Favorites & Summer Reads

Favorites : 

Location  : Gløshaugen -NTNU campus- Norway 

This Place holds a lot of good memories , It's certainly a destination to go back to in the future whether as a student or just a visitor ! Kudos to all the people that made my Norwegian Hogwarts experience  possible and delightful . 

Bookstore : Ark Bokhandel butikk , Trondheim Torg , Norway

This is a promising location to lose all your pocket money and be happy with being penniless afterwards !

Gadgets:  Rollei and Vintage Polaroid Pictures : 

These are few Gems that I found recently in my parents' souvenir case , a bunch of vintage Polaroid pictures from my Dad's working days in Germany and a classic manual Rollei camera , he unfortunately sold the Polaroid Camera ages ago ! I wish it was within reach .

Music : 

Norwegian Folk/pagan Music all the way with a dash of Alternative rock with Moddi and Hozier 

i will leave you in the hands of the gods with My favorite Wardruna song 

Summer Reads :

This started long before summer , I was on a trip to Norway and I had "La confession d'un enfant du siècle" book on my TBR list since I can remember so instead of taking with me several books  -which is something i am accustomed to when I am on the road- I decided to take a different approach I took a single book which was the above mentioned one . on the plane and I  read a considerable chunk of it and I enjoyed it but as soon as I arrived to Norway I got swamped by all the plans and when I went To Ark bokhandel ,I was ensnared by other books and kept buying books ... so I sort of ended up neglecting Musset's book (not that i am reading another book , its just that i am too engulfed in buying new ones)

La confession d'un enfant du Siècle - Confession of the Child of the Century by Alfred de Musset :

                                      
*I finished it in late June*

Confession of the Child of the Century is  basically a French Classic from the Romantic Era ,
this was a challenge for me as in 1st I don't usually read French 2nd I am not a big fan of the Romantic Genre
This is in a nutshell an autobiography slightly altered (Musset used different names and attributes and locations ...) It basically gives us an  insight into Musset and George Sand's love story with  a very lethargic ,slow  and dramatic approach .

Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer : 

*started it in July , finished it in Early August*

1st book : Annhilation

In Annihilation Vandermeer introduces us to  a female expedition planning to go to "Area X" . what is really striking is the absences of Proper names , the characters are introduced as The biologist , The Linguist , the psychologist and the surveyor , they sit for preparation sessions and hypnosis , they afterwards cross the border to Area X and that is when the fun starts 

2nd book : 

Authority focuses on the Southern reach itself as an agency ,  a new  set of important characters is also introduced , and it  dives into the past of the agency as well .

3rd book : 

Acceptance , has a different approach , it travels back and forth in time and switches  from one perspective to another which makes it versatile and makes us able to understand the whole of the trilogy . 

Elric of Melniboné  by Michael Moorcock :

*Finished it in three Afternoons*

This one is for Fantasy Freaks , its the 1st book of a larger saga called " The Elric Saga" 

It talks about a Fantastic world and race of people called the Melnibonéians , the Aristocracy and the Monarch are Dragon Lords With superpowers and witchcraft at their side 

its about the Rise of Elric as the new king and his Adversary with his Own Cousin Yyrkoon. 

- cool nordic names (Elric , Yyrkoon , Dyvim Tvar , Cymoril ...)

- Fantasy world

- Dragons 

- WitchCraft

-  Islands and Long boats 

-  Paganism

what are you waiting for ? GO GRAB IT !

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu : 

*Finished it in one sitting*

This is by Far one of my favorite Horror and Gothic stories and lord knows I've read plenty, 

From Lord Dusnay's Novels to Poe passing by H,B lovecraft and a bunch of others . 

Joseph S Le Fanu 's masterpiece is a about an English  teenage girl that moved to Germany after her father bought a big estate there ,  the girl speaks English and German fluently 

Their Schloss (i'll be using Schloss and Castle interchangeably)   was situated in a very secluded area of Germany ,  the nearest lived estate was several miles  away and their own Castle was near the premises of an old ruined Castle , the views are breathtaking but the main character feels so lonely , one day an incident happened and they welcomed another young girl in their Schloss the rest is for you my dear readers to discover .

Dead Set by Richard Kadrey :

*Finished it in three nights*

I never dared to read a teenage fiction before , but then this one came along  it was given to me by a  very dear friend of mine and I trusted his taste and I honestly  wasn't disappointed at ALL .

Zoe is the main character , she's a high-school student who just lost her dad , she moved to San Francisco with her mother for a fresh start , but one day coming back from school she stumbled on a  record store , seeing that it had an old collection of Vinyl punk records she was tempted to discover more , and as we all know Curiosity killed the Cat ,. 

The borders between dreams and reality became blurry , confusion settled and Hecate ruled .

- punk music references 

- fantasy 

- Mythology

- Suspense 

- the living meeting the dead 

and yeah Abysenth we shouldn't forget about her !