The topic of this Wednesday is 'Summer Reads'. Since the sun is coming out over here in Germany again after a weekend of heavy rain, I think this is going to be the perfect way to get me into my summer reading mood!
5.) Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart - and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed - a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city - a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known... (synopsis from goodreads)
Although I'm aware that not many people would classify this as the perfect summer read, for me it is, anyway. I love the mysteriousness of this world of London Below that Neil Gaiman provides us with and somehow this great adventurous story seems to be the perfect read for me to get in the mood for my own summer adventures. I also did a review of this book.
4.) Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust. (synopsis from goodreads)
This is one of my favourite classics. I would not classify this as a light read, to be honest, but still the setting and the beautiful descriptions and - most importantly - the scene when Lo and Humbert first meet, remind me of a beautiful summer.
3.) Fredrik Backman - A Man called Ove
A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
The story about Ove is such a sweet and beautiful story. I remember when I read it last summer, I felt it was the perfect book for a sunny afternoon outside. It was not a book without substance, though. There were light-hearted and funny passages as well as very sad passages. Although this book is not entirely set in summer, I think this is a really fine book to read during the summer months. Check out my review!
2.) Stephen King - 11/22/63
Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away...but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke... Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten...and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.
Sadly, Stephen King has retreated from writing horror fiction into writing mainly criminal and mystery fiction. Gladly, this one is neither.
It is about the conspiracy around JFK's death - and about a man that tries to fit into the 60s but not losing himself in the past. I loved the romance that was going on in the story and the ending had me in tears. It is a rather long book, but still I enjoyed sitting in the sun and reading this last summer.
1.) Stephen King - Joyland
College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart. But he wound up facing something far more terrible: the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life—and what comes after—that would change his world forever.
A riveting story about love and loss, about growing up and growing old—and about those who don't get to do either because death comes for them before their time—Joyland is Stephen King at the peak of his storytelling powers. With all of the emotional impact of King masterpieces such as The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, Joyland is at once a mystery, a horror story, and a bittersweet coming-of-age novel, one that will leave even the most hard-boiled reader profoundly moved.
I just finished this book recently. I loved the atmosphere of the carnival lifestyle and I have always been a big fan of amusement parks. Stephen King has a very unique way of describing a setting and he also gives his characters voices that sound just like real people. Since I've read a lot of Stephen King's works over the past five years or so, I recognized some of the character-tropes he uses and this made the feeling almost perfect. Normally, such tropes would bother me, but they fit perfectly into the carny world.
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