I've been reading

I've finished my 5th book this weekend for 2021.  Not bad for 6 months.  Naturally a lot of people read a lot more but the previous years I have not often reached 5 books in an entire year so I've really picked up a reading habit again now that is also alive outside of vacation periods.  This is because I'm consciously taking resting breaks in the weekend, I sometimes ban screens for myself when I feel tired, I subscribed with the children to the local library again and since we have a 'tiny' kitten in house I can't puzzle anymore. I miss the latter though. 

So what have I been reading so far?  
 

I wanted a historic thriller but ended up in some ghost story which I found quite disturbing. I've finished it but wouldn't recommend it. 

A Scandinavion undercooled police detective that was typically slow in action but with very real people that you feel empathy for (and yet you want to shake them up and say ...hey do something!).  I enjoyed this book up to the point it ended...without end. What the fuck.  I still don't know who killed the lovely Indian girl who came to Sweden to marry her vacation love. Several villagers suspected but we will never know.  How strange to get that published without end. 

A Belgian classic. The first one I read from Griet Op De Beeck.  Not quite a story so not quite what I tend to read as pass-time.  But multiple unhappy people at different levels whose lives cross and mix.  And it climbs up in raw emotions, bad decisions, wrong communcation as people tend to do to an unhappy end.  It grabs to your throat. 

I thought to pick up a book that would be playing in Venetia but in the end most of the story line it a disturbing flashback to an (un)happy traumatic childhood in England.  It's a thrilling storyline that reads smoothly altough the ending adds up a bit too much coincidence . But fun vacation material. 

Jo Claes has become one of my favourite authors. Police detectives that play at just a few 100m of my home and point different details and history or stories of Leuven to my attention...always fun.   Thanks to Jo Claes I've discovered monuments or plaques or I know who are the persons behind street names etc.  Ha I love detective Berg.  Must take another Jo Claes with me on vacation later this summer!