Book alphabet: R
1. Have you read a book that focuses on a rättegång (trial)?
My first thought was Witness for the Prosecution, but of course that's a movie. :-) There are trials in plenty of detective novels, though - how about another Christie with Sad Cypress? There are a lot of trial scenes in that one, and I find them very interesting, since we see so much from Elinor's POV and yet we manage to stay in the dark about whether or not she's guilty.
2. Do you have a romantic favourite novel?
This is a tricky one. I've read good books with lovers I like, but which I wouldn't call romantic, and I've read romantic books with lovers I like, but which I wouldn't call good (I have a Catherine Cookson novel in my bookshelf, for crying out loud!) and I've read good romantic books where I don't like the lovers. (Okay, that's pretty much just Jane Eyre; I love Jane, but Rochester is a douche.) Since I've watched so much Vampire Diaries lately, I'm going to say The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause, which manages to take a broody vampire/mortal girl love story and bring it to its logical conclusion: The vampire decides that his unlife sucks and kills himself.
All glibness aside, it's actually a quite touching tale about death and how we relate to its presence in our lives, right up to the point where we accept it. (I'm now wondering if the book goes through all the five steps - maybe I should reread it with that in mind.)
3. Religion affects us whether we're believers or not. Tell us of a book where religion is important.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. The "better than it sounds" entry about it being "Unhappily married ranchers debate the exact meaning of Genesis 4:16" isn't so far off. (Except that it's 4.7, damn it! 4.16 is just the title, 4.7 is the stuff they're debating.) I love the nature of the debate, and Caleb's struggle mirroring it - coming to the conclusion that we're not good or bad by nature or outside force, but that we each have a choice to make every day, every minute.
4. Finally I want you to tell us of a truly rolig (funny) book!
To be kind to my international readers, I'm going to say a book that can be read in any language (although audiobooks may be tricky): Andy Riley's The Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don't Want To Live Any More, with its sequel Return of the Bunny Suicides. For those of you who haven't seen them, they're two books with cartoons of rabbits killing themselves in inventive ways. Extra fun for the geeks, because of all the popular culture references - one rabbit even kills himself with a Harry Potter book.
It's also, of course, the source for today's LJ icon.
This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/500900.html and has
comments there.
My first thought was Witness for the Prosecution, but of course that's a movie. :-) There are trials in plenty of detective novels, though - how about another Christie with Sad Cypress? There are a lot of trial scenes in that one, and I find them very interesting, since we see so much from Elinor's POV and yet we manage to stay in the dark about whether or not she's guilty.
2. Do you have a romantic favourite novel?
This is a tricky one. I've read good books with lovers I like, but which I wouldn't call romantic, and I've read romantic books with lovers I like, but which I wouldn't call good (I have a Catherine Cookson novel in my bookshelf, for crying out loud!) and I've read good romantic books where I don't like the lovers. (Okay, that's pretty much just Jane Eyre; I love Jane, but Rochester is a douche.) Since I've watched so much Vampire Diaries lately, I'm going to say The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause, which manages to take a broody vampire/mortal girl love story and bring it to its logical conclusion: The vampire decides that his unlife sucks and kills himself.
All glibness aside, it's actually a quite touching tale about death and how we relate to its presence in our lives, right up to the point where we accept it. (I'm now wondering if the book goes through all the five steps - maybe I should reread it with that in mind.)
3. Religion affects us whether we're believers or not. Tell us of a book where religion is important.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. The "better than it sounds" entry about it being "Unhappily married ranchers debate the exact meaning of Genesis 4:16" isn't so far off. (Except that it's 4.7, damn it! 4.16 is just the title, 4.7 is the stuff they're debating.) I love the nature of the debate, and Caleb's struggle mirroring it - coming to the conclusion that we're not good or bad by nature or outside force, but that we each have a choice to make every day, every minute.
4. Finally I want you to tell us of a truly rolig (funny) book!
To be kind to my international readers, I'm going to say a book that can be read in any language (although audiobooks may be tricky): Andy Riley's The Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don't Want To Live Any More, with its sequel Return of the Bunny Suicides. For those of you who haven't seen them, they're two books with cartoons of rabbits killing themselves in inventive ways. Extra fun for the geeks, because of all the popular culture references - one rabbit even kills himself with a Harry Potter book.
It's also, of course, the source for today's LJ icon.
This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/500900.html and has
comments there.