Janvier 2009

Monday rehearsal. Wednesday rehearsal. Saturday rehearsal. Sunday concert. This is my life right now and I'm loving it.

When Pastor Huuskonen's parishioners gift him a bear cub for his 50th birthday, he doesn't realize his entire existence is about to explode. The pastor's already going through it—life's a mess. Then this bear shows up.

Dream of becoming a writer? Drawers stuffed with manuscripts? Not sure this book's for you. It basically suggests that the writing compulsion is an incurable disease that hits during adolescence. Symptoms include obsessive scribbling and delusions of genius.

Take one young filmmaker—talented, ambitious, but arrogant as hell and completely narcissistic. Throw him together with a cinephile gangster. What happens? The thug, Sammy, tries convincing the director, Alexis, to make a movie about his life. Alexis couldn't care less at first.

Nothing beats a solid crime novel to break through a reading slump. Arnaldur Indridason's become a guarantee. His first one, Jar City, absolutely floored me with its darkness and twisted plotting. This one delivers too.

Starting the year with a massive graphic novel—black and white beauty that drops you straight into the 1920s art scene. Meet one of the era's most mythic figures: Kiki de Montparnasse. Alice Prin was her real name.

Not sure 2008 will leave much of a mark on me. Maybe because a chapter closed for good. The year was mostly defined by a small work issue that gradually became completely disproportionate...