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Showing posts with the label Greta Garbo

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...

Mount TBR: Checkpoint #3

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Long time no see! But now I am back again and hope to be posting a little bit more regularly in the near future. I have been busy with other things than reading. It is going really slow now, so I feel somewhat desperate. But, what can I do, but keep a big smile and say; "I do read, but it is getting a little bit slow." Well, Bev's ( My Reader's Block ) call for the third checkpoint on the Mount TBR challenge woke me up, so I am now sitting at the computer to do an update, albeit small. As usual interesting questions to answer, and I am now curious if I have managed to ascend a little higher on my mountain. Looking back on my checkpoint #2  I see I had read 27 books and had reached Mont Blanc, plus made 1.203 meters up Mt Vancouver. So let's see how far I have got now? I have read 39 books from my TBR shelves, 12 books since July! Not so much, but better than nothing. That means I have reached Mt Vancouver, which is 36 books. It has also set me two books up the...

Blekingegatan 32 by Lena Einhorn

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I read another historical fiction by Lena Einhorn, some years ago. It was Siri , about Siri von Essen, the first wife of August Strindberg. It was excellent, so when I saw this book, which is about the early years of Greta Garbo, I grabbed it. It does not disappoint. Excellently and engagingly written. Lena Einhorn is a physician, with a PhD in Virology and Tumor Biology, and has also done research ranging from tumor viruses, to the question of "what it is in embryonic life that strongly inhibits the development of cancer in fetuses and newborns". In the 1990s she changed her carrier into making television programs and writing books. She has also made a documentary of Greta Garbo and now using her research into her life, to write this book. Garbo's story is rather well-known, especially her career. Here we get to know so much more about her, and I think Einhorn has managed to transfer the character of Garbo into this book. It is written with great respect for the pers...