The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, Jonas Jonasson

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is of course by the same author who wrote The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. The Girl.. is a stand alone story and has the same humour, sprawling storyline and scope as its predecessor. 

The girl who saves the king of Sweden is Nombeko Mayeki. She is born in Soweto and after a string of haphazard coincidences and incidents of bad luck she ends up in Sweden with a twin who doesn't exist and a series of crazy hangers-on and sidekicks... saying anything else will spoil the surprises along the way. 

It is a thoroughly enjoyable book, you get a good yarn and a crash course in international relationships at the same time. Obviously most of the politics is fictional, but there is the odd well placed dig and sarcastic remark which crosses with reality. Highly recommended (as long as you liked the Hundred Year Old Man..) and definitely a good holiday or light relief novel. 

My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk

It's been a little while since my last post. This is partly because I am studying and so super busy, but also because I started (and got halfway through) Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, after finishing Silas Marner.

I was looking forward to reading My Name is Red, and did love the way it was structured, with different people, animals, ideas and inanimate objects as the narrators. However it felt too much like the characters were having the same conversation over and over; and it got too heavy and uninteresting for me. I didn't hate it, rather I lost patience. Maybe I'll go back to it in a few years, but I put it aside for something lighter this time.