Books I read in 2017

Compared to the last many years, I didn’t read much in 2017. The main reason for this was that our local library had closed for almost a year due to renovation. Because of this, I had to find my books elsewhere and my main source became the housing association laundrette! Here people left their old books that they didn’t want anymore, and I picked up a few, several of them in Danish, but not all of them good. One was even so bad that I had to give up on it altogether, namely the very silly correspondence between the two Danish female writers Maise Njor and Camilla Stockmann collected in the book “Michael Laudrups tænder”.

Because I got my books from a Danish laundrette this year, I’ve only read novels, biographies and non-fiction in English and Danish, so I’ve been missing out on literature in German and I’ve even come to feel a little rusty in French and Japanese.

I did, however, buy a few books during 2017 myself, namely the Japanese “Junjo Romantica” vol. 18 (as I love this yaoi manga series) and then Mike Nesmith’s autobiography “Infinite Tuesday”. I’m a big fan of both the Monkees and Mike Nesmith’s various solo projects and I loved his novel “The long, sandy hair of Neftoon Zamora” from 1998, but the autobiography was a bit of a disappointment. I’d hoped to hear about his creative work, but instead the autobiography is full of namedropping and Nesmith telling his readers about all the famous people who think he is wonderful!

The best book I read in 2017 was without doubt Danielle Trussoni’s “Angelology”. It is a clever, intellectual novel about a most fantastic mystery concerning nuns, Nazis, fallen angels, cave exploration, Abigail Rockefeller, the Orpheus myth and musicology, told with a dash of both James Bond and Project Runway. It’s a must read, bit unfortunately vol. 2 in Trussoni’s Angelology-series, “Angelopolis”, is as bad as the first one is good.

Of course, I also had to re-read Stephen King’s “It” due to the film realise in 2017 and of course the novel is better than both the new film and the tv mini-series from 1990, although the sex orgy scene with the seven 12-year old kids (one girl having sex with six boys!) is VERY disturbing and pure child pornography. It’s a mystery to me how King got away with it and why he wanted such a scene in the first place! In any case, both the book and the film miss something essential, when we speak about “It”, and that is Tim Curry as Pennywise. Beep beep, Richie!

Here is a complete list of the meagre fourteen books that I managed to read in 2017:

Andersen, Hans Christian: “O. T.”
Guðmundsson, Einar Már: “Beatlemanifestet”
Haue, Harry: “Verden gennem tiderne”
Hornby, Nick: “Funny Girl”
King, Stephen: “It“
Kühlmann, Lone: “Brødrene Price”
Main, Laurence: “In the Footsteps of King Arthur”
Nakamura, Shungiku: “Junjo Romantica, vol. 18”
Nesmith, Michael: “Infinite Tuesday”
Njor, Maise & Camilla Stockmann: “Michael Laudrups tænder”
Pease, Allan & Barbara: “Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps”
Schmidt, Jan Priiskorn: “Barnestjernen fra Bryggen”
Trussoni, Danielle: “Angelology”
Trussoni, Danielle: “Angelopolis”