Sunday 18 October 2009

'Rache ist giftig' by Petra Würth

Couple of months back I stopped by in a book store just to spend some extra time. For some reason I always find myself heading toward book stores or libraries in case I 'm trying to pass time. Anyway, I was just walking between the shelves and checking some interesting books, as usual. Well, again I had picked this and that and finally I was holding five books. Mostly when I buy books, they are classics or some certain genre I'm looking for, but sometimes I just pick a wild card. That time the wild card was called 'Rache ist giftig', a book in original language by Petra Würth.

Rache ist giftig is a 'krimi' novel about private detective Pia Petry, who's keeping an office in Hamburg and struggling with both financial and relationship problems. The financial problems are tightening and she's in a desperate need to get a new task. Her prayers are answered and a rich client arrives with a peculiar task to find a certain taxi driver to whom her sister had been infatuated during a nightly taxi drive in Bremen. Pia is excited about the new task and happy to do something nice for once instead of exposing infidel spouses, but nothing is how it looks like and the assignment is getting dangerous features.

I can recommend the book to everyone who likes excitement, romance and humour. Pia Petry is a delightful character and pulls the reader compelling into the story. In addition, Würth's German is not too hard to understand from foreigner's perspective so I suggest to read it in original langue if possible. Enjoy!

http://www.randomhouse.de/book/edition.jsp?edi=257578

Thursday 11 December 2008

I just love the silent excitement of book stores and libraries. There are so many stories at your hand simultaneously shouting "choose me, choose me!" Well, knowing me, choosing is not one my stengths, so very often I just have to pick a random book before going crazy. Couple of months ago I was in a book fair with a friend who was anxiosly looking for a book or two. I really tried not to, because that would have taken ages. So I was just satisfied walking around and checking for new things, but then suddenly at one tiny shelf I saw a book that just caught my eye. "Night Train to Lisbon" (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/suisse/mercier1.htm) were the magical words and before I even noticed I'd already bought the book. That was so me. It is an excellent story about a man who's been living year after year following the same routines until suddenly on an ordinary rainy day he meets this mysterious, exotic woman on a bridge on his way to work. This encounter changes everything and triggers such a strong facinating feeling inside of him that he's ready to leave everything behind and start a train trip to unknown. Lovely book by Pascal Mercier.

Coincidence seems to play quite a big role for me choosing books. Few weeks back - lunch time at the office - I started to read paper that I never actually read. There was a review of a vampire saga - book and a movie - which I'd never heard before. Yet, it caught my interest right away, and surprise, surprise, after work I went looking for "Twilight" in the biggest book store in the city. I got little suspicious, though, about the review article when the first sales person I asked about it took me to youth books department. There, however, was another sales person who again appraised the saga. Then I started to believe that this must be something good. There's just one 'but' there. The saga comprised four books and I bought them all! It took two weeks and I'd read them all. Quite addictive and very entertaining. For two weeks I read all four books one by one every morning in the bus, every afternoon in the bus, and even every evening and even through some nights. I simply couldn't stop and put the books aside. Tempting saga, and I gotta say, Stephenie Meyer (http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/) has done beautiful work. Now I'm looking foward to the movie. Sadly in Norther Europe it won't be released until in the beginning of January.

Luckily Christmas is coming and there are many other books to find and lots of time to read :) Couple of movies wouldn't be so bad either.

Saturday 29 November 2008

Starting book voyages

Couple of months ago I was travelling to Madrid. I'm very anxious and restless person when it comes to travelling so I knew I'd need something to keep me entertained. So I bought a book, a random book at the airport from where I was departing. Nevertheless, I felt quite restless during the flight and I had quite a hard time to get started with the story. I could read only one hour out of six.

Few weeks back, however, I decided to take the book with me one morning when I was going to work. I started to read it on the bus and since that I had hard time to lay it down. Every morning I took the book with me with full excitment.

That is how I started my book voyages, and now I always carry a book with me.

In this blog I write about books that have impressed me, books that are worth reading. At best stories in those books start to live in your mind and sometimes you even feel like being part of the story through the feelings it arouses. And after ending one story you can't just wait to start another one.