Norwegianne.net

Category: Books

  • Mette-Marit takes the literary train out on the tracks again

    May 26 and 27, the Norwegian court announced, Crown Princess Mette-Marit will make another literary train journey. It is a follow-up to the literary train ride she took last year.

    Like last year, they have transformed the royal rail carriage into a library. This time the train will go from Trondheim to Hamar, and make stops on Oppdal, Ringebu and Lillehammer. At Lillehammer, the Crown Princess will open the Norwegian Literature Festival.

    This time she is collaborating with the local libraries at the stops, and authors have also been invited along. Two authors will be traveling along the train – Tore Renberg and Harald Rosenløw Eeg.

    Other authors and literature critics will participate along the way on the stops.

    At the Norwegian Literature Festival at Lillehammer the Crown Princess will, in addition to do the official opening, have a literary salon with two Norwegian authors.

    The journey ends at Hamar.

     

  • Book review Mary and Frederik 10 years

    ItemImage.aspxI picked this up in October when I was in Denmark.

    It’s a nice book filled with lots of nice pictures.

    It details how they met, their wedding, the children, and their work over the past ten years.

    If you have followed them for the past ten years, there is next to little new.

    If you haven’t, or am new to royal watching, the book gives a nice overview.

    Another review comments on how the book tries to show their everyday life. The down-to-earth of making breakfast for the children, and picking them up at daycare, but gloss over the details that doesn’t necessarily show the family off as the down-to-earth Danes that just happen to live in multiple palaces – such as the nannies.

    Overall, the writing gets a bit sugar-sweet, but as an overview it is a decent enough book.

     

  • Review: A Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country

    A Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country
    For some reason, I really seem to enjoy books where people move to another country and give their reflections on living there. In this case, British journalist from London moving to Jutland, Denmark. (Something a lot of Copenhageners I know would have had a serious problem with.)

    She covers topics, month for month, as she gets used to living in Denmark and the oddities of Danes seen from a British perspective. Sometimes some of the chapters seemed overly long, but as there was a red thread binding the story together, it felt like a complete project.

    In some things I could definitely recognise the first period when I moved to Denmark myself – and my first meeting with the Danish tax returns… By virtue of speaking Norwegian you’d think it would be easier, and it was, somewhat, but bureaucratic Danish language is in a linguistic family of its own, with little recognisability to Norwegians.

    The stories are funny at times, and interesting at others. (Sometimes both funny and interesting.) Well worth a read.

    The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country by Helen Russell (Amazon.co.uk link)

  • Review: Royale Rejser: Bag kulisserne med de kongelige

    The book Royale Rejser: Bag kulisserne med de kongelige by John Lindskog depicts the story in 15 chapters of various photographers who have been following the Danish royal family through the years.

    It tells the story of King Frederik who did not much care for the photographers, but had one he tolerated. Prince Henrik who was taught how to sail by a photographer. The photographer who got the scoop of Mary and Frederik together on holiday in Australia, based on something Mary had said in an interview a lot earlier. It also tells of how they might not publish something because the royal family asked them not to.

    Of course, the stories in the book are subjective – as the last chapter’s interpretation that Queen Margarethe will abdicate any day now. (The book was written in 2009.)

    The photographers share the stories of how it is to travel with the royal family. How they can joke with them one minute, and be very formal the next.

    And the story of how one of them – Martin Jørgensen married into the family, sort of.

    As more and more newspapers and magazines are starting to rely on pool photography and buy from a limited number of photographers, it seems like the type of photographers in this book, who photograph the royal family for so long that they get a relationship with them, may be a dying race.

    I found the book fascinating, and if you read Danish, it is definitely worth a read.

  • Review: On Duty with the Queen: My Time as a Buckingham Palace Press Officer

    On Duty with the Queen: My Time as a Buckingham Palace Press Officer
    On Duty with the Queen: My Time as a Buckingham Palace Press Officer by Dickie Arbiter

    The book details the time of Dickie Arbiter’s work in the press office at Buckingham Palace. First working for the Prince and Princess of Wales, then later for the royal collections (and also seemingly chipping in whenever needed, as with the funeral of the Princess of Wales).

    He also interjects his personal history into the book, and at times that felt more interesting than the royal “scandal” of the week that he had to defuse.

    There are personal observations about the royals in the book. However, he is also very careful about not saying much that would (probably) violate a non-disclosure contract. It can therefore get a bit bland at times.

    I found the chapter on the planning and arranging of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales fascinating. Especially the bit about extending the route of the funeral cortege to spread the crowds out.

    All in all, a decent read.

     

  • Amalienborg – a book review

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    Amalienborg by Jørgen Larsen, Thomas Larsen, and Bjarke Ørsted

    The book is heavy, and filled with pictures and history. There are interviews with Queen Margrethe, Prince Henrik and Crown Prince Frederik and on their relationship with the palace.

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  • Review: Still Reigning: Thoughts of a Queen

    Still Reigning: Thoughts of a Queen
    Still Reigning: Thoughts of a Queen by The Queen [of Twitter]

    I loved and chuckled often at The Queen_UK on Twitter in the beginning. I have the first book, and laughed several times while reading it. In most of her tweets and analysis, I thought she was spot on. Witty.

    However, with this one… I don’t find it nearly as funny. Maybe because there is so much repetition between each chapter, and sometimes “she” contradicts herself from chapter to chapter.

    Plus, I get that it is a gimmick, but after hearing in chapter after chapter (not to mention in several tweets over the past couple of years) how much the Queen of Spain loves Phillip Schofield, I got a bit tired of the whole concept. There is a decided lack of imagination, beyond some jokes that gets repeated ad nauseam.

    It is a fun idea when you evolve as you go along, but to me the fun of it has outlived itself.

    If you haven’t read the first book, or followed the persona on Twitter, then it is worth the read. If you have… probably not. (And I feel supremely grumpy for saying that, because I really wanted to be entertained.)

     

  • Queen Margrethe’s life in a comic book

    September 16 the publishing house Cobolt releases the first in a series of new comic/illustrated books. The topic of the series is Queen Margrethe and her life. The first in the series follow her from birth to when she becomes the Queen of Denmark.

    Like a lot of the Queen’s life – this is a dual collaboration between Denmark and France. Erik Svane, a Danish author living in France, and Thierry Capezzone, a French artist living in Denmark, have worked together to produce this. DAISY – EN PRINSESSE I DANMARK

  • Book series I love: Amour et Chocolat by Laura Florand

    There are a couple of book blogs that I follow. Every now and then, they share special offers – when a book is off at Amazon, for example. I buy wayyyy too many of these recommendations. The majority of them just end up hanging around on my Kindle app, in the event that I will read them. (I have a very full Kindle app.)

    But I do read them, eventually.

    One of those offers ended up with me buying the first book in Laura Florand’s Amour et Chocolat, The Chocolate Thief

    Every now and then I read a series that I think – more people should know about this. Amour et chocolat (don’t worry, the books are originally in English) is one of those series. I bought the first book in October last year, and by the time Christmas came around, I had read all the books in the series twice. Granted, I read fast, but that is still a very quick re-reading of a series, even for me.
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