A book a week - Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Some might not find reading a book a week to be a very daunting task at all, some devour books like they were air. Not me, not anymore.

I often find it hard to sit and read for a longer period of time, not because I don’t like it, quite the opposite. I enjoy reading to such extents that everything else disappears and I need help snapping out of it to do important things like eating and sleeping. So I try reading in short snippets, restricting myself by putting a bookmark where I need to stop reading and check my vital signs. It actually works, together with a big side portion of discipline.

Because of my fear of falling into what I like to call a reading coma and because of all the various projects I’m involved in, I rarely take as much time as I would like for this wonderful task called reading. So I decided, almost two weeks ago, that I should read one book a week and take notes on my process and my various reflections about the plot or author. Anything the book makes me think of, really.

So far, second week into it I’m still on target and I’m currently enjoying a reread of Douglas Adams - (The Ultimate) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Since the volume is comprised of five separate novels, I count it as five weeks safe reading. Slow start, nothing too extreme.
Those of you who read my previous post will know that this is a very dear book to me. I find Adams way of playing with with words absolutely wonderful. The way he compares the trivial issues with things of decisive importance in the same breath makes logic and reason take on a whole new meaning.

I’m not really capable of writing a review of the books themselves and I wouldn’t even think about doing it until I had finished all five. So I’ll just leave you with my opinion that if you are a lover of the slightly crazy crew of Monty Python, if you’re a sucker for word play and remarkable turn of events, or if you would just like to know the answer of life, the universe and everything - this is a book for you.

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”

I’m off to continue reading, let’s hope someone wakes me up in time for dinner.

What these 15 books have done for me

Following is a list of 15 of the most important books in my life. They are in no special order, numbered only so that I could hold track of the fact that it should only be 15 books on the list. I hope you'll like it!

Before we start, thanks to Astrid and Cat that got me inspired to write this list!

1
Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
The first time I tried to read it I only got a few pages into it and absolutely hated it. I couldn’t understand how anyone could think that *that* drivel was one of the best books in the world. Then, a few years ago on a sunny spring afternoon, I was in Belfast visiting a friend and was trying to get some alone time to pass quickly. I walked into a second hand shop and saw a bookshelf where this tattered and frayed old pocketbook lay and I bought it thinking that I’d give it another chance, in it’s original language. I forgot about it for a few months and one rainy summer day I picked it up and started reading. I read slowly, savouring every word on every page, afraid that if I read it too quickly it would also end. A love was ignited and it still burns, living alongside a deep respect for its author, who is today one of my greatest inspirations as a linguist, writer and foremost as a reader.

2
The Belgariad - David & Leigh Eddings
This is the book series that I’ve read more than anything else. I’m up in over 15 times of rereading it and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. They’re not written in a particularly beautiful way, the story is, in lack of other words, predictable and filled of all the fantasy stereotypes that if it had been written today, all critics would have sighed and threw it in a corner after just a few chapters. But I just can’t help loving it.

3
God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
I’ll just give a quote from the book on this one
"It didn't matter that the story had begun, because Kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings."

4
House of the Spirits - Isabelle Allende
Just because it’s a beautiful story.

5
Sold - Zana Muhsen
The first biography I ever read, it sparked an interest in me about the lives of others. I wanted to know and feel the things they had been through and I could learn without going through all those horrors and struggles myself. All these people who had helped change the world, if they were famous or not didn’t matter to me, as long as it was ‘for real’.

6
Live Girls - Beth Nugent
For I have not before or after, read any other book where I’ve met: a young woman who sells tickets in a porn theater, her boss who is a wife-murderer, his oafy nephew, and an anorexic drag queen, all existing in unwavering misery - and ended up loving the book.

7
Let the Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist
It has vampires, but not like the sparkly ones like in the films. It has violence, but more shattering and heart wrenching. It has the Swedish 70’s but without the hippies and collectives of peace lovers. It has a cold beating heart and unimaginable terror and disgust.

8
Human Harbour (Människohamn) - John Ajvinde Lindqvist
Another excellent book by Lindqvist. Expected release, in English, 2010 or 2011.

9
The Brothers Lionheart (Bröderna Lejonhjärta)- Astrid Lindgren
My all time favorite story. The love between two brothers that extends even death. Hope, loyalty and pacifism mixed together with disease, death, tyranny, betrayal and rebellion. It contains a magic that can only take place in “the campfires and storytelling days”

10
The Darkest Room (Nattfåk) - Johan Theorin
An great crime novel. I don't usually like reading crime, so that makes this book extra special.

11
Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
I’m not going to say much about these, everyone has heard of Harry Potter. Think whatever you want of me, but I like them and I’m proud of it. I like the symbolism, the references to mythology, WW2 and everyday life. I don’t care very much for the films since my favorite characters get way too little screen time and the storyline has been treated like something mashed into a paper shredder. If you haven’t read the books yet, why not give them a try?

12
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Adams has a way of playing with words and sentences in a way that just makes me purr like a kitten, happily playing with the tassels at the end of a big fluffy scarf. It is nothing but sheer enjoyment to jump into a world that in the most illogical way makes absolutely no sense at all, but still is perfectly evident that there is no other way things could work out. At least not when you look at it through the eyes of Adams.

13
Nordstedts Franska Ordbok (French/Swedish Dictionary)
I have never used a dictionary so meticulously and frequently as this one. And it has still never failed to help me out of the ditches of a language barrier.

14
Lingonben (Lingonberry legs), collected lyrics by Povel Ramel
One of my dearest possessions. Nonsensical, funny and beautiful. In this book I can find my most precious childhood memories, singing with my mother.

15
Whitenose meets Browneye (my very literal translation of the title) - Marie Louise Rudolfsson
I had just turned five years old and someone had given me a few books for my birthday. Real grown-up books, without pictures, just a bunch of text. To me they seemed to be the thickest books in the world but I would guess they were not many pages at all. The actual story about the little pony Whitenose who meets the deer Browneye is long since forgotten. But I will never forget the joy I felt after had finished my first non-illustrated book.