Also reviewed by Lynda from Lynda's Book Blog.

3 years ago on this day, August 3

Three years ago I had just started this blog. I had no introductions to anything, no sidebars, no About Me-page, no nothing ;o) I just began translating the reviews I had posted on my Danish blog already. I remember I tried to surf a bit around the English blogosphere, but didn't really manage to get into any conversations or anything. So I just kept translating my reviews from the Danish blog and put them here. Three years ago, on the 3rd of August 2006 I reviewed Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. This wasn't my first review here, but I wanted to post about it because I am having a look at my blog and my old posts to see what I can make better, and if there are posts that I want to highlight or maybe put on my About Me-page. This is all part of the Blog Improvement Project, where we are trying to make our blogs better, and one of the things we can do is to create a bit of buzz around our older posts. Well, its not that the Dead Until Dark review is very special in any way, but because it was posted three years ago on the dot today, I wanted to highlight it with a special post ;-) Check it out by clicking the link above.

Literary Road Trip - just found out about it now....

I just read a great review at Beth Fish Reads, which was posted as a part of the Literary Road Trip. I do not understand why I haven't seen this before today - well, maybe its partly because I've been online only sporadically for the past month or so. I do try to find time to post and read blogs, but sometimes I guess life gets in the way. In any case, I think the Literary Road Trip is a fabulous idea, and if it is not too late, I am going to participate next week! Check it out at GalleySmith and don't forget to check out the other posts from around the world.

Cleaning out my closet....

Or rather cleaning out my bookshelves....

I have way too many books. Some may ask: Can one have too many books? I believe the answer is yes. I am not really a collector. Back in the day when we listened to records on a record player, I was never the one who absolutely needed the special edition of this or that record. Same with CDs - I did not care if it was some limited thing with a special cover. Now I do not buy records or CDs anymore, but I still buy books. Always have and always will :o)

But also concerning my books, I never had to go for the special edition, the first edition, the signed edition etc. I am usually happy with the paperback and I do not mind used books.

All that said, I guess I do collect books after all, since there are many of my books that I do not want to give away/throw out. I have some old books which used to belong to desceased family members, and I like to keep those. I also have a few series that I want to keep. And then I just have a lot of books I want to keep for any number of reasons.

But no doubt - I have too many books, and since I live in a small apartment and since I cannot fill the WHOLE place with books, I need to clean out my shelves every now and then. I will say that I usually take a good look at my shelves every second year. I may toss out the odd book now and then, but every two years or so, I sort my book with the intention of simply getting rid of as many as I can bear.

I have spent most of today cleaning shelves and taking bag after bag to the trash-room. The good thing is that I did not just trash the books, I took them to our special trash-room, where people put their old and used stuff, and then anyone can grab it. I remember I actually got a sofa that way once. After a week or two, the special trash-room is emptied, but I am fairly sure that most of my books will be taken by then. After all, your trash could be my treasure ;o)

But the real beaty of it is, that now I have ample space on my shelves to buy new books, and I think there is enough space for at least a year's shopping for books ;o)

What do you do when the books are taking over your rooms? Trash them? Give them away to charity? Yard sale? Or do you just live with them?

NB. The image above is NOT of my room or my shelves. Mine are not that empty. The image is from a website that I for some reason cannot link to.