Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Meeting the new year with books

@brittarnhild

Many years ago I discovered Ann Morgan and her project of reading one book from every country in the world through just one year, 2012. She inspired me to try myself, well, not to read that many books in one year, but to try to read one book from every one of the countries of the world........no, time limit. I did very well in the start, you can see my list here, but then it kind of came to a full stop. I do follow Ann Morgans blog though, quite unregularly, and ever get an email notice when she has a new post out. And when, this morning, a new email came, with information about this month's book, one from Syria, I decided to go back to my literary world travel again. 

I started with ordering the Syrian book, then found Ann Morgans Reading the World, Confessions of a Literary Explorer in my selves. I bought her book when it came out in 2015, but never read it. And I also digger out from my shelves The Lost Musicians by the Faroe Island writer William Heinesen. Strictly speaking The Faroe Islands is belonging to Denmark, but they are working to get their own sovereignty, so in my list they are :-)

I do have both an English and a Norwegian book blog, but as there are so many blogs I want to update throughout 2022, I don't know how much I will be able to write about my reading there. I do plan to update you from time to time here though.

 

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What are you reading for the moment?
Do you ever challenge yourself bookwise?

 

The Land Where Lemon Grows

@brittarnhild

By pure chance, or may be it was meant to be :-), I don´t know.......but two days before flying down to Italy I found this book in a bookstore in Oslo. The Land Where Lemon Grows, The Story of Italy and Its Citrus Fruit, by Helena Attlee. I bought it, I brought it with me of course, and started to read it on the train south to Rome. The book was awarded Food Book of the Year 2015 by The Guild of Food Writers, and I have no problems to see why, I was hooked, already for the first page.

For years and years olives has been my image of Italy. They still are, but now lemons and oranges are part of it too. And not only lemons and oranges, Helena Attlee´s book has taught me that there are so many more citrus fruits growing in Italy, from up north, to the bottom south.

As I walked my way through the pages, I couldn´t help observing citrus fruits along the way. In gardens, along streets, in markets, and the more I looked, the more I saw.

I finished the book yesterday, after we came home. I got a head cold a couple of days ago, and the first thing I did when the last page was read was to send Terje to the grocery store - please buy oranges and lemons, I crave them.

And then I started to dream about my next travel to Italy and all the citruses I will look for them. "Every lemon-scented page made me feel it´s time to pack for Italy" writes Jonathan Keates in Literary Review after reading the book. I could not agree more. 

British Helena Attlee has written several garden books and she is leading garden tours in Italy. How I wish I could take part in one of them.......

In her book she has a section called: Places to visit, with a list of Gardens with citrus collections, Citrus Nurseries, Farms, festivals, Museums, Guided Tours, Restaurants and Cafés and Marmelade.

They are now all on my list of places I want to visit :-)

 

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In my blog world today:
(soon to be updated)

Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my online journey where I am in the prosess of writing down the travel tale from last week.

 Fløy en liten blåfugl, my birding journal

Med bøker på menyen, my reading journal

 Den blå hagen på Huseby, my garden blog

 

A summer with books

@brittarnhild

I am planning a summer filled with books.
Made a tbr-stack today, but my did it grow.......

First out is Vita Sackville-West and her Sissinghurst Garden,

Then a Norwegian book about the oceans.

 

What are you reading this summer?

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I will write (in Norwegian) about my reading progress over in Caffe Avec.

 

 

Lagre

Rainy cabin days

@brittarnhild

Rain falls in a steady flow. Not cats and dogs, still wet, wet, wet.
Cabin days are never boring. In spite of the rain, in spite of our cabin land transformed to a wet mash.

Bird watching

Baking rhuburb muffins

Reading

 

After a long period with very little time for books, I rediscover the joy of disappearing into the written tales.

 

And tomorrow the sun might be back :-)

 

 

 

The bonus of reading

@brittarnhild

I have not read much during the holidays, but now I am back to my more normal reading routine. Today I finished The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak, the fourth book in this new project I am doing, reading one book from every country in the world.

 

I finished the book on the bus home from work, and the first thing I did after dinner and my regular afternoon nap, was to open my blog Books on the Menu and write about the book. Even before I had finihed, I got an email from my blogging friend in Istanbul, Pinar, where she shared her thoughts about Elif Shafak and her writing. Several emails back and forth between us, and also several messages on the Visiting the World Through Books´facebook page, and I added Pinar´s thoughts to my blog.

 

The deeper I get into this reading project, the more clearly I see how life changening it is going to be. The more I love it.

 

The photos today are from when I met Pinar in Istanbul, we had coffee at Pura Palace Hotel, the hotel where travellers on The Orient Express were taken and where Dame Agatha wrote her thrilling Orient Express murder. After we finished our coffee, Pinar read my fortune in the coffee cup.......and she found an angel, do you remember?

 

In the Orchard, with Virginia Woolf

@brittarnhild

"There will be a reading in the orchard at 4 pm. I hope to see you there!" The man, his whole body a sparkling smile, walked around, talking with everybody he met. Fran smiled back, "Yes, we will be there, we won´t miss it for the world."

Fran and I were spending the afternoon in Monk´s House and Garden, the weekend home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf down in East Sussex, not far from Lewes. We had been inside the house, talking about how Leonard loved to listen to classical music on his wireless, how Virginia, though no church goer herself, loved the view from her bedroom window directly out to the old church. And we had walked around the garden. The places so much loved by both Leonard and Virginia. On the train from Victoria Station down to Sussex I had been reading bits and pieces from Virginia´s A Writer´s Diary, and underlined
As for the beauty, as always I say when I walk the terrace after breakfast, too much for one pair of eyes. Enough to float a whole population in happiness, if only they would look. Curiously a combination, this garden, with the church, and the cross of the churchblack against Asheham Hill. That is all the elements of the English brought together, accidentaly.

 The clock approached four though, so we walked over to teh orchard. And there the actor read just that, In The Orchard.

There we were, in the middle of Virginia´s created world, in the middle of her universe.

I had read In The Orchard before. After I came home I have read it again. Many times. It is a story difficult to get into. What is the meaning? Why doesn she writes it three times, three different ways. Why this abrubt awakening "Oh, I shall ne late for tea?"

 

Standing there, listeing to the story read, watching the apple tree and the young woman who volunteered to play with the actor.....it all made sense.

A Royal Love for Books

@brittarnhild

Our crown princess, Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mette-Marit is a book lover. And she loves to share, loves to pass her passion on. Last year she started a new concept which she called "Litteraturtoget", The Litterature Train, where she chartered a train and travelled for a whole day though part of Norway. The mission - to spread her love of books. This year she decided to do it again, and the itinerary this time was from Trondheim south to Oslo, starting in Trondheim this morning.

 I am following Mette-Marit on twitter and know that I like many of the same books as she does, so this morning I went downtown to the train station, I wanted to visit the Litteraturtoget.

One of the train carriages was transformed into a library, many of the shelves held the crown princess private books, other was filled by a nation library, Deichmanske.

Last year Mette-Marit was critiziced for promoting too many American writers. This year she is focusing on Norwegians.

Litteraturtoget will continue all day, with several stops at local libraries along the way.

The Marianne North Gallery

@brittarnhild

 

Some years ago I visited Kew Gardens with a main goal to see the Marianne North Pavillion, with the huge collection of Marianne North´s floral paintings. At that time the pavillion was closed due to renovation.

Last month I was in Kew Garden again, and this time luck was on my side.
The pavillion was open......and I was the only visitor.

Six years ago I was in India, visiting my Indian mother Carolyn. One of the many things Carolyn and I share is a love for travel litterature, and on this visit I was introduced to Marianne North through the book A Vision of Eden. North was a remarkable Victorian traveller and floral painter, and she spent most of her adult life travelling the world with paintbrush and journal. When I came home from India I bought the book and have since then read it several times. And I have followed her steps on Tenerife, enjoying the same flowers and plants as she did.

 

The collection of paintings in the Marianne North Pavillion is extraordinaire. If I remember correctly the pavillion has more than 800 paintings, covering huge walls from floor to roof.

I sat down on one of the benches and dreamed myself around the world together with Marianne. I was not actually allowed to take photos, but somehow my cell phone suddenly was in my right hand, seeking out some of the floral art all by himself........you see, cell phones can do that!

 

Wouldn´t it be fun to write "The Marianne North Travel Chest Tale" :-)

 

I got a book from amazon.co.uk in the mail today:
Marianne North. A Very Intrepid Painter
by Michelle Payne.

 

 

Sorry, I must stop this blog post as a book is calling my name......loud!

 

Much Ado Books, and a list of books

@brittarnhild

 

Some days are meant to have room for everything. Last Saturday was one of those day. As I sat on the train from Victoria Station in London on my way to Polegate in Sussex I had no idea, as I took the train back to London again in the late afternoon, I knew :-)

I have already taken you to Charleston, the Bloomsbury house and garden, and I have taken you to Berwich church, the old stone church from the 12th century, decorated in 1941 by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant (one day I would love to attend a service in that church......one dream always creates a lot of new ones).

In between these two places, Fran took me to the little village Alfriston. "I have a bookshop to show you there. I am sure you´ll love it"

How right she was. Of course I loved it. Much Ado Books, an independent book shop, named one of the best independent shops in UK.

A book shop with new books, with old books, with stationary, postcards, calendars, paper art. Shelves up and down with dreams. And me walking there, knowing that my suitcase was already almost full.

Luckily, just like when my stomach is full there is always room for dessert, when my suitcase is full there is always room for books........

 In my second next life I am going to run a book shop like Much Ado Books (in my next life I will run a flower shop like the one Tage Andersen has in Copenhagen) Then I will invite you all over for friends´s reading nights. To be let in you need a ticket, a ticket where you list a few of your favorite books. And while inside, when we are all gathered, I will ask you to share a tale from one of your favorites, a reading memory, a quote.

 

Thought.........why wait till my second next life? Why not start this now?
Do you have a booklist to share?
Or a book tale?
A quote?

 

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Let us meet in the comment section room and let´s share.
I´l put the cettle on.

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Here is the link to Much Ado Books webpage.

 

Like an Open Book

@brittarnhild

First I walked through the house with my cell phone. And I had to agree with Terje, there are books everywhere in the house. I even almost agreed that there might be too many books.

Then I started to sort the books.
Chaos slowly became order.

After a while I found a bag for the books I was willing to give away.

Soon I had two full bags.

Not long afterwards I had three.

Then I sat down on my computer, creating an event on facebook.

The new bookcafé som en åpen bok/Like an Open Book
will be open tomorrow from 6 till 8pm

Now, a few hours later, I am wondering what I´ve done.....

..... but so far nobody has said that they are actually coming.