Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
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22 May in Literature

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This day in 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born. He is the creator of one of the most popular, literary sleuths, Sherlock Holmes.

He was born in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. There he met Dr. Joseph Bell, who was a teacher with extraordinary deductive reasoning power. He was, years later when Doyle started writing, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

After finishing his studies he moved to London and opened a medical practice. It was very slow, so he had time to write. His first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. From 1891 his stories about the famous detective appeared in The Strand magazine. From this year he could support himself on his writing and left his medical profession. He got tired of his hero and tried to kill him off in The Final Problem. However, by this time the demand for the stories was so great that he had to resuscitate him again.

Doyle also wrote history, pursued whaling and engaged in many adventures and athletic endeavours.
He was knighted for his work in a field hospital in South Africa. After his son died in World War I, he became a dedicated spiritualist. He died in 1930.









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