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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26 May in literature

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26 May 1897 Bram Stoker's novel Dracula goes on sale in London.

Dracula, as we all know today, is a vampire from Transylvania who comes to London. The story tells about his life there and his victims. Stoker had been publishing horror stories for around 20 years. I think that today this is the only novel that is remembered. I read it a couple of years ago and although in those day, I did not like these vampire tales, I quite liked the book. Today, we are used to vampires through all new fantasy books and television series.

Stoker was born in Dublin and worked in the civil service and writing at the same time. In 1878 he became the manager of actor Sir Henry Irving, which he admired. He managed him for 27 years. Stoker died in London in 1912.

Numerous films have been made about Dracula, latest might be the television series with Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Dracula.



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