The Silence of the Sea, by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir

This was one of the books I bought in Iceland; I had heard about Yrsa Sigurdardóttir before as the epitome of the Nordic thrillers and still hadn't tried it. I like Jo Nesbo very much, and Henning Mankell, not so much Stieg Larsson or Camilla Lackberg. The Silence of the Sea is a nice book, with a clever and often intriguing story, but it didn't thrilled me that much - the writing and the characters are passable but not very good, and the atmosphere is not particularly noir or engaging. Better than Camilla Lackberg, but miles behind Nesbo.

Inside the Dream Palace - The life and times of the New York's legendary Chelsea Hotel, by Sherill Tippins

I first heard about the Chelsea Hotel in the famous Leonard Cohen song. Later I read about it in memoirs, like Gore Vidal's Palimpsest or Patti Smith's Just Kids, and saw it in movies like Factory Girl. So, when I read somewhere a review of this book, I was curious, and ordered it on Amazon. It is a very good read, informative and entertaining. I didn't know the Chelsea had been built as a kind of experiment in urban lodging in the 1870s. Since then, it was the home of an incredible number of artists, from Mark Twain and John Sloan to Patti Smith and Dee Dee Ramone, with residents including Dylan Thomas, Virgil Thomson, Arthur Miller and so many others. The Chelsea Hotel was in the centre of the New York art scene, particularly after WWII until the 1970s. The book tells a lot of interesting stories, mostly interesting, and the author is very passionate about its subject. Sometimes it's a little boring, and it gives a lot of space to people like Andy Warhol - one of the biggest frauds in the art history, in my opinion, but then it was a big part of the Chelsea's history. And there are a lot of funny anecdotes, like when Christo invited someone for dinner and wasn't sure it the wrapped cutlery was a work of art...

O Lugar Supraceleste, de Frederico Lourenço

I have read most of Frederico Lourenço's books for many years. I like his writing - cultivated, clean and clear - and I think he's one of the few young(ish) Portuguese authors worth reading. And it's funny how I enjoy it even if I disagree of his opinions lots of times and have different tastes about lots of things. But still there are many issues where I feel he's telling it exactly how I would put it, and mostly I like the way he questions things, how he analyses himself and looks for his place / meaning in the world, which is something that always resonates with me. And I feel mostly in tune with his answers, if in a different key. It's one of those cases when even if the ways are different, the quest and the inner core are very much the same.