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Showing posts with the label Duchess of Milan

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...

Duchess of Milan - A novel of the renaissance by Michael Ennis

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You know what it is like when you find such a good book that you never want it to end. When it does, it is like parting with a good friend. This is such a book. As you saw from my last blog I am into history (again) for the time being. Therefore I grabbed this book from my TBR shelves. And it sure was a good choice? I love books set in a historic perspective and especially when following history as well as this one. It's almost like reading a biography about a historic person. To sideline a bit I would just like to mention a couple of my favourite historic biographies:  'Potemkin' by Simon Sebag Montefiore (absolutely excellent). Luckily I have two other of his books on my TBR shelves ('Stalin' and 'Jerusalem') so something to look forward to. Another favourite writer of biographies is Mary S Lovell ('A Scandalous Life' (Lady Jane Digby), 'A Rage to Live' (Sir Richard Burton the explorer, absolutely fantastic) and 'The Mitford Girls...