Books finished in April

On a similar note with the previous post, I decided I should also do one about the "products" I "used up" to mobilate my soul in April.

I have been pretty busy in April reading-wise. I finally managed to finish “A Feast for Crows” by George RR Martin. After the disappointment that was the middle of “A Storm of Swords” I was rather expecting anything from this forth volume and I was pleasantly surprised that I haven’t been reading it throughout openmouthed and with “Seriously!?” going over and over and over my head.

But the things that I liked in “A Game of Thrones” (which in my books haven't been yet topped by the three sequels I read so far) are still there: the insight in the character’s psychology, their development mechanism and the way in which Martin presents the stories and their stage. Another thing that will keep me reading “A Song of Ice and Fire” is the fact that he always finds a different way of telling the story and seems to have never-ending resources in doing so.

Another book I enjoyed immensely was Haruki Murakami’s “Gefährliche Geliebte” (orig. Jap. “Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi”, Engl. “South of the Border, West of the Sun”). I promised to myself I will read more in German and with this in mind I got this book together with another one I yet have to start.
I love his books, I think the synergy within them attracts me just as much as the mystery surrounding his heroines. This book is all this and more. The only downside is that the book is too short (has only 218 pages). The entire book is floating between the real realm and the surreal one, being the wizard that he is, Haruki Murakami manages to make the transitions between the two without the reader noticing anything until he finds himself in one realm or the other.





After all the fantasy and magic I felt like reading something different and thus I picked up the horror novel “… și la sfârșit a mai rămas COȘMARUL” by Oliviu Crâznic. It really got me scared for a while. The atmosphere is very intense and keeps you reading and the characters are typical for the gothic-romantic writings. It reminded me of Poe’s writings’ mood, which is always a plus for the writings from this genre.
I liked the story, especially the ending. However I felt that putting so many different fantastic creatures together is somewhat confusing, also if not explained entirely. I found the author’s essay about different fantastical elements used in his book very educational and it shows that he actually researched profoundly and is very passionate about this topic. I feel that, if you have a soft spot for creatures of the night, you should try this book out and especially the essay. Unfortunately the book is available only in Romanian... for now at least.

Smile, it is good for the soul!
Alex.



P.S.: I have been keeping this post in Drafts for a while now waiting on 5 minutes to upload some pictures to it. Because the upload part is taking too long (it seems I just cannot find those 5 minutes), I will do that later.

Later Edit: I finally managed to add the pictures of the books.