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Title: Luck In The Shadows
[Part 1 in the Nightrunner series]
Author: Lynn Flewelling
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Bantam Spectra 1996
Pages: Paperbacks, about 500 pages each
Language: English
Rating: 8/10 over all
Summary: Series of fantasy-books about the adventures of young Alec of Kerry and his mentor Seregil of Rhíminee. They meet in the first book when their world is at the brink of war.

Review of book 1 and 2
Book 1: Luck In The Shadows (1996)
Seventeen year old archer Alec is being tortured in prison. He has already lost all hope for release when a bard is put in his jail cell who helps him escape! It turns out the man is only pretending to be a traveling musician; he is the disguised spy Seregil. After seeing how well Alec handled himself during the escape, Seregil is rather charmed by his innocent determination and offers to tutor him. Together they travel South to inform Seregil's client about the preparations for war he discovered. During their trip Seregil steals a magical relic that causes them a lot of problems; Seregil seems to slowly go mad while Alec tries to get them safely to their destination.

DunnDunnDunnnn...

And? Are you intrigued already? The book is not free from (fantasy) clichés; the bad guys are a bit OTT charicatures, but it's all very exciting and much bloodier than I would have expected. The guys have to fight a lot and they get hurt more every time.
While Seregil is teaching Alec, the reader also gets a lot of information about the background of the brewing war. He tells him (and us;) extensively about the history of the lands and which part each different tribe, such as the magical Aurënfaie people, play in the conflict.
There are also chapters from other point of views, like the old wizard Nysander and Seregil's best friend and fellow nightrunner Micum. What's very cool is that the main society is matriarchal and there are many fascinating women in charge who are essential to the story. This huge universe is quite overwhelming, but very believable and knowing all the rich details gets you really involved in the story.
What got me hooked to this book however were the dialogues between naive, open Alec and the more experienced, ambiguous Seregil. And then came part two....

Book 2: Stalking Darkness (1997)
Alec and Seregil are now working together, although Alec still feels like Seregil doesn't trust him enough to share personal information. The truth is that Seregil finds it harder and harder to hide his more-than-friendly feelings for Alec...

Ooooh, bet you didn't see that coming;) Intrigued now?
I heartly recommend this series *grins*


So far there are six books and a special edition with short stories:
1. Luck in the Shadows (1996)
2. Stalking Darkness (1997)
3. Traitor's Moon (1999)
4. Shadows Return (2008)
5. The White Road (2010)
6. Casket of Souls (2012)
X. Glimpses (2010), a collection of missing scenes or 'timestamps' from different periods in the series, including before the beginning of the story. It's illustrated with fanart.

Flewelling is currently writing part seven \o/ and she keeps us up to date of the process in her livejournal: otterdance. (She recently mentioned there may be a second version of Glimpses!) Start reading the series now and join me in anticipation:)

Title: Le Ton beau de Marot - In Praise of the Music of Language
Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
Genre: Poetry, Language, Translations, Science
Publisher: Basic Books, 1997
Pages: Paperback, ~700 (including poetry)
Language: English
Rating: 8/10
Summary: Hofstadter analyses the art of translation and shows there is more to it than simply transcribing words. Is it possible to truely express the same sentiment in another language? Will a computer ever be able to convert text as a human would?




Review
I've been a fan of Douglas R. Hofstadter ever since I read Gödel Escher Bach and you may remember my emotional review of Metamagical Themes.
Even so, I must admit I was a little apprehensive about Le Ton beau de Marot, seeing as Hofstadter starts off with dissecting poetry and I'm not a fan of that. But he uses the poem as an example through out the book, to explain that understanding the meaning behind the words is one of the keys to a succesful translation.

He makes different versions of a French poem by Clément Marot. He begins with a literal word for word transcription in English and ends with several attempts to capture the spirit of it in other languages. He also lets other people translate this poem to show different interpretations cause different versions that nevertheless all can be qualified as a truthful translation.

As Hofstadter's extensive research and discussions show there is more to translating than transscribing one language into an other, so he argues it is nearly impossible for a computer, a machine without conscious thought, to add an interpretation to the translation and to appreciate the beauty and complexity of language.

What I like about Hofstadter's books is that he often takes a detour into other sciences to compare and check theories. He also uses anekdotes to clarify and sometimes seems to go completely off track with a story before making a point. This book was even more personal because it's dedicated to his wife, who died while he was writing the book.

By writing the book as he did, Hofstadter proves his point about computers even better than by simply (de)constructing the poem in different languages. The connections he makes between different cultures, points of view, or personal baggage that may influence the interpretation of text, seem impossible to imitate by a machine.

Despite the poetry-angle this was probably a subject I could relate to best out of all of his books. As I am writing this review my brain is constantly switching between my own language and English. I started with translating part of a Dutch e-mail I sent to a friend about this book and even that was not easy. Even though I have years of experience and sometimes even think in English, it still takes me a long time before I'm satisfied a post expresses my feelings as it would were it written in Dutch.

I'm fascinated by the way computers translate and learn, but surprisingly not much progress has been made in that area since Hofstadter published his book more than 15 years ago! Just check Google translate and you'll find it still struggles with all the subtle differences between languages.

Definitely read this book if you're bi- or multilingual and give it a try if you ever wondered about people who speak another language than you.

Please feel free to correct me on any word of phrasing. I love to learn:)

Title: Christine Otten & Erik Kessels
Author: Good Luck
Genre: Essay, photos
Publisher: CPNB, 2011
Pages: Hardcover, 144
Language: Dutch
Rating: 7/10
Summary: So-called essay, made for Dutch bookweek 2011, based on the theme 'Written Portraits' (Geschreven portretten). Inspired by old photos Otten & Kessels found of an unknown couple, they made up a family history for the two of them.




Review
What a fun concept! The story reads like a soap-opera about Betty and Pierre Vincent and their 'houseguest', who appears to be more than just a friend to Betty... If you didn't know it was all made up, you'd almost believe it. Just look at those (holiday) snap-shots; you can totally see there's something going on between the three of them. Cute.

You can sample the book online: here!

Title: Vaslav
Author: Arthur Japin
Including: The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsksi
Genre: Novel, diary, biography
Publisher: Arbeiderspers, 2010
Pages: Hardcover novel, 374; Paperback diary, 224
Language: Dutch
Rating: 8/10
Summary: Inspired by the diary of ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinskiby, this is the fictionalized story of his life, told from three points of view. His wife, his manager (and ex-lover) and his manservant tell what happened leading up to Vaslav's final performance in 1917, when he stopped in mid dance and said he had danced enough. After that Vaslav never danced or spoke again until his death in 1950.

( Review + Cover image )

Title: Het Diner (The Dinner*)
Author: Herman Koch
Genre: Novel
Publisher: Anthos, 2009
Pages: Hardcover, 300
Language: Dutch
Rating: 8.5/10
Summary: Two brothers and their wives have dinner in a fancy restaurant. Their conversations are stilted, because they are trying to avoid talking about their teenage sons. Those boys have done something that could seriously harm everybody's future. Not in the least that of one of them, who's trying to become the new prime minister of the Netherlands.

( Review + Image )

*The Dinner will be available in English in August 2012! (It's already available in German (Angerichtet), Spanish (El sopar), Italian (La cena) and French (Le dîner).
Get it! And then tell me if it's as awesome in translation:)

Title: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Genre: Novel, Autism, Family
Publisher: Vintage, 2010
Pages: Hardcover, 272
Language: English
Rating: 8.5/10
Summary: Fifteen year old Christopher has Asperger's (a form of autism) and therefore experiences the world a little differently than other people. One evening he finds his neighbour's dog dead and he decides to be a detective to find out what happened

( Review + Cover image + Snippet )

Title: The Art Of Travel
Author: Alain de Botton
Genre: Art, history, poetry.
Publisher: Penguin Non-Fiction, 2002
Pages: 260, Paperback
Language: English
Rating: 8/10
Summary: Alain de Botton reminisces in detail about traveling to foreign places and compares his personal experiences to the (historical) impressions -and expressions- of painters, poets and philosophers

( Spoilerfree Review )

Title: Zeitoun
Author: Dave Eggers
Genre: (Auto)biographical, non-fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books, 2009
Pages: Paperback, 335
Language: English
Rating: 8/10
Summary: The personal story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a contracter and homeowner in New Orleans, who stayed behind when hurricane Katrina hit the town in 2005, to keep an eye on his properties and tennants while his wife and children found refuge with family up north.

( Review )

Title: Me Talk Pretty One Day
Author: David Sedaris
Genre: autobiography, humour
Publisher: Abacus, 2000
Pages: Paperback, 272
Language: English
Rating: 7/10
Summary: Autobiographical stories with flashbacks about growing up in the Sedaris family. Special attention to David's present day experiences in France, where he and his partner occasionally live in a house in the countryside.

( Spoilerfree Review )

It's been a while since I updated this community, so to get things going again, I'm spamming you with a big post:)
As I reported before I bought a series of teenbooks by popular Dutch author Carry Slee. The stories are not related, but each book deals with a different group of teenagers and a different 'big issue', such as 'drugs' or 'death'. The first book I read of her was Spijt! (Regret) about bullying. Below is the rest of my reviews.

Title: Afblijven (Don't Touch That)
Author: Carry Slee
Genre: Children's, Teens, Drama
Publisher: FMB Uitgevers 2010 (1998)
Pages: Hardcover, 255
Language: Dutch
Rating: 7/10
Summary: Jordi doesn't know what to do when he finds out his best friend Melissa is taking (illegal) pills to deal with the pressure of dance auditions.

( Spoilerfree Review )


Title: Kappen! (Stop It!)
Author: Carry Slee
Genre: Children's, Teens, Drama
Publisher: FMB Uitgevers 2010 (1999)
Pages: Hardcover, 238
Language: Dutch
Rating: 6/10
Summary: Sander has a crush on Indra. When he befriends a group of boys who turn out to be into stealing and harrassing people, Indra is the only one who believes Sander wasn't a willing member of the gang. Does that mean she likes him too?

( Spoilerfree Review )


Title: Radeloos (Desperate)
Author: Carry Slee
Genre: Children's, Teens, Drama
Publisher: FMB Uitgevers 2010 (2003)
Pages: Hardcover, 286
Language: Dutch
Rating: 7/10
Summary: Paco feels responsible for the death of his father and tries to find comfort in beer and a new hangout. He neglects his old friends and doesn't realize his classmate Yara is dealing with a dangerous eatingdisorder.

( Spoilerfree Review )


Title: Hot Or Not
Author: Carry Slee
Genre: Children's, Teens, Drama
Publisher: FMB Uitgevers 2010 (2008)
Pages: Hardcover, 302
Language: Dutch
Rating: 6/10
Summary: Coco wants to be a model and meets a guy on the internet who offers to help her. He turns out to have alterior motives.

( Spoilerfree Review )


Title: Dat Heb Ik Weer (This always happens to me)
Author: Carry Slee
Genre: Children's, Teens, Drama
Publisher: FMB Uitgevers 2010 (2008)
Pages: Hardcover, 192
Language: Dutch
Rating: 6/10
Summary: Britt and her best friend Noah used to spend a lot of time together, writing popquizes on her blog. But lately Noah seems to like another friend better and Britt feels left out in the cold.

( Spoilerfree Review )