This book won the first Hugo award back in 1953. It takes place in a future New York where mind readers are abound. Because of them it has been seventy years since the last premeditated murder. So you have to be very clever or stupid to plan and executed a murder. That is what happens in this book. The first part covers the planning and execution of the murder, but the larger second part is dealing with how the (mind reading) police will solve this murder to the satisfaction of the computer that deals out the final verdict. And then it turns out to have a whole different background.
While you can see the age of the book, and how much science fiction writing has evolved since then, the book is still pretty good. I would have liked a bit more explanation about of the issues, but I still really enjoyed the book. Four out of five stars.

This book takes place in Italy, in late medieval/renaissance times. We meet several characters who are all unhappy in their lives because of a (believed) curse they carry. An actor stutters, an artist can’t create, a soldier looses his weapons, a sirene loses her voice. All have heard of Labyrinto, the town containing a labyrinth. It’s magic and if you can get in, survive the journey and find your way out, your curse will be lifted.
In the first part of the book we meet all the cursed characters and their support. Someway or another they all enter the labyrinth where they really have to think about what it is they want, and what it might take to get. The second part of the book takes part in the labyrinth. Inside the labyrinth is a world of Greek mythology that can help or hinder the characters in attaining their goals.
I really liked the original (to me) ideas in the book, the journeys of the characters and the temptations they faced. The resolution at the end, while a bit corny did fit the story, and was good. Four out of five stars.

This Booker prize nominated book is about the France nobleman Olivier, who is caught up in the various revolutions going on in France in the early nineteenth century, and the man Parrot, a servant and artist from England who has had his own strange life. Together they travel to America. The book describes their early lives, one as a noble in a sort of exile from the revolution in Paris, the other a boy from the moors in England, caught up in the war between France and England. They meet when Olivier is sent to America to investigate their prison system, and Parrot is sent with him as a servant.
The book covers (without flashbacks) a relatively short period of time in which both Olivier and Parrot have to change a lot. Olivier has to realize that nobility is losing its automatic power, and Parrot has to determine what he wants in life, and do everything to reach that goal. I loved the writing, the switches from Olivier to Parrot and back. Both characters have something exasperating about them, but are also pretty likable. A very nice tale, four out of five stars.

A classic I had never heard of before, but which has been popular the past few week on LT. This is the story of the second wife of Max de Winter, from Manderley, a beautiful country estate in England. His first wife, Rebecca, died a few months earlier while sailing, and Max is heartbroken. But all is not as it seems.
I found the book alright, a bit depressing as so many people seemed to be so unkind to the main character. The pace was slow, and while I know that to be the case with older books, for some reason it made me a slow reader too. But, a pretty nice read, with an, despite everything, slightly unexpected ending. Three out of five stars.

The last part of the trilogy of Oran, not only do the three girls have to find the fourth girl with water magic, then they have to beat Zorah and the Sileans. Meanwhile Zorah is losing her grip and the Chaos is threatening to takeover Oran and the destroy the island forever.
A lot of story lines from the previous two books are tied up in this book. The big finally was not as cliche as I had expected, and I like the original ideas. Some main story lines did not have a real ending, I think the book could have benefitted from another chapter or two. But still, a very nice ending to an original trilogy. Four out of five stars.

A collection of six stories by the great Haruki Murakami. All these stories take place in februari 1995, a month after the big earthquake in Kobe, and a month before the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo underground. But none of the stories take place in Kobe, and none of the people were in Kobe during the quake. All stories have characters that have their life affected by the event. Some of the stories have magical realistic elements that we know from Murakami, some don’t. All have something to do with who the characters are inside, what is inside, and which way their life is going.
Great writing, but I do like his novels better so you as a reader can invest more in the characters and the weirdness. But still, I liked it, so four out of five stars.

This is the second book in the Oran trilogy by Midori Snyder. Different characters are being followed. The group fleeing from Beldan, an Oran farm girl and her Silean boyfriend, queen Zorah, and of course the New Moon. The situation in Beldan is terrible, there is not enough food or water, the taxes are high and all is going to Silea and the Silean war effort against the Oran. Meanwhile the children with magic, Jobber and others, start realizing how important they are to bringing change to Oran.
Snyder did some short recaps in the beginning of the book which were nice for those for whom reading part one has been a while, but were unnecessary for the whole of the story. The story itself is pretty fast paced and exciting. The Dutch edition did have some editing errors which were annoying, but the story was good. Four out of five stars.

Thomas Thiemeyer is one of my favorite writers. He is from Germany and writes books in the style of Preston and Child, but they also remind me of H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle.
In Corona a group of gorilla researchers in Uganda disappear without a trace. The second group of researchers that are on a mission to find them find unknown tribes, ruins of a once great civilization and a portal to another world with mysterious monsters.
This, as Thomas Thiemeyer’s other books was a nice, fun and adventurous read. Four out of five stars.