One way of summing up your year is to look back at your reading. Quite early in the year I got my hands on Nicholas Drayson's "
A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa" as a way of
reconnecting with Kenya again before going to Nairobi. Then I continued with "
A Sting in the Tale" and "
A Buzz in the Meadow" by Dave Goulson, since I wanted to know more about bees and sustainable gardening.
During spring, I started to prepare for my journey to
The Caucasus by reading several books such as Tom Reiss' "The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life" as well as
Anna-Lena Lauren's "I bergen finns inga herrar" (There Are No Masters In The Mountains) and "Frihetens pris är okänt" (The Price of Freedom Is Not Yet Known).
Summer was spent reading Aminatta Forna's sad and dramatic book
The Memory of Love,
Kristina Kappelin's charming observations in the "Italiensk dagbok" (Italien Diary) and my mother's copy of
Danny Wattin's "Herr Isakowitz skatt" (Mr Isakowitz' Treasure) from the reading list in her book club.
During autumn I enjoyed reading a book about books: Samantha Ellis' "
How to Be a Heroine - Or, What I've Learned from Reading Too Much" making me want to go back and reread some classics. The stunning "
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance" by Edmund de Waal had been in my possession for quite some time and now I finally got around to read it (note to self: order his new book: "
The White Road"). I also reacquainted me with JK Rowlings in the form of
Robert Galbraith and her/his crime novel "The Cuckoo's Calling" (I've already ordered the sequels as a Christmas gift to myself).
Some of the last readings of the year had a common theme: cats. Takashi Hiraide's "
The Guest Cat" is set in Tokyo, May Sarton's "
The Fur Person" takes place in Boston and Henning Mankell's cat in "
Italienska skor" (Italien Shoes) was living on an island on the east coast of Sweden.
In sum, my books have taken me all over the world and spanned more than 100 years of history. I wonder where they will take me next year!
Happy New Year! Gott nytt år!
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