Books I have read recently: The Story of a Beautiful Girl

Clarification: Take the term "recently" in the title to mean a timeframe meaning the past few months. I've been so lazy blogging that I haven't documented any of the books I've read, which have been numerous. Anyway, I will try to remedy the situation by picking a few of the best books to share.

The first is the Story of the Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon. This book came out in 2012, and my cousin mentioned it to me a while back. I finally read it this past summer and it's a lovely book written about a topic that hasn't got a lot of coverage in the world of literature. It's the story of a girl with developmental disability, and her love story with a deaf man. It's also the story of the institutions that housed people with developmental disabilities, and the horrible things that happened in those places. I felt the book captured the voice and feeling of its subjects well although it's not the most sophisticated writing. It's full of humanity, and understanding. I highly recommend this book.

March Books

March is the month of expectation. The month has felt so long, mostly because I can't wait for a more springlike weather and some sunshine, but also because I've been sick for a couple of weeks. Not like full on sick, but just not feeling 100%. It's getting better though.

Anyway, I was supposed to document my thoughts on the books that I read this March.

I was in a mood for something light and fluffy and picked up Sophie Kinsella's latest book "My (not so) Perfect Life. Kinsella is best known for the Shopaholic series, which I loved way back when. This book was a super quick read. The story is simple and quite predictable, but I didn't mind, because I didn't pick up this book hoping for anything deep and complicated. It was fun chicklit. 

Fredrick Backman's "A Man Called Ove" has been a best-seller for a while. I've been hearing about this book for maybe a year, and been intrigued. It's by a Swedish writer, and became a spectacular success. The book is about a man, Ove, who is the type of man (serious, responsible, rule-follower, stubborn, old fashioned) that is a somewhat common type in the older generation is Scandinavia. I compared him much to my own father, actually. Not the same of course, but there was surprising amount of similarity. The book was quite emotional, and funny. In the end it was about emerging from grief and depression, hope, and your purpose in life. If I had one complaint about the book, it was the age of Ove. The author tells us that he is in his late fifties. I think the character would have felt more authentic if he was older, more like in his seventies. 

Jukka Viikilän "Akvarelleja Engelin Kaupungista" sai kaunokirjallisuuden Finlandia palkinnon viime vuonna. Odotin kirjalta siis paljon, mutta petyin kun se ei täyttänytkään odotuksiani. Edellinen lukemani vuonna 2014 Finlandia palkinnon saanut kirja, "He Eivät Tiedä Mitä Tekevät", oli mielestäni loistava. Viikilän kirjaa en ymmärtänyt ollenkaan. Se oli unenomainen ja runollinen, mutta ei hyvällä tavalla. Mielestäni kirja oli jotenkin kikkaileva ja teennäinen. Olin toivonut oppivani Helsingin historiaa ja siirtyväni Engelin aikakauteen sitä lukiessani, mutta ehkä en vaan päässyt kirjaan kunnolla sisälle. Se hyvä tässä kirjassa oli että se oli lyhyt. 

The Good Girl

"I cannot remember the books that I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me." Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am sure that this book (The Good Girl by Mary Kubica) will be a movie. I had the movie flashing in my eyes while reading it. Or maybe it was very similar to some movie I've seen..I can't really tell, but all I could think when reading the Good Girl was that it was like a movie. It's a kidnapping thriller written from three different characters' perspective, and the story moves to before and after the kidnapping.  It's one of those books that I read very superficially, and will probably forget pretty soon. Even the twist on the last page was not that surprising. It would probably actually be a much better movie than a book. This book has been compared to Gone Girl, but I don't think that it comes close. The Gone Girl developed its characters much better than this one, and was a book you're not going to soon forget. In sum, I wouldn't recommend this book if you have access to something that might be better. If it's the only book available in a hotel library, and you need a book by the pool, then go ahead, it's a quick and light read, and you can skip ahead some of the more boring parts in the middle...

The Bell Jar

"If I didn't think, I'd be much happier"

Sylvia Plath

I'm a bit behind documenting the books I've read. Some time ago I got into my head that I should occasionally read classic novels to educate myself. Not that reading contemporary literature is not educational too, but you know what I mean.

I settled on Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar for a few reasons: she's a legendary poet, had a tragic ending killing herself pretty young, I like her name, and I was curious. The book was also cheap on Amazon (usually NOT a good reason to read a book - or have you ever tried reading those free books on kindle? If not, DON'T!) Anyway, the Bell Jar is a pretty short book and a quick read. It was really well written with a tremendous ease to the tone but at the same time very sophisticated language. It's full of amazing little pearls of original thoughts, passages and quotes, by the way. I'm going to include one below. The book is clearly autobiographical, given it's a description of a young girl going into and through a mental illness, which is pretty much Plath's life. It may have been intentional by Plath, but the girl  felt cold and detached, which made her hard to like. Still it was a really good book, and I'm glad I read it. I will continue reading classics every now and then, though now I'm on to another contemporary book.



"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." 
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

There's Nothing Quite Like a Good Book

Losing yourself in a good book is the greatest feeling you can have. I have a lot of time to read during my commute to the City, so I'm always on the look-out for good books that can take me away from the commuting misery. One such book that I recently finished was Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. She won the Pulitzer prize for the book and it's well deserved. She writes with beautiful language, and makes people and places really come vividly alive. You can feel what they feel, understand why they feel it and really lose yourself in their story. Some people have criticized that the book is too long, but I don't agree. I didn't even feel that it was long. And as always, when you finish an extraordinary book, you mourn the ending of it, and having to let go of it. That's how I felt when the Goldfinch ended. It is hard to find something else to read after a book like that, because it's so easy to fall flat. I guess I should find something in a totally different genre, a chicklit, or maybe something non-fiction. Any recommendations?

Not the Usual Beach Read

I recently finished reading a book about Pekka Herlin, the a Finnish industrial magnate who inherited the elevator company Kone. As you may know, Kone today is one of the largest elevator and escalator companies in the world, employing over 35000 people globally. 
 
As I get older I am more and more interested in books about real people; there are so many amazing stories and so much to learn from many remarkable people. There is also something very comforting to know that people can achieve so much despite their flaws. 
 
This book was written after Herlin's death; it was commissioned by his family to celebrate his life's work, which was creating the first truly global Finnish company, and in the process help tremendously advance and develop the Finnish economy and corporate landscape. He helped bring Finland into the modern competitive business environment, which was an amazing accomplishment, given the situation of the country after the second world war, and after the Finnish winter war with Russia. His success in business is astonishing, but what's even more remarkable, is that he was also a successful farmer, a successful competitive sailor who won many races, and a father to five children. It puts to shame my eternal complaint that I don't have enough time to do it all - and I only have one job and three kids. 
 
What is surprising about the book is how candidly it describes Pekka Herlin's interesting and deeply divided personality. His strengths were keen intelligence and a powerful drive, but he also had many flaws and weaknesses that made him very difficult to live with; among the worst of which was his addiction to alcohol. 
 
Unfortunately the book, Koneen Ruhtinas, is only available in Finnish. 

Pekka Herlin or James Dean?