Booktalk on a Sunday 2

  This week I have been travelling around the world in search of colours. I mentioned Victoria Finlay's books "Colour, Travels through the Paintbox" also last week. This book has followed me several years already, and I know I will keep on reading bits and pieces, or whole chapters from it from time to time. Let me quote a few lines from the back cover of the book:

Colour tells the remarkable story of Victoria Finlay's quest to uncover the many secrets hidden inside the paintbox.....From mascara to violin vanish, from nomadic carpets to stained glass to pillar boxes to crayons, the story of colour is the story of the efforts of artisans to reproduce the rainbow - and the impact their work has had on the world.

Shakespeare is another of my writers from this week. Terje and I went to the theatre the other night, to see King Lear, (you can see part of the performance here). A tragedy written back in 1605, though still with no less relevance today - about power, greed, betrayal, love and death. A mighty story, filled with the richness of Shakespearian words, and a story which again managed to mesmerize me. The Fool has alot to tell the world today, 400 years after the story was written:

Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thou owest, ride more than thou goest, learn more than thou trowest, set less than thou throwest; leave thy drink and thy whore, and keep in-a-door, and thou shallt have nore than two tens a score....... Heard it before? :-) Know what he is talking about?

Our house is filling up with books. Sometimes I say to myself that I must stop buy and borrow more from the public library, but how can I resist? Do you like browsing bookstores? I love them, the stores and antiquarians we have in Trondheim, amazon and other online stores, bookshops around the world on travels. Their smells and colours seem to call out my name. Yesterday I had alot of fun reading Vanessa's blog entry, A Wonderful Visit Through the Rabbit Hole. If you are in for great book photos - this is the place for you. And give Vanessa a hug from me when you meet her.

Venice.

Never a booktalk from my pen without a section from Venice. My collection of Venice books is constantly growing, and every new book seems like a new jewel. This week, just like last week, I have been enjoying Jan Morris' classic Venice. In less than two months, on Easter Eve, Marta, Terje and I fly down to Venice for a week in Nati House. This city which I visited for the first time with my parents and three younger brothers when I was 14, back in 1972, and which I visited again on our silver honeymoon in September 2005, and for the carneval last February. This time we will show Marta the city. Victoria Finlay mentions Venice as one of the cities where she travels in search of colours, and one of the things Marta and I willl be doing is to walk around in search of colours and paints, just like Paris Breakfast has done in Paris.

Jan Morris has a very good knowledge of the city, and shares generosly with her readers. I just read her chapter about the women of Venice, which she describes as very handsome and very vain. They are tall, they walk beautifully, and they are often fair........oh, I think my Marta will suit in perfectly well, at least in this part....... :-). The women of Venice were flirtarious, and a wry husband pointed to a little stone figure carved on a wall above a bridge one day saying: "This is the only honest woman in Venice". Venice took the point and the stone figure, which is standing near Frari church,kept the name and the bridge is today called The Bridge of the Honest Woman.

Untill next Sunday - Happy Reading. (.....the photo is from a colourful spot in Venice)