There Is A Chance...

 

I am heading up to Durham for a long weekend and with about 3 hrs on the train there is a chance I might finish the socks I am making for The Professor on the way! Socks like these are such a great way of using up leftover yarn from other projects. I can't abide the thought of throwing out the leftovers, and I hate having leftover yarn cluttering up the knitting basket. Making something useful is therefore a win-win solution.

 

I really recommend Bitta Mikkelborg's book "Sokker - Strikking Hele Året" - there are just so many ideas and patterns to chose from. The patterns and techniques are very well described making it a pure joy to knit

(sorry - to my knowledge, the book is not available in English)

Recommended Reading: Beatles

 

Filling in the "gaps"...

 

I guess we all have 'gaps' in the list of books we would have liked to have read. Working my way through my 'list', I am currently reading the Norwegian/Danish author, Lars Saabye Christensen's book "Beatles" (published in 1984). I read his book "The Half Brother" (2001) when it was published and loved it. The same goes for "Beatles".

 

The book is set in the 1960s and the story is told through the main character, Kim Karlsen (Paul). Kim and his friends, Gunnar (John), Sebastian (George) and Ola (Ringo), played football together, collected Beatles records and stole attributes from cars. Kim is the notorious liar, while Gunnar is the truth-seeker. Ola is the stuttering fat one, and Sebastian is a spiritualist. The four boys mature during the political struggle of the 1960s, and end up as left-wings, inspired by people around them. Although they are at least 10 years older than me, there are many familiar flashbacks to childhood memories, feelings and growing up in Norway in the 1970s.

 

Beatles has two sequels, Bly (Lead) and Bisettelsen (The Funeral).

 

So, my list goes on...

Which books are on your 'must-read' list?

♥

Shout Out For A Friend!

Be patient - it won't be long before we can enjoy this again...

This is a shout out for an "old" friend of mine - Cathrine Rød Gundersen - who just published a book called "Boat Friends" (Båtvenner).The book came about when she was looking for a gift for a friend. The sea is obviously a big part of this sea faring nation and many Norwegians spend their spare time roaming the coast and exploring the many little islands scattered around. As the cover picture of the book shows, these long summer evenings are really quite magical.

♥

Cathrine wanted a book depicting life in the boats, but she couldn't find anything except navigation books. So, this energetic lady wrote her own! This 200 page book (in Norwegian) is full of lovely pictures of various boats, the families enjoying them, recipes and loads of tips and suggestions.
A super idea for a gift!

 

Gratulerer med boka, Cathrine!  

Recommended Reading: Wildflower Hill

 

I just finished reading "Wildflower Hill" by Kimberley Freeman. An easy read along the same line as Kate Morton's books.  Wildflower Hill is a compelling, atmospheric, and romantic novel about taking risks, starting again, knowing what you want and believing in yourself.

A good holiday read, I would say.

 

The story spans over three generations and half the world. It is a romantic and compelling story of two women who share a legacy of secrets, heartbreak, courage and love.

 

Emma, a prima ballerina in London, is at a crossroads in her career. She is forced to take stock of her life and finds that she’s mistaken fame and achievement for love and fulfillment. Returning home to Australia, she learns of her grandmother Beattie’s death and a strange inheritance: a sheep station in Tasmania.

 

Beattie also found herself at a crossroads as a young woman. She followed an unconventional path that was often dangerous and heartbreaking. Beattie knew the lessons she learned in life would be important to Emma one day, and she wanted to make sure Emma’s heart remained open to love, no matter what life brought. She knew the magic of the Australian wilderness would show Emma the way.

 

 

Recommended Reading: "Child Wonder"

I just finished the Norwegian author Roy Jacobsen's book "Child Wonder" (or "Vidunderbarn", in Norwegian).

 

The book is set in a suburb of Oslo in the early 1960s -  a time when 'men became boys and housewives women'. It is the year the Berlin Wall was erected and Gagarin became the first man to travel into space. The book is about childhood, intensely social-democratic life in Norway in the 60s, and the effect of painful memories. The book is a gripping and unsentimental portrait of childhood and a very uplifting novel. And the story stops at the right place. There is a form of closure and you sense the potential for a new story.

In another book.

♥

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Recommended Reading: "Tett Inntil Dagene"

I am reading a book I got for Christmas by an acclaimed Swedish-Kurdish author, Mustafa Can. I am reading it in Norwegian (originally written in Swedish: "Tätt Intill Dagarna") and the English title is "Close To The Day".
 

The book is mesmerising in its sadness and at the same time a tender description of Can's dying mother. The book is about her last months and how her son during this time gets to know his mother in a new way. He rediscovers her culture and background, a world he has fought to get rid of and has felt ashamed of. He gets to know a woman who has lost 7 of her 15 children, who left her country and settled in an unknown culture. He sees the challenges she faced settling in a culture she struggled to understand, but which her children quickly embraced. The story is also an example of the challenges of growing up between different cultures.

 

The book is beautifully written and I am enjoying the lovely use of the language. I read quite a lot, and most of the time the language is fine (sometimes it is not!). But every now and then you come across something that is superbly well written.
 

This is one of those books.

And Here is Book Number 2!

The second book of my blog has just arrived.

 

I was a bit late getting around to ordering it this time, but we now have a printed recollection of our lives in 2010 (the first book) and 2011 (the second book).

 

Really worth it, in my mind as we find ourselves time and time again trying to remember when such-and-such happened and often find clues to it in my entries in the blog. Settles many potential arguments this way... Guests also find it fun to browse through and get a different glimpse of our lives.

 

I ordered this from SharedBook or Blog2Print (think it is the same name/company). The book arrived within 2-3 weeks and I have a feeling it turned out cheaper this time, not that it is any thinner this time...

 

Ah,well! 

 

Can't complain about that!

☺

Recommended Reading: Things We Left Unsaid

Need a summer read?

I have just finished reading Zoya Pirzad's book "Things We Left Unsaid".

 It is a graceful, tender, funny and interesting insight into a way of life in Iran surprising and unknown to many people.

The story is set in privileged suburban Abadan in the south of Iran in the 1960s. The city was built around the oil refinery which opened in 1913 after the British discovered oil at Masjed-Soleiman. Abadan became a company town where the city was divided into neighbourhoods or districts where the workers of the oil company lived.

The main character in the story is Clarice who is married with three children. The story describes her happy family life which is shaken up when a new family moves in across the street and she starts to question her own contentment.

It struck me that the most surprising part is not the description of a way of life which I recognised from what I have been told by my own family, but I kept feeling it could have been a story set in many European or American families in the 1960s.

I really recommend the book and think you may find it surprising.

PS: there is a glossary at the end explaining some names and places and foods you may not be familiar with

Recommended Reading: The Importance of Being Seven

I am in a 'McCall Smith' phase again having just completed "The Importance of Being Seven" by Alexander McCall Smith and started on "Bertie Plays the Blues" from his 44 Scotland street series.

I just love the familiarity of the characters and the warmth and humour underneath the short chapters. 

It is not 'laugh-out-loud' funny, but I catch myself chuckling all the time...

♥

The fact that it is set in Edinburgh, a city that is becoming more and more important to me, is also a big plus. I love feeling familiar with the street names and the places in the book which is not far from our own flat in Stockbridge. Maybe one day we will have a flat in Scotland street or Moray Place? It is almost so that I expect to run into Angus walking Cyril, Domenica arguing with Antonia, Matthew and Elspeth with the triplets and not to forget wee Bertie and his intolerable mother Irene when I am in Edinburgh... 

(don't worry, I KNOW they are fictional characters!)

☺

Treading the Boards

Wole Soyinka

As I mentioned, this weekend Our Boy "treaded the boards" in the play Travel Club and Boy Soldier by Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize Laureate 1986). The play is about a group of teenage school students on holiday somewhere among the South Sea Islands. It is a playground for some people but can be life and death for the people who live there.

The play shows the young people trapped in the airport after an insurrection has taken place. During their discussions we learn that one boy's father was killed by terrorists in Northern Ireland, another has an account of how a bus in India was ambushed and the Hindus savagely murdered and another tells of the massacre of the Igbo people in the Biafra war.

It is clear that extremism is not confined to any one place.

As they wait in the airport the young people are asked to make a moral choice, either to hand over their passports and be relatively safe or to refuse because handing them over is probably the start of segregation which could have fatal consequences. At this point one of them states, 'You don't argue with a man with a gun,' and three of the young people leave. The others are confronted by the commandante and an armed guard.

The commandante of the airport is a young person no older than the school students. In what might seem a despairing speech he describes the violence he has witnessed and claims that he has now replaced questions with orders.

But he finishes by hoping that perhaps the future may return to something like that of the school students.

A play with real food for thought
- and very well acted by all
(and that is NOT maternal pride speaking!)

:-)

Recommended Reading: The Company of Shadows

 

I don't often read thrillers,

but this was a book I just couldn't put down.

 

From the back of the book:

Flicking through her friends' holiday snaps, Kate Benson receives a sudden shock. For there in the background is her husband, Charlie. Dark hair, blue eyes, familiar smile: there's no mistaking him. But that's impossible. Because Charlie died exactly a year ago.

Determined to track down the man in the photograph, Kate follows the trail from Miami to Sicily, where her husband drowned in mysterious circumstances. But when she discovers serious discrepancies in the original investigation, Kate starts to question whether she ever really knew the man she loved so much.Was Charlie murdered? Was their marriage as perfect as Kate remembers? Who are the people following her? Who can she trust? And is Kate herself to be trusted?

Because there are secrets in her past too . . .

 

There are so many twists and unexpected turns in this book that it keeps you glued to it!

 

The biggest surprise for me was actually the author of the book herself

- who is a colleague of mine!

 

And I never knew...

 

:-)

Recommended Reading: Hundred Years

I often pick books by Norwegian authors when I am home in Norway, 

and while on holidays I read Herbjorg Wassmo's book 'Hundred Years' which came out in 2009.

I enjoy Herbjorg's historical novels and in particular this grand and epic book about several generations of women in her family from 1842 to 1942 when she herself was born. 

In short, the book is about 4 generations of women, their lives, the men they wanted, the men the got and their children. 

Although, I feel some parts of the story was not necessary I enjoyed the family saga parts and felt the more autobiographical parts could have been left out as they left some unanswered questions.

I felt I could relate well to the stories and the lives of these women as my maternal family comes from this area and even further north.
It was at times as if I could 'hear' my own female ancestors talking about the hardship of their lives. A hard life in many ways because of the nature and climate, but also with lots of warmth and sense of community.

It is a grand novel I highly recommend.

Recommended Reading: The Lost Art of Gratitude

Sitting in the garden last night I completed yet another book by the very prolific author Alexander McCall Smith. His books and series are becoming like old friends and I am always a little sad when I complete a book. However, he is extremely productive and there isn't much of a wait before there is a new one in the shops. I am following all his various series and have no problems switching from one to the other.

;-)

This one is from the Isabel Dalhousie series on the Sunday Philosophy Club (set in Edinburgh!) and is among my favorites. Actually, I have noticed there already is another one in this series "waiting" for me!

Happy Days! 

The short resume of this one I just completed reads:

Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher and amateur solver of other people’s problems, meets an old foe, Minty Auchterlonie, at a birthday party attended by their young children. Ambitious Minty, now the head of a small investment bank, is in trouble with her shareholders. Isabel becomes involved, and is drawn into a murky world of financial concealment.

Minty is not the only high-flier in Isabel’s life; her niece Cat has just become engaged to a tightrope-walking stuntman. Isabel fears his next job – and the engagement – could end in disaster. Meanwhile, her own boyfriend Jamie has marriage in mind too .

Recommended Reading: The Dog Who Came in From The Cold

After many weeks with very dry weather and high winds we have got a real autumnal feel today still with the high winds, but also some blessed rain!

Unfortunately, it means I can't finish my garden projects. So after some usual weekend housework I curled up and finished Alexander MCall Smith's book 'The Dog Who Came In From The Cold'.

I have several times sung the praise about McCall Smith's books and he didn't disappoint this time either. This is the second book in the series about the people (and dog) in Corduroy Mansions in London. I wrote about the first one back in March and have enjoyed this easy read again. He is great for weaving the story about the people in the apartment building together. Although many of them don't know eachother, they still all have some interactions at some point. This time one of the main stories is about William's obliging and urbane dog Freddie de la Hay (isn't it a fab name!) who is drafted by the MI6 as an undercover spy... It is an utterly silly story, but all so entertaining!

I hope there will be a another book in the series not to long. There are still a lot of loose ends and many stories to be told about these excentric inhabitants of Corduroy Mansions. I want to know how Berthea Snark deals with writing the unofficial book about her obnoxious politician of a son, Oedipus Snark!

You can find more about Alexander McCall Smith's books on his website if you click here.

Published Blog

I am now published!

:-)

Back in January I wanted to find a way of printing my blog for 2010 to have a firm tangible diary of our lives in 2010. Several of you suggested I use Blogs2Print. Not a bad suggestion as it was extremely easy and straight forward to use.

So, yesterday to my delight I received in the post the published version of my blog for 2010!

I have in fact a lot of experience with publishing books from various capacities of previous jobs and on this basis I think I am a little pickier than most. I would have liked more editing options and perhaps more ways of embellishing the pages.

However, I think that would have led to a much thicker book

(and therefore much more expensive!)

So, apart from the long waiting time I am actually happy with the result!

Recommended Reading: Courderoy Mansions

Many are familiar with the lovely series 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' by Alexander McCall Smith which has also been made into a television series.

But many might not be aware of this prolific retired professor of Medical Law's other series and even children's books.

I enjoy even more his series 'The Sunday Philosophy Club' and '44 Scotland Street' and I am an avid fan of his eccentric characters and his light, warm and amusing writing.

Corduroy Mansions is his latest series and is the award-winning online novel which he wrote exclusive to Telegraph.co.uk. I read some of the chapters online (they published one each day), but decided to get the book in the end. There is something nicer about reading a book than on the screen, I think. Each chapter is just 2-4 pages as it was initially written for a newspaper

- just perfect reading before falling asleep and it leaves you with a nice warm feeling and a smile on your face...

I am now on the hunt for book no 2 in this series!

;-)

The cast in short:

In the top flat in Courderoy Mansions lives William, with a faithful ex-vegetarian dog named Freddie de la Hay (what a fab name!!) and a freeloading son who he hopes will soon fly the nest. Four lively young women share the first-floor flat, including twinset-and-pearls Caroline from Cheltenham, Dee, vitamin addict and avid subscriber to Anti-oxidant News, and Jenny, a put-upon PA. And round the corner lives Oedipus Snark MP, possibly the world’s only loathsome Lib Dem, who has succeeded in offending everyone he knows, and many others besides. But what dark revenge is being plotted by his mother, Berthea Snark, and by his girlfriend, Barbara Ragg…?

Never Enough Books!

I was made aware of this web site 'Forgotten Books' which allows you to read thousands of books online, download free ebooks in PDF format. They are also booksellers (paperback) and specializes in historical writings including classical fiction, philosophy, science, religion, folklore, mythology and sacred texts, in addition to secret and esoteric subjects, such as: occult, freemasonry, alchemy, hermetic and ancient knowledge. They reprint classical literature and old books that have long been out of print and they are partners with Amazon.com and Google Books.

Without signing up to become a member they allow you to download one book a day which they send you a link to.

I have just received mine and will take a look at it.

To be honest, I am a little sceptical to reading literature on a screen/Ipad/Kindle.

I like to HOLD a book and FEEL it.

But new days and new techologies, so it must be tried

- at least once.

Recommended Reading: The Forgotten Garden

The train journey to Edinburgh takes about 5 hours.

5 hours completely to my self... bliss! 

The mobile coverage is often poor so I can't even be reached by phone.

I love it!

I read a lot or do some crocheting.

To my surprise this seems to be a novelty as I always get nice and friendly comments from fellow travellers completely mesmerised by what I am doing...

On the way up to Edinburgh this weekend I completed Kate Morton's book "The Forgotten Garden". I have previously read her book "The House at Riverton". Both these books are a bit sad, nostalgic, romantic and with a twist in the tale and about family secrets. This book is cleverly told over three stages in time, in the early 1900s, in 1975 and present day. I think that worked very well. 

I see that Kate Morton recently had another book come out called "The Distant Hours".

I wanna read it!

Recommended Reading: The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography

I have just completed Stephen Fry's 'The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography'.

Stephen Fry is an well loved English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director. He is well know together with Hugh Laurie as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie,  and the duo also played the title roles in one of my favorite series which I have written about before, namely Jeeves and Wooster.

As a solo actor, Fry is known from among Oscar Wilde, he was Melchett in the series Blackadder and is the host of the quiz show QI. He is also known to British audiences everywhere as the reader of all seven Harry Potter novels in their audiobook versions.

This book is a continuation from the end of his 1997 publication of his first autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography. Though not adhering to any strict chronology, it concentrates on the seven-year period of Fry’s life, taking up the story after his release from prison, his time at the University of Cambridge and his burgeoning career in comedy by the late 1980s.

 

This is Fry's his second volume of autobiography. Critics have called the book candid, sincere, and charming, with insightful commentary if occasionally flat stories. Although, I am not generally a fan of autobiographies, I enjoyed reading this book as he is extremely eloquent and I am a great fan of his work. On the downside -  he does use an enormous amount of words but that explains why he needed 448 pages to describe only 7 years of his life... 

How can anyone remember all the details?

Recommended Reading:The Glassblower of Murano

Marina Fiorato - an English/Venetian author - has written a wonderful combination of mystery, historical intrigue and love.

She tells a story of passion, genius and betrayal linking the present and the past.

I want to go to Venice!