Topp 10 bøker jeg leste i 2024
Som vanlig hadde jeg som mål å lese 60 bøker i 2024. Jeg kom til 51. Nedenfor har jeg rangert mine ti beste leseopplevelser, fra nr. 10 til nr. 1.
Hvis dere er nysgjerrige på hvilke andre bøker jeg har lest i 2024, kan dere se alle her: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/61647737-margrete-cardona?read_at=2024
Her er de ti beste:
10. Never Split the Difference, av Chris VossEn fascinerende sakprosabok om forhandlingteknikker, skrevet av en tidligere gisselforhandler som jobbet for FBI. Det er interessant å se hvor raskt forhandlings- og kommunikasjonsprinsipper blir perfeksjonert når de kontinuerlig testes ut på den virkelige verdens liv-og-død-situasjoner. Voss prøvde en gang ut sine forhandlingsteknikker på studenter og forelesere ved en handelshøyskole, og blåste alle av banen. I denne boken får man en uvurderlig innsikt i makten som kan ligge i språk og psykologi.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
A former FBI hostage negotiator offers a new, field-tested approach to negotiating – effective in any situation.
After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a kidnapping negotiator brought him face-to-face with bank robbers, gang leaders, and terrorists. Never Split the Difference takes you inside his world of high-stakes negotiations, revealing the nine key principles that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed when it mattered the most – when people’s lives were at stake.
Rooted in the real-life experiences of an intelligence professional at the top of his game, Never Split the Difference will give you the competitive edge in any discussion.
9. Cultish. The Language of Fanaticism, av Amanda Montell
På 9. plass har vi enda en sakprosabok. Denne er også kjempespennende for enhver som er språkinteressert og som ønsker å forstå mer av makten bak manipulativt og misvisende språk. Selv om jeg skulle ønske at boken gikk enda mer inn på det spesifikt lingvistiske, er den både lærerik og spennende uten det. Den viser hvordan språket kan være fellesnevner for helt ulike sfærer, fra pyramidespill via kultledere til influencere. Hvis man lærer å kjenne igjen slikt språk i de ufarlige kontekstene, kjenner man dem også igjen i de skadelige.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.
What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . .
Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day.
Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.
8. A River in Darkness, av Masaji IshikawaEn manns liv i, og flukt fra, Nord-Korea. Lidelsen befolkningen i Nord-Korea gjennomgikk under hungersnøden på nittitallet er utenfor alt jeg kunne ha forestilt meg. Hvis du tenker på det aller verste du klarer, så er det enda verre.
Ingenting kommer opp mot å lese fortellinger av og om enkeltmennesker for å sette seg inn i opplevelsene og kulturen i et annet land. Vi har ingen anelse om hva sult er. Vi forstår ikke hva det vil si å leve under et totalitært regime.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
The harrowing true story of one man’s life in—and subsequent escape from—North Korea, one of the world’s most brutal totalitarian regimes.
Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.
In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit
7. The Poisonwood Bible
Det er språket i denne boken som gjør at den havner på min topp 10. Flyten og rytmen i det, metaforene, følelsene. Det er til å få frysninger av. Selve historien er også uforglemmelig, om en familie fra USA som drar på misjonering i Kongo. Det går ikke slik de hadde sett for seg, for å si det mildt. Boken er lang, men jeg kan vanskelig se for meg hvordan den kunne vært kortere. Den er episk, og følger familien og Zaires politiske landskap gjennom mange år.
Boken starter slik: Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it — from garden seeds to Scripture — is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
6. Drowning, av T. J. NewmanEr du ute etter en bok du ikke klarer å legge fra deg, er Drowning midt i blinken. Men har du flyskrekk, bør du hoppe over den.
Et fly styrter over sjøen, og synker til bunns med overlevende fanget i en luftlomme i skroget på bunnen av sjøen.
Boken er skrevet av en flyvertinne og bærer preg av realisme. Jeg tror jeg holdt pusten gjennom flere avsnitt.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
Flight attendant turned New York Times bestselling author T. J. Newman—whose first book Falling was an instant #1 national bestseller and the biggest thriller debut of 2021—returns for her second book, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, and sinks to the bottom with passengers trapped inside, and the extraordinary rescue operation to save them.
Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.
More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.
Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.
There’s not much time.
There’s even less air.
With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them—against impossible odds.
5. The Four Winds, av Kristin Hannah
Kristin Hannah er på vei til å bli en av mine favorittforfattere. Jeg har nå lest tre av hennes bøker, og elsket alle sammen. Hun skriver historiske romaner som er innsiktsfulle og dramatiske.
Denne historien beskriver the Dust Bowl, tørken som rammet store deler av USA på 20- og 30-tallet. Det er en medrivende fortelling om en families kamp for overlevelse, og hvor dårlig flyktninger kan bli behandlet, selv av egne landsmenn.
Sammendrag fra Amazon:
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.
“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.
By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.
In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa―like so many of her neighbors―must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it―the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
Og her er enda en favorittforfatter. Jeg har nå lest nesten alle bøkene hans, og det finnes ikke én jeg misliker. Dette er en novelle som bare finnes elektronisk, og bare på engelsk, på Amazon. Du leser den på under en dag.
Den er like rørende og morsom som alle hans bøker, men er i tillegg absurd og rar. Anbefales hvis du vil ha noe å slappe av til, og raskt krysse av for enda en «bok» lest.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?
Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.
3. Whalefall, av Daniel Kraus
En original idé, skrevet så levende at du får klaustrofobi der du sitter i sofaen og leser.
En dykker på leting etter sin fars levninger, blir svelget av en hval, og vi får oppleve hans klaustrofobiske og smertefulle ferd gjennom dyrets mange etsende mager.
Ubegripelig realistisk beskrevet. Jeg ble kvalm og begeistret.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
Jay Gardiner has set out on a fool’s errand: Find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot but feels it’s the only way to relieve the guilt he has carried since his dad’s suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles, then pulled into the whale’s mouth and the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.
2. All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, av Bryn GreenwoodEn bok som tar deg med langt inn i et tabu du aldri ville tro du kunne se fra mer enn én side.
Den handler om forsømmelse og mishandling av barn, fattigdom, urettferdighet, og et utenkelig forhold mellom en ung mann og en altfor ung jente.
Men historien utvikler seg ikke slik du tror den kommer til å gjøre.
Jeg beundrer forfattere som tør å utforske forbudte tema. Og denne historien er kjempegod. Du sitter fengslet fra første side.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.
As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It’s safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father’s thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.
By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy’s family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world. A powerful novel you wont soon forget, Bryn Greenwood’s All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all we know and believe about love.
1. My Dark Vanessa, av Kate Elizabeth Russel
Favorittboken min i år er tematisk ganske lik bok nummer to på listen. Men der All the Ugly and Wonderful Things beskriver et kjærlig forhold, beskriver denne boken seksuelt misbruk.
Den er helt utrolig innsiktsfull og troverdig, spesifikt når den beskriver hvordan den kvinnelige hovedpersonen, i voksen alder, begynner å forstå at det hun opplevde som sin seksuelle oppvåkning, var voldtekt.
Det er en vondt men viktig bok, med imponerende psykologisk innsikt.
Sammendrag fra Goodreads:
Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.
2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?
Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.
