tisdag 31 maj 2016

Book review: The Sense of an Ending

Title: The Sense of an Ending
Author: Julian Barnes
Genre: Fiction
Year published: 2011
Pages: ~192
A place to buy it: If you are in Sweden you can buy the book from Bokus, and if that's not the case you can buy it of Amazon.
Other: Winner of the Man Book Prize for Fiction in 2011
Previous book review: The List of My Desires

Beautiful and elegant

I absolutely loved this book. The story is told by Tony, and he is telling the reader a story that begun in his youth but ended much later. I don't want to reveal too much of the story, but his friend's suicide and ex girlfriend are involved, along with his dead friend's diary. It's an interesting story, but there was parts in the book when I almost felt like the story came in the way of the things I actually wanted to read about - philosophical thoughts and reflections revolving around issues like history, memory, life and death. I could have read a book twice as long with just old Tony reflecting and contemplating his life or just life in general. And that is something that very easily can become boring, but it was really beautifully written.

The story itself is quite subtle in the beginning, I didn't really grasp the plot - because the plot is not introduced right away - but it wasn't a problem, the way Julian Barnes write is good enough. It was towards the end that I understood everything much clearer, and when I was done reading the book I realized how elegantly the story was put out.

Calm, interesting and recommended

Part of the charm with this book is the beautiful language and the carefully played out plot in a good combination, but I also enjoy the fact that everything appears very calm. I never felt the writer hurrying something just to get to the end, it was like floating on a still river the whole time. In my opinion it's not many books that manages to be so calm and still be that interesting and not at all boring.

I highly recommend this book, it's a good read and you feel like the story is told directly to you. Young Tony and older Tony also show great character development, and the story is good. So whether you appreciate the words and language - like me - or if you think the plot makes the book, read it!

måndag 23 maj 2016

Photos from the lake

Hi everybody! In my last post I wrote a little about how I fell into the water of a lake when trying to row an inflatable boat with my friend. Last post was about the photos I took on our way home again, but I also have some photos that I took while we were there. None of them are of me falling into the water though, I will have to disappoint you if you were hoping for that. But I'm actually really happy with these photos.

It's nice to get out and take some landscape photos sometimes, especially this day since the weather was perfect. It was a little bit cloudy, but as I've said previously that really don't matter when you are taking photos, it's actually to prefer since direct sunlight gets a bit to sharp. Or at least that is my opinion about photo-weather.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy today's photos!





lördag 21 maj 2016

Countryside

Hello readers! Yes, I know it was over a week ago since I wrote anything but I really didn't have anything to post and everything just felt a bit too much. I had three of the more important tests this past week and I've just been tired and the weather has been grey. But today I and a friend went and took our little inflatable boat to a nearby lake. Things didn't end great, I fell in the water thrice and it was cold and horrible. But I did take some photos during the way home.

I can't say these are the best photos ever taken, because it's really hard to get the focus right when you are inside a car. And at the same time you can't just stop every five seconds either, so I just took these ones when the car was moving. Still, I don't think they don't look too bad.




torsdag 12 maj 2016

Crows, cat, tree

Hi everyone! I had saved these three photos in my photo folder, waiting to get something better to pair them up with. Now, that didn't seem to be happening, so I decided to just post them together. All three of them have something with the outside to do, so that's one similarity. I wanted some photos of our cats too, but it really didn't work out that great. The cats are just sleeping tight now, since it's so warm outside (and inside too) so they are not much fun, and my last post was about Maja and Sessan after all.

To update you on the phone and instagram situation: I realized the other day that if I turn my phone off and then on again I can open instagram and upload one photo. So it's kind of working, or at least working good enough for me right now, I might start to get annoyed later but right now I'm just glad it's working.




tisdag 10 maj 2016

Maja and Sessan

Hello readers! I saw that a lot of you have seen my book review, and I hope you liked it. From now on, I'm probably going to be able to get a review out every other week. I've also been trying to update my instagram lately, but I don't know what my phone is doing right now. So nothing new is coming up on instagram, apparently... But I can still blog and that is probably the most important thing.

Today I have taken these photos of Maja and Sessan. All the cats are very sleepy because it has been very hot here lately, around twenty five degrees. The heat came very suddenly but it's fairly nice. It feels like summer, even though it's not that far into May yet.




söndag 8 maj 2016

Book review: The List of My Desires

Title: The List of My Desires
Author: Grégoire Delacourt
Genre: Drama
Year published: 2012
Pages: ~185
A place to buy it: If you are in Sweden you can buy the book from Bokus. Or if that's not the case you can buy it of Amazon.
Previous book review: The Poison Tree

Jocelyne and Jocelyn

The main character, Jocelyne Guerbette have almost exactly the same name as her husband Jocelyn, both are nicknamed Jo, but to keep them apart I'm going to refer to the main character - Jocelyne - as Jo and her husband as his name. The story is not very complicated. It starts with Jo telling the reader about her life with her husband. Jo is a dressmaker and hoping to become a fashion designer in Paris. She and Jocelyn lives a modest life in the little city of Arras in northern France. Jo's friends then encourage her to buy a lottery ticket and then it happens, Jo win 18 574 301 euro and 28 cent.

When Jo wins the lottery the story begins, she start to write lists of things she want - hence the title. But she don't want to change her life, she loves her current house and the life she has with Jocelyn, something the money threatens to change. On top of that - and it's already a good story - come a twist a the end that I really didn't expect at all.

Easy to read and well written

I did like this book quite a lot. The story is not very fast and constantly changing, you get the overall idea and in the end it doesn't come down to small detail. It's basically not a thriller/action kind of drama. I found the book well written and quite easy to read. At first I thought that Jo would just come to the conclusion that money isn't everything and live happily ever after with Jocelyn, but that is not what happened. Nevertheless the ending was very nice.

Trying to not spoil anything but still trying to give you an idea of the ending I will say that Jo realize that you don't have to feel obligated to love someone back just because they love you, and you don't need a significant other to be able to be happy. The ending - and only the ending! - actually reminds me a little bit about Ladies Coupe.

If you want to read an interesting, short little book without a thousand things happening around every corner and something that is also easy to read I would defiantly recommend this book.

torsdag 5 maj 2016

Spring sunset

Hi readers! I blogged more than usually this week, and I'm happy you enjoyed my extra post, the feedback was good. This week I've also got some people asking for another book review, and I'm sorry it's taking so long but it is going to happen. I'm just not done with the book quite yet. It's because it's getting close to the end of school - so now is the time for tests, test and tests - but also because I simply cannot read that fast because I'm not at all used to reading French books like this. So yes, it is coming, but I can't say exactly when right now.

That is pretty much everything I have to say today. The photo just happens to be a photo of today's sunset. It almost felt like summer today, and the thing I like the best with summer is probably the beautiful sunsets.


tisdag 3 maj 2016

Cherry blossoms

Hello readers! Today I have these photos of beautiful cherry blossoms to share with you. I like cherry blossoms a lot, they are probably the thing about spring that I love the most. Last year I made another post about cherry blossoms but I think these photos are much better than last year. I had taken a lot of photos of the flowers but I really couldn't pick out a few favorites, so I picked out a total of seven photos instead.

As I mentioned in my post last year I had an obsession with cherry blossoms when I was younger and I thought that it was the most perfect and beautiful flower of all. I don't think that have changed really, I still want to stop at every tree I walk past and take loads of photos... it's just so beautiful. Right now I even have a few flowers in a vase on my desk - it was those flowers I when taking these photos.








måndag 2 maj 2016

Sponge cake with raspberries & blueberries

Hi readers! I promised to post today, so I'm going to share this recipe of a delicious sponge cake with raspberries and blueberries, with vanilla sauce if you like. It's perfectly fine without the sauce too, but it just slightly better with vanilla sauce in my opinion.

Oven: 175°C 
Serves: 10
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1½ cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
½ cup milk
50g melted butter (not too hot!)
150g raspberries and/or blueberries (or other berries)


Optional toppings:
Vanilla sauce
Ice cream
Berries

How to do it:
1. Put non-stick baking paper in square baking tray or coat it with butter.
2. Beat the egg and sugar until it's white and fluffy.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and vanilla sugar.
4. Pour the milk and butter into the eggs and beat it. Then gradually add in the dry ingredients into the same bowl. Lastly fold in the berries. After that, put your mixture into your baking tray.
5. Bake in oven for 28-30min.

The sponge cake topped with vanilla sauce

söndag 1 maj 2016

Nature and a donut

Hello readers! Today I was with my friend and we took a short walk around his neighborhood and I took some photos of things we walked past. We also went to the yearly spring market where I brought a donut and a bag. And it just so happens that I took a photo of this donut before I ate it, so I'm just going to put it in the post too, haha. But I mean, it was a great donut so why not?

Last but not least, I know yesterday was supposed to have been the day I posted, so to make up for this I'm going to make another post tomorrow just because I missed yesterday. It would be a bit unnecessary to make two posts in one day, so I just thought posting two days in a row would be the best alternative.