Five Fascinating Facts about Mary Shelley
Five facts about the life and work of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.
Read more here.
Imaginary dinner guests
I was completely sure I had posted about this ages ago but when I went to check on my blog/homepage I couldn’t find that post so maybe I didn’t. So I thought I might do it now.
The idea comes from a really annoying, boring tv show that my mom watches every evening so I know the concept very well, though I wish I didn’t. In the show, a celebrity gets to ‘invite’ four dinner guests to an imaginary dinner party. They also talk about where they are supposed to be and what they’ll be serving. I won’t really go into that, because that’s not all that interesting to me. Actually, I will also forget about the exact number of guests, just mention whoever I can think of.
Here are my imaginary dinner guests:
1. Corinna (Early Greek poet). Scholars aren’t quite sure during what era this lady lived, one suggestion is that it was during Hellenistic times. It is sometimes said that she was such a success that she was able to buy herself ’emacipation’ – ie to become like a man, able to act on her own behalf, rather than being a ward of her father, brother or husband. Though I’m not much into poetry, I think she might be an interesting woman to talk to, always assuming I would have access to a ‘universal translator’ like in Star Trek.
2. Christine de Pizan, who was an Italian French late medieval author. She was widowed at the age of 25 with three children and had to turn to writing to support her family. According to some scholars she was an early feminist.
3. Edith Södergran – Finlandic-Swedish (Swedish-speaking Finlandic) poet. Sadly, she died at 31 and her work speaks of her fear of dying and her wish to live as intensely as possible in the few years she had.
4. Dorothy Parker. Perhaps she doesn’t need as much of an introduction as the former guests, but I’d like to mention what it is I find interesting about her. She was a success very early in life, unlike many other writers, but later life didn’t live up to her expectations so she died rather disillusioned. She was funny but quite sharp and is known to have said some really mean, and amusing things about other famous people.
5. George Bernard Shaw, because I find his work very interesting and there are many quotes from him that I find really thought provoking.
6. Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht. She was a poet, feminist and salon hostess. She was known as the first female writer in Sweden who was able to support herself from her writing. Unfortunately, some men couldn’t accept her success and would criticize her for the way she looked (apparently they thought she was too fat). Her personal life was generally unhappy, especially in love. Towards the end of her life she fell in love with a much younger man, and unfortunately that ended badly. He was also involved with her best friend. It seems Hedvig Charlotta tried to kill herself and died shortly afterwards, perhaps of pneumonia.
As it happens, all my choices of dinner guests are dead. That’s probably not a coincidence. I’d have to think some more if I wanted to ‘invite’ a bunch of currently living people, but I’m sure there are several I’d find just as interesting though perhaps for slightly different reasons. You get a different perspective on people you read about in the media, watch on tv or in movies or listen to them being interviewed or look at current photos of them.
Discovery of ancient cave paintings in Petra stuns art scholars
Exquisite artworks hidden under 2,000 years of soot and grime in a Jordanian cave in Petra have been restored by experts from the Courtauld Institute in London.
Read more here.
Three places…
In a really annoying tv show on Swedish tv, that my mom keeps watching every evening, they let a celebrity come to the studio and talk about their favorite places to travel to. Though I hate this show, I thought I’d do a post about three favorite places I’ve been to and three more that I’d like to visit some day. Just because…
1. Estonia – I really like Estonia. Whenever I go there, I feel I have travelled a few years into the future. It’s clean, pretty, with nice, helpful people and plenty of interesting things to see. And they have so many wifi hotspots, which is always great for a tourist far away from home.
2. Jämtland (which is a region in the north of Sweden, well strictly speaking it’s in ‘centra’ Sweden about half way up our long country). I used to live here as a child, but I have also gone back there to visit (also as a child). It’s breathtakingly beautiful (just like my home region West Gothia, though in a different way). There’s interesting sightseeing, beautiful scenery and since I used to live there and at such a young age, I was very happy there. Just seeing the images makes me feel a little better.
3. France/Paris. Since I’m interested in history and some of the French culture it’s always fun to do all the sightseeing. I’d also like to see more of France, especially the northern half.
Three places I’d love to visit some day:
1. Bhutan. I’m really interested in Tibetan culture and Bhutanese culture, as far as I know, is very similar to Tibetan. There are plenty of interesting buildings and temples. The scenery is breattaking (but on a whole different level than in Jämtland). I also find the Bhuddist culture fascinating. As far as I can tell, this small country has succeeded in both keeping and holding on to their old customs and managed to enter the 21 century.
2. Sri Lanka. The scenery is (as far as I can tell) beautiful, the culture interesting and I believe most people speak at least some English. I have read that the hotels offer delicious breakfasts consisting entirely of fruit. Here too, there are plenty of interesting old buildings to visit.
3. Italy. Perhaps I don’t even need to go into details about this country. Most people have probably been here several times and find it boring by now. I haven’t been to Italy even once and I would still really like to go. This may sound like more of the same, but I think the scenery, especially in Tuscany and Umbria, is beautiful. Naturally, there are plenty of interesting history (and archaeology) to check out.
Neil Gaiman: ‘my parents didn’t have any kind of rules about what I couldn’t read’
Neil Gaiman is no stranger to having his books banned. Here the author of Coraline and The Graveyard Book talks about controversial books in libraries, censorship threats to graphic novels and why freedom of speech is not the freedom to harass
Read more here.
I have to add that (unfortunately) – with the exception of Coraline – I don’t like Neil Gaiman’s books. When I realized that, I was very disappointed. However, I certainly don’t have any problem with him as a person and I think what he’s saying here makes a lot of sense.
The year of the Amstrad: how writers learned to love the computer
When Amstrad launched its word processor 30 years ago, writers were initially resistant – processing was for peas, not words. But many soon saw the benefits of life without Tipp-Ex.
Read more here.
TV, Books and Writing
The third season of The Bridge (Bron), will soon be on Swedish tv. This time I really should be smart enough not to watch it. I should have learned my lesson from watching the first two seasons. I watched the first season and disliked it, particularly the ending. Despite that I went on to watch season 2, out of boredom and because the first episode was actually very interesting and exciting. The rest weren’t, but I stupidly continued watching until the end, that again, I disliked more than the whole rest of the series. By now, I should really learn from my experience.
At least there are a few other series I can watch instead.
In other news:
Since I wrote the Vera fanfic, I have also written two short original stories. It’s amazing, and I wouldn’t have guessed I’d be able to, only a week or so ago, but unfortunately, I’m not at all sure I’ll be able to finish the three books I’m working on and definitely not get started on the fourth book and two collections of short stories. I’m not really that inspired. It’s just something to do.
Today, I also discovered that I actually can borrow the two Maria Lang/Dagmar Lange mysteries as e-books – as long as I get a library card in a small town not far from here. I could get one right away, the next time I go and I might, but since I also might move there or closer to there, I think I’ll wait until I actually do move (which will be very soon, hopefully) at least if we can find a reasonable good house. We’ve already looked at a few, but none of them were a good fit for us.
In that town there’s also a really great supermarket with lots of locally grown (organic) vegetables and fruit. It’s the best shop I’ve seen anywhere. Finally, there’s also a very nice, but a bit expensive cafe.
Ancient Greek palace unearthed near Sparta dates back to 17th century BC
Archaeologists discover palace with archaic inscriptions built during the Mycenaean period.
Read more: here.
Changing my mind
When I posted about the tv series Vera, a while back, I was convinced I’d never wite a fanfic based on the fandom, even though I love the series and the main characters. Sometimes that’s just the way it is. Then a few days later, I found that my mind was hard at work dreaming up an angsty fic about Joe Ashworth, and Vera too. I was completely astonished. Maybe you should never say never…
The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
I always intended to review these two books (I’ll do them together, since it’s series), but I had a feeling I hadn’t done it yet and I was right.
So, here goes.
I love this series of books, even though I have only read the first two books so far. Hopefully, I’ll soon be able to read more.
This ‘universe’ is absolutely wonderful. I’ll just mention a few fantastic aspects of it:
Literature, books and authors are taken very seriously. There are gangs that clash because they favour two different authors, like football hooligans. The police has a special department (a huge one) that deals with literary fraud. Classic theatre is also huge – they have fan plays, played by fans who love the play and the shows run for years on end.
There’s time travel and the plots deal with time paradoxes.
Some lucky people can enter a book (the plot, not merely the physical copy) and visit or live out their lives in between the major plot points.
However, there are few things that I don’t love quite as much. For instance, there are vampires and werewolves. Not my thing at all.
The main character, Tuesday Next, is – well, to be honest, before I really got into the book, I automatically assumed she was a guy. She doesn’t come across as a female character.
Not that any of this takes away from the enjoyment of the books.
Some people find it hard to classify exactly what genre these books belong to. To some it seems to be a weird sort of mystery, others see it as fantasy or science fiction. I was a bit concerned about the style – in some cases, where books are very hyped and seem to belong to a special or different sort of genre, I have actually hated the writing – such as the Lemony Snicket series. But this, really works. Even though there’s a sort of literary or fandom-related reference in almost every sentence, it never bothers the flow of the plot. If I get it (I don’t get all of them, I think) I love them. But the plot still moves at a fast pace.
My advice is that if you think you might enjoy this type of book, try to read an excerpt on Amazon or wherever you usually buy your books. If you like the first chapter, you’ll love the rest of it too. I imagine that most book lovers would, but it’s actually quite hard to tell. Since I joined the specific book sites online, I’ve come across many people who love books as much as I do, but still love completely different genres or writing styles, so apparently there’s a huge difference between one book lover and another.
In any case, I love these books, so if you have liked my other reviews, you might enjoy this series too, that’s my best guess.
