Kirjanurkkaus

Ajan myötä lohikäärme ja kirin loivat rupensa ja veivät muodonmuutoksensa loppuun asti, ja niin niistä tuli osa ruumistani. Nyt ne olivat oikeasti omaisuuttani - sana, jota käytin mielelläni ajatellessani niitä. Mutta oli myös mahdollista, että niiden arvo alenisi uutuudenviehätyksen kadottua. Hitomi Kaneharan tapauksessa suuri yleisö taitaa olla enemmän kiinnostunut itse kirjailijasta kuin tämän teoksista. Japanilainen Kanehara lopetti koulunkäynnin eri lähteiden mukaan 11-15-vuotiaana ja asui jonkin aikaa kadulla ennen kuin alkoi kirjoittaa kokemuksistaan tarinoita, joita sitten lähetti sähköpostitse isälleen. Kirjallisuuden professori näki ilmeisesti tarinoissa jotain, koska hän toimitti tyttärensä tekstit julkaistavaan kuntoon. Tuloksena on bestseller, joka voitti arvostetun Akutagawa-palkinnon Japanissa ja joka on käännetty kymmenille kielille, nyt myös suomeksi. Entä itse kirja sitten? Se on lyhyt romaanintapainen, jonka kansikuva saa sen näyttämään lähes lastenkirjalta, mit...

If you were to search for me in this crowded maze, where would you look? You would probably try to find me among the dozens of children stretched out on the smooth concrete floor in various stages of rest and slumber. You might even imagine me as an adolescent hawker, peddling plastic bottles containing tap water from the station's toilet as pure Himalayan aqua minerale. You could visualize me as one of the sweepers in dirty shirt and torn pants shuffling across the platform, with a long swishing broom transferring dirt from the pavement on to the track. This is the original book behind the award-winning blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire . But if, like me, you thought that the movie probably resembles or follows the basic plotline of the novel, you will realize that you are wrong not long after you start reading. For once, the novel and the movie are so different that I don't think anyone can go around complaining about how the movie left out this-and-that, or that the novel di...

Jos haluat tietää miksi norjalaisten poroporvarien kodit ovat esteettisiä katastrofialueita, käväisepä Italian Housessa. Sieltä löytyy täydellinen varustus sille, joka haluaa snobbailla, ostaa muutaman neliömetrin tyyliä ja laatua, uusvanhoja piironkeja jotka ovat eräänlaista keksittyä renessanssityyliä, mahtipontisia messinkikynttelikköjä ja väärennettyjä keskiaikaisgobeliineja. Se on halpaa roskaa, ja tiedätkö mikä siinä on pahinta? Pahinta on se ettei se ole edes halpaa. Norjalaisen Torgrim Eggenin Sisustajan päähenkilö, Sigbjørn Lunde, on nuori ja menestyvä oslolainen sisustusarkkitehti, jonka kaikki rikkaat ja kuuluisat haluavat palkata hänen hulppean makunsa ja radikaalien sisustusratkaisujensa vuoksi. Sigbjørn on menestyvä mallikansalainen, tai vaihtoehtoisesti materialistinen, omahyväinen pröystäilijä - riippuu tulkinnasta. Hän ajaa Audi S3:lla, pukeutuu Pradan kenkiin ja hänen täydellinen vaimonsa on työmatkoilla juokseva kosmopoliitti. Sigbjørnin kotona on horisontaalisti ...

Actually, I'm one of the 'gypsies', as the other musicians call us, one of the guys who move around the piazza, helping out whichever of the three cafe orchestras needs us. Mostly I play here at the Caffè Lavena, but on a busy afternoon, I might do a set with the Quadri boys, go over to the Florian, then back across the square to the Lavena. I get on fine with them all - and with the other waiters too - and in any other city I'd have a regular position by now. But in this place, so obsessed with tradition and the past, everything's upside down. Something new: a collection of short stories by Kazuo Ishiguro , whose writing career has mainly consisted of novels so far. Ishiguro's short stories somehow remind me of Haruki Murakami's stories, minus the quirky, supernatural elements. I think this is mainly because of the lonely, single main characters and the large role that music, especially jazz, plays in the novels. Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Ni...

Seregil balanced precariously atop the shard-lined wall, impatiently scanning the shadowy garden below for his misplaced partner. Alec has been right behind him when he'd shimmied out the library window, or so he thought. Everything about this job had taken too long... Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series is one of the vices from my younger and more vulnerable years. :) The first three books of the series (which - I was sure at the time - was meant to be a trilogy) gripped and fascinated me, so much so that I read them multiple times. It wasn't quite Harry Potter , but it was close... Besides, Seregil and Alec had a far more dangerous and alluring air about them with their electric relationship full of sexual tension and constant near-death-experiences. Teenage fangirl material at its best! ;) Now, almost 10 years after the publication of the third book of the "trilogy", Flewelling has decided to extend the series into what is now a pentalogy. The fifth book...

Shiv now asks himself (or his father): What makes a fanatic? A fundamentalist? What makes communities that have lived together for years suddenly discover a latent hatred for each other? Githa Hariharan's novel about contemporary India deals with themes and issues that can be applied to almost anywhere in the world. How do the power politics of a society affect the lives of individual people? What can one person do about it: how do you make a difference when faced with a larger force both powerful and intangible? In Times of Siege explores a clash between the secular, plural version of Indian history and the more black-and-white version offered by religious Hindu extremists. This clash is most severely felt by the somewhat boring character of Shiv Murthy, an ageing Professor of History in New Delhi, whose lesson on one of the heroes of Indian mythology causes unexpected controversy among the more traditional circles of Indian society. Shiv, with the help of the radical young...