Posts filed under “Books”
Junichiro Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows
Junichiro Tanizaki – In Praise of Shadows In the West we chase light, air and openness, as naturally as a flower turns towards the sun. However Junichiro Tanizaki writes about a Japanese sensibility for shadows, or the interior in its widest sense. He writes with the touch of the great writer he was and with [...]
The Eyes of the Skin
The Eyes of the Skin by Juhani Pallasmaa Rarely is a book about Architecture able to transcend its subject and become a poetic trip that re-evaluates human experience. Rarely as you read, particularly an architecture book, can the ideas as well as prose peel away a fog from your mind. Only a precious few books [...]
Northern Shores by Alan Palmer
Northern Shores by Alan Palmer, A history of the Baltic Sea and its Peoples. This book covers a potentially fascinating topic. The Northern Sea of Europe the Baltic compared to the more famous and glamorous Southern Sister the Mediterranean gets overlooked. But Its a worthy topic for a book to try to redress this balance [...]
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis
The scale and velocity of world population increase over the last fifty years has been unprecedented in human history. Urbanisation, with over a billion people living in cities has become the key signature of this growth, with the urban population for the first time greater than in the country. These facts are startling, if common [...]
The City of Falling Angels
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt takes place in Venice, Berendt arriving just after the fire in the Fenice Opera House. The story of the burning down of the Fenice provides the backbone of the book, but other stories are intertwined, and much like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is [...]
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, is a beautiful novel about a grandaughter and grandmother living on an island in the Finnish Arpelago. This is one of Tove Janssons’ adult novels although she is much more famous as the creator of the moomins. This book however really deserves to be held up as a great [...]
Book Challenge
Georg has a book challenge for me (passed on from Kirsty), and I’ve got to take him up on it as it’s a really nice challenge to do. 1. The book that changed my life. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I was really ill working in Madras when I started reading this. When I finished [...]
The Priest of Evil by Matti Joensuu
The Priest of Evil by Matti Joensuu The third of my reads from my Finnish reading list. This is classed as a crime thriller or maybe more accurately a police procedural. Set in Helsinki and written by Matti Joensuu who was actually a policeman with Helsinki Police force until his retirement. A series of deaths [...]
Popular Music by Mikael Niemi
Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi is a funny bitter-sweet story of a boy growing up in the town of Pajala in the Arctic circle. The coming of age story of Matti in which each chapter is a short story or vignette which stands up to reading on its own. However when combined together [...]
Not Before Sundown by Johanna Sinisalo
Not Before Sundown by Johanna Sinisalo. I found this a hard book to review, as it has elements I both love and hate. It is an updating or retelling of the Finnish Troll legends, where a troll enters the life of a young gay photographer in Helsinki. The troll comes from a past/parallel Finland of [...]
A Finnish Reading List
I keep meaning to start my own, but in the meantime the Guardian compiled a list which seems pretty good with good shortcuts too. Personally I’m still waiting for an english language biography of Kekkonen which would have some great stories as well as profile a very interesting and key cold war politician. Update: Georg [...]
The Architecture of Happiness
Alain de Botton has a new book coming out very soon called the Architecture of Happiness also there are some video clips from the Documentary he made based on the book called The Perfect Home. Its not often that a major mainstream writer who is not an Architect devotes a book to the subject , [...]
Cities by John Reader
Cities By John Reader Being currently housebound because of an ear operation I was able to get through this book quicker than usual. Anyway John Reader takes us on a historical trip through the city starting in Mesopotamia 6,000 years ago and finishing at the present day taking a quick view at the usual suspects, [...]
From Wood to Architecture
(Rating 4/5) ISBN: 952-5195-20-1 Language: Finnish/English Publisher: MFA From Wood to Architecture presents 17 projects from around Finland which use wood in different ways. Wood is perhaps the fundamental building material of Finnish architecture and recently has enjoyed a new life being used more and more again not only in traditional ways but also as [...]