CrimeFest 2011

You know (or hope) you are participating in a crime fiction conference when you hear someone saying:

´... and then I put the poison in his haemorrhoid cream´
´you got to kill people somehow´
´I do like blowing things up´

In two words; my first CrimeFest was absolutely overwhelming!  I did take a few photos, but most of the time my husband had the camera. And Saturday, the only day when I had it, the battery went flat rather unexpectedly.

Karen Meek of Euro Crime

As I mentioned the other day, one of the very best experiences was to meet some of my blog friends and get to know them even better. The panels were also very interesting, and it was such a pleasure that the crime writers I have read - and read about - for so long, were so kind and forthcoming. They really seemed to like meeting their readers :)

So apart from Martin Edwards, our walking crime fiction encyclopaedia, whom I mentioned the other day, I had plenty of opportunity to chat with Len Tyler, Christine Poulson, Quentin Bates and Kate Ellis to mention a few.

I wish I could participate every year, but unfortunately May and June are the busiest months of our school year so I won´t win any popularity contests by running off, leaving three days of external examinations to my colleagues again.


Here you see my CrimeFest spoil - I bought the ones by Len Tyler and S.J. Bolton myself, the others are books I won or was given for free.

I couldn´t help it

I have been really good for two months, but the pictures speak for themselves, don´t they?

I ventured into AwesomeBooks and they held me hostage until I had paid ransom! Or something.

My Challenges - progress in January and February

In a bout of optimism, I joined no less than five challenges for this year, and so far I have done fairly well. If you want to read a review, please select the relevant author among my tags. 

The Global Reading Challenge (medium level, 14 books):
Australasia: Vanda Symon, Overkill
Europe: Esther Verhoef, Close-Up
North America: Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Cathryn Grant, The Demise of the Soccer Moms
The Seventh Continent: Kate Summerscale, The Suspicion of Mr Whicher (history)

2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge (4-6 novels)
Margery Allingham, Hide Your Eyes (1958)
John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)

What´s in a Name (6 novels)
A number: C.J. Box, Three Weeks to Say Goodbye
A gem: Peter Lovesey, Diamond Dust
A size: Declan Burke, The Big O

Ireland Reading Challenge (6 novels)
Declan Burke, The Big O
Tana French, The Likeness
Brian McGilloway, Gallows Lane
Colin Bateman, Mystery Man (not reviewed yet)

Bogudfordringen 2011 (Danish)
January: crime before 2000:
Margery Allingham, En morder lukkes ind (1958/1971)
John Buchan, Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
February: short story collections
Roald Dahl, Kiss, Kiss
Cathryn Grant, Flash Fiction for the Cocktail Hour
Laura Lippman, Hardly Knew Her


And another kind of progress: in January I had so many books in my TBR that I couldn´t squeeze any more in. Since then I have read at least six of those without buying new ones (but don´t ask me how many e-books I have acquired in the meantime - they don´t take up space so they don´t count at all).

What about you; did you join any challenges?
Have you made some progress?

Nyere nordisk

[My Nordic TBR + my wish list of untranslated fiction]

2010 blev et år, hvor jeg i stor stil læste britiske og amerikanske krimier. I 2011 vil jeg forsøge at få indhentet nogle af de nordiske serier & forfattere, jeg sættter stor pris på. (Men flere hundrede kroner pr bog – næh, så kan jeg godt vente på et gratis eksemplar fra biblioteket).

Mine julegaver fra familien hjælper lidt:

Anne Holt, Pengemanden (norsk – 2010)
Jussi Adler-Olsen, Fasandræberne (dansk – 2008)
Jussi Adler-Olsen, Flaskepost fra P (dansk – 2009)


Andet nordisk på hylden:

Åsa Larsson, Till dess din vrede upphör (svensk – 2004)
Carin Gerhardsen, Pandekagehuset (2009)


På ønskesedlen/bibliotekslisten: 

Susanne Staun, Døderummet (2010)
Jo Nesbø, Panserhjerte (norsk – 2009)
Arnaldur Indridason, Hypothermia/Frostnätter (islandsk – 2009 - endnu ikke oversat til dansk)
Håkan Nesser, En fortælling om hr. Roos (svensk – 2009)
Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Aske (islandsk – 2009)
Jussi Adler-Olsen, Journal 64 (dansk - 2010)
Camilla Ceder, Babylon (svensk - 2010 - endnu ikke oversat til dansk)
Henning Mankell, Kineseren (svensk – 2008)
.

November´s Haul

Just practising uploading pictures on my new macbook. And now that I have succeeded, I should perhaps tell you that these eleven books are my November haul. 

4244 intriguing pages,  and thanks to two sales that overlapped, I got these mountains for 125 kroner 

($ 22 or 14.5 ..... oh dear, I can´t even find that pound sign - Mac, where did you put it?) 

Picture 1: 

Liz Rigbey, Summer Time

Kathy Reichs, Déja Dead + Death du Jour

Phil Rickman, The Man in the Mosse + Crybbe

Philip Margolin, The Associate + The Last Innocent Man

Picture 2: 

Rebecca Tope, A Cotswold Killing

Deborah Crombie, Leave the Grass Green

Charlotte MacLeod, The Recycled Citizen

Colin Bateman, Mystery Man

Simon Brett, The Stabbing in the Stables

Catherine Sampson, Out of Mind

Adrian McKinty, Dead I Well May Be 

Apart from Rebecca Tope, all these writers are new to me. Have you read any of the writers/books? 

What did you think about them?

NB: I did find the mislaid £ this morning.

See yah

Between them, life and work have kept me rather busy lately, but I hope we will have time for a weekend in the cottage in a couple of days. If so, I will probably bring some of these - they just arrived today - don´t they look as if they will be very suitable for my ´cosy mystery curriculum´?

What Do You Want

I just came home from the local library. They had numerous temptations, but I succeeded in limiting myself to ten crime novels.

1. Knut Faldbakken, Grænsen (Norwegian)
2. Jogvan Isaksen, Korsmesse (Faroe Islands) - 2 votes
3. Pia Juul, Mordet på Halland (Danish)
4. Jonas T. Bengtsson, Sub Marino (Danish)

5. Camilla Grebe & Åsa Träff (Swedish debut) - 2 votes
6. Mari Jungstedt, Den døende dandy (Swedish, the fourth Gotland novel) - 1 vote
7. Viveca Sten, Stille nu (Swedish debut - takes place in the archipelago)

8. Eli Gottlieb, Opgøret (American: Now You See Him) - 1 vote
9. Phillip Margolin, Sortekunster (American: Heartstone) - 1 vote
10. Joanne Harris, Dobbeltspil (British: Gentlemen & Players) - 2 votes

I am going to review the one by Knut Faldbakken first because I need a Norwegian book for a challenge.

But which one do you want me to read and review after that?

Thy´s Day # 14

I had planned to show you our pretty anemones today,
but I have run into camera problems
so here you have last month´s books and flowers instead.

Game, Sets and Matching Titles

Not for the first time, my post is spinoff. I saw this idea on Maxine´s blog and liked it: take a look at your TBR and try to divide them into sets. Now I don´t own quite as many unread books as Maxine (though she does her best to rectify that) , but I succeeded in finding eight sets (I allowed myself to use the same titles more than once).

1) Time
Daniel Woodrell, Winter´s Bone
Patricia Highsmith, January has two Faces (literal translation of the Danish title)
Martin Edwards, Yesterday´s Papers
C.J. Box, Three Weeks to Say Goodbye
Karen Campbell, Twilight Time

2) Colours
Thomas H. Cook, Red Leaves
Leonardo Padura, Havana Red
Leah Giarratano, Black Ice
Stephen Booth, Black Dog
Ann Cleeves, Blue Lightning
Peter Robinson, All the Colours of Darkness

3) Figures
Declan Burke, The Big O (Well, that is my interpretation)
Ken Follett, Code to Zero
Sophie Hannah, The Other Half Lives
Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn
Douglas Kennedy, Double Exposure (translation of Danish title)
C.J. Box, Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

4) Animals
Ruth Rendell, The Crocodile Bird
Donna Moore, Old Dogs


5) Music
Cyril Hare, Murder for Orchestra (translation of the Danish title)
Ian Rankin, Exit Music

6) Blood
Ian Rankin, Blood Hunt
Leighton Gage, Blood of the Wicked

7) Death
Ian Rankin, Dead Souls
Randall, The Waking, Dreams of the Dead
Simon Beckett, Whispers of the Dead
M.C. Beaton, Death of an Outsider
Pierre Magnan, Death in the Truffle Wood

8) Murder
Mary Higgins Clark, Love Murder (translation of Danish title)
Cyril Hare, Murder for Orchestra
Yaba Badoe, True Murder
Pierre Magnan, The Murdered House

Far Out

Sometimes I wonder whether people from the city really know how far out it is possible to live.
I also wonder whether everybody knows how honest and law-abiding Danish countrypeople are.

Today we came home after a wonderful weekend in our cottage - and I found this lovely surprise - left for me by the postman several hours earlier.

DJ - now with TBR

Til danske læsere: for tre måneder siden anede jeg ikke, hvad en "TBR shelf" var - men jeg er så småt ved at komme efter det. Her er min lille, beskedne To Be Read-hylde, som lige i øjeblikket vokser pænt uge for uge. Mindst to bøger mere er på vej lige nu, nemlig et par dejlige gevinster fra konkurrencer jeg deltog i i marts.