Awards! That is so nice.

As you know, I am not around much these days. But when there are awards given to me, I must come on here. What an honor!

The first one is The Zombie Chicken Award, which I received from Serena.

"The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all..."

My other award this week was the One Lovely Blog Award, received from Sherrie.

"1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award."

Once again, thank you so much both of you. I am really honored and will have to pass the awards on later this weekend or during the week.

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

I enjoy a fun piece of chick lit from time to time and liked many of the previous Kinsella-novels (and disliked a few of them as well), so when I was going to be air-travelling for some hours and needed something light for the plane-ride, this one was an easy choice. And it is an easy read, built on the trusted chick lit formula we know so well: confused gal in her mid-twenties/early thirties goes through some kind of (fun) obstacles and ends up with Mr. Right in the end. Nothing at all wrong with that formula, and I am not here to diss those who love chick lit. Like I said, I enjoy it myself from time to time.

This one is also relatively enjoyable, although I found it, well, farfetched in places. You can argue that most chick lit is rather far-fetched and that is why we read it, but alas, I enjoyed most of the book and found both heroine and Mr. Right to be charming characters (whereas I grew seriously tired of Becky Bloomwood of the Shopaholic-series and found her less and less likeable), which is always a plus.

Lexi, our heroine, wakes up with amnesia and minor bruises after a car-crash. She doesn't remember anything from the past three years, where her life for some reason has taken a turn from the standard-dreary-bleary London-life to life in the fast lane with designer clothes, yummy hubby, gorgeous apartment, killer good-looks and a killer-job. But the problem is - Lexi doesn't remember how she got this way, and when she finds out, that her old friends despise her she is even more curious to find out what the heck happened to her, and why she left her old life behind her.

Its fun, its light, and surprisingly enough I was actually eager to get to the bottom of Lexi's life and find out how she became this succesful yuppie, marrying a London-millionaire!

Had it not been a light chick lit-read, I am pretty sure another type of author would have been able to make a bit more out of those typical subjects: mother/daughter relationship, marriage/single life, rich/poor and so on. But this is not supposed to be too psychological and all that jazz, its just for fun.

The ending fizzed out and wasn't that good, but overall I can recommend this for a light read on the beach or something like that. Not into chick lit? Then don't read it, you will not find it amusing at all.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

First of all I have to apologize beforehand to all parents and kids who has to battle autism, Asperger etc on a daily basis. I know for a fact that that is not easy.

But I just didn't like this book. I found it very annoying. It is about Christopher, he is 15 years old and he has Asperger's Syndrome. The book is supposed to be written by Christopher, and I found it very hard to read it and maintain a serious view on it. I almost gave up on it several times. I could not find any kind of interest in or sympathy with Christopher, his difficulties, his family or anything else in this book.

I realize that the author may have written this book in such an annoying way so that the reader is feeling the same (annoyance, despair, frustration) as parents who has a child like Christopher may feel.

I did not like this book at all. If any one can enlighten me on why this book was so hyped, please explain. I didn't get it at all.

Egyptology Weekend

This weekend it's about a bit of Egyptology and about showing a few pics from my recent trip to Egypt.

I left February 26. and returned March 12. First week was spent in Luxor with my sister, brother and nephew. Luxor is the ancient religious center in Egypt and many of the temples of Egypt are in and around Luxor on both the East and the West banks of the Nile.

This ismage is taken from the East bank of the Nile, showing the mountains of the Western bank. The ancient Egyptians believed that the sun "died" each evening when it went down in the West and then travelled through the night to be reborn the next morning in the East. Thus the Western side of the Nile came to be considered the side of the dead, where tombs were dug deep into the cliff sides and temples celebrating the memory of the dead kings were build.

Our first tour went to the Karnak Temple (see previous Egyptology Weekend) where this snapshot is from. The temple housed the divine family of Amun, Mut and Khonsu. The image depicts Khonsu, who was the son of the family. He is here shown with the sidelock of youth, the false beard of the gods and the deceased (Pharaoh's false beard is straight, the god's and the deceased's beards are "curled up" at the bottom). He wears a ureaus (a cobra-tiara so to speak) and the moon on his head and in his hands he holdes several royal and divine insignia symbolizing power, might, life, stability etc.



We also went to the Memorial Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. This queen, who ruled in the 1400's BC, put herself on the pharaonic throne instead of her family-member, crown prince Thutmosis III, who was only a child when the old king died. A queen substituting on the throne in ancient Egypt is if not a usual thing, then something which had been seen before and as such not unique at all. But the unique thing in the case of Queen Hatshepsut was that she began depicting herself as a pharao and as such taking the (100% male) role of a king. She acted as a male ruler (the pharaonic role/rule/reign is male and thus it is weird for a woman to take that role, the weird thing was not that she ruled Egypt) for about 20 years, during which the real king, Thutmosis III, probably became more and more agitated with her, as he was the real pharaoh, not Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut's reign was a peaceful one - and one of her largest claims to fame was her expedition to the Land of Punt (probably Somalia or Eritrea of today) for flowers, trees, perfumes, exotic animals and incense. She build a large Memorial Temple in the steep cliffs of the location called Deir el-Bahri today.

One day during our vacation, we flew from Luxor to Cairo, Egypt's immense capital city, "Mother of the World", the second largest city in the world. Just outside the city lies the Pyramids of Giza, which are the most famous pyramids of Egypt, even though there are about 90 more pyramids to visit in Egypt. The largest one, the pyramid of Kheops (or Chufu which he is often called in English) is the one in the back. It's about 138 meters high today, but it was originally 147 meters high. It has lost it's top, probably already in antiquity. The pyramid of Kheops is the sole remaining wonder of the ancient world of Seven Wonders. The pyramid in the middle, which looks taller, was build for king Khefren (or Chephren) and the smallest one was build for king Mycerinus. All pyramids are build as tombs for dead pharaohs. Later in the history of ancient Egypt, the pharaohs were laid to rest in tombs, cut into the cliffs in what is known today as Valley of the Kings. This valley is also in Luxor, but will be the subject of another Egyptology Weekend.

The image above is of the Luxor Temple. This temple lies in the middle of the modern town of Luxor, which was also the case of Ancient Egypt, except the town was called Waset back then (it was the later Greeks who named it Thebes and the even later Arabs who called it al-Uqsur/Luxor). The temple is floodlit at night which is a magnificent sight. In ancient Egypt, the temple was connected to the Karnak Temple through an alley flanked with Sfinx-figures and the temple was used when the gods of the Karnak Temple came visiting the Luxor Temple once a year at the special Opet-festival. Pharaoh also took part of the Opet-festivities and rituals in the Luxor Temple, in fact, he had a very important role, as it was him who, in the most secret part of the temple, re-newed his aquaintance with the gods and thus secured stability, wealth and true worldorder for Egypt for yet another year!
-Week two in Egypt was work aboard a Nile Cruise as a guide and tourleader. Perhaps more about that another time.

Wordless Wednesday

Blurry

In the metro in Berlin, Germany

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Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays are hosted by MizB at Should be Reading, where you can also check out other blogger's links to their Teaser Tuesdays-posts.

The rules are simple:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

Here is my teaser:

"It's poor Miss Annie next door. This morning she took a little fainting spell in the alley. Nerves, babe. She says you woke her up this morning playing on your banjo."

"That is a lute, not a banjo," Ignatius thundered. "Does she think that I am one of those perverse Mark Twain characters?"

The sentences are from p. 67 of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, which I am currently reading.

It's Monday. What are you reading this week?

J-Kaye from J. Kaye's Book Blog asks in this weekly what we are reading this week. Check the blog for more details and join in the fun yourself. A great way to get the reading-week going.

Books Completed Last Week

I'm not such an avid reader that I can finish stacks of books in a week. Sometimes I barely manage 10 pages, other times I read 2-3 books in a week. It all depends. The past week(s) however, I've been away and have finished 3 books:

Dinosaurens fjer (The Feather of the Dinosaur) by Sissel-Jo Gazan. This is a Danish scientific thriller slash chick lit which has become a huge bestseller in Denmark. I have reviewed it on my Danish blog, but since it has not been translated to English, I am not going to review it here. The plot revolves around Anna, who has just finished a controversial MA thesis in order to graduate as a biologist from University of Copenhagen. Suddenly dramatic stuff happens around her and it looks like some are hell bent on not having her go public with her thesis.

The Associate by John Grisham. You can read my review below.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Also check below for my review.

This week I hope to finish

Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella. It has been a while since I sat down with a true chick lit novel, and I bought this one the other day when I flew home from Egypt. I needed something light for the flight and managed 100 pages. Haven't read since I got home, but will continue reading it this week. It is an okay read, but I am not overly impressed.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. This is a book I have been meaning to read for a long time. It's a classic and I have read about 100 pages. It's a bit weird, but I like the writing and the weirdness. Anyone else read this? What are your thoughts?

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. Have been trying to chew through this for ages. I am deeply sorry for all affected by Autism or Asperger's Syndrome in your families, but I cannot get into the swing of it with this book. I find Christopher super-annoying. But will finish!

What is up next?

I rarely decide what I want to read next until it is actually time, but if I manage to finish the above books, I am planning to continue with my Challenges Lists and am thinking of The Color Purple (which I have home from the library) or To Kill a Mockingbird (which I have on my shelf)

The Associate by John Grisham

Haven't read a John Grisham legal thriller for ages, when I found this in a hotel in Egypt on my recent vacation. Decided to grab it for a quick read. It is about Kyle, who is about to graduate and become a lawyer. He wants to work bro bono for some years, paying back to society and all that, but before graduating, he is being called to a meeting with some suspicious types who want him to do their business. For various reasons, he ends up accepting their "offer", which really is no offer at all, and soon after his graduation he finds himself in an enormous firm in New York, being worked to death as a first year associate. He has the suspicious types following his every step, his apartment is wired and he is generally finding himself in a huge jam, of which he cannot see a way out. But Kyle is a ressourceful young man, and a smart one as well, and he begins his own investigations and plans to get rid of his shadows and their threat of ruining his career if he is not doing as told.

This legal thriller is fine enough for a beach- or poolside read, and I was well entertained and found the writing fine and with a good flow. But nothing more. Not much substance and written like its to become a movie, rather sooner than later. I used to like Grisham's earlier works, then he sort of got "James Patterson Syndrome" and begun whipping out one bad book after another. He has not reached the low of James Patterson yet, though, and I can recommend this book as an entertaining, fast read.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

What an amazing book. I've had it collecting dust on my book shelf for almost a year before I randomly picked it for next read and what a read! I cannot understand why I waited so long reading this modern, funny and tragic masterpiece, written in an up-beat tongue-in-cheek yet traditional style, which I adored from the beginning. There are some one-liners written in Spanish throughout the book, and while I don't speak or read a word Spanish, it wasn't a problem at all. It just added spice to the story. There are also a lot of references to modern American literature, films and other pop-culture phenomena, and while I got most of them, there were some I didn't get at all. But again, it wasn't a problem.

Yunior is the narrator of the story. The story about the Dominican-American nerd, geeky and grossly fat Oscar de Léon, living with his aggressive mother, drugged out uncle and pretty sister Lola in a ghetto in New Jersey. Yunior is the on again - off again boyfriend of Lola and he tells the story of this family, who believe that a fukú is looming over their family. A fukú is a Dominican curse and it does seem like Oscar and his family has been unlucky for most of their family's story.

The book is divided into several main chapters, dealing with the lives of Oscar, his mother and Lola. Yunior is very much a part of both Oscar's and Lola's life, so we also get to know him quite well, being both a by-stander and directly involved in things.

The main parts revolve around Oscar's childhood, his mother's childhood in Dominican Rebuplic/Santo Domingo, Lola's puberty/teen years, Oscar's and Yunior's college years and finally their vacation as adults in Santo Domingo.

It is a book about love, hate, coming of age, South American life under dictators and much more. The story is pretty straightforward and it evoked many different feelings in me. I loved Oscar and felt his pain when he, again and again, never had any luck with the ladies (as opposed to Yunior who lived his college years walking from bed to bed). I was mad with Oscar and Lola's mother, who loomed aggressively over their lives, being one of the most bitchy mothers I have encountered in literature, but at the same time I understood where she was coming from after having learned about her childhood.

The story has a flavor of magic realism, but the writing is a definite 21. century whereas Gabriel Garcia Marquez may feel a bit oldfashioned and Isabel Allende's books may feel a bit "female", this is very contemporary. So very highly recommendable and I wish I hadn't read it yet!

This is read as part of the Read Your Own Books Challenge.

See you in a couple of weeks

I am leaving for Egypt tomorrow, Thuesday 26th of February and I return March 12.

Not sure I will be able to get online much but look forward to return to Blogland when I am back home!

I haven't been as active the past weeks as I have wanted to, but life has gotten in the way.

Thanks for all your comments on my blog and thanks for writing such enjoyable blogs all over the world!

See you :o)

River Nile and western mountains of Luxor in Egypt (ancient Thebes)

Wordless Wednesday

Coffins in St. Petri Church in Copenhagen, Denmark
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Egyptology Weekend: Temple of Karnak

This weekend my topic is the huge Temple of Karnak. The temple, which is actually a whole complex of temples, is one of the largests temple-complexes in the world. It is about 1.5 kilometers long and almost one kilometer broad. It is located in the modern town of Luxor in Southern Egypt on the Easterne bank of the Nile. In ancient times, the main part of the temple was dedicated to the god Amun and his family: his wife Mut and son Khonsu. Amun was one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt, so it is not wonder that this temple is so huge. Below is an image of the ground-plan of the temple.

The temple was founded around 2000 BCE and for the next 2000 years, almost every pharaoh build, demolished, extended and maintained this temple. Today, the ruin is by far one of the most magnificent ruins of the world. Below you see the facade of the temple. Upon entering, you walk down a long avenue of sphinxes and enter through a large pylon which is the gateway into the temple.This image is from flickr and is shot by the user Yi-Chen.

Most Egyptian temples are build from the same "master-plan". There is a row of features, that you'll find in most temples. One of those features is the pylon, fronting every temple. This one in Karnak is huge. You can see niches as well as windows in the pylon. Long, thin flagpoles were placed in the niches and they were tied up from the windows so that they would not break. Usually, a pylon is decorated with reliefs of various gods and goddesses and pharaoh smiting enemies in front of the gods. But the pylon in the Karnak Temple was never finished, so it has no decorations. Below is an image of one of the most famous features in the Karnak Temple: The great columned hall.
The hall was build by the pharaohs Sety I and his son Ramesses II. It is impossible to show an image or to describe just how enormous this hall actually is. It is a virtual forest of columns, more than 100, some of them more than 20 meters high. In ancient times, the hall had a roof and it symbolised the plants, the fertility, along the Nile. Some of the relief on the columns are very pretty, like you can see on the image below.

The duck and the sun disc spells Sa Ra, meaning Son of the Sun God Re. Immediately in front and behind the Sa Ra-glyphs, you can see the cartocuhes (name-rings) of pharaoh Ramesses II. The glyphs then means: Ramesses II is the Son of Re (but then again all pharaohs were sons of Re anyway).

The temple, like every other temple, also had a Sacred Lake, where priests could purify themselves before attending to rituals. You also needed obelisks, long, thin stone-poles pointing towards the sun and inscribed with whatever name of the pharaoh who gave the obelisk to the temple.

Karnak Temple was called Ipet-Isut in ancient times. That means "Most Select of Places". Today, this ancient holy ground is still a very select place, visited by thousands and thousands of tourists every day. But it is so huge that it rarely feels crowded. Or at least you can always find a spot where, if you really strain your ears, you can still hear the footsteps of priests and workers echoing down through the millenia ;o) And there is so much more to be said about this temple, that it will end up being a very, very long post if I do not stop now.
Wikipedia has a decent article here and the Tour Egypt website describe the temple here. You can see my flickr images from the temple here.
For the coming two weekends I'll actually be in Egypt, so no Egyptology Weekend, as I will not be able to be online every day.

Five Questions Interview

About a week ago, I read a post @ Sophisticated Dorkiness, where Kim was "being interviewed" by a fellow blogger, who had mailed five different questions. Kim offered to "interview" those of us who wanted it, and I signed up at once. I just got my set of questions for the interview - thanks Kim - and below I will do my best to answer them.

1. If you could go to visit time in history, what time would you want to go to?

This is actually hard. Of course it would be fun and interesting to visit Egypt sometime around 1200 BCE, but I have also often wanted to visit Ancient Rome and Medieval Europe. For Ancient Rome I would wish to be transported back to around year 0. Augustus was the emperor and things were definitely happening in many places around that time. That would be interesting to see. I have always had a thing for "Medievalness". I just adore that dark, dank, plague-ridden period and would really like to see Copenhagen - my home city - through a Medieval person's eyes. We still have ruins and "leftovers" in the inner city from the late Medieval period, and it is so interesting!

2. Do you do anything differently when you blog in Danish as opposed to when you blog in English?

In the beginning, I did the same at both blogs. I could review a Danish book only at the Danish blog if that book was not translated to English, but other than that, they blogs were the same. There are not that many serious book-bloggers having Danish book-blogs and after a few months, I sort of got annoyed with the lack of comments and interaction on the Danish blog, so I have skipped doing any memes, Egyptology Weekends and so on in Danish. The book reviews I do both places. I feel okay comfortable blogging in English, although there are things which are much easier to express in Danish, but I would wish for more active Danish book-bloggers. I am down to visiting a few Danish book-blogs myself, but fortunately they are all of a high quality and run by interesting people, whom I have enjoyed meeting in "blog-land".

3. What is one book on Egyptology that you think every person should read?

Ack. That is a tough one. First of all, it really depends what the person's interests are. Are they about general history? Pharaonic art? Burial customs? Perhaps a certain period? Let me turn the question around and ask: what is one book I think every person who wish to become an egyptologist should read? That makes it a little easier, as the one thing every egyptologist must learn is how to read the hieroglyphs. Without the knowledge of reading what them old folks actually wrote, we are not able to understand anything at all. So learning to read is the basic of all Egyptology-studies. In recent years, there has been made quite an amount of new textbooks, but the textbook every student comes across is a classic and a standard work. First edition was published in 1924 and it is still being re-published. It called: Egyptian Grammar and it is by Sir Alan Gardiner (long dead). That book is the base. And I've cried many salty tears getting through it. Its not that much fun, but the reward is, that after finishing it, you can read hieroglyhps! Click on the link to see the book on Amazon.

4. If you could only read one author for the next year, what author would you choose? Why?

This is also a tough one. I am tempted to say something like Stephen King, because he has written so many books that I haven't read, so there would be enough to keep me occupied for some months. It has been sometime since I was a King-fan and I haven't read any of his newer works. Many of the authors I read these days has only written a couple of books, and that is not enough for a whole year! But I still haven't read all of Paul Auster's books either, and as he is definitely one of my fave authors, I think it would be him I would choose.

5. What is your favorite thing about keeping a books blog?

Definitely meeting other (book-) bloggers, reading their blogs, sharing ideas, writing posts which people are actually commenting on, messing around with blog-designs, finding new "assingments" and much more. And it is always fun to review a book and then have people coming by saying how they liked/disliked the same work. I really think it is great fun. It is also a way for me to write, since I am interested in journalism and writing myself.

Thanks again to Kim for this interview!

The image is from the flickr-user svenwerk and it is called 5.

Wordless Wednesday

Auguste Rodin: The Thinker. Image taken in the back garden of Copenhagen museum New Carlsberg Glyptotek.

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Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays are hosted by MizB at Should be Reading, where you can also check out other blogger's links to their Teaser Tuesdays-posts.

The rules are simple:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

Here is my teaser:

"She didn't bother talking to me unless it was to make death threats."

The teaser is from p. 61 of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, and it is by far the best book I have read in a very long time. I am not finished yet, though, but am sitting here wondering why the heck I haven't gotten around to read it before now, since I have owned it for more than a year.....

Egyptology Weekend: Anubis - God of Embalming

Welcome to yet another Egyptology Weekend-post, although today is Monday.

This time a little info about the jackal-headed god Anubis.

"The spiritual world created by the ancient Egyptians was a richly fascinating one which remains unique in the history of human religion. The character of that spiritual world was both mysterious and manifest, at once accesible and hidden, for although Egyptian religion was often shrouded in layers of myth at ritual it nevertheless permeated the ancient civilization of the Nile and ultimately shaped, sustained and directed Egyptian culture in almost every imaginable way."

Anubis, the jackal-headed god who is found in numerous cartoons, computer-games and horror movies as one of the "bad guys" is actually the complete opposite. Despite his somewhat demonic looks, he was one of the "good guys" in the ancient Egyptian pantheon.

The image above is taken at the New Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. It is the head of a life-size (human size) statue of Anubis. His head is a jackal and his body is human.

One of his main "areas" was, that he was "foremost of the westerners". Most cemetaries and other cultic buildings associated with death, burial and the afterlife was placed on the western side of the Nile, and thus the westerne side was understood as "the dead's side". Anubis, as "foremost of the westerners" refers to his "job" as the one who lead the deceased on their way into the netherworld.

Above you see Anubis leading a deceased lady. She is dressed in fine, transparent linen and wears an elaborate wig and a perfume-cone on her head. The image is from Metropolitan in New York and has been taken by flickr-user ggnyc.

Anubis was also God of Embalming. He was master of the per wabet, which was the ritual tent or pavillion, where the deceased were embalmed. According to myth, it was Anubis who made the mummy - the first mummy - which was that of Osiris who then became ruler of the netherworld and thus he became God of Embalming.

The image above shows Anubis preparing a mummy. The image is a tomb-painting and has been photographed by flickr-user pjwar.

Anubis was also guardian of the Necropolis and had a number of other "jobs" that he had to take care of.

Anubis is usually depicted as a man with a jackal's head or as a jackal resting on top of a shrine.

If you want to read more about Egyptian gods and goddesses, I recommend: The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by Richard H. Wilkinson, from where I have also taken the long quote in the beginning of this post.

Oracle Night by Paul Auster

I personally think that Paul Auster writes like a dream. And Oracle Night is no exception. The writing is really good. And for the first 100 pages (the book is less than 200 pages in total) or more, I also enjoyed the story and was looking forward to see where it would lead. But I can't say that I feel much about the ending, which, unfortunately, ruined the whole book for me. So while I am a big Auster-fan, in my book Oracle Night is no match for some of his other works.

Oracle Night takes place in New York as so many of Auster's books. The main character in the inital story is Sid Orr, a recovering author, who just got back to life after month's of severe illness. His story is the frame. Within this frame there are at least two other stories, where the second story acts as a frame for the third. I did have to keep very concentrated because of all those different stories, and it was not as elegantly executed as I have seen before. There are other layers inside the other frames as well, making this read a bit too convoluted for my likings.

Sid Orr's story is about him recovering and trying to get back into the swing of writing. He thinks about his wife, Grace, they go visiting their friend, the well-known write John Trause and he walks around Brooklyn, visiting paper-stores and other places he accidentially fall into during his walks.

The other "main" story is the story Sid begins writing. That is a story about a man who, with no real reason, leaves his wife and goes hiding in Kansas City. And the third story is inside this second story. The man leaving his wife has gotten hold of a book about a blind mand surviving World War II.

All the way through the book Sid leaves footnotes explaining things about his life, about his work, his wife etc. I found the writing good, but it felt too silly with the footnotes which often read over 3-4 pages, and you had to go back and forth.

After all those stories has been put out there, the ending fell very flat in my opinion. I don't expect every book to have a nice and clean cut ending, and specially not in books and stories of this nature, but it still annoyed me pretty much that the ending was so lame.

This book is read as part of the RYOB-challenge and the Read and Review-challenge.

Poll results

As part of the Blog Improvement Project, I made a little poll. My question was: Do you like Paul Auster's books?

One person replied they really liked his works

Two persons replied they liked some of his works

And a staggering 14 persons replied Paul who?

Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness suggested that I made a post about Paul Auster since so many don't know him, and that is something I plan to do very soon. He is one of my favorite authors and an important one at that as well, and while I certainly agree that he is not for all, I still think he has written a couple of works which, in time, will be considered modern classics. Anyway, more about that later!

Thanks for joining my little experiment. I will definitely make more polls. Its fun.

The image is from flickr, taken by Jef Aérosol and the title is "Paul Auster".

Blog Improvement Project # 3. Wrap Up.

I managed to do 4 post out of 10 for this round of BIP. I can't say that I am satisfied and normally I would have put more work into it that I feel I have done. This round of BIP just fell at the same time where I have had little time to be online. To add to that, I have been in a real-life-is-taking-over rut and really haven't felt inspired, despite feeling inspired initially by Kim's original post about this round.

I guess that it how it goes sometime and I don't plan on dwelling on it too much.

Generally I am feeling very inspired by the whole project, so if I do not manage to fulfill a couple of rounds, I guess that is not something I should worry about at all.

Anyway, here are the links to the posts I made for Round 3 of the BIP:

My links list

My short post

My list post

My poll post

Thanks Kim for giving this a lot of thought, for being an inspiration and for taking the time to put together the different "tasks".

Wordless Wednesday

Fried pork and apples
For more images from Wordless Wednesday participants click here.