The Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist

My month of spooky books continues with The Harbor.  This book was written by a Swede so it's a bit cumbersome what with all the names and locations. Anders is from an island.  He is married to a girl who used to vacation on the island.  One day they skate across the frozen ocean with their 6 year old daughter Maja to see the lighthouse.  Maja disappears.  It's now a few years later and after an exile, a divorce and a lot of alchol, Anders has returned to the island where a bunch of weird stuff is happening.  The sea is a major charecter in this book and it's wordy and a bit slow in parts.  It was good though, but not a book for those who like constant action. 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

This book is not for everyone but I liked it a lot.  It reminds me of Neil Gaiman's Star Dust.  It is a fantasy.  It is beautifully written but until you get used to the prose can be a bit of a struggle to get into.  It's about the battle between two magicians.  They have each selected an apprentice to compete against each other.  I can't describe much more without it coming across as confusing so this is stolen from Wikipedia:The Night Circus is a phantasmagorical fairy tale set near an ahistorical Victorian London in a wandering magical circus that is open only from sunset to sunrise. Le Cirque des Rêves, the Circus of Dreams, features such wonders and "ethereal enigmas" as a blooming garden made all of ice and a fire-breathing paper dragon. The circus has no set schedule, appearing without warning and leaving without notice; they travel in a train disguised as an ordinary coal transport. A network of devoted fans who style themselves "rêveurs" develops around the circus; they identify to each other by adding a splash of red to garb that otherwise matches the characteristic black and white of the circus tents. The magical nature of the circus is occluded under the guise of legerdemain; the illusionist truly transforms her jacket into a raven and the fortune teller truly reads the uncertain future, and both are applauded for their ingenuity.
The circus serves a darker purpose beyond entertainment and profit. The magicians Prospero the Enchanter and the enigmatic Mr. A.H— groom their young proteges, Celia and Marco, to proxy their rivalry with the exhibits as a stage. Prospero teaches his daughter to hone her innate talents by holding ever larger and more complex magical workings in her mind. Celia takes her position on the game board as the illusionist, adding tents and maintaining wondrous aspects from the inside. Mr. A.H— trains his orphan ward with books in the ways of glyphs and sympathetic magic. Marco takes a position as majordomo to the producer of the circus; he works from the outside in, connected to the circus but not a part of it. The two generate nightly wonders for the circus and for each other, soon falling in love despite being magically bound to a deadly competition with rules neither understands; the magical courtship strains the fate laid out for them and endangers the circus that has touched the lives of so many and cannot survive without the talents of both players.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Another book by Ian McEwan. In my defense, I had picked this up at the same time as Amsterdam. As I started to read, I was pretty sure I had read this before. So obviously, since I didn't remember it, I clearly hadn't liked it. This book is LONG and wordy and I didn't like the main charecter (seems to be one of his strong points). The conclusion is less than sastisfactory. I just must be too immature and unintellectual for this author.

The story line is this: a precocious 14 year old has an unreasonable dislike for a friend of her sister as well as a very active imagination. Then some bad stuff happens (I don't want to spoil it). Then there is her atonement (get it??) which is in NO WAY adequate.

Did not like it, but didn't hate it. Hopefully I remember that I read it this time so as to not have to read it a third time! :)

Hunting Eichmann by Neal Bascomb

Subtitle: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi.

I LOVED this book but it was a hard read. It is all about how the young Israeli intelligence office captured Adolf Eichmann. The most interesting part of this book to me was the realization by the Israelis about how ordinary evil can be. Here was a man who masterminded the transportation of MILLIONS of people to be exterminated and he was just a sad, little, ordinary man.