Yes, 'The Godfather'. How can one miss it?

Initially I wanted to read the book. That's what I did. However, I was told (and not only by one person) that the movie adaption is better than the book itself, which is very rare nowadays. So, after completing this cool gangsta novel, I went to compare the two. Here are my thoughts:

The book is God. It explores many storylines which may run parallel, or one after the other. I love that. Same technique is used in the 'Pulp Fiction' movie. So, the story presented many instantly recognizable characters with their own perspectives, ideas and objectives. The plot is fast moving. It moves even afterwards you may think that the story could have come to a halt. I love that, too. The genre, crime, is at its best.

The movie is also fantastic. It was able to show 99.9% of all events in a not very fast pace and was filmed perfectly. But I'm not here to discuss it. Just know that it is worth watching.

I would personally recommend the book to everyone that loves Westerns, crime, detective and thriller stories. But don't forget to watch the movie afterwards:)

I have actually admired the book. I have started reading Stephen King's 'Wolves of the Calla' after 'The Wind Through the Keyhole' and wanted some sort of advancement in the story afterwards (because you can consider 'The Wind Through the Keyhole' to be a "huge flashback"). Anyways, the thing that stands out about this fantasy novel is that it has 3 story arches. The 'Wolves', 'Todash', and it accommodated another book - 'Salem's Lot' (written by S. King, too). I can argue that the 'Wolves' story is much more local on scale than I wanted it to be, but that is okay because S. King has introduced an engaging concept to his 'Dark Tower' metaverse ('Todash'). The book opens huge grounds for further novels to explore, which probably will give a boost to the following books (I have not read them yet).

To sum up, the book was interesting because of its concepts. It does not present a masterpiece, but builds a ground for further novels. If you have started to read 'The Dark Tower' AND you have spare time (the book isn't shallow at all), then why not read it?

The nine stories collected in 'I, Robot', written by Isaac Asmov, presented me an alternative reality from ours and how it got developed. The book is rather an engaging read because it covers the human interaction with robots... from different "eras", made for different purposes, and used for various objectives. Apart from that, it was interesting for me to observe how different characters were developing in response to the world surrounding them.

Asimov introduced a fabulous concept of an alternative reality where the technological progress would be based upon positronic brains. The book is perfect for those that love science fiction and for those, that would like to try to read something new (that would not be too complicated to understand and too long to read).

The horror novel 'Cold Skin', written by Albert Sanchez Pinol, explores the ideas of isolation, how we (humans) get shaped by the environment we live in and what actions we can be made to do. The book tells a story of an Irish man getting stuck on an island with a German neighbor not long after a war near Antarctica. They immediately get attacked by...

The novel sets up the atmosphere perfectly. Perfectly. There is isolation; ergo, external factors are minimized. This helps to build through the book a single-story perspective, which then gets annihilated. With gruesome, unappealing characters, the reader may choose not to take sides and think about the beliefs, truth, the reasons why all of the events in the tale happen.

However, the translation by Cheryl Leah Morgan leaves out very significant facts needed to build the main character. With this knowledge, it would be easer to understand and justify some of the character's actions and beliefs.

Concluding, 'Cold Skin' is a fast, over-evening read. It will result in mixed thoughts afterwards and a bit of disgust, but that is needed to make the us question how and why were the main characters affected to do what they did. Recommended to read for those that like new adventure stories (and horror tales).

Despite 'The Thirst' being the 11th book in Jo Nesbo's 'Harry Hole' series, it was not a problem for me to launch my acquaintance with the Norwegian crime stories here. The book itself is about a retired detective Hole that gets sucked into all of the action around a new, crazy blood-loving killer. It seems that Harry Hole has already met the bad guy before, but for a new reader this will not be a problem because all of the characters will be developed "from the beginning" of the crime novel and the writer won't leave you to guess of what was happening in the previous books.

The thing that gets readers' attention, apart from a mad fetish of the stalker and insane methods of the detective, is the unforeseen plot twist that happens once the reader thinks that all that could've been done (catching the bad-guy) is done and nothing else to do... and the plot twist happens twice!

'The Thirst' may catch an unprepared reader with many unique characters. This may be a tremendous problem for a slow reader that may be reading the book over a longer time interval (several months, the novel is actually long). However, on the other hand side it is more than entertaining to spectate many different story lines that run parallel and evolve differently. A miracle for nowadays fiction.

Overall, 'The Thirst' provides a modern reader a breath of fresh air due to its interesting and impossible-to-put-aside story arch written in plain, modern English (translation by Neil Smith). There are many different point of views on the story that's happening in Oslo from within the story itself which makes it interesting to investigate how characters react to different events. Plot twists will glue you to the novel. Harry Hole will make you fall in love with the books... even though you may have started not from the very beginning of the series. That's what happened to me.