Reading in Reykjavík

We all have our favourite childhood reads. These are some of mine. Note: Many of my childhood favourites were books written in Icelandic by Icelanders and have never been translated into English (although several exist in Scandinavian, Dutch and German translations). I am leaving them out of the list as they can’t possibly be of interest to the majority of my readers. . The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen . I was given his collected fairy tales as a christening present and was familiar with many of the stories before I could read them for myself. My mother used to read from them to me, but it was a proud day when I was able to read them by myself and discover all the dark stories she never did read, like The Red Shoes and The Shadow. The Moomintroll books by Tove Jansson. I first discovered these on the book-shelves of some friends of mine, and later I would borrow them repeatedly from the library. Enid Blyton’s Adventure books (and to a lesser extent, the Five Find-Outers ...

It's Tuesday, and that means the The Broke and the Bookish are accepting contributions to their Top Ten Tuesdays meme. There is a little bit of an anti-Valentine's Day sentiment going on, as they are asking for books that broke the readers' hearts a little. Please visit some of the other participating blogs. If you like books full of emotion, you may find some great reads. Warning: SPOILERS ahead! Anne of Green Gables , Anne’s House of Dreams and Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery. All concern deaths. If you have read them, you’ll know which ones. I’m counting them as one, because of the similar themes and because the books all belong to the same series. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The book was fine - but the ending of the story of Arwen and Aragorn in the appendixes was heartbreaking. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Not because of Beth’s death, although that was sad, but because Jo’s dreams never came true. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pul...

I read 14 books in January, in a number of genres. Out of those 14, six were e-books and five were books I had started reading before the beginning of the month. I have at least 20 more books I started reading at some point and then either decided to save for later or forgot about, and now I want to try to finish some of them. Among the books I started and finished within the month was the first book I have read in its entirety on a mobile device. I decided to review that experience and will discuss the device, the software and the overall reading experience in a review within a few days. The books were divided between fiction and non-fiction as follows:  Of the 6 fiction volumes, two were myth-based fantasies, one was a science fiction novella, one a romance, one a mystery-suspense novel and one a collection of cartoons.  Of the 8 non-fiction volumes, three were about fashion, two were biographies, two history books and one was about the natural sciences. As I men...