This one is another Dutch one that I brought back from my recent trip to NL. Now... this one has a bit of a tale attached to it. I thought I knew what this one was going to be about... but as I started reading it I found out that I was wrong. In a way this is good news as this book was a pleasant surprise and it means that there is another one out there that I need to get. Another good thing is that half way through to reading this one I remembered the title of the one I thought this one was going to be! It's on my Christmas list now.
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
Oorlogswinter - Jan Terlouw
This is another book which is supposedly meant for young people but I still found it a very good read. Not sure what that says about me... hoping it says a lot about the author, that he has managed to keep the story interesting even if you are of slightly more advanced years.
It deals with young Michiel who is a 15 year old boy who is trying to survive during the final winter of World War 2. For him and his family it is relatively easy as they live in the part of Holland that still has working farms so it is able to sustain the locals and some of the refugees flocking in form the cities. Michiel and his family are finding that they seem to have a lot of distant relatives who come to call and are only to happy to take some food for their journey back to the cities in the west.
Michiel is a young lad who does his best to stay out of trouble whilst scrounging up food and other useful items for his family left, right and centre. He kind of unintentionally ends up getting involved in the war and resistance work when he gets delegated the responsibility of taking care of a crashed and injured English pilot who is in hiding. He even ends up helping him escape. It is difficult for Michiel as he is not sure who to trust and who he can ask for help. People he assumes are safe and to be trusted turn out to be the opposite and those whom he avoids might just be the ones to help him. But... being a young lad Michiel kind of feels his way through the final days of the war by living of his wits and having a fair bit of good luck.
Although some of the things that Michiel experiences are kind of all fun and games there is a very serious side to the work he does and to the occupation of the country he lives. One of his friends gets hurt in a attempt by the resistance to rob a local distribution office and then, to make matters worse a dead German soldier is found in the woods. Naturally with all this going on someone has to pay and the Germans waste no time in rounding up some of the more important men of the village. They initially keep them hostage and let the people of the village know that they want the person who killed the soldier to come forward or else. Unfortunately for Michiel his father is the mayor and he is one of the men who is rounded up. Even more unfortunately for Michiel it is his father, together with some others who is made an example of. It is tough for a young lad to deal with but Michiel has to keep it together and take care of his family and those others who come to depend on him. A tough job for any young lad, let alone one trapped in the final stages of the war.
Michiel makes it to the end of the war alive so in a way I guess, it all ends well. But... he has lost some of his family, friends and most of all a lot of his innocence.
Title: Oorlogswinter
Author: Jan Terlouw
169 pages
Lemniscaat
ISBN# 978-90-6069-118-2
Books to be read: 129
Monday, 18 August 2014
Sunday, 10 August 2014
Apples are not good for you!
This next one is by one of my favourite authors and if nothing else it serves to illustrate that fruit can get you killed! This may be true only in fiction but hey... why take any chances?!
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie
In this one Poirot and his little grey cells are called in to investigate a murder that happened at a Hallowe'en party. It is kind of a heinous little crime, especially as it concerns the killing of a young child... well actually two... Almost three. A friend of Poirot's asks for his help when a murder is committed in the village she lives in so our good friend potters down and gets to work. As usual he does not seem to be doing much of anything, certainly not much relating to the murder that happened and wastes his time talking to people about strange happenings of the past and other deaths and strange occurrences that happened years ago. Fortunately Hastings in not here to get all riled up about it and I could read about Poirot pottering about all day if I had to, so I was happy for the leisurely pace the story developed. The one thing that was a bit disturbing in this one was the fact that it involves children being killed. Innocent, all be it silly children being killed. Both pushed with their heads under water until they drowned. The fact that the killer has to strike twice is bad enough but for both to be children that only get killed because they want to feel important and clever is kind of sad.
But, back to our hero. Poirot, after some wandering about gets to the crux of it! He finds out that the girl at the party was killed for saying she saw a murder. Unfortunately for the killer this girl was not the one who really saw the murder all those years ago and the killer has to strike again to prevent being exposed, killing another child. After all this I kind of had a good idea of who the person was who had really seen the murder all those years ago but not yet what that murder then entailed. This takes some more magical deducting from the master behind the scenes, leaving us as the reader in the dark as usual. He pieces together the life story of two of the characters of the book and exposes them for what they are. Ruthless, criminally indulgent towards themselves and selfish to the max. In the end things get a little tense as Poirot has to resort to some hired hands to stop another murder from happening but we manage to get to the end without a third child dying which is a bonus any way you look at it.
For me in this one there were not so many red herrings brought up as the potential murderer. It seems that most of Poirot's, and our time is spent in getting to grips with the history of the people involved in the story and figuring out what is truth and what not. That is perhaps why the dash for the real murderer in the end is quite nice and comforting.
Title: Hallowe'en Party
Author: Agatha Christie
336 pages
Harper Collins
ISBN# 0-00-712068-0
Books to be read: 130
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie
In this one Poirot and his little grey cells are called in to investigate a murder that happened at a Hallowe'en party. It is kind of a heinous little crime, especially as it concerns the killing of a young child... well actually two... Almost three. A friend of Poirot's asks for his help when a murder is committed in the village she lives in so our good friend potters down and gets to work. As usual he does not seem to be doing much of anything, certainly not much relating to the murder that happened and wastes his time talking to people about strange happenings of the past and other deaths and strange occurrences that happened years ago. Fortunately Hastings in not here to get all riled up about it and I could read about Poirot pottering about all day if I had to, so I was happy for the leisurely pace the story developed. The one thing that was a bit disturbing in this one was the fact that it involves children being killed. Innocent, all be it silly children being killed. Both pushed with their heads under water until they drowned. The fact that the killer has to strike twice is bad enough but for both to be children that only get killed because they want to feel important and clever is kind of sad.
But, back to our hero. Poirot, after some wandering about gets to the crux of it! He finds out that the girl at the party was killed for saying she saw a murder. Unfortunately for the killer this girl was not the one who really saw the murder all those years ago and the killer has to strike again to prevent being exposed, killing another child. After all this I kind of had a good idea of who the person was who had really seen the murder all those years ago but not yet what that murder then entailed. This takes some more magical deducting from the master behind the scenes, leaving us as the reader in the dark as usual. He pieces together the life story of two of the characters of the book and exposes them for what they are. Ruthless, criminally indulgent towards themselves and selfish to the max. In the end things get a little tense as Poirot has to resort to some hired hands to stop another murder from happening but we manage to get to the end without a third child dying which is a bonus any way you look at it.
For me in this one there were not so many red herrings brought up as the potential murderer. It seems that most of Poirot's, and our time is spent in getting to grips with the history of the people involved in the story and figuring out what is truth and what not. That is perhaps why the dash for the real murderer in the end is quite nice and comforting.
Title: Hallowe'en Party
Author: Agatha Christie
336 pages
Harper Collins
ISBN# 0-00-712068-0
Books to be read: 130
I blame George
I have been meaning to do my reviews for the past few days but my latest music purchase has kept me from getting to work on them.... George Ezra is proving to be quite the little distraction. Well at least, that is what I am telling myself. It is probably more a combination of being busy with nothing in particular and a good dose of procrastination that has kept me from doing my civic duty.
But, not one to be able to bear looking at a stack of books randomly sitting in my table for too long I finally managed to get myself in the writing mood.
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
My first thought after I had finished the book was "I wonder how they managed to make more than one movie out of this one?" I can't say I was really disappointed with it but can't say I was completely bowled over by it either. If I had to break the world record for briefly describing a book I would say this one was Hobbit meets dwarfs (funny), goes on adventure discovers he is a hero, finds a little "precious", does not kill the dragon (disappointing), gets involved in epic battle (chaaaaaarge) and goes home again.
It was good to get to meet Bilbo and to learn a little more about the attitude of the hobbits to travel - they hate it, and about being different - they hate that too. You also get to meet Gandalf, who seems to be doing a lot less magic in this one than he did in the Lord of the Rings. One thing that I did have to remind myself not to do was to see these dwarfs in my head as similar to the ones that are in the Disney movie. Tolkien's dwarfs would have my guts for breakfast if I did. These guys are dyed in the wool fighting machines and not to be confused by the fluffy Disney version... and they are all the better for it.
One of the most fun parts of the book is the chapters where the dwarfs descend one by one on Bilbo, eat all his food, and decide that they will give him a shot as their main Burglar. It seems an unlikely task to be put upon the home-bound hobbit but it turns out Bilbo is a fast learner and ends up getting them all out of a scrape or two. As they set off on their trip to find the Lonely Mountain, Smaug and their gold they get captured several times, almost killed by lots of spiders but also get to spend some time with Beorn and the Elves. Beorn is one of my favourite characters. He is a man built like a bear who has this perfect set up tucked away in the forest where every animal seems happy and no danger could possibly assail the posse. Along the way Bilbo meets Gollum and has a riddles contest with him. Bilbo is quite good at this riddles thing... better than I would be. We also see how Bilbo comes to have the ring (by a complete fluke). Yes - The Ring... the one that launches a three part follow up story). The scrapping that happens on the way to the Lonely mountain is suitably entertaining and you can tell that along the way Bilbo grows in confidence in his role as burglar and escape artist. Although at times Gandalf has to step in and take charge to keep them on track and out of the cooking pots.The dwarfs want the gold but Bilbo is the one that come up with the ideas to get them out of the messes they are in when they meet a new foe. He enables them to succeed. Therefore I found it a bit of a let down that he was not the one to kill Smaug. He finds his way down the mountain to taunt Smaug and he squirrels away some gold without Smaug noticing him but in the end Smaug is felled by a human arrow.
The battle at the end is Epic... with a capital E. Everyone turns up for it; human, elf , dwarf and Beorn. Naturally they conquer evil in the end but it is still nice to have them all fight together to achieve it. I think Tolkien was an eternal optimist of the good in mankind and it truly shows in battle like this. good will conquer evil! Even if he has get every last animal on earth to fight at Good's side.
Bilbo is never the same once he gets back home. I think he has developed a certain kind of restlessness that comes with having great adventures, seeing and exploring new words. New impressions are always needed and things are never quite the same once you get back home. Especially not if you have to get your own family to believe that you are actually not dead and to please give back your furniture.
As I was reading this one I was quite aware that it made sense to read this one before reading the Lord of the Rings. Characters and mythology is introduced that would have helped give more depth to the follow up. However, still think that the Lord of the Rings trilogy holds up well without having read this one. It is a nice addition to it but not essential reading before you plunge into that epic tale... Tolkien might disagree?
Liked it? Yes I did. Almost tempted me to go and read the Lord of the Rings again. If it wasn't for the little matter of about 130 books still left to read I might have.
Title: The Hobbit
Author: JRR Tolkien
280 pages
Harper Collins
ISBN# 0-261-10221-4
Books to be read: 131
But, not one to be able to bear looking at a stack of books randomly sitting in my table for too long I finally managed to get myself in the writing mood.
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
My first thought after I had finished the book was "I wonder how they managed to make more than one movie out of this one?" I can't say I was really disappointed with it but can't say I was completely bowled over by it either. If I had to break the world record for briefly describing a book I would say this one was Hobbit meets dwarfs (funny), goes on adventure discovers he is a hero, finds a little "precious", does not kill the dragon (disappointing), gets involved in epic battle (chaaaaaarge) and goes home again.
It was good to get to meet Bilbo and to learn a little more about the attitude of the hobbits to travel - they hate it, and about being different - they hate that too. You also get to meet Gandalf, who seems to be doing a lot less magic in this one than he did in the Lord of the Rings. One thing that I did have to remind myself not to do was to see these dwarfs in my head as similar to the ones that are in the Disney movie. Tolkien's dwarfs would have my guts for breakfast if I did. These guys are dyed in the wool fighting machines and not to be confused by the fluffy Disney version... and they are all the better for it.
One of the most fun parts of the book is the chapters where the dwarfs descend one by one on Bilbo, eat all his food, and decide that they will give him a shot as their main Burglar. It seems an unlikely task to be put upon the home-bound hobbit but it turns out Bilbo is a fast learner and ends up getting them all out of a scrape or two. As they set off on their trip to find the Lonely Mountain, Smaug and their gold they get captured several times, almost killed by lots of spiders but also get to spend some time with Beorn and the Elves. Beorn is one of my favourite characters. He is a man built like a bear who has this perfect set up tucked away in the forest where every animal seems happy and no danger could possibly assail the posse. Along the way Bilbo meets Gollum and has a riddles contest with him. Bilbo is quite good at this riddles thing... better than I would be. We also see how Bilbo comes to have the ring (by a complete fluke). Yes - The Ring... the one that launches a three part follow up story). The scrapping that happens on the way to the Lonely mountain is suitably entertaining and you can tell that along the way Bilbo grows in confidence in his role as burglar and escape artist. Although at times Gandalf has to step in and take charge to keep them on track and out of the cooking pots.The dwarfs want the gold but Bilbo is the one that come up with the ideas to get them out of the messes they are in when they meet a new foe. He enables them to succeed. Therefore I found it a bit of a let down that he was not the one to kill Smaug. He finds his way down the mountain to taunt Smaug and he squirrels away some gold without Smaug noticing him but in the end Smaug is felled by a human arrow.
The battle at the end is Epic... with a capital E. Everyone turns up for it; human, elf , dwarf and Beorn. Naturally they conquer evil in the end but it is still nice to have them all fight together to achieve it. I think Tolkien was an eternal optimist of the good in mankind and it truly shows in battle like this. good will conquer evil! Even if he has get every last animal on earth to fight at Good's side.
Bilbo is never the same once he gets back home. I think he has developed a certain kind of restlessness that comes with having great adventures, seeing and exploring new words. New impressions are always needed and things are never quite the same once you get back home. Especially not if you have to get your own family to believe that you are actually not dead and to please give back your furniture.
As I was reading this one I was quite aware that it made sense to read this one before reading the Lord of the Rings. Characters and mythology is introduced that would have helped give more depth to the follow up. However, still think that the Lord of the Rings trilogy holds up well without having read this one. It is a nice addition to it but not essential reading before you plunge into that epic tale... Tolkien might disagree?
Liked it? Yes I did. Almost tempted me to go and read the Lord of the Rings again. If it wasn't for the little matter of about 130 books still left to read I might have.
Title: The Hobbit
Author: JRR Tolkien
280 pages
Harper Collins
ISBN# 0-261-10221-4
Books to be read: 131
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