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Thanks for your review. You have saved me many hours of pointless reading.

Many many more people claim to have read War and Peace than any other novel. when infact they haven't. For some reason it is regarded as a literary Mount Everest that seperates the men from the boys. Kurosawa (a big Russophile) claimed he read it six times every year. I'm sure he dipped into it on a monthly basis, but six times a year, no.

I think back to your first videos where you were in front of one shelf that wasn't even full - now your shelves are bigger than your whole camera background. 📚📚📚

I find Abercrombie funny too which I feel helps offset the more depressing bits of the stories

yessir...gi fir ye

Hi the best book I read this year and one of the best books I’ve ever read is disgrace by J.M.Coetzee highly recommended all the best for Christmas and the new year

Hey, good to see you, Øystein! 👋 I keep thinking I should do reviews, but never seem to get around to it. I have mixed feelings about Byen bak muren, by Murakami. Hm... 🤔 I'm in my 50's (can you believe it?), but I haven't ever felt pushed to read Anna Gevalda. Oh, by the way, if you listen to podcasts, I highly recommend listening to Bittelitteratur. I'll switch to Norwegian here, as the podcast is in Norwegian. Den er laget av to av mine kollegaer, og er ganske lett og ledig. Ikke en sånn "nå går vi i dybden på dette verket"-podcast. Og Ingrid er skikkelig Murakami-fan.

Look who's showing up today ^^ Good to see you around here, Øystein! How was your trip to France?!! Ahah yeah, Houellebecq is well-known in France for being quite vulgar and provocative ^^'

Your review on this book is quite funny and I can’t stop laughing. While I’m watching this video. I agree with the opinions of your video and I think you definitely have struggled with this book. Otherwise you can’t point out that opinion so true.

50 books is impressive! I think I'll end the year on 20, but the highlight was definitely "Crime and Punishment".

Good to see you back! My favourite book of the year was Witch Light by Susan Fletcher.

Super cool you are back!!!!! 🎉

Very happy to watch you talking about books again. I also always enjoy reading Murakami. I don’t think I read the same edition of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I did enjoy it, despite Hugo’s digressions into unrelated topics. I feel his propensity to belabor subjects like that is rather endearing, considering how few novels were available to read at the time. He had a rather captive audience. I hope you find the time and inclination to post more reading videos in 2025. ❤ 😺✌️

Great to see you again! Sounds like you had a wonderful reading year.

Ok so honesty time… I try reading I do…I used to read a ton back when I was a teen but I haven’t in years. Now when I pick up a book I end up reading the same lines over and over again like my brain has trouble registering what I just read. Is there a way to beat this? Or train my brain to just absorb the information on the page instead of rereading it over and over again? I don’t even mean to, it annoys me to the point where I just put the book down and do something else.

don't question yourself so much, if something stuck, that stuck, then one really know if a book was good or notor , in your case, gets an idea if it's interesting for oneself. That's a good think.

Fantastic you're back again🤩God jul og god Nyttår 😀

I was going to read it, but having read Dostoevsky and not really liking it, I will pass on this. Everyone raves about it. I found it boring as hell. The characters over talk and way too many names as you have said. I guess it’s just what you are fascinated with. I love old Chinese cultures so it is easier for me to pick up a book and read about it. Maybe that is the difference

Thank you for your wonderful insights to this great book. I totally agree with what you have said.

I came across this video by accident. I am a russian actress and now we are preparing a play based on the work "War and Peace" And I became so interested in how this work is perceived abroad) In our country it is part of our school curriculum and most often at school it is just torture to read. And here people are already reading this complex work at a conscious age. Very interesting video for me :)

I love War and Peace. My favorite novel. What is great about it is that it shows life as life, even the parts where nothing happens.

The French is because the Russian nobility spoke French as their first language. After Catherine the Great French became the court language of the Russian Empire. It shows the fawning admiration the Russian nobility had for Western Europe. For Tolstoy, French is the language of artificiality and Russian is the language of truth because it is spoken by the peasants, the best class in Russia and the only one that knows how to live well. I was told the usage of French declines towards the end of the book, marking the emergence of the Russian national consciousness.

I recently finished rereading this challenging novel. We agree that reading demanding books requires more attention and this kind of reading expands my relationship to more difficult texts. As a tutor in the US, I know how difficult it is to approach complex books with students. How about the way Sebald integrates pictures? This technique really engages me more in the activity/ exercise of reading. The phrasing and wording in the novel make me slow down and appreciate that the narrator cares about specific details related to art and architecture, as well as the mystery of the character Austerlitz and his story. Not to sound patronizing, I appreciate/respect your efforts and maybe some day you will return to A and get more out of it. I recently finished Mann's The Magic Mountain after disliking it many times and quitting it. It's interesting how we both love Murakami, and I have friends who hate his work for its style, themes, etc. Keep on reading and doing reviews! More on these topics if you want to continue the conversation. Patrick

You need to read Hard Boiled Wonderland first. 😊 I enjoy trying to figure out what Murakami is writing about. The thing that draws me into his stories is the hidden meaning behind it. I love that nothing is straight forward and I remember getting frustrated reading some of his books in some parts, but it was like getting hopelessly lost in the woods and eventually stumbling upon a beautiful clearing growing interesting vegetation that you wouldn't find anywhere else.

I loved 1Q84 too. Hate Yann Martel, he's a piece of shit far left extremist French Canadian who writes in English. I hate Quebecers like that, who trash our language.

Growth of the Soil is so much better than Sult. The story of how Isak made something out of nothing up in Nordland, had that wife out of practicality, Inger, who had a hairlip and killed her child. I like Mysterons too. I read them all in French. A lot of classics are boring though. I just could not read Wuthering Heights. Tried to read it 3 times. Dickens is often boring. However, many of the classic French authors are amazing (Guy de Maupassant is excellent ; you should read Bel Ami). Did you ever read Kristen Lavransdatter? I read the first third. Will finish it one day.

Read them all too, over the course of ten years. Well, I read the first three and listened to the last three on audiobook. They are all kind of anti-climactic, though I liked the 2nd book. The story with Tonje was not well enough addressed. I wish my Norwegian was better (my fourth language), so that I could listen to the Tonje interviews she did to tell her side. In Min kamp 6, it was interesting how his uncle said he lied about how much of an asshole his father was.

Where can i get

Me too tragedy has the flip side absurdity

Does anybody else see the new book to be a reworking or his hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world?

Dear reader. This book is one of the most misunderstood novels of all time. Independent people, doesn't mean it's about independent people, not at all. to understand what Halldór is writing about in this book is that people in Iceland were placed on so-called rural farms. there it was competent to work for the rest of its life. It was a kind of slavery. People had nothing personal, because the farmers were actually their owners. Poor people in Iceland were not allowed to have children unless they owned land or large properties. The farmers sent their workers to the sea and kept their wages. Bjartur manages to buy land and he prefers his own slave to someone else's.

It was just published in New Zealand a couple days ago...I would like to encourage you to read a couple of other unique writers with unforgettable characters. Alexa Wright for her award-winning novel ''Praiseworthy', and Giannina Braschi for Putlika and for Empire of Dreams.

Thank you for your review, and I'm looking forward to picking up my UK version. Everything I have read by Murakami I have enjoyed, so I don't expect I'll be disappointed

Your review is enjoyable. Murakami is one of my favorite authors and I like how you give him acceptance you would not give others. His novel is released today in U.S. so I’m on my way to the bookstore. Glad to find your blog. Looking forward to more from you.

The names are the worst part about reading Dostoevsky

I love the book but thats because I want to love it. Possibly because the message is relevant to me and my life - my struggle with faith, my struggle with my own hedonistic, selfish father. The bleakness of Dostoevsky's prose just makes the moments of joy and transendence stand out all the brighter. I'm glad you read it.

your description about how you feel reading Murakami books is spot on. No other author could make me feel the way he makes me feel reading his novels and how he puts up all those words and descriptions in a really simple and yet poetic way of writing. He is just my favorite author and whatever he writes, I could never dislike it.

Hello Oystein, I've been wondering how you are. Here in the States half of us are in mourning---my half. And deeply apologetic to the rest of the world, but we did everything we could to divert The Disaster. Anyway, it would be nice to hear and see your calm presence again.

Thanks for the review I'm about to start the book. A friend recommended the book to me because of my love of Knut Hamsun he said Independent people is very similar to Hamsun's Growth of the Soil. Have you read the Hamsun book,would you agree it's similar?

I have read all of Murakami's books. I will start with the ones I didn't like and don't recommend. His book on music, for me, was one of the most boring books I have ever read. It was, in my opinion, totally pretentious. I couldn't finish it. Music AND Murakami are obsessions of mine. Funny how that works. Kafka on the Shore. I read it, but it felt creepy to me. Call me old- fashioned, but I don't like the idea of getting intimate with my mother. After that comes his most popular, Norweigein Wood , which was only marginally better than Kafka. It was saved by the character of the piano teacher. The last bad one was Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. The plot was so unbelievable and the protagonist was lukewarm enough to be spat out. So My favorite IQ84. I have read this twice. Dance Dance Dance (the first book of his I read). Again I read it twice.Didn't enjoy as much as the first time, however, the characters and plot are really solid. Killing Commendatore was excellent. Enjoyed every page. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles . I loved this book, especially the use of the well.....hmm which book was it where the person witnesses his friend having the skin peeled off him and still refuses to talk ??that involved a well too, if I remember rightly. The well reminded me of The Woman in the Dunes ( brilliant novel). What I Talk About When I Talk About Running was enjoyable on a different level. It was very refreshing to get inside his mind in a very down to earth way. So, Thanks for the review . WE share the same favorite book. You got good taste :)

Just finished the Italian version of this book! Murakami’s books are always journeys in another world that in turn take you in other smaller worlds inside it as in a fascinating play of Chinese boxes. Loved this trip too! ❤

I will recommend to you Jonathan Carroll. He has written some interesting books like White Apples or The Land of Laughs. If you love Murakami you may enjoy Mr Carroll.

Reading an Haruki Murakami book is like a mixed media painting in words. Oil, acrylic, water colour, charcoal and drawing, it is a collage of events and characters that are mostly unforgettable. Am looking forward to The City and it's Uncertain Walls 😉

Why do people believe in the climate change and not in consumerism and mass manipulation into climate change?

I am currently reading blood meridian, i can not wait to read this one also

The two first books "On the calculation of volume" are simply great!

Hi Øystein, jeg har ikke Insta, men håper, meldingen når deg likevel. Jeg håper, du har det bra😀 jeg hørte akkurat en reklame for en NRK podkast: Leseklubben på radio appen deres. Kansje til inspirasjon eller fornøyelse 🙂 jeg savner dine Videoer

Actually, the many "I"s and "me"s have a reason. In the Japanese version the narrator switches the pronouns he uses for himself ("boku" is a very informal, boyish way to say "I", and "watashi" also means "I", but it's more formal and more neutral).

Books really are magical. For this reason more than any other - they have the ability to change our perspectives and therefore, make a difference in our lives. Thanks for sharing.

One of my absolute favourites, also gave me teh longest book hangover ever.