54. J. Eijkelboom - Wat blijft komt nooit meer terug: Eigen en andermans gedichten

A book which ensures there is no gap in my blog due to holidays. I'm in The Netherlands this week and next week I'll be in Egypt, which means that next week I should really be able to finish a decent sized book. What else is there to do in Egypt then sit in the sun and read books?

J. Eijkelboom's Wat blijft komt nooit terug: Eigen en andermans gedichten is a compilation of poems. I just had this lying around and to be honest I'm not very interested in Dutch poetry, so this collection did not really excite me. Some of the poems in this compilation are translations from Emily Dickinson and others. I don't really see the use of this, because if you would like poetry you should go through the effort in understanding them in English. And Eijkelboom should really just try to fill this tiny tiny booklet with his own works as opposed to other peoples'. 

53. Ian Rankin - Let It Bleed

"He went over to the hi-fi. After a drink, he liked to listen to the Stones. Women, relationships, and colleagues had come and gone, but the Stones had always been there. He put the album on and poured himself a last drink. The guitar riff, one of easily half a dozen in Keith's tireless repertoire, kicked the album off. I don't have much, Rebus, thought, but I have this." (Rankin 38)

I find it ironic that out of all the books I could've picked this week, I picked Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin, which is apparently named after a Stones album. So after reading Keith Richards' autobiography last week, I have another book filled with Stones allusions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I like the Stones. What I don't like is that Rankin's books are getting more and more complicated and less intense. After Chapter 21 he had lost me. It started with a double suicide on the bridge and wound up to be a novel full of acronyms of different parts of the Scottish government (I think...).

It's a very complex book, and I wouldn't call Rankin a crime novelist anymore. After reading approximately 4 books of his that involved politics, I would call him a political intrigue novelist. I don't like films about politics because I forget names and functions, but I definitely don't appreciate books about it, because it takes me so much longer to plough through it.

It's a pity, because Rankin describes my surrogate home town so well! Maybe Mo Hayder should move to Edinburgh, because she knows exactly what my favourite crime novel should look like.

52. Keith Richards - Life

This week's autobiography was amazingly written. Surprisingly so, because that's not what you expect when you read a novel by famous druggie and musician Keith Richards. The fact that it was co-written by James Fox might have something to do with it though.

Keith's autobiography Life is perfectly named. It tells us about his full career. No nonsense with sequels. What you see is what you get and you'll get his full life, all his ups and downs in about 600 pages. It's amazing how he remembers everything in so much detail, but then most of the time he talks about music and that's probably what is going through his head non-stop. Drug haze or not.

It's hard to keep up sometimes, especially because I'm not familiar with any of the "famous" musicians he mentions in his books and all the different methods he uses to play his guitar. I know the Rolling Stones, but I don't know most of the songs he talks about or any of the albums. His writing has peaked my interest and I'm now listening to all the albums and I'm trying to catch up, with something that has been popular for 40 years. I'm a bit slow when it comes to music...

He is one of those autobiography writers who doesn't want the public's compassion. Not even when he describes the deaths of his best friends and the agonies he's been through. In fact, he never talks abouth his history with any kind of sorrow or regret. He cherishes the people he has known and he seems to be content with the way his life has progressed.

Apart from the fact that, according to the book (sorry I'm not much of a music-wiz), he is one of the best guitarists around; he is also a dog lover and an avid reader. What's not to like?

51. Hubert van den Bergh - How to Sound Clever: Master the 600 English Words You Pretend to Understand...When You Don't

This week I have been naughty and I haven't actually read a book. I've just browsed through one. Author Hubert van den Bergh has a very Dutch name; nevertheless he wrote the book called:  How to Sound Clever: Master the 600 English Words You Pretend to Understand...When You Don't.

It's a clever concept, but it won't have all the words that you might be looking for in it. His spiel is that he has written down all the words you frequently see in newspapers, which you don't really understand but you just skip over it thinking that you do. The entries in this book are meant to clear those words up.

I have to see a lot of the words I would skip over in newspapers as well, but it's good to see what they mean. For example: glib, garrulous, dissipate. Surely, I've learnt all these words in uni, but I have forgotten the meaning and it's good to have a little book in the house where you can quickly look it up. Although dictionaries have become antediluvian now that we have the internet.  

50. F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night

A classic this week by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

Tender is the Night is about psychiatrist Dick Diver, who falls in love with one of his patients Nicole Warren. After she is released from the clinic he decides to marry this rich young woman and they move to the French Riviera. There Dick meets the enchanting young actress Rosemary Hoyt. His life is never the same after that. Nicole spirals up and down from insanity to sanity and at the same time Rosemary, after a short affair with Dick, leaves them. All these events result in Dick slowly being driven to insanity himself,  but this is mostly brought on by the rich American culture in Switzerland, which he can't escape. 

It's a more complicated book than this of course, but as a short description it'll do. This is the last novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and it strongly depicts his own dive into drink and despair, but it also shows us the insanity that haunted his own wife Zelda. As classics go, this is not my favourite. I'm not a fan of the 20's Jazz culture, but then neither is Fitzgerald so at least we have some things in common. I'm more of a British Literature kind of gal, but it doesn't hurt to try reading a classic book from the US every now and again.