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Showing posts with the label Maggie Smith

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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Travels With my Aunt by Graham Greene

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Another lovely, low key book by Graham Greene. Travels With My Aunt is not what it seems to be. First I thought it was a sort of travel book, but it is not. As usual with Greene, we meet people who are not what they seem to be. Henry Pulling is a bachelor a former bank manager, now in retirement. His life is simple; to care for his dahlias. His retirement is a slow as his working life. That is, until his mother dies and he meets his aunt at her funeral. Without knowing it his life will never again be the same. His aunt, in her mid seventies, is still full of life and invites him to accompany her on her travels. Starting with a short one, to Brighton, he starts to get an idea that his aunt is not what he thought. She reveals an anecdote here and an anecdote there giving him a small insight into her past life. When she persuades him to join him for a trip to Istanbul with the Orient Express, there is no way back. Being Graham Greene, everything is not what it seems to be and the li...
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