This parting year was a bland reading experience. I couldn’t pick out more than a few books that made a lasting impression on me. I re-read a lot, though, which gave me some balance.

I kicked off my 2023 reading by listening to audiobooks, having been unable to read for weeks. I went through quite a few Louise Penny’s novels, despite the irritating voice of one of the narrators. Later, I switched to paper/e-book format, until she started repeating herself, slowly but surely choking out the life of her characters and having increasingly sillier plots.

I continued with a couple of non-fiction publications but I could only emphasize two: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, which I missed reading when it was published, a few years ago, and the more recent Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, the finest example of investigative writing, an eye opener that won’t open any eyes.

After overdosing on Louise Penny, I needed a palette cleanser, and for something like that, nothing works better for me than a well-written romance. Someone at work recommended Lucy Score and Kristan Higgins. The former can go to the “meh” category: too long, too detailed, and occasionally shallow and silly. I enjoyed K. Higgins much more: lovely writing, interesting characters, and believable storylines. Her stories are funny and light, but not without depth — she doesn’t hesitate to tackle some real-life issues. Still, not something I would read again, but then most romances are for single use anyway.

The following months, right to the end of the year, were just a search for a next decent read and return – for the lack of success – to my old book friends, mostly in my native language.

The latest book I read, just days ago, was a 30-year-old mystery novel, Borkmann’s Point by Hakan Nesser, one of those books that can trigger my frustrated inner reviewer. It won a prestigious Swedish award, although I can’t see why. The main character, Inspector Van Veeteren, wants to be no less than Hercule Poirot, relying on his intuition rather than the evidence (which he is not looking for at all). I half expected him to praise his “little grey cells”. An annoying character at his finest: cocky, unreasonably self-confident, unconvincing. He spent most of time musing about things irrelevant to the story. He constantly chews on a toothpick, reusing the same ones for quite a bit, keeping it in his pocket. Unless he sucks on an olive pit. The other character sucks on a pen. The rest smoke cigarettes — in short almost everybody has something in their mouth almost all the time. Makes you wonder.

Nesser didn’t bother to explain how Van Veeteren solved the case, he just solved it; we should be content with that. The translator was lost in translation. There were way too many exclamation marks in the book, together with unnecessary and unprovoked emotional outbursts. The reading was stiff and bumpy, heavily peppered with, I guess, Swedish idioms converted into English word by word. At moments, it sounded like YouTube closed captions – it didn’t make much sense.

And that’s not all. Several female characters’ names start with the B: Brigitte (Bitte), Beatte, Beatrice, together with a few of males (Bausen, Bart). There is a Moerk and a Moen, a Meuhlich and a Munster (sometimes spelled with an “ü”, sometimes not), a Maurice and a Meuritz, a Mooser and Melnik… (“‘Apart from Moen,’ said Beate Moerk” is the actual sentence in the book).

The last straw for me was the wife of one of the detectives giving her small children “a tiny bit” of sleeping pills so that she and her husband could have some private moments. The book was written three decades ago, but drugging children was not acceptable even then. Come on! Later, the husband, one step away from adultery a few days before, contemplates if she has more of these pills for kids, for their next adult time.

Everything that could go wrong in this book went wrong. Nonetheless, it had caught the attention of an agent (how? why?), it had had an editor (who missed a heard of elephants in the room), it was publicized and marketed, it won an award (Best Novel in 1994). The Times London, Toronto Star, Library Journal and Esquire, among others, wrote flattering reviews, filled with oohs and aahs about the plot, the Inspector, the pace, the fabulous twists and turns… name it, and it’s there. It has a 4.2 average rating on Amazon, so the readers liked it, too, and only a few of the reviewers caught the many flows of this mishmash of unimaginative writing, terrible translation, flat characters and thin plot. Without deserving it, at least not with this book, Nesser became a big name in mystery fiction. I don’t know if he later justified his high standing, perhaps he was, but I don’t have desire to find it out. I love Scandinavian noir, but it seems to me that, back then when it was at its peak, it was enough to be from that part of the world to become popular. I read and loved many of them: Arnaldur, Henning Mankell, Assa Larsson, Stieg Larson… I also tried to read and didn’t like quite a few, like Jo Nesbo and Helene Tursten, and now Hakan Nesser.

This wasn’t a good year for writing either. I can’t sit for long, which limits my time spent on the computer. Still, I managed a couple of blog posts, worked a tad on my next novel, and was featured twice in my former magazine, which always gives me incredible joy.

Before I leave, I just want to mention that my WP refuses to re-activate notifications for the blogs I follow. I have to remember to check JetPack to see what’s new, which sometimes I forget, and that’s the reason why I am often late or absent with my likes and comments.

I wish you a very Merry Christmas (to those who observe it). To everyone, have a happy new year, filled with health, joy, inspiration for writing and a plethora of good books for reading!