The Content Reader

While in London, I took a daytrip to Dorchester to visit Thomas Hardy country. Having lately fallen in love with Thomas Hardy’s books, it seemed like a good idea to visit the area he comes from. Dorchester is a small, country town in the south of England, where you reach most places by foot. The small cobbled street are lined with old houses and historical places. You also find many of the places and buildings that was an inspiration for Hardy in his writing.

On the top of my list of visits during my stay in England, was a trip to Leicester. The city has often been in the news during recents years, due to the discovery of the remains of Richard III. It is indeed a great story, and it has been very interesting to follow the developments through books, news and studies ( England in the time of Richard III  with  Future Learn ). So, one sunny morning I took the train from St Pancras to Leicester. About two hours later I reached the city in quite an exciting mood. I had done a little bit of research in advance so I knew more or less where to go. Once you exit the railway station, you don't have to worry. There are signs to the most popular places and it was no problem at all to find the area. I had a nice walk through an almost empty Leicester, at least in comparison to London. Just to be sure, I passed by the tourist office and got some more information.

This is a book, I wanted to read for a long time, so, when finding it for a one week loan in the library in Karlskrona, I grabbed it. Ok, it is translated into Swedish, but still... I was a little bit nervous since it had got such raving reviews from almost everyone, and I was afraid that my expectations were too high. I did not have to worry. This book caught my attention right away, and I had difficulties putting it down and I finished it the same day. Rachel takes the commuter train from Ashbury to London every day. Having lived herself along the same railway line, she continues to keep an eye on the houses on her old street. She tries to ignore No. 25 since her ex-husband lives there with his new wife and their daughter. She still has not come to terms with the divorce and is harassing the couple with phone calls and e-mails. However, she has discovered a young couple at No. 15, of which she gets somewhat obsessed. She gives them the names Jess and Jason and imagine their happy...

On the road again! Now in Vadstena, which is host to one of our few remaining monasteries. It was founded by our one and only saint Birgitta. Just before Vadstena, we passed Alvastra monastery, which is now in ruins. It was a Cistercian monastery, founded in the first half of the 12th century. It was dissolved and appropriated by the Crown at the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. I am a person who love ruins, so here a few of all the photos I took.

Bernhard Schlink is probably most famous for his wonderful book The Reader , which was also made into a film. Homecoming has been on my TBR shelves for some years, and which is often the case, once I have read the book, I wonder why I left it there for so long. As with The Reader , this book takes us back to events during World War II. Peter Debauer is born at the end of the war and grows up with his mother. His father died during the war. His youth summers are spent with his grand parents in Switzerland. The mother never comes with him to be with her in-laws. His grand parents extends their pension by editing a series of books entitled “Novels for Your Reading Pleasure and Entertainment” , which Peter reads through the summers. Once the grand parents are gone he finds another book which he starts to read. The problem is that there are pages missing, and since the book somehow hits a string inside him, he searches, through the years for another copy and/or the writer, to find out ...

I have been on the road for over a week. Therefor not much action here on the blog. We have been on a family visit to Sweden, to visit our son. We started out in beautiful Stralsund, where I managed to take a few more photos (see earlier post here ). Now I am sitting here in rainy Sweden. The positiv thing is that I will stay inside and have time to write more posts. Or... I have to see since we have started a renovation project in my parents hallway!

"Langdon’s Mickey Mouse wristwatch read almost seven-thirty when he emerged from the jaguar limousine onto Inner Temple Lane with Sophie and Teabing. The threesome wound through a maze of buildings to a small courtyard outside the Temple Church. The roughhewn stone shimmered in the rain, and doves cooed in the architecture overhead.  London’s ancient Temple Church was constructed entirely of Caen stone. A dramatic, circular edifice with a daunting facade, a central turret and a protruding nave off one side, the church looked more lika a military stronghold than a place of worship. Consecrated on the tenth of February in 1185 by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Temple Church survived eight centuries of political turmoil, the Great Fire of London, and the First World War, only to be heavily damaged by Luftwaffe incendiary bombs in 1940. After the war, it was restored to its original, stark grandeur. The simplicity of the circle, Langdon thought, admiring the building for...