Norwegianne.net

Category: Books

  • Advent calendar: Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

    Catherine the Great: Portrait of a WomanOne of the royal biographies I read this year was Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie.

    If you are into history, women in history or royalty, I heartily recommend it. It took me some time to get through after the initial first pages, but that was more due to personal lack of time than the book itself.

    I actually think the first parts of the book is the best – when Catherine leaves her home and family to travel to Russia to marry a young man she hasn’t seen. Adopting a country that she has never been to, a religion that is foreign to her and also a language that is far beyond what she is used to.

    Catherine, and the ups and downs of her life at court, have been, in my opinion, well portrayed by Massie. If you haven’t read it yet, do.

  • Advent calendar: Seriously delish

    The twee title aside – I just finished leafing through Seriously Delish, and think it may be one of my favourite cookbooks of the year in terms of entertainment value, and interesting recipes.

    It can get a bit too chatty at times, but as I leafed through the version bookmarking about every other recipe (Must try this, must try that. Ohh, when I have time for Christmas cooking. Maybe New Year’s eve.)

    What I liked was the experimentation involved in the recipes making it fun to read.

  • Advent calendar: Icons of England

    Icons of England

    I am an anglophile. I studied in Newcastle Upon Tyne, albeit only for a semester. During that semester, (as well as both before and after it) I travelled around a bit in the UK.

    Another admission: I love Bill Bryson’s writing. Sadly, although this was edited by him, he is not the author of it. (Just as the Prince of Wales wrote the foreword, but didn’t write the whole thing.)

    Reading through this is like watching a quintessential English show or movie taking place in the countryside. Heartbeat. (Which my Mum has been addicted to,) or Hot Fuzz. (Before the shootings.)

     

  • Advent calendar: Fighting chance

    I read this yesterday. A fighting chance by Elizabeth Warren. It is her memoir.

    I am recommending it because I found it an interesting read, albeit not a very objective one (since it is a memoir.) I particularly liked when she pointed out the difference in growing up in the US when college cost the student $50 a semester vs. now. How she countered expectations of being just a wife and a mother. How she got her education and the difficulties for academic spouses when two jobs don’t open up in the same town at the same time.

    Her political career is a minor part of the book – the ending of it, in fact.

    Incidentally, I had just finished reading it, when a friend of mine in Massachusetts posted a picture of her quilted bedspread on Instagram. The motif? Logos of the campaigns she has worked on, or followed. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign was smack in the middle.

  • Advent calendar: Year of Yes

    For my Advent calendar this year, I thought I would do recommendations – one recommendation a day. (Off-line, I have a multitude of advent calendars as well.)

    For December 1, my first recommendation is The Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person, from Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes.

    I finished reading this a couple of days ago (bought and paid for my own copy) and immediately upon finishing it, I could think of several friends who just “have” to read this book. It is funny, and poignant and for everyone who has had stage fright, depression, anxiety, love their jobs, hate their jobs, love their siblings, hate their siblings, and for everyone who feel guilt about whatever they feel guilt about.

    I bookmarked the following quote from it:

    I’m miserable? I’m still a little ashamed to be telling you that right now. I’m miserable. Who in the hell do I think I am? A whiner. That’s who. A great big old whiner person. You know who gets to be miserable? Malala. Because someone shot her in the face. You know who else? The Chibok schoolgirls. Because the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped them from school for forced marriage (which is just like regular marriage except exactly the opposite and full of rape) and no one cares anymore. You know who else? Anne Frank. Because she and about six million other Jewish people were murdered by Nazis. And? Mother Teresa. Because everyone else was too lazy to treat the lepers and so she had to do it. It’s pretty shameful of me to sit around saying I’m miserable when there are no bullets in my face and no one’s kidnapped me or killed me or left me alone to treat all the lepers.

  • Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor

    I just finished reading Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor

    It is very well written, and I do recommend it. (So far, anyway.) But what strikes me is the notion that with royal biographies (and presumably others) there is a bias towards the subject. Queen Mary is viewed as the perfect royal, albeit maybe a little unfamiliar with her own children. Queen Alexandra, on the other hand, is viewed as not the perfect royal – and too close to her own children, and loving and caring towards her grandchildren.

    An interesting contrast.

  • Review: Kongens hus : Alle kongeparets hjem

    Kongens hus : Alle kongeparets hjem by Queen Sonja

    I picked this up at the library, after I saw it exhibited at the Open Palace tour in Oslo. It is a beautiful book filled with photographs and interesting text about all the residences that the King and Queen inhabit.

    The book is worth looking through for the photographs alone. How the interior is decorated, and not just the public rooms. The pictures of the private apartments are filled with the Queen’s art and the King’s sailing trophies. The pictures of Queen Sonja’s art on the walls remind me of the pictures of the art in the renovated palace in Copenhagen.

    Also, pictures of the holiday residences are shared. Some of the places are rarely seen inside by the public.

    In addition, if you read Norwegian – the snippets the Queen shares for each residence makes the book worth reading. There is not much new information, but it is well written and makes the book.

    Her perfectionism is shown through the story of her sleeping in every bedroom in the palace prior to the renovation so she would know exactly what needed to be done. The only negative is the lack of comments on the uproar on the cost of the renovation.

    Her stories are supplemented by facts from the architect Thomas Thiis-Evensen and art historian Ole Rikard Høisæther.

    Well worth the read.

     

  • Haakon & Maud

    Grrr… Just finished reading this Norwegian series of books – allegedly about King Haakon and Queen Maud. It was meant to be a two volume series.

    In reality, the author was given (almost) free access to a whole lot of royal archives of letters, diaries and other documents (in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Russia and the UK – among others), and went a bit nuts.

    In reality, it is now six volumes – and the majority of volume six deals with how the Norwegian government in Norway during WWII. Wait… No… that’s inaccurate. It goes from May to September 1940.

    He is writing another volume (at least) for the rest of the war and the post-war years.

    In general, the writing is good, and the royal letters and thoughts are interesting. But there is just too much information that maybe could have been cut, because it is generally known, redundant or not relevant for the biography on Haakon and Maud.

    For example the half-page biography on Hitler.

    Or the extreme repetition of the telling of the murders of the tsar and his family, in all their blood and gore. Which, in itself, is relevant to the story, but not in the extreme overload that is shared.

    And the same goes for the volume detailing about half of 1940.

    Also, the theory that Olav was not the son of Haakon – but the son of the royal doctor is in, but the theory that the sister of Carl/Haakon/Charles had a child out of wedlock is dismissed.

    The six books that have been published so far could very well have been edited down to four. Maybe five with a generous editor. But as it is, it has transcended from being a biography about Haakon and Maud into a never-ending story about everything and the kitchen sink (almost.)

    If you do read Norwegian, I recommend it – it is by Tor Bomann-Larsen, (who also wrote the cutest children’s book about when the royal family learnt to ski.) and it has won a lot of awards. It is well written. It just, in my opinion, should have been edited down a bit.

  • Review: Madeleine : Prinsessan privat

    Madeleine : Prinsessan privat by Johan T Lindwall
    I’m not sure I will ever get used to the Swedish royal reporters’ way of writing biographies. First of all – there is too much inference of what the persons in this book were thinking about specific events. Another reviewer said that a problem with it is that with Johan T. Lindwall you never quite know what are the facts, what are the rumours and what is pure speculation, and I thought *that’s it*: that is my basic problem with the book. There are no citations or footnotes at the end, so you can tell when he is working from the facts from interviews, or other books. Obviously, he also has to protect his sources, and when the sources are the main persons themselves, he is diligent about reporting who said what.  It does however, resort in a slight muddle when you hear about “Queen Silvia thought…” and the people in the room with Queen Silvia at the time were just family… and none of whom are being quoted as the person talking to Lindwall.
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