Iceland, Moscow, and New York

I was in Iceland for a few days during the summer of 2005. The little hotel we stayed at was right around the corner from this important Reykjavik church (to the left). Somewhere on the internet I found a suggestion that Arnaldur Indridason was well worth reading - the stories in his books are placed in the Icelandic city. So when making an excursion to the English bookshop I found a paperback by said author "Silence of the Grave". I did indeed enjoy the book, but it is not easy to get ahold of others - so the next book will be read in translation to Swedish. Thank goodness for our local libraries.
The Moscow connection is also a product of the library. I had to find somewhere to return my used lightbulbs (you are not supposed to put them in the garbage). So I bicycled to the neared recycling center and placed my small offering of 5 light bulbs in the large bin. Since I was in the neighborhood I went to the branch library and found a book by Shamim Sarif a young author from South Africa. The novel, her 2nd, is called "Despite the Falling Snow" (from a poem by Robert Graves). It bounces back between Moscow in the 50ties and Boston in the present. As one of the characters in the book says - there are only a few plots (this one is a love lost and love found story) but what makes them interesting are the characters. This is the case with this little pearl of a book.
New York is the scene of at least part of the new Harlan Coben book, "Promise Me". Ever since I happened to read one of Coben's stand alones - that lead me to the Myron Bolitar series I have been a fan. This book is the comeback of said Bolitar after a 6 year hiatus. Not quite as funny as some of the earlier ones, but I really enjoyed reading it. An interesting aside: Bolitar had a pro basketball career cut very short when his knee was ruined, another long running series hero - Butch Karp of the Tanenbaum series - also lost his bid for NBA fame when his knee was blown out. This book was also courtesy of my local library (Andrew Carnegie comes to mind).
The other New York connection is Brooklyn and does not have to do with a book. I went to the movies yesterday evening and saw "The Squid and the Whale". It was billed as a drama/comedy and was as such. But it was kind of depressing, people do find so many ways to mess up their lives. The time period was middle 1980ties, which is starting to feel like a very long time ago. One thing I really enjoyed was the soundtrack - music by Pink Floyd, among others.