Snuff | The Literary Bunny

As part of our vacation activities this year, my boyfriend/fiancé and I took a day trip to Copenhagen – mainly to buy books. My favorite Danish bookshop is located på Rådhuspladsen in Copenhagen and the reason that I love it is, that it stocks all the new contemporary fiction – in English. I am of course talking aboutPolitikens Boghal which is one of the few places in Denmark where you have a great selection of fiction written in English. And since that’s what I read the most, of course this is my favorite bookshop.

So I bought 7 books in Politikens. 6 fiction, one non fiction. Most of these were already on my wish list and I’m excited about all of them.

Lev Grossman: The Magician King (The Magicians #2). The second volume in this fantasy series, inspired heavily by Harry Potter and Narnia.
Ramona Ausubel: No One is Here Except All of Us. A sort of 1001 Nights set in a tiny Jewish village in Romania in WWII.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Prisoner of Heaven (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books #3). The final installment in this trilogy. The first one was amazing. I plan on reading all three together – hopefully soon.
Christos Tsiolkas: The Slap. What happens when a father slaps a child who is not his own? Simple premise – but I expect a lot from this Booker shortlisted novel.
John Lanchester: The Capital. I bought this book mainly because it takes place in London during the recession. An entire street in London with very different people, yet all receive a card in the mail with the same message on: We Want What You Have.
Tom Perrotta: The Leftovers. What happens after a rapture like event has removed millions of people from earth? How do the leftovers react and go about their lives, rebuilding societies etc?
Nicholas Joll (ed.): Philosophy & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy so many times as a teenager. I plan on reading it again soon – and this will be a wonderful companion read.

Close to Politikens, you can find a small bookstore in a cellar, Fantask. Fantask is the place to go if you wish to buy comics, graphic novels and fantasy.

L. Jagi Lamplighter: Prospero Lost. A fantasy version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Beautiful cover!
Terry Pratchett: Snuff. The newest paperback in the Discworld series. Can’t wait!
Neil Gaiman: The Doll’s House (Sandman #2). I am pretty sure I read the Sandman series years ago – now I’m slowly buying them for myself.

And finally, we also visited a sale. Again, very close to Politikens, there’s a huge – and I think permanent – book sale called Vangsgaards Bogudsalg. I mostly picked up some coloring books and picture books for the girls but I did pick up a couple of books for myself too – one of these unfortunately in Norwegian…!

Alan Moore: From Hell. Alan Moore’s take on Jack the Ripper. I’ve been wanting to read this book for years. But it sucks that I somehow ended up with a copy in Norwegian!
Jasper Fforde: Shades of Grey. I really like the one Thursday Next book I’ve read and the idea of your ability to see colors determining your place in society sounds intriguing.

So 12 books all in all did I carry back home in the train. Quite a good haul, I think. I’m looking forward to reading them!

So back in February, I wrote a blog post about 10 books I was looking forward to in 2011. So far, I’ve bought 4 of the 10 and read 1 of them – not all that impressive. I did however like the one I read – Gail Carriger Heartless.

But of course, a list of 10 books could not contain all the exciting books of the year so I’ve decided to write about some other books coming out this year that are very exciting.

First of, Tom Perrotta has a new novel out – and it got a cover review on New York Times Book Review. And as if this wasn’t impressive enough, the review was written by none other than Stephen King! (See the review here). I read Little Children last summer and I enjoyed it a lot and I have The Abstinence Teacher waiting on the shelf where The Leftovers will join it. Hopefully I’ll get around to reading them both soon!

And the man himself, Stephen King, also has a new novel out. 11/22/63 will hit stores November 8th 2011 and is about a man traveling back in time to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. I think King is an excellent story teller so I’m looking forward to this one – hopefully it will be better than Under the Dome!

I’m a huge fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and even though I’m not a crime novel reader, I’m really looking forward to reading his take on crime novels – especially since it seems to be inspired more by crime novels like then one by Agatha Christie than the modern novels by Swedish, Danish and Norwegian crime writers… Snuff is out in October 2011.

This year’s Man Booker award also has a lot of interesting books on the longlist. I listen to the Guardian’s Book podcast a lot and they cover this award so this is my favorite book award – besides the Nobel Prize which is always fun (and being announced in just a few days now).

One of these is Stephen Kelman Pigeon English which also has made it onto the shortlist. This is a book about a boy from Ghana and how he tries to find his way in England – as well as investigate a murder.

Another is Sebastian Barry On Canaan’s Side about a woman who looses her grandson. Since it spans seven decades, it also tells the story of her entire life from when she fled Dublin at the end of WW1 and how she came to America.

There’s also The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness about the last days of the Romanian revolution of 1989.

So again – more books to check out if anybody need any suggestions … sighs … I know I have plenty of books waiting already but hopefully I’ll get around to reading all of these as well. At some point. Probably not this year …