The Pearls of Topelius's Fairy Tales
I'm usually not very fond of all that religious talk in fairy tales but Topelius's stories are so wonderful that it doesn't really matter. They have a traditional atmosphere of Finnish culture and some of them has a bit of a sad mood. My favourite still is The Birch and the Star (you can read it here) but this collection didn't really have anything else that good. Plus the illustrations aren't that nice.

The Books of Death 2
Really enjoyed some of the stories. Quite disturbing some of them...

I was joggling between two and three stars. While it passed my time well and the story had couple of twists and surprising turns it became tedious at times. I really wanted to like the book just because my interest in Victorian times is growing every minute. The author just didn't succeed in making my heart jump, tear my hair, shed tears or laugh. In other words, it did not stir my emotional side. I also felt that in some occasions the reader was under estimated by not allowing to make own conclusions or repeating certain things too much.

Bierce's horror stories are what I consider good horror. They just wait to be read around a campfire or in candlelight during full moon. The civil war stories were good too but the reason why I bought this was the horror. All in all, I liked the collection but there are just a couple of stories that deserve to be reread.

Huge collection of paintings starting from early Renaissance and a couple of mini biographies of the most famous artists. Higly recommended for art lovers.

The Culture of Ancient Egypt

For a while now I've had this growing infatuation towards circus life, during the 1920s and 1930s in particular. I was kind of hesitant about buying this one because the quality of bestsellers have been less than pleasing to say the least. But I want to gulp everything concerning the subject so I definitely don't regret my purchase. The story itself is somewhat entertaining but I'm still convinced there are real gems out there which dig into the life style even deeper.