Category: Reading Challenge

And somehow we are in June. 🙂 Even in Finland it’s getting super lovely: scent of lilacs fills the air and we’ve had some really warm days with around 27 degrees celcius. The weather forces you to go outdoors and reading somehow slows down. I guess I’m just taking my time enjoying both the summer feeling as well as the books. ❤ No complaints there.

I’m working on finishing a couple of longer books which is why it’s been a bit quieter with the book reviews. I did however finish another Audible audiobook by Dame Agatha Christie and narrated by David Suchet.

I finished reading Marco Hietala’s biography a week ago already, but somehow it felt difficult to write down what I thought of it.

I’m a huge fan of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, and obviously Marco Hietala is one of the band members, so I guess I found it a bit difficult to not just go all into fangirl mode when I sat down to write about this book. 🙂

Nyt minä itse soitan biisejä, joista nämä sukupolvet saavat kylmiä väreitä vielä vuosikymmenien jälkeen. Uskomatonta, jopa pelottavaa, mutta hienoa.

Rough translation from Finnish: ” Now it’s me who plays the songs that still after decades give the chills to these generations. Unbelievable, even scary, but great.”

Marco Hietala – Stainless tells the story of a great musician, and his rough journey towards success.

I’m not going to lie, I struggled to read this book that seems to be really liked by most Goodreads reviewers. This cozy book of the Guernsey island in 1940s should have been a quick read, but somehow it took me over a month to slowly read through 250 pages.

I could tell you more about reading and how it perked up our spirits while the Germans were here.

Perhaps I should’ve just watched the recently made movie first and then read the book! 🙂

The long Easter weekend provided some nice time for reading, so I read this book within 24 hours . 🙂 When I noticed a new book is coming from the Swedish crime writer Camilla Läckberg, I immediately pre-ordered the Finnish translation to be able get my hands on it right away, as the English translation is still to be released.

Heidän raivonsa oli hänen raivoaan. Ja hänen raivonsa oli heidän raivoaan.

Translation: Their rage was her rage. And her rage was their rage.

Camilla Läckberg takes on a new territory with The Golden Cage with a new, more bold main character and a darker setting. Did I enjoy this book more than her long Fjällbacka series? Nope, but I still devoured it!

This time I listened to Dead Man’s Folly as an Audible audio book and read by David Suchet himself in Poirot’s voice that he does so wonderfully.
I have yet to meet a person who dislikes Agatha Christie’s work or who wouldn’t have enjoyed David Suchet’s long career as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

I mean, what can you say about how you write your books? What I mean is, first you’ve got to think of something, and then when you’ve thought of it you’ve got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That’s all.

Quote by Ariadne Oliver. As someone who loves and struggles with writing, gotta love that quote in this story. 🙂

I’m so happy that there are so many more Poirot stories available as audio books, narrated by David Suchet, as the format works really well.

Okay so this will be a bit odd, since my blog is in English and the book Pintti is written in in Finnish, by a Finnish author, and there is no translation. 🙂 I’ve been thinking if I should write about the Finnish books in Finnish but it feels strange to suddenly change my language here so I suppose I’ll just stick to English whatever the book’s original language and do translations for the quotes.

Kesä on hetkeksi toteutunut haave siitä, mitä elämä voisi olla. Syksy on menneen muistelua ja kevät sykkivää uuden odottamista. Vain talvi on oma itsensä vailla kaipuuta taakse tai tulevaan.

Rough translation: Summer is a momentary dream come true of what life could be like. Autumn is about remembering the past and spring about waiting for the new. Only winter is itself, without yearning for the past or future.

So anyway, as I’ve said before, for me the point of doing a Reading Challenge is to both have a boost in my overall reading and also to explore books from outside my comfort zone. Reading in Finnish is something that I will try to do a bit more with the help of the challenge.