En man som heter Ove av Fredrik Backman

En bekant till mig som inte läser så värst många böcker hade läst En man som heter Ove och rekommenderade den varmt på Facebook så jag beslutade mig för att läsa den. Jag kan inte påstå att jag fastnade för boken från början men på slutet satt jag med en tår i ögat, berörd av historien.

En man som heter Ove är Fredrik Backmans debutroman. Boken publicerades 2012 av Forum Förlag. Backman föddes 1981 och är författare, bloggare och skribent.

Handlingen i romanen utspelar sig i nutid någonstans i Sverige. Ove anses av de allra flesta att vara en ganska sur och tvär paragrafryttare. Han anser att rätt ska vara rätt och att lagar ska följas samt att den enda bil värd namnet är SAAB. När läsaren kommer in i historien har Ove precis förlorat sitt arbete som han har haft i många år. Sex månader tidigare förlorade han hustrun Sonja, den enda personen i hela världen som förstod honom och älskade honom precis som han var. Dagen då hon dog var dagen som Ove slutade leva. Nu är dö det enda han vill få göra men han är inget vidare bra på det ska det visa sig.

Parallellt med att läsaren får följa Oves liv just nu så får man också ta del av hans liv från barndomen och upp till idag. Även om det tog ett tag innan jag riktigt kom in i den här boken så är det en underbar och varm berättelse om livet. Det är en underhållande bok och jag tror nog att de flesta av oss känner någon som åtminstone har några av Oves karaktärsdrag.

Från att ha varit tveksam till den här boken så ser jag nu fram emot att läsa romanen Min mormor hälsar och säger förlåt som utkom för en månad sedan.

A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks is one of my favourite writers and this is the fifth book written by him that I have read. However, it is his third novel. Sparks was born in 1965 and is an American novelist, screenwriter and producer. So far he's written seventeen novels and one non-fiction together with his brother.

A Walk to Remember was published in October 1999 and the genre, as the rest of Sparks's novels, is romantic drama. The story takes place during 1958 in the small town of Beaufort, North Carolina. Landon Carter is 17 years old and behaves like most teenagers, mocking those who are different. Among those are Jamie Sullivan the Baptist reverend's daughter who goes to the same class as Landon. Jamie is about the last girl that Landon can imagine falling in love with. But destiny wants differently and Landon is in for the most  life changing year of his life. A year that makes him mature a lot and realize that looks aren't everything in life.

This novel is, as the others that I have read, easily read and you want to know what happens next. What I like about Spark's novels is that they are both predcitable and unpredictable at the same time. They are love stories but there is usually a problem that the two lovers have to overcome and there isn't always the happy ending that you would wish for, but the protagonist usually finds comfort in his/her situation. This is probably what makes his novels feel so suitable to turn into a film and eight of them have been adapted to film so far. A Walk to Remember was adapted in 2002, starring Shane West and Mandy Moore.

While this is a story that pulls at your heart strings and well worth reading, I don't think it is the best of Spark's novels that I have read so far. But I warmly recommend those who like a good love story to read it.

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

A collegue of mine gave me this book with the words 'You have to read this, it's hilarious'. When I started reading it I have to admit I felt a bit confused and I had trouble figuring out the genre. It was not until I had finished reading it and was looking for some information on the author that I understood that this book belongs to the steampunk genre.

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction which is typically set in the British Victorian era or the American Wild-West. A typical feature is the steam-powered machines and this novel is full of steam-powered air ships and domestic mechanicals. To that can also be added vampires, werewolves and flywaymen.

The novel was released in February 2013 and is the first novel in a series called the Finishing School Series. Novel number two -Curtsies & Conspiracies will be published in November 2013.

Etiquette & Espionage is a young adult novel which is set in England in 1851 and the protagonist is fourteen-year-old Sophronia Temminnick. Sophronia is not as interested in being a proper lady as her mother would wish. Sophronia is more interested in taking apart clocks and climbing trees than proper manner. When we first meet her she has just destroyed the dumbwaiter when trying to eavesdrop on her mother and her visitor. The following quote, which I just love, is from when she is trying to come up with an excuse for her behaviour:

"'Well, I simply wanted to see how it worked and then there was this-'

Her mother interrupted. 'How it worked? What kind of question is that for a young

lady to ask? How often have I warned you against fraternising with technology?"

If Sophronia is ever going to have chance of finding a husband, her mother decides to send her off to a finishing school where she will learn proper manners. However, Mrs Temminnick has no idea of what kind of finishing school Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality really is and neither does Mademoiselle Geraldine, the headmistress of the school. The young ladies do learn proper manners, but they also learn about espionage and how to finish off people in different ways. 

As mentioned, this is a novel for young adults and as such it probably works and I did enjoy reading it and have learnt  a lot of new vocabulary. However, steampunk is not quite my cup of tea. I did not find it as hilarius as my collegue and it is not very likely that I will ever read the second novel in the series. 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help is a novel that I first encountered as an audio book in Swedish and I listened to it driving to and from work. I really enjoyed the book then and I saw the film when that came as well. So now it was time to read it in its original language.

The Help is American novelist Kathryn Stockett's debut novel and it was first published in 2009. It was actually refused by a great number of literary agents before it was finally published.

The novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962. A time with segregation between races and just a couple of years before the Civil Rights Act was passed. The main characters are the maids Aibileen and Minny and the plantation owner's daughter Skeeter.

Aibileen is raising her seventeenth white child while trying to get over her own son's death. She is serene and wise and a bit older than the other two. When the children she raises start to understand the concept of black and white she generally leaves for another work. She is very good friends with Minnie who is famous around Jackson for her cooking and she is really proud of her own cooking but she has got a sassy mouth which gets her into trouble. She is married to Leroy and they have five children together. Skeeter is the daughter of a cotton plantation owner and she dreams of becoming a writer. She is tall and skinny and perhaps not the most beautiful of women and she finds dating a bit difficult. Her mother is trying hard to get her to do something about her hair and the way she dresses.

Horrified by her friend Hilly's way of  regarding the maids Skeeter comes up with the idea of writing a novel about the maids' situation, from the maids' point of view. Eventually Aibileen and then also Minny agree to telling their stories. But they need more stories if the book is going to be published and they need to be anonymous or they will risk their lives if it becomes known that they are the authors.

We get to follow these three women and their lives while they are working on the book and they all grow as humans,  finding the confidence to cross boundaries and during all this they find a friendship they never thought possible and they come to depend and rely upon one another.

I really like the story in this novel and I find it and the characters trustworthy. Stockett has been criticized for, among other things, spreading sterotypes but I still think that it is possible to get a picture of what life was like during this period in American history. Kathryn Stockett grew up in Jackson, Mississippi during the 70s and the family had a housekeeper so she is not totally unfamiliar with what she writes about.

So I would say that this novel is a good read and well worth reading even though it should not be considered as telling the absolute truth.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Charles John Dickens wrote Oliver Twist in 1838 Dickens was born in 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and he died quickly in 1870 at Gad’s Hill Place in Higham. He was a British author who wrote a large number of famous and classic productions.

   Dickens was considered to be one of the largest authors writing in English and already during his life his author work met large popularity all over the world.

Oliver Twist is an orphan and was born in a poorhouse where he becomes badly treated. One evening Oliver asked for more food and he was locked up in a closet. The personnel at the poorhouse decided to sell Oliver to Mr. Sowerberry who is a funeral director. Oliver gets treated badly by Mrs. Sowerberry and the private school pupil Noah. One day Oliver and Noah end up in a fight and Oliver gets locked away and began to make a plan to run away. After a time Oliver runs away and walks to London where he ends up in bad company with Mr. Fagin, who teaches poor homeless boys to be pickpockets. A housebreaking goes wrong and Oliver ends up in a ditch, alone and hurt. Good Mr. Brownlow helps Oliver and in the end all pieces fall into place and he gets to know his parentage.

The story took place in the 1800:s in England. The surroundings are described as poor, filthy, gloomy and unsafe in a realistic way Charles Dickens illustrated the big social problems with satire in the social relations in the book, and in that way society was forced to acknowledge the problem which the law created for exposed groups, for example orphan children and poor people.

   The leading character is Oliver himself, he was a little orphan boy who despite his miserable childhood had a very high morale and followed his inner voice. He is a good boy who grew stronger with time and developed courageousness the older he got.

   The minor characters were Mr. Fagin, Mr. Sowerberry, Monks (Oliver’s half-brother), Jack Dawkins, Miss Rose (she was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Maylie, she was also Oliver’s aunt and guardian angel) and Mr. Brownlow.

   The persons are very well described in the book and you get to know what they look like and how they are as persons, as you also can tell in the dialog in the book.

Charles Dickens described the story in the book in a realistic, chronological parallel story. He writes in an everyday language which is easy to understand. He is also very good at giving the readers a clear picture of the persons and the episodes with his descriptive language.

   Charles Dickens’s message is to describe and illustrate the hard, tough and sometimes frightening life for orphan children in England and on the streets of London. He also wanted to criticize the times poor reliefs and show the lack of it to make changes in the law.

I believe this book absolutely is a classic that everyone should read, and not just because it’s a classic but it’s also a touching, thrilling and well done book where you as a reader feels like you are with Oliver in the filthy streets in England.

Written by Jessica

Evil by Jan Guillou

Title: Evil

Author: Jan Guillou

Year of publishing: 1981

This story is about a boy named Eric Ponti who is 15 year old and lives with his mom and his stepfather in Stockholm (Sweden). The story starts in a public school in the capital city, from where Eric gets expelled because he blackmails and fights with other students. When this happens, all his friends abandon him and his stepfather who has a habit of beating him, I guess would not be so pleased with Eric´s behavior. His mother then sends him to a private school to keep him away from his stepfather and give him a chance of a proper education. This school is located in the country side and when you study there, you live there. When he arrives at this new school he gets a friend but he soon comes to realize that it´s not going to be easy to fit in here. Erik and his friend develop a very strong friendship and they stay together most of the time. Both of them get harassed by the older students. But Erik is a strong boy both in mind and in body and tries to stand up to them. The story takes place in the 1950´s and the author Jan Guillou`s intention with this book is to criticize the school system and the behavior, purpose and intention from some of the teachers at this time. Also have in mind that most of this is a true story and that makes it even more interesting. I have read this book in two languages and it´s equally good. I think they manage not change too much of the feeling of the Swedish environment.  If I should categorize this book I would say it´s a drama filled with action, romance and thrills and I strongly recommend reading it!  

Written by Martin     

Betrayed by P.C Cast & Kristin Cast

I have read a book called Betrayed. It is the second book in a series of 9 books. The series is called House of night and this book was published 2007.
P.C Cast and her daughter Kristin Cast are the authors of the book.
I think it is a fantasy book, because vampires are not a real thing.

The book is in present time.
Tulsa is the city where the story took place. In this city there is a school, for fledgling vampires, called House of night. The fledglings live at the school and once a month their parents can come and visit their children.
At the school there is a group called the dark daughter and sons. This group has a leader, and in this book, it is Zoey. The leader in this group is going to have a ritual. I don´t understand why, but I think they try to connect with the goddess, Nyx. Nyx gave a few fledglings special powers and Zoey has been blessed with unusual powers. She has the power of spirit. After a while she noticed that she can see things, sometimes, that has not happened yet.
When Zoey was an ordinary teenager she had friends from the football team, and she was together with a boy called Heath.
After a while in school, teenagers from the football team start to disappear, and all the evidence points at the House of Night.
A time before the teenagers were missing, Zoey´s favorite teacher, Nefret, had a suspicious behaviour. So when teenagers start to disappear, Zoey started to suspect Nefret.
Zoey has tasted Heath´s blood, and they are imprinted. Now when they are imprinted, they can communicate with their thoughts and that is going to help Zoey later in the book, when Heath is in trouble.

Zoey Redbird is the main character and she is 16 years old. Zoey is a fledgling vampire and lives at the school. Zoey is a very special fledgling, she has been marked with a very big tattoo on her back, and that is unusual. She also has the power of spirit, which is also very unusual.
Nefret is a teacher on the school, and Zoey´s favorite teacher, but one day she changed her mind, when Nefret started acting weird.
Aphrodite is a student on the school, and she has visions. She can see into the future. She is going to help Zoey.
Zoey´s best friend Stevie Rye, has the power of earth. She is going to die, but it is something weird about it. Is she really dead ?

It was not hard to understand, but of course a few words were a bit difficult, but I liked the book. The language was not "old-fashioned", it is written for today´s teenagers.
I don´t know if there are any messages in this book. I think this book is for entertainment. I think this book was really good, and I want to read the whole series, in English.

Written by Carolina.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K Rowling

This is the first book of Harry Potter, if you like it there are six more to read. Harry Potter is a fantasy book that takes place in our time England and at a magic place called Hogwarts. The author JK Rowling is very good at describing the looks of the characters in the book, and it is easy to get a feeling about their appearances. Also the author makes an excellent job making you feel that you are in the book. She describes the setting and landscape so well that it is easy to get a feeling about it. The text is easy to read and the words are not hard to understand.

In this book you become acquainted with a boy called Harry and all the people he met in his first year at Hogwarts. It may seem that he is just an ordinary boy living with his aunt, cousin and his aunt’s husband, but that’s not the case. Harry is anything but ordinary. He is actually a wizard, and as it turns out, a famous one too. Apparently his parents were killed by a really evil wizard when he was only a baby, this wizard called Voldemort tried to kill Harry too, but the love from his mother made the killing spell from the wand backfire, and instead of killing Harry it almost killed Voldemort himself, leaving just a scar on Harry’s forehead. And for that reason Harry is famous in the whole magic world. He is the one that stopped Voldemort from his tyranny. When he arrives at Hogwarts, that is a school for magic, he makes new friends that later becomes his best friends, they are called Ron and Hermione. He also succeed in making enemies, one really annoying person that Harry does not like is called Malfoy. At Hogwarts you are accommodated to a special dorm, Hogwarts has 4 different ones, they are called Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenslaw. It is a special hat that you put on your head that decides who goes where. Harry and Hermione and Ron ends up in the same dorm, the one called Gryffindor. Harry also makes friends with some of the teachers at the school, in particular there is the gardener Hagrid, he is a half giant, and the principal Dumbledore.                      Harry and his friends find out about a stone, this stone in particularly gives the one who has it eternal life, and now they must find it before Voldemort does.

If you like magic, adventure, elves, giants, and other imaginary beings, this is the book for you. There is much more in this story to tell, but I feel that I must leave some room for you to explore this magic world for yourself.  I highly recommend it.

I don’t know if there are a message in the book, just the normal; evil versus good.

Written by Josefin

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

This is a review of Joseph Conrad´s Heart of Darkness which was published in 1902. It´s hard to say which genre it belongs to but I´d say it´s a mix of drama, thriller and novella.

The story takes place on a steamboat going up a river in Africa, sometime during the 19^th century. It is never said on which river or where in Africa the story takes part, however the description of the landscape and the history of Joseph Conrad hints that it is the Congo river.

Heart of Darkness is about a man called Charles Marlow, an Englishman who takes a job as a steamboat captain for a trading company. From there, the story is rather blurry. Marlow sets out to find a man called Kurtz who is also working for the trading company. Kurtz is positioned in Africa and is supposed to find ivory for the company, but a rumor says that he has gotten ill. Therefore Marlow is sent to find him and bring him back.

Marlow is at first a regular young man, happy to be working as a captain for the trading company. As he´s traveling along the river and sees the darkness in men, the darkness of colonization and the darkness of the wild nature he goes from happiness to anger and indifference.

Heart of Darkness was rather difficult to read because it´s written in a strange way. There are barely any chapters and you are never really sure of what´s happening in the story. You´ll often have to backtrack and read some parts a couple of times, and still you can´t really make any sense of it. A good example is when Marlow is looking for a person. Suddenly they talk about this person as if he´s dead and buried and just as sudden this person is in their party and alive. The scenery also changes without warning. On one page Marlow is on the steamer, and when you flip the page he´s on land, perhaps half a year forward in the story. It gets very confusing.

Heart of Darkness is a good book, but not more. It portraits the evil of men and colonization in a good way, but that´s it. It´s not the kind of book that keeps you glued to the pages since there aren´t really any thrilling moments, even though there could be if it were written in a different way.

I wouldn´t recommend Heart of Darkness to the regular reader. Heart of darkness is for those who´d like to see what the 19^th century colonization´s was really about and how greed and violence changes men.

Written by Robin

Schindler's List

The book I have read it was a contemporary of Thomas Kennelly’s famous novel. It was published for the first time in 1982 under title “Schindler´s Ark”.

The book tells the true story of Oscar Schindler - a rich, German businessman who risked his life almost every day during the Second World War to save as many Jews as possible.

Oskar Schindler, the hero of the story, was born in 1908 in a middle - class German family, he had a happy, careless childhood. After he finished his education he started to work at his father´s factory and he got married to Emily - a young, religious girl, who reminded of his own mother.   

After his father went bankrupt, Oskar, who was very intelligent and charming and had many business contacts easily found a new job as a sales manager.

As a young man Oskar was not interested in history or politics although he became a member of the Nazi Party to get better contracts from Germans. Nothing indicated that words from Talmud “He who saves a single life, saves the entire world” will become a motto of his life.

The Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939, and then Oscar who was only 29 years old at that time, got the proposal to start a new business in Krakow - Poland, gradually he opened a factory there.

 Oscar was always a man who loved the luxury life: good food, drinks and beautiful women..The turning point in his life was when he saw what the Nazis were doing with Jews in the ghetto, he saw how they were killing children, women and men. He understood then the devil`s plan of exterminating Jews and realized what Holocaust means. He started to employ Jews in his factory and he always treated them well and with respect. The job at his factory was for Jews the only chance to survive; otherwise they were sent to concentrations camps and died in gas chambers.

He was accused many times for being a “Jews lover”, he was also arrested a couple of times, but with the help of his high – ranking German friends he always managed to get free. During the war he spent millions on bribing Nazis to save as many human beings as he could. He succeeded to save around 1.200 Jews. After the war he lived in Germany and for a while in Argentina where he started a new business, but for many reasons he did not succeed. After the war, according to his wife’s words, “he had done nothing impressive with his life”.

“The Schindler Jews” never forgot him and in 1961 Schindler was formally honoured in Tel Aviv in the Park of Heroes and he was declared an Honourable Person for saving the lives of more than 1.200 Jews.

He died in Berlin in the autumn in 1974 and, according to his wishes, he was buried in Jerusalem.

In 1993, one of the most famous American directors - Steven Spielberg created a film “Schindler´s list” based on the book, which was a great success and won seven Oscars. Millions of people around the world got to know the history of Oskar Schindler´s heroism.

It was a great book to read, mainly because it tells the true story; the language was easy to understand. I recommend reading it; I think everyone should know this incredible story.

Written by Ewa.

Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup

I have read Slumdog Millionaire written by the Indian author Vikas Swarup. Slumdog millionaire was published in 2005 and was originally called Q&A. However, after the popular film adaptation the book’s name was changed to Slumdog millionaire, the same as the movie.

This book is a drama with many intense parts where you are thrown back and forth between hope and despair.

It takes place in modern day India. The environment is mostly dark and goes hand in hand with the story. When times are bad the environment is dark and full of shadows and when the main character experiences something positive the world brightens a bit. Even when all seems good the world still seems grey and dull.   

You get to meet a lot of different and interesting characters in this book and I have chosen to take a closer look at some of them. There is one main character Ram Mohammad Thomas who is also the narrator of the story. He takes part in the Indian TV-show “Who Will Win a Billion?”. Ram has lived a hard life but has managed to withstand falling in to darkness and has become a better person. Through his experiences in life he is able to answer the 12 questions in the game show. Other personal traits that I have picked up are that he is stubborn and is determined not to fail at anything he attempts to do. There are two main supporting characters one is named Salim and the other one is named Nita. Salim is Ram’s best friend and dreams of becoming a movie star. He is a part of the adventures in Ram’s flashbacks and seems to be a person who dares to follow his dreams. I believe that Salim does not realize the seriousness in some situations and does not understand the consequences of his actions. Ram is totally different he is more realistic and does not trust people as easily as Salim. You could say that Ram is a bit of a protector to Salim. Nita is a prostitute who Ram meets when he makes a living as a Taj Mahal tour guide. They instantly connect and Nita strikes me as a beautiful but yet a bit unsure young girl.

The story is about Ram Mohammad Thomas who is one question away from winning a billion rupees on the TV-show “Who Will Win a Billion?”. But instead of giving him the final question the game host makes sure that Ram gets arrested, accused of cheating. How is it possible that an 18-year old boy from the slums can out smart doctors and teachers? He must be cheating, or is he? Ram is very confused and angry by this and demands that he can explain all this to someone. He gets to talk to his lawyer Sitka and he tells her just how he got to know all the right answers. The reason why he gets all the questions right is because of life experience. For every question asked he gets a flashback from his life that is in some way connected to the question and is able to get the right answer. The reason why he is participating in the TV-show is because he wants to free his one true love Nita from her pimp. The pimp refuses to give her away without pay and this is what drives Ram.

The language of the book was relatively easy to follow. There are a few hick ups here and there where the author uses difficult words and sayings. That makes you have to read the sentence one or two times extra to figure out what he means. These small bumps in the road are a rare find in Q&A and for the most part the English is readable for almost anyone with basic English knowledge.

The message of the book according to me is a very big part of this particular book. Because it flows through the whole story and with every decision the main character makes. I think the message is too and that nothing is impossible. The main character achieves the impossible by coming from a seemingly treacherous situation where his one and true love never can become his because of a pimp. Then turning it around and against all odds wins a TV-show all to free her and reunite with her. I guess another obvious message is if you set your mind to something you should not give up because if you just believe and maintain on the right track your goal is reachable.

I think that this book gives a great view of society and the poverty and what really is going on in such places in India. The character descriptions make you get a great connection to each character in the book and the way they act and what the go through is really moving. This also makes the characters come alive. The story itself is exciting from the first page to the last and it leaves me with a sort of feel-good sense. Yet I feel touched and angry about how some people are treated and that this exists in real life. To summarize it simple I can only say that this is one of the best books I have ever read. I think it has it all, excitement, romance and drama. I would be crazy not to recommend this to anyone. Everybody should read this book because it makes you think and it is just absolutely fantastic.

Written by Rebecca

Enigma by Robert Harris

  -“Enigma is a very sophisticated enciphering machine and Shark is its ultimate refinement. So,   we’re not talking about the Times crossword..” – Tom Jericho
   This book, from 1996 by Robert Harris, tells us the story about Tom Jericho, the mathematician from Cambridge who was recruited to Bletchley Park as a cryptologist.

He almost lost himself in love with the beautiful but mysterious Claire at the same time he was trying to break the German World War 2, secret and very complex Enigma U-Boat code. The novel starts off with the cold winds in Cambridge.

Plot:

Bletchley Park has been blacked out by the Germans and the U-Boat code, Shark is no longer possible to force. Tom Jericho, the only one who managed to break Shark, is recovering from a nervous breakdown, caused by his intense work at Bletchley.

He’s staying at King’s College in Cambridge when his old chief, Guy Logie arrives to ask him for help.

Tom Jericho, helplessly in love with Claire Romilly, encounters new puzzles to solve and discovers there is a security leak at the Park. A Nazi spy? It’s no longer a game of just breaking Shark.

Claire, who also works at the Park, suddenly turns out missing. Her housemate Hester Wallace joins Tom to find out what happened and stumbles across secrets that can easily put themselves and the whole war at great risk. Tom and Hester finds, hidden in the cottage where she lives, stolen cryptograms from a German eastern front transmitter, ADU.           A Nazi spy inside Bletchley Park.

The Americans have put three large Liberty convoys to sea to aid Europe and now, no one knows where the German U-Boat packs are. Just that the convoys are steadily steaming across the northern Atlantic and that somewhere out there in the cold darkness, the enemy’s waiting. They have 4 days to break Shark.

Structure:

The novel is written as a mix between past and present, authentic facts and fiction. It’s educational for anyone who wants to know more and even gives the reader some simple models of the underlying mathematics that’s used for crypto analysis. At the beginning of each chapter, the author also puts a note from the lexicon “Most Secret” from Bletchley Park.

The story is tightly packed with occurrences, pushing the story forward, where the author lets the reader take part in several side stories like Hester Wallace’s own self supporting story line. Then by weaving them all together, he creates a very dynamic flow which of course intensifies as the novel is about to end.

Setting:

The setting for this book is Britain during World War 2, specifically Bletchley Park and selected areas in Cambridge, London and Scotland. It’s a gloomy, cold, windy and damp, not to say grey world. The reader finds out that Britain even smells because of shortage of hygiene products. The reader can certainly understand there is a general shortage of just about everything, because the characters are not even sure what they’re being served at the lunch cantina from time to time. A dessert that looks like cake but tastes like paper as well as the ladies who colour their lips with vaseline and red beetroot are two examples. An effect of the war as it says in the book.

The main characters:

Tom Jericho

Tom Jericho is the brilliant mathematician from Cambridge who solves the puzzle of Shark, then works himself into a nervous breakdown. He’s in love with Claire, but eventually understands that road is closed. He goes from being a rather boyish, insecure young man to become stronger and safer as a person as he manages to solve the situations one by one. In my opinion he matures along the story.

Hester Wallace

Hester Wallace is Claire Romilly’s housemate who also applied for a spot as a crypto-logist, but in a man’s dominated world, she became sort of a glorified file clerk, sorting and organizing received cryptograms at the Park. Eventually she got to show her qualities as a cryptologist. Secretly of course, but yet she did. Like Tom, her character develops from being a smaller, somewhat “stowed away” personality, to begin to understand her true value and begins to take some well earned place. She doesn’t really mature along the way like Tom does, but she does grow in self-esteem.

The Germans

The Germans are the nasty ones wanting to take over. In reality as well as in the book, most of them are just ordinary men under orders from those really wanting to take over, the real Nazi thugs. One of the captured German U-Boat captains even had his teddy bear brought along onboard his U-Boat. Nevertheless, they still constitute one of the main obstacles in the novel and they do not develop in any direction.

The Enigma cipher machine and World War 2

The Enigma machine and the world war play a significant role in this novel and that’s why I regard them as two of the main characters and like to merge them into one. The Enigma machine gave the Nazi headquarters methods to secretly and safely communicate with their troops through garbled text. These so called cryptograms were then transmitted in Morse code. Before Bletchley Park and their deciphering machines, it looked as if the Nazis were going to win the war.

                 Theme:

                 This novel is about the seemingly impossible struggle against the war machine and also about “man’s” everlasting hope. It’s about the hope that gave people both courage and strength to in the end, overcome an almost invincible enemy. It is about love. Not only between woman and man, but also the love for the humanity and for the dream of that anything can be accomplished, no matter the situation. It’s all about what we decide is important enough.

 Style:

                 The way the novel is written by the author, shows that either he’s a brilliant researcher, or this is in fact one of his personal interests. By starting off every chapter with a specific word and an explanation, which I can confirm to be correct, he brings a lot of technical knowledge to the reader. Being very accurate in describing crypto analysis, Morse code and even military tactics, he also leads me to believe in the rest of his story.

He has a great talent and a delicate feeling for describing the small things in life and at the same time he brings a trembling and mysterious tension to the story. He puts facts and authentic notes and messages here and there, making this novel even more trustworthy.

This story is a soft action thriller with a lot of enigmas for both main characters and readers.

                 Target audience:

To catch the inner essence of this novel, I recommend the readers to be fairly fluent in the English language, but the book can of course still be enjoyed by those who aren’t.

                 If I was to recommend this novel, it would be to anyone with an enough serious mind, who would like to experience the tension in a really qualitative action thriller. Though the novel does not really contain any harsh violence, the use of the language sometimes is and I’d would like to  recommend  parental advisory or guidance for readers under 15 years.

                 Personal response:

                 I got the movie for birthday present from my ex fiancée years ago and recently bought the book from Adlibris in English and my immediate response was, that the movie doesn’t stand a chance against this piece of gold. I just couldn’t stop reading it. Enough said. I’d now like to end my review with a quote of that which caught my eyes and then never really let go:

”WHISPERS – The sounds made by an enemy wireless transmitter immediately before it begins to transmit a coded message”

A lexicon of cryptography ’Most secret’ – Blethcley Park 1943

Written by Ulf

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

This is my book review of Bridget Jones’s Diary and the book was written by Helen Fielding. In 1996 the book was published and in 2001 the movie of Bridget Jones’s Diary came. Bridget Jones’s Diary counts as a comedy novel, chic lit.

The book is a diary then for it’s written in the present all the time. The story begins at Mr.  & Mrs. Aconburys New Year Party in Grafton Underwood. The couples are close friends to Bridget’s parents. At that party she meets Mark Darcy for the first time. I should say as adult because they’ve met each other when they were children.

Bridget Jones

Bridget's mother is constantly trying to match Bridget with any man. Bridget is single and the reason the mother thinks is because she is not capable to get a man so therefore she will arrange it instead. And Bridget, in turn, has no chance to assert herself against her mother, but it ends up with her doing as her mother said.

Daniel Cleaver

Daniel Cleaver is Bridget's boss, Bridget and he flirt by sending e-mails to each other, but then also start a relationship. He is a womanizer and thinks life is too short to be bored. He says he knew Mark Darcy in the past.

Mark Darcy

Mark Darcy is perceived as a dry and also boring lawyer, he is strict and does not come up with any unplanned adventure like Cleaver does , but behaves more sober and thoughtful. He is spends time mostly with like-minded and therefore a lot with his colleagues in the law company.

Somewhere in the middle or the end of the book, you notice that both Bridget and Mark have changed. Mark is a bit more relaxed and does not have the same rigid manner and Bridget is not as obsessed by weight loss and not as anxious or nervous like before. Daniel, however, has not changed at all and continues in the same track as before – as a womanizer.

                                                                                                                         

The plot is about Bridget Jones, who talks about what it is like to live her life as a 30 year old single in London, never to find the right one, the fight for the ideal weight, the friends she can not survive without and contests with the boss Cleaver.

This book is easy to understand, that’s why I chose to read this book.  And the book is fun from the beginning. That makes it easier to read then.

I love this book, the first time I read this book and saw the movie I was in the same age as Bridget in the book – and she did things that was so typically me, like “playing” drums in the air and then finish that solo with a kick in the air…I love that!!

That which makes this book so great is that I can relate so much to myself. Like how she

thinks, her silly but oh so funny excuses, her concerns about appearance and get a boyfriend.

Her faltering attempts to talk about feelings with a new boyfriend. It was like that I also

felt a period. I recognize myself so well and I think that's precisely why I love this book.

I don’t think there’s anything in the book that is bad and I would surely recommended this book to other people. I would highly recommend this book, because if you want a good laugh and get the feeling that you will recognize - read Bridget Jones’s Diary!

Written by Anette