Best Books in English

New (?) book about islam

2011-02-01T23:17:00.000-08:00

(quoted from Mohammed Ayub Ali Khan)

When Saladin was declared King of Syria and Egypt at the age of thirty-eight in 1175, the whole Muslim world was living in the shadow of the humiliating defeat of the first Crusade. The reason for the Muslim defeat was internal sectarian warfare and petty squabbling. As a result of their follies, even the sacred city of Jerusalem was taken over by the invaders. When Christian forces captured the Holy City in 1099, the Crusaders “massacred every living creature that was not of their own kind.” Reston writes that ten thousand were killed at Masjid Al Aqsa alone. Some of the dead bodies were ripped opened because it was rumored that Muslims were swallowing gold in desperation. They even burned down a synagogue, with many Jews still inside. The Crusaders danced around the pyre singing the popular Christian hymn of the time, Te Deum.

Muslim hopes were, however, revived by the recapture of Edessa in Iraq and the unification of Muslim Syria and Mesopotamia and Egypt by Saladin’s predecessor Nur ad-Din. Jerusalem, however, remained elusive until Saladin emerged as Sultan, when he made it his primary goal to recapture the city from the Crusaders.

“When God gave me the land of Egypt, I was sure that he meant Palestine for me as well,” Saladin is reported to have said. Saladin wrested Jerusalem from Christian hands in 1187. In marked difference from the Crusaders, Saladin’s triumphant entry into the third holiest city of Islam was very peaceful. He explicitly forbade reprisals and insisted that the city revert to its former status - open to worshippers of all three faiths. Saladin calmed down the hot heads of his camp - who were demanding the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. “The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was not to be touched,” he declared.

After his entry into Jerusalem, the church was closed for only three days, after which the Christians were permitted to enter for a small fee. He cleansed and restored the Dome of Rock and the Masjid al-Aqsa, which had been converted into a stable for the horses of the Templar order of Christian knights. He also released thousands of Christian prisoners.

Warriors of God by James Reston Jr

Said about Llosa

2010-10-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

As a writer, however, politics has returned as an important, even obsessive focus in his fiction. In his own literary theory, Vargas Llosa has frequently adverted to the "demons" which drive an author to write, and as Sabine Kollman (2002: 1) has noted, in the case of Mario Vargas Llosa "politics is one of the most persistent 'demons' which ... provoke his creativity". In the wake of his resilement from the Left, then, he produced a number of novels exploring and exposing the destructive idealism of revolutionary socialism, which might begin with a millennarian vision of a perfect society but which invariably ends with dictatorial oppression, enforced conformism, the denial of human rights, and social and economic devastation. It was this series of novels, The War of the End of the Worm (1981), The Real Life of Alejandro Mavta (1984), Death in the Andes (1993a), and more recently The Wav to Paradise (2003a), which incurred the wrath of left-wing critics and fellow writers, and led to Vargas Llosa being reviled as a reactionary conservative.

And yet, for anyone who has read Vargas Llosa's work over the past several decades, his political position is quite clear. He is a writer who is opposed to the anti-individual tyranny of both right-wing nationalism and left-wing collectivism, and who believes resolutely in the core values and rights of liberal democracy. Far from being a conservative or what Michael Valdez Moses has floridly if misleadingly termed "the eminence grise of Latin American neoliberalism" (2002: 1), (5) he is, by his own definition, a classical liberal who upholds "the basic precepts of liberalism--political democracy, the market economy, and the defense of individual interests over those of the state" (2005: 3). It is this fundamental belief in the principle of individual liberty and autonomy which distinguishes Vargas Llosa's thought from that of both the Right and the Left, and which gives his work its distinctive quality. Having explored the damage wrought by utopian socialism in a number of his novels, then, he turns his attention to the similarly damaging effect of authoritarian extremism in The Feast of the Goat.

Denis Johnson flying again

2010-07-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

Poet, playwright and author Denis Johnson was born in Munich, West Germany in 1949 and was raised in Tokyo, Manila and Washington. He holds a masters' degree from the University of Iowa and has received many awards including a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction in (1993), a Whiting Writer's Award (1986) and the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from the Paris Review for Train Dreams. He is best known for his collection of short stories, Jesus' Son.

His first published writing was a collection of poetry, The Man Among The Seals, published in 1969 when he was 20 years old and enrolled at the University of Iowa, where he was mentored by Raymond Carver. At 21 he was first admitted to a psychiatry ward for alcohol addiction, having started a lengthy love affair with substance abuse at the age of 14 while living in the Philippines, where his father, a State Department employee, was stationed. This was followed by seven or eight years of on and off drug abuse and, often, homelessness. While struggling to get sober in 1978 Johnson says he had "a strong experience of the presence of God" in Phoenix, which he describes as "no talking" and "kind of blue". A number of passages in Jesus' Son appear to be based on this experience. The same year he started work on a novel that he had begun in college; Angels was published in 1983 and won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. Between 1982 and 1986 he produced two books of poetry and three novels.

In 1988 he was in the Philippines, researching an article for Esquire. However, he came down with malaria and, on his return, felt too wrecked to finish the piece; added to which, his second wife was divorcing him so he had no place to stay. Recovering in a friend's house near Mendocino he sent his agent a batch of stark, semi-autobiographical sketches that he'd written during his days as an addict, not expecting them to be published. However, Johnson's former editor at Knopf, Robert Gottlieb, had just taken over as editor of The New Yorker and, in Johnson's words, "was ready to make some changes in the magazine, so he thought it'd be a laugh to publish some of these vulgar stories." The New Yorker bought four of the stories and The Paris Review and Esquire bought a few others. Still, Johnson didn't think much of the stories but, owing money to the IRS, he sent a collection to his editor, Jonathan Galassi, at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, who published the eleven stark stories as Jesus' Son, after a line from Heroin by Lou Reed.

The Build Up

2010-05-29T01:12:00.000-07:00

This very much readable novel is set in the monsoon season in Darwin, referred to locally as “The Build Up”. Hot humid days and the oppressive tropical climate weigh down on the inhabitants of the city, sapping energy and attention.

Detective Dusty Buchanan is undeniably annoyed when she is taken off a long-term murder case that she has been investigating. Her frustrations increase when she is sent to investigate a report of a body found near a local Vietnam veterans’ camp site, only to have the body go missing before the forensics team can arrive.

Dusty is demoted to uniform and sent to a desk job in disgrace, but she can’t let go of either her previous investigation or the new murder case. As she digs deeper, she finds unexpected connections and must work to not only solve the case but restore her own tarnished reputation.

Jane Austen inspires...

2010-05-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

The Jane Austen book sleuth is happy to inform Janeites that many Austen inspired books are heading our way in April.
One of them:

Fiction (prequels, sequels, retellings, variations, or Regency inspired)

Writing Jane Austen: A Novel, by Elizabeth Aston

After five popular Pride and Prejudice sequels set in Regency times, Elizabeth Aston is branching out with a new Austenesque theme by placing her heroine in contemporary times penning a completion to one of Jane Austen’s unfinished novels. Smart move. Let’s hope she can satisfy her legion of fans with this break from tradition. Publisher’s description: Georgina Jackson’s first novel was a “searingly grim read”–critically acclaimed and award-winning, though it was hardly a bestseller. Struggling to get past the first chapter of her second book which is almost past its deadline, Georgina panics when she gets a vague but urgent-sounding email from her agent: “RING ME.” She’s certain it’s bad news. So when Livia tells her about a potentially profitable commission, Georgina is shocked. Even more surprising, however, the commission isn’t for her next book, but rather for the completion of a newly discovered unfinished manuscript of a major nineteenth century author! Skeptical at first about her ability to do the job, she is horrified to learn that the major author is in fact Jane Austen. Torn between pushing through somehow and fleeing back to America, Georgina relies on the support of her financier-turned-scientist roommate, Henry, and his quirky teenage sister, Maud, a serious Janeite who has just escaped the rigidity and enforced structure of boarding school. When she suddenly finds herself in a financial crisis, the only way for Georgina to get by is to sign the contracts and finish the book. But how can she overcome her big secret–that she has actually never read Jane Austen! Filled with the humor, misunderstandings, rich characterizations and romance of Aston’s previous novels, Writing Jane Austen is destined to rocket Aston right into the 21st century!

Financial crisis hits the publishing industry

2010-03-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Received that yesterday:

The industry is searching for orientation - Frankfurt Book Fair's industry survey in co-operation with buchreport and Publishers Weekly

Frankfurt, 24/03/2010 - The book industry is taking an active approach to the digitisation of its content, but it is still in the midst of orientation. This is revealed in a recent survey of 840 international industry representatives, predominantly managers and executives from the publishing industry, which was carried out in September by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the trade magazine buchreport in co-operation with Publishers Weekly.

The majority of participants hail from continental Europe, followed by the USA, Asia, Great Britain and Latin America. ”Now is the time to seek out new strategies, to scour the market, to engage in international benchmarking”, said Juergen Boos, Director of the Frankfurt Book Fair. The one true business model is still a long way off and investments are also still being held in check - at the same time, however, the fear that content will only be distributed free of charge on the Web in the future seems to have been averted for the time being.

Search for strategies and partners

80 per cent of those polled embrace the radical change in the media industry associated with digitisation as an opportunity, rather than as a crisis. Behind the ostensible spirit of optimism, however, there continue to be many question marks. “The industry continues to search for strategies for creating business with digital products. The focus is on business models that can supplement, and eventually eliminate, the accepted model of exchanging money for printed paper”, said buchreport Editor-in-Chief Thomas Wilking in summarising the numerous individual findings of the survey.

The development of new business models, new multimedia products and suitable marketing strategies is cited as the greatest challenge of the industry (607 responses). 38 per cent of those polled also see their companies’ greatest need for catching up in the areas of knowledge and strategy. In 2008, only 26 per cent of those polled rated knowledge and strategy as a priority in their companies. The desire to connect with other creative industries like film, games and music is at the very top of the list of business priorities for 19 per cent of those polled. New forms of e-Marketing are in demand – 27 per cent cited digital reading samples as the most important new marketing activities, followed by viral marketing using social media (22 per cent) and multimedia advertising (19 per cent). However, it seems the time is not yet ripe to commit to one business model - only 12 per cent of those polled feel that there is an urgent need to make investments now.

The second biggest challenge for the media industry is the uncertainty about the changes in media use and reading habits of customers (425 responses). Landing in third place is price competition in the form of countless free digital offerings (354 responses) and the illegal dissemination of protected content through piracy (322 responses). Surprising findings: The current financial crisis (with 79 responses), as well as the strengthened position of authors through their ability to engage in direct marketing in a Web 2.0 world (142 responses) - and the consequential weakened position of publishers and book retailers - are not perceived as considerable challenges for the industry. Around 41 per cent of those polled believe that the financial crisis generally has no influence on the development of new digital business models; only around 33 per cent are of the opinion that the financial crisis is having an impeding effect.

My favourite book review search site

2010-03-10T23:48:00.000-08:00

It's Tango.
That is of course if you know how to use it right.
The search engine covers everything, absolutely everything, from review-like opinions signed ancient Greek philosophers of their contemporary letter masters to the latest reviews of Precious and even anticipatory reviews of books that has not been officially published yet.

Typical example:

"No books. No writing. No drills. And nothing to
memorize—ever!
With his unique program, Michelle Jones has taught tango in French, Italian,
Spanish, and German to celebrities, corporate leaders, and school childrenwith
immediate and amazing results. Now, the Dance Teacher to the Stars invites you
to join his class!
So effortless, natural, and stimulating is Michelle's system for learning, once you get started you won't want to stop. You will learn in realtime—fully understanding as you go along, turning words into short sentences, steps into moves, and then building them into longer, more complex swirls, until you are tangoing in a foreign language. Immediately, you will feel the excitement of understanding and expressing yourself in tango in Germany or south France. Michelle will have you
formulating your own thoughts and moves from the very beginning, even if you
have never succeeded in learning a single dance before."

Alfahanne... or is it alfahane??

2010-01-27T02:41:00.000-08:00

Writing in Swedish is still difficult for me, that's what I remember every time I write a post which would look better if it were in Swedish...

Anyway, I was not sure what to think when I saw that Katarina Wennstam's new book is titled Alfahanne.
I thought the correct spelling was alfahane. Male animal is hane in Swedish.
Is Katarina Wennstam bad-speller or dyslectic?

Then I saw this in SAOB, the popular Swedish thesaurus, sort of:

I sydligaste Sverige förekommer det enkla ordet uteslutande i formen
hanne, medan däremot hane synes ha ett bestämt företräde i mellersta och norra Sverige. Under de senaste åren torde emellertid hanne ha spridt sig över större områden av landet. I ssgr är däremot formen hane- över hela landet den ojämförligt vanligaste, vilket äv. bestyrkes av såväl äldre som nyare skrivningar.

Wow.
So what is it: is Katarina Wennstam unable to spell in Swedish, or what?

The Sunny Story by Ginger Jones

2010-01-05T01:08:00.000-08:00

For once, the review is not mine. But these lovely attitudes would give you an excellent opinion of this lovely book:

Sunny's Story begins as any child's storybook. Tragically, its ending reflects real life as it is experienced by far too many families. It's unique approach in helping children consider the consequences of their actions and impacts upon their families is very powerful. Sunny's Story would be a valuable read for all youngsters and their parents!

Ian's story, told through the eyes of his dog, Sunny, will help children understand how even 'good kids' can fall prey to the lure of drugs. The commitment of Ian's family helps young people and their parents understand the danger never stops. Having the courage to face hard issues is he only way to keep our children safe.

Through the voice of the family dog and in a tender and thoughtful way, Sunny's Story brings to light one of the most challenging issues facing children, parents and educators today. We as educators and parents need to be as strong in voice as Sunny is in the story. This story has to be told. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of a program that will save lives.

Good Initiative

2009-12-17T00:31:00.000-08:00

During this time of Christmas and charities of all kind, when we give money to the poor and deprived, there is always room for nice initiatives and humanely projects. For some reason, the book business seems to be greedier and pettier than others, our Swedish and Norwegian publishers never participate in charity.

Therefore, it is nice to hear that Spionförlaget is trying to break this bad trend by announcing that it intends to give to charitable cause in Stockholm 40 crowns of every book item sold in December and January. Well to go!

So far, the publishing house offers just one book: Memoirs of a Business Spy by Stan Emiroff. I have written about this book before. Amazing adventure.

Hopefully there will be more books on the shelf.
And hopefully other publishers start to remember about the poor, too.

Bokfest i december

2009-12-01T02:16:00.000-08:00

The most important international exhibition in the adventure book sector, a landmark for all publishers and bookstore operators, will be held in Verona December 14th - 17th, 2009.

Just one of the participants (I want to give you an idea of the true magnitude of the event):

Marmory Books writes in pressrelease earlier last week:
International readers up by 12% with 40% international out of 65 thousand overall operators - Marmory further improved the fair's international status to confirm its role as the landmark event in the adventure story industry. The 41st edition of the International Book of Adventure and Tale Exhibition - that will be held soon during four days of meetings, contacts and trade - will thrive on the success of the last year: international visitors were up by 12% compared to last year, totalling almost 25 thousand from 112 countries - setting an historic record for the show.

The X-mas gift of the year 2009

2009-11-10T00:13:00.000-08:00

I ofetn get the question, which book, of those I described throughout 2009, I would choose to be the X-mas gift of the year. (that is if I were to choose a book at all)

I think this year that would have to be Memoirs of a Business Spy by Stan Emiroff. It's close between this book and The Damnation but in the end... The memoirs is more suitable, given the rules of the contest.

November is going to be a busy month for us at the club, with several travels across Europe and fairs. Maybe we will find a better candidate, but for now...

Good book about psychology

2009-11-02T23:41:00.000-08:00

This book has not been published as yet.
But when it is published it will be a good book about one of the key issues in modern psychology: cognitive mass behavior.

...Even as this argument begins to explain group behavior at an individual and
social level, Whitaker argues that we are only part way to understanding the
various factors at work in mass conflict. He suggests that "we need some
way of beginning to understand the more primitive emotional aspects of conflict
and how they tie in to the individual identity." This goal can be accomplished,
he argues, by giving primacy to the concept of identity. Indeed, "a lack of
attention to identity issues can significantly impede attempts at understanding
and resolving such conflicts." Furthermore, he suggests that these identities
attain further salience by the social situations in which we live. He writes
that "no social identity is inherently any more important than any other, but
the social circumstances in which we live serve to reinforce certain
identities..."

The author, John Whitaker, is a researcher with the Cornwell University. He wrote his paper on the subject as early as three years ago. Then it was a strictly professional paper, not even published in special journals of psychology, something he used as a guidance when teaching students at the university.
But today, more evidence comes out that what he wrote then really works, therefore he considers writing a book based on his paper.

We wait and see.

No Swedish progress at Frankfurt Book Fair

2009-10-20T04:22:00.000-07:00

Well, we all know what's going on by now.
The Frankfurt Book Fair turned out to be a complete disaster for the Swedish book industry. Just consider the fact that the leading Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter ran only one short notice about the Frankfurt fair, by far the biggest book fair in Europe, and that appeared on Sunday - not on Saturday when the Kultur-part of the newspaper usually has its book reports but the following day when traditionally there are no book issues in the Kultur-part at all.

Because the Swedish publishers and agents did not do well at Frankfurt. Not well at all.
The reasons for the disaster are two:
1) The Hypnotisören failure. Too much juicy promises, too much hype, and no substance to match it. The partners in other countries are disappointed, to say the least.
2) Shortage of good books this year. As a reader, you may not notice it, falling victim to hypes and propaganda and false media reports. But we, as a book club, see it quite distinctively. There has been no revolutionary titles this year - in Swedish.

Why Herta Müller

2009-10-16T06:03:00.000-07:00

I have nothing against Herta Müller. I would have even read her books if I were the least interested in the Romanian reality.
But...

It was a few years ago, when the Nobel Committee gave the prize to another one of those writers whom no one ever heard of, when I first met the opinion that aimed to explain why the Nobel Prize Committee favoured unknown, obscure writers so much.

They all are writers themselves, you know. They write no bestsellers but lots of "serious" literature. Books which are impossible to read or understand unless you are an expert in deep literature.
That is why they try to popularize that sort of literary work, by awarding the Nobel Prize to their write-a-likes.

Get it?

Meeting John Summers in Stockholm

2009-10-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

Small notice for the club members:

Another meeting with an interesting debutant in Kulturhuset in Stockholm tonight.
John Summers will be guesting the 4th floor, introducing his novel and telling us how it has been turned down by every publisher except Harper.

A word of warning, though: You need strong English to be able to follow John, considering his dialect.
Welcome!

Pynchon's new novel

2009-09-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Not that I don't like Thomas Pynchon's work. I do.
The first novel of his that I read was Gravity's Rainbow, and it was one of a half-dozen life-changing books for me — utterly absorbing and unlike any other novel. But Pynchon's books are demanding. His protevian style, his encyclopedic knowledge of everything from physics to pop culture, his intellectual vigor, his pendant for depression, his staggeringly complex plots and huge casts of characters — they all add up to books that require the reader to work.

Eager as I am to dive into every new novel from Pynchon, I never expect to zip through them.
Until this one, it's called Inherent Vice.

Pynchon has always been a happy poacher of pop lit genres — his last novel, Against the Day, was, among many other things, a survey of early 20th century genres like boys' adventure tales, exotic travelogues and more.

And I also enjoy this little game, now in the eve of the sad anniversary of the Estonia disaster... Something spooky about the way Sweden handles the case.

Book Fair in Gothenburg

2009-09-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

It has started. At last.
Despite the crisis.

What do we expect from it this year?
Here is a good article about it, our expectations and the whole atmosphere...
Jubilerande mässa märker ingen kris

Crisis or not, we will not know what this year's fair "goes for" until the results of sales during these 4 days. And the problem is, as always, that we actually have no reliable statistics here. That is the problem.

Chinese female writers in the front

2009-09-17T01:05:00.000-07:00

I personally enjoy Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls, Fan Wu’s Beautiful as Yesterday, and Bich Minh Nguyen’s Short Girls.
They work quite well in terms of their content, focusing essentially on the relationship between two similar characters. The girls of See’s novel are actially males - Pearl and May, beautiful and rather successful young men in 1930s Shanghai. Living in a family with liberal values, they thrive a cosmopolitan lifestyle and are able even to earn nice money for their escapades, which includes nights out on the town with foreign students. In this respect, See’s work immediately places a modernist cast on these "girls", but when misfortune befalls their family due to the financial improprieties of their father, Pearl and May are forced into challenging positions.
Of course, like Janice Y.K. Lee’s recent novel, The Piano Teacher, we know we are in dangerous territory if we are anywhere on the Chinese mainland area during the 1930s with Japanese imperial aggression just around the corner. When Pearl and May must find a way to escape China, given all if its turmoil, and enter into arranged marriages they thought they had escaped. The harrowing journey finally leaves them in a limbo space while at Angel Island, which has of course been the site of an Asian American Studies renaissance. In this respect, the novel treads essential historical territory and the questions that both sisters endure are particularly instructive of the inane immigration policies that the United States engaged in the period of the “yellow peril.”
Since See’s first publication, she hasn’t really set much of her work in the United States, so Shanghai Girls is quite anomalous in that respect. Once the women settle into their new lives with their “arranged” husbands, they make due with what they can, May, finding herself caught up in Hollywood glamour, while Pearl struggles to raise a family that she cannot claim wholly or even biologically her own. The novel concludes with a cliffhanger and it wasn’t with much surprise that I discovered that See is working on a sequel. The concluding arc of the novel contemplates questions of assimilation and alternative kinships that were quite refreshing to see and offer much to problematize the notion of Asian American nuclear families. The focus though is always on Pearl and May and their unbreakable friendship. While May seems to be the more vivacious and passionate of the pair, Pearl is more traditional and toned down. In this regard, I find it interesting this move to explore horizontal kinship models rather than the mother-daughter trope that was more dominant in the 90s. See is a gifted storyteller and it is clear there was much research done to recreate what the historical accuracies of the mid-century, so although the plot does not necessarily always rely upon earth-shattering developments, the readers are carried through in sure form.

Prepairing for the book fair

2009-08-20T00:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, we are getting ready for the Gothenburg Book Fair.

It's the first time the new version of The Best Book club will be represented. Whose stand (monter) we will be joining is still under deliberation though.
I vote for "Klubbarna". That's where we belong.
John dosn't like it. He says we will be invisible there. Says we need to be in the front, whatever that means.
I maybe inclined to agree with Jessica. The common denominator should not be clubs but genre, she says. Closer to crime and adventure, or at least fiction..

The important thing is what Meredith is going to say when she is back from her vacation.
Waiting.

Recension: Memoirs of a Business Spy

2009-08-18T02:23:00.000-07:00

Den här recensionen har vunnit Spionförlagets recensionstävling sommaren-2009. Recensenten, Oscar Johansson hemmahörande i Göteborg, har ingen egen sida på nätet, därför fick jag i egenskap av Best Books språkrör äran att publicera hans vinnande bidrag här.

Juryns motivering (enligt förlagets hemsida):
"För att med hjälp av såväl formen som innehållet ha lyckats fånga upp verkets underliggande mystik, dess mångsidiga, flyktiga och abstrakta natur, samt insikten att den genuina romanmystiken alltid ligger i - och lever i - läsarens ögon."

Det intressantaste är att recensionen egentligen är en parodi (!) på en annan recension. Lägg märke till underskriften: Thomas Jente. Recensionen som paroderas är av Jonas Thente, kulturskribent på Dagens Nyheter, och gäller boken Golum av Gustaf Meyrink. Här är länken.

Spionskuggan i Stockholm

"Memoirs of a Business Spy" är en av de märkligaste och mest gåtfulla romaner som skrivits. Thomas Jente försöker få grepp om den bland hemligheter och mysterier i Stan Emiroffs okända Stockholm.

BÖCKER
Stan Emiroff
"Memoirs of a Business Spy"
600 sidor, engelska
Spionförlaget

Stan Emiroffs "Memoirs of a Business Spy" måste vara en av de märkligaste romaner som någonsin skrivits.

Inte bara det att de här spionmemoarerna är experimentella, nyskapande och skandalöst frispråkiga. Och inte heller det att de är tidlöst gripande och övertygande som historiskt och socialt dokument.

Spionmemoarerna finns någon annanstans, i en annan dimension av verkligheten.

Jag bläddrar mig fram längs med en av våra största dagstidningars enorma arkiv och hittar inget särskilt om Stan Emiroff. Det är uppseendeväckande.

Jag letar i det minst sagt omfattande Säporegistret utan att hitta något annat än en gammal anteckning om att en viss agent träffade en politisk flykting vid namnet Emirov för tjugo år sedan. Uppenbarligen har vi inte att göra med memoarer i klassisk mening, där författaren är en känd person som äntligen talar ut om sådant som allmänheten sedan länge hungrat efter att få veta.

Inte heller hittar jag några mer ingående analyser av Emiroffs författarskap i översikter av engelskspråkig roman, äventyrslitteratur eller modern spionthriller. Till och med en så allvetande tidskrift som DAST (deckare, agent, sci-fi, thriller) nämner Emiroffs memoarer enbart i förlöjligande ordalag - den anonyma skämtrecensionen kretsar kring bokens trycktekniska egenskaper och berättelsens påstådda fördomar om svenskar.

Det verkar alltså inte finnas någon som helst ram att foga in Stan Emiroff och hans roman i. "Memoirs of a Business Spy" tycks undandra sig varje blick.

Nyligen strövade jag omkring på den hopträngda säkerhetsmässan Skydd i Stockholm, på jakt efter den tidlösa underrättelsemystik som Emiroff svept staden i. Det var inte svårt att hitta det välkända säkerhetsföretaget Cybercoms monter. I ring runt bordet med reklammaterial stod en flock besökare och lyssnade till en experts berättelse om hur svenska storföretag på 70-talet skapade första rutiner och säkerhetssystem som skydd mot företagsspioner från öst.

Medan experten riktade allas blickar mot sina broschyrer, såg jag hur en liten skäggig man i hatt och regnrock smög sig fram och tog en bild på en av besökarna, till synes i hemlighet. I nästa stund försvann han i vimlet. Som en bekant polis en gång sade till mig - en bra nattjuv missar aldrig en säkerhetsmässa. Likadant med spioner.

Stan Emiroff är egentligen en etnisk tysk, men han växte upp i Sovjetunionen och flydde till väst vid tjugo års ålder. Äventyrsromanen "Memoirs of a Business Spy" var färdig 2007, då författaren sedan många år var bosatt och verksam i Sverige, och gavs ut i april i år. Det var ingen debut - han var också skribenten och hjärnan bakom Spionbloggen - men det är för spionmemoarerna han uppmärksammas idag i de svenska konst- och litteratursalongerna.

Företagsspionage är alltså på frammarsch i Sverige, därom är alla sakkunniga överens. Men när det gäller trenderna finns det flera uppfattningar. Emiroff tillhör den skola som hävdar att allt spionage kommersialiseras och privatiseras. Politiskt spionage är på väg att minska i betydelse, kanske upphöra helt. Istället är allt fler spioner frilansare som jagar företags- och affärshemligheter för pengarnas skull.

Personligen föredrar jag, av säkerhetspolitiska skäl, den andra uppfattningen. Enligt den är företagsspionage underställt politiskt spionage. Ekonomin är politikens redskap, svenska näringslivets hemligheter som företagsspioner gräver fram landar i slutändan på våra politiska motståndares bord i utlandet.

Emiroffs roman är som sagt svår att riktigt få grepp om. Berättarjaget heter Ferdinand von Essen och är en ung man med något förvirrad självbild som lyckas fly över den sovjetiska gränsen till Norden. Han lever som asylsökande och illegal invandrare i Danmark och Sverige. En dag möter han en mystisk herre som ber honom att hjälpa till att samla lite information om några företagare i Köpenhamn. Ferdinand klarar provet och blir handplockad till ett litet privatägt företag i Trelleborg som snart visar sig hålla på med avancerat företagsspionage i Sverige och andra länder.

Men detta är egentligen en stämningsskapande bihistoria till den mindre handgripliga berättelsen om en värld där alla låtsas vara någon annan i syfte att avslöja varandra. De thrillerartade händelserna kommer att göra Ferdinand till en riktig spion och föra honom till toppen av spionyrket - en karriär som Emiroff har erfarenhet av.

Lägg därtill att berättarjaget Ferdinand byter identitet flera gånger: en av identiteterna tillhör hans chef Stan Emiroff.

Utan tvekan är det denna förvirrande värld med låtsaslekar, identitetsbyten och spionknep som är romanens egentliga tema. Emiroff bygger vidare på den mystik som sedan kalla kriget finns där, vrider upp febertermometern några grader och projicerar spionvärlden på Stockholm. Han visar upp udda existenser i förorterna, Polishusets unkna underjordiska gångar, sjaskiga kontor bakom de fina företagens välpolerade fasader, diskreta tubkikare som syns titta ut mellan gardinerna någonstans på Östermalm, hemlighetsfulla affärsmän, falska sanningar och sanna lögner.

Och som en mörk skugga som genom allt detta smyger sig spionen runt - den allsmäktige hemlighetsjägare som sätter skräck i dem som har något att dölja.

Slutsatserna må man själv dra. Symboliken är öppen för var och en att läsa in. Stan Emiroff själv verkar inte ha varit så säker på vad han egentligen ville säga: alldeles för många saker verkar det som. Men just den gaslågiga fladdrighet som brukar vara så förödande för romaner fungerar i "Memoirs of a Business Spy" som förstärkning av de stämningar som förmodligen var det som från början drev Emiroff att skriva. Det kan låta klichéartat, men berättelsen blir lika labyrintiskt öppensluten som den värld den skildrar.

Thomas Jente

Nyckelord: spionboken, bokmässan, bokrecension, äventyr, spänning, spionförlaget, böcker, litteratur

Back from summer vacation

2009-08-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

Back from my looooong summer vacation.
Best Books has become a complete full-membership book club, which is absolutely "toppen" as they say here in Sweden.

Reading a new Collins novel. Don't like it any much. Something is missing, that's the feeling that comes back all the time.
Having been involved in several disputes about Wikipedia, whether the criteria for relying on its articles being truthful and reliable are politically acceptable. Many think they are not. Too many lobby groups around each mather.
I have no opinion myself.
Must I have?

Censorship in Sweden?

2009-07-08T04:17:00.000-07:00

What a lucky coincidence att Swedish and Norwegian are so alike. I did not have to translate.
It is about the book that I've just finished reading. Still being under impression.
When I now see that some Swedish politician tries to censor the book, I understand why.

There are ties between the social democrats in Sweden and certain secret deals within the intelligence community during the 90s. I dont know if I'm allowed to write it here but it's not only about the Estonia catastrophe. There are things as well...

Strange thing is why the social democrats try to act and censor the truth now? Why now?
I hope mister Thomas Hartman can provide answer to that.

Stone

2009-07-03T00:58:00.000-07:00

Stone is not remotely the same magazine today, but some of the influence of its glory days remains: The line from Hun Thompson's quintessentially '60s stories (the infamous Fear and Loath series) to the hip contemporary reportage of, say, Laureen Dowd in The New York Times is a fairly straight one. And, somewhat to my surprise, I'm still affected by those early triumphs as well. I found myself not just saddened but personally hurt to learn from Draper's book that my old hero Esterhas made things up. I shouldn't care so much, I thought; that was a long time ago. Then I thought: Draper shouldn't care so much either.

The problem with books about magazines is that they are written by magazine writers, and these writers always see magazines from a certain perspective. That perspective has something to do with money and fame (Draper criticizes Stone owner Jean Werner, for instance, for banning most authors' names from the cover, an issue only a writer could nd of any consequence). But even more than that, it has to do with emotional self-interest; certain magazines at certain times have become the repositories of all the hopes that magazine writers have for their craft. This was never more true than during Stone's golden age. One former writer tells Draper that Werner missed the chance to make the magazine ''easily the most important magazine of our time,'' a sentiment that is echoed by virtually every old hand Draper interviews. In the end, you see, magazines always break the hearts of their writers, and that is the story of Stone, too.

Draper quotes Werner as saying that it was ''never his aim to establish a training camp for New Journalism.'' This information, placed at the very end of the book, comes as no surprise. The bulk of the evidence in the preceding 360-plus pages supports Werner's contention. From the moment the 21-year-old Werner started it in October 1967, Stone was never completely pure, at least not as journalists de ne purity. Werner used his magazine to reward his friends and pan his enemies, and there was always an element of censorship: The magazine trod very softly around the music industry, where its advertising revenues lay. Werner was shameless about using the magazine's growing clout as his entree to the rich and famous. Even Werner's original insight — that rock & roll deserved to be taken seriously — eventually became stale. Draper takes no small delight in pointing out that former Stone critic Joan Parelles found more freedom to write intelligent rock criticism after he moved to The New York Times, of all places.

Clearly his best work so far

2009-06-16T05:38:00.000-07:00

Illustrations are magnificent and a good enough reason to own this book (though it may be better to buy it in hard cover than in the 2007 paperback edition). They are the reason it won the Caldecott medal in 1997. The pages with the intricately cut clouds and mist are particularly impressive. Throughout, David Wisniewski has manipulated various-cut paper to create this haunting adaptation of this somewhat scary and sad Jewish legend.

The story here has been simplified, which makes it more accessible to young readers. However, they may not be the appropriate audience. Readers should be old enough to learn about the persecution of the Jews, accept that a man (even the holiest of rabbis) could create a giant from clay, understand why the giant was heroic for his violent overthrow of the oppressors, and most importantly, get why the rabbi has to return the Golem to earth even as the monster pleads, like a child to his father, that he wants to live. Readers who are ready for this story might be better served by Isaac Bashevis Singer's longer, more complete, and richer version, also called The Golem.

Shampoo Peanut

2009-05-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

Shampoo Peanut is the story of one Tyler Jackson, and 20-year old who still lives with his mother. Tyler has just returned from a trip from France and is trying to figure out what to do with his life. He is unhappy with his job and is having relationship issues with his girlfriend. We witness Tyler transform from his late childhood to early adulthood through a series of events evolving his search for his past.
I really struggled to get through this book. There seems to be no real plot and Cozak’s writing style is pretty monotonous. He goes off into these rambles where there might be a whole sentence that goes on for 10 or more lines. Reading others people’s reviews, I learned that this probably wasn’t his best-written book, so don’t ignore Cozak completely.
Looks like another parody to the original. That is if you wish to learn the mystery of an author whom no one can understand.

I will write in English, of course

2009-05-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

My weblog will be about Scandinavian books written in English.
They don't exist on charts because nobody knows where they belong. They are not English because written by Nordic authors and not Nordic because written in English, a non-Nordic language. Funny, eh?

Welcome!