The mysterious Island

A happy new year, everyone!

Finally I made it :-) Yesterday I finished Jules Vernes "The mysterious island", my first ebook! Regarding the story, it is still one of my favourites, despite I wonder, whether my german version and this version are really the same book, both versions have the grade "complete edition"... but either I am not the attentive reader I like to be, or there are some differences...

Ok, what is this book about? Cyrus Harding (Smith in my german edition), his ex-servant Neb, Gideon Spillett, Herbert and Pencroft, as well as the dog Top, manage to flee - by taking a balloon - from Richmond during the American Civil war. After days and days without knowing their whereabouts they finally see land. The balloon, constantly losing gas, is freed from everything, in order to make it rise again. Harding looses his footing and falls into the agitated sea, Top following swiftly. His friends manage to get to a very small island, just a mile in front of a much bigger land-mass (it is not yet assured, whether this is an island). Well... A few days later they find Harding, in a somewhat mysterious way - Top appears from nowhere and lead the stranded ones to Harding. Harding, after regaining consciousness, does his best to find out their position within the ocean, and dashes all their hopes because they are at least 1200 miles from the next land. After this, the cast-aways speak of themselves as settlers and try to make the perfect island of the now called "Lincoln Island". Harding knows very much about nearly everything, and so they manage to make a formerly waterfilled cave habitable. Many mysterious things happen on Lincoln Island - a pellet is found within a young pecary, a treasure chest is found on the beach, containing everything the settlers need, Top is rescued in a very strange way after having troubles with a dugong... (but I wont whistle blow to much). Well, the settlers even manage to build a large enough boat to make a visit to their "neighbour" Tabor Island. In the end they get known to the mysterious helper, and... well... It is really hard not to tell too much, and not to tell too little...

Best is, you read the book yourselves! I love it, and despite the kindle edition has some spelling mistakes (sometimes it looks like, they scanned the text, and the scanner did not get everything right...) I award 10 out of 10.
As I am now a little behind with Vampira and 2012 it may take a while until I post again!

Kindle

As a present I got the kindle 4 last week. As "The mysterious Island" from Jules Verne is one of my alltime favorites, and I haven't read it in english so far, I downloaded it, and I am now at 15% -> this will be the next book reviewed!

So far I like the system, and I like the reader itself. What I don't like is, that there are no pagenumbers, but only the percentage you have read so far. I understand why that is, because you can change the font size and the font itself, but all the same, I would like it better if I could see the page number!

The loading works with an micro-USB plug, either via PC or via power socket. The first time load via power socket took about an hour, this has been 3 days ago and although I read very much and played around with the kindle even more the battery is still full.

The "picture" is refreshed around every 7th page, during the other pages only the lines are refreshed, what leads to "ghost letters", but is not really a problem, apart from when you sit under direct light.

So far I am really happy with the kindle, but I don't think, that I will read everything now only on my ebookreader (I still have about 50 unread books in my "unread" shelve). But there are so many classics one can read for free... I really will exhaust the possibility of downloading and reading them for free! [I don't have to much space left for new books, so I will focus on books I really have to have in the physical edition, when buying new books]

Arkadien fällt

Kai Meyer's "Arkadien fällt" is the third an final volume of the Arkadien-trilogy. Rosa and Alessandro continue to fight for their love, as all shapeshifter clans have a problem with their relationship. As they find out after a lot of research and livethreatening situations, the real bad guy is the hungry man, who wants them to marry (and then kill each other) in order to regain the power the shapeshifters had in former times.

Well, I keep this so short, because I think, one word much spoils everything. The book itself is well written, as usual, but I think there is a little too much action. What the first two volumes lacked on action, this volume likes to pick up. There is very much plot for a book of only 340 pages, so you have to keep track.
But all in all, Arkadien fällt is a good ending for the trilogy, every riddle has a solution and one has a good feeling for the future of the main characters.

I award 7 out of 10 for this book due to the mentioned hurry in the plot (perhaps the book should have had 500 pages, so all would have been well :-)).

I have not yet decided what to read next, as I have not read my current volumes of 2012 and Vampira.

The Lover

This book by Marguerite Duras tells the autobiographic story of a 15 year old girl, living in South East Asia, who becomes some kind of mistress for the son of a Chinese business man, who fells in love with her when he first meets her on a ferry. At first, they only meet on a social basis, going for dinner, for a walk... One day he takes her into a flat somewhere in the busy streets of the town, and makes love to her. She more or less becomes addicted to him, firstly because of experiencing an immense sensation of lust, secondly because he can provide her with the money her family no longer has.
But the "love" story is not the only part of the book (contrary to the movie), instead the main focus is on her family, with her crazy mother, her younger and her older brother, the problems they face due to the depression her mother suffers from, the problems that occur because all the money is gone.
She also is confronted with racial problems, her being white, him being a Chinese.

The story is told in a very strange way... Sometimes it is a first person narrative, sometimes Duras speaks about herself in the third person, the plot is not told in a linear way, but jumps from here to there, from this time to that time. Hardly any names are told (apart from a school friend), she only refers to "him", "his father", "her younger brother", "her older brother" All that made the book a rather hard one to read.
I had high expectations but they where not met. I am actually quite disappointed by the book, which can be reasoned because I like the movie very much, and well, the movie focusses on the love story, the book focusses on her family, which characters are strange, and not really like-able.

All in all... I am not going to rate this book. Please feel free to post your opinion!

Coming up next "Kai Meyer: Arkadien fällt"

No et moi

After a few dime novels I started  "No et moi". I read it in German, as my French is not good enough.

No and me... Me, that is 13 year old Lou, living in Paris with her parents who suffer from the loss of Lous baby sister a few years ago. She is very intelligent and skipped therefore two classes. As a result, she is the youngest in her class, but being as bright as she is, she is still the best. Feeling quite isolated (not one of her classmates, wants to be friends with her) she goes to the trainstation after school in order to watch people. One day, No, a 18 year old homeless starts to speak to Lou. She just needs a person, who talks to her, so Lou gets to the trainstation each daym, gets to know Lou, and even holds a speech at school about homeless women in France, Paris in particular.
Lou`s only "friend" is Lucas, who repeats the class, does not pay attention to what the teachers say, and is a rebel in each and every way.
Lou starts to think, that when each person took one homeless person and took care of them, therefore she wants to convince her parents to take No to live with them. No, being as down as down can be, is being washed and newly dressed at Lucas flat, and then starts her new life with Lou and her parents.
At first everything is perfect, No takes her time to recover, becomes a valueable member of the family and even gets herself a job. When Lou and her parents have to leave Paris for a few days to meet Lous aunt things turn into a different direction...

I have to say, that book is really a pageturner! One always wants to know what happens next and one feels the drama rising... Despite knowing, that there cannot be a happy ending, one cannot stop reading, one is happy when Lou is, one is sad, when Lou is. I started crying in the train again.... So, I think No et Moi is the perfect book for everyone who really likes to be "inside" a book.
I award 10 out of 10 for an outstanding reading experience!

Next one to come is Marguerite Duras` "the Lover"

Anthem for Doomed Youth

I just finished the 19th Daisy Dalrymple mystery, Anthem for Doomed Youth, and I am delighted.
This time, 3 burried bodies, in various states of decay, are found in Epping forrest.
Due to his investigation, Daisy`s husband Alec has no time to take part on his daughters school sports day. But as Daisy loves Belinda very much, she, together with her friends Sakari and Melanie - mothers of Lizzi and Deva, close friends of Belinda - drive over to Saffron Walden where the girls boarding school is situated.
On the day after the sport event, the six of them go to a local garden and the three girls go off into a maze... when Daisy hears a piercing scream her heart misgives her... surely enough, one of the girls has found the body of one of their teachers. With the help of a tight-lipped local gardener Daisy goes into the maze and discoveres both the girls and the body...
Alec, in the meanwhile, is busy solving his case. He has 2 possible links between the 3 Epping forrest bodies and tries to find out which one of the theories will hold. When he finally finds out who committed the crimes, it is to late - as the person commits suicide when he finds himself surrounded by the police.
Daisy and her friends are questionned by an incapable officer... that`s why they give him a pretty hard time, resulting in him accusing the harmless gardener. Well, as usually Daisy can prevent unguilty persons to be charged and things turn out a little different as one would expect (but don`t tell Alec!).

I am now reading the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries for more than 10 years. I was delighted, when Daisy and Alec became a couple and married, but was devided when they got the twins and to be honest, I did not like the last books. But in this book, Daisy is her cheery old self again, Sakari being a very good side kick, and the children being involved being rather funny.
Therefore I award a full 10 out of 10.

As I have 2 more dime novels to read I have not yet decided which book comes next. Perhaps "Arkadien fällt" by Kai Meyer

Good Omens

Finally I have some time to blog about Good Omens, a Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett Cooperation.

The book is about the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, who was a witch, and wrote a book about the things happening in the future. She happened to be quite good in forward-looking statements but nobody wanted to buy her book, as most prophecies were not really spectacular, so the only copy left is the one she kept for herself.
A couple of hundred years later... Crowley (a demon) and Aziraphale (an angel), who are good friends and quite used to living on earth come to know of the nearing apocalypse. They decide to work together in order to postpone the end of the world.
So Satan's son is born, and Crowley and his friend decide to have an eye on the Antichrist. They want him to rise in a very normal way, so he will not be in favor for each side.
Due to some misshandling of various children in the hospital, the child everyone believes to be Satan's son (Warlock - named because on of the nurses wanted the Antichrist to have a proper name) is a very normal boy.
The real Antichrist is Adam Young. He lived a perfectly normal live so far, and has no idea about his true powers. When he starts thinking about the perfect world, his ideas become true, and so the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter become true...

I really liked the book! It was something completely different from the stuff I usually read. It was fun, trying to find out, which author wrote which part, and I am sure, I did not always succeed. I had to laugh a lot, sometimes very hard (very embarassing, sitting in the train...), but I think, the end came a little to fast. All in all, I award 6 out of 10.

Coming up next is Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple: Anthem for Doomed Youth!