Bokbloggsjerka: Best of the best

Helgens bokbloggsjerkaspørsmål lyder:

Vilken är den bästa bok som din/dina favoritförfattare har skrivit? Observera att du bara får välja en bok per författare!

Et interessant spørsmål. Nå har jeg jo ganske mange favorittforfattere, men jeg kan jo begynne med noen:

Jasper Fforde – Shades of Gray. Jeg elsker ALLE Jasper Ffordes bøker, men best av alle tror jeg nok er Shades of Gray.

Jane Austen – Persuasion. Because, well, what’s not to like?

Kate Atkinson – When Will there be Good News. A slightly more difficult choice, but it’s done.

Oscar Wilde – An Ideal Husband. Although The Importance of being Ernest is perhaps the better play, I actually care about the characters of An Ideal Husband.

J. K. Rowling – The Goblet of Fire. I am loath to chose between the Harry Potter books, but if I have to chose one, this is it.

Jeffrey Archer – As the Crow Flies. It’s certainly the one I’ve read the most times. 

Alan Alexander Milne – Two People. It’s too hard to chose between the Pooh-books anyway, so I’ll go with my favourite of his adult fiction.

Bill Bryson – Notes from a Small Island. Not much surprise there.

Douglas Adams – The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Best of the best.

Douglas Coupland – Microserfs. Ingen over, ingen ved siden.

Richard Russo – The Risk Pool. Profound and heartfelt.

Som blir 11. Og der gir jeg meg. Jeg må forresten beklage den totale språkforvirringen i dette innlegget, men jeg orker ikke rette det opp…

Vad spännande!

Nu kan min vänninna i Sverige berätta att ett packet anländat och blivit skickad vidare. Jag hoppas det kommer hit före jul, jag ska förstås blogga om det när det dycker upp.

Och sen har mottagaren fått det present jag skickat. Hon lät rätt nøyd måste jag säga. Vad glad jag är!

Iiiiiii farta!

Jeg har sendt avgårde pakken til min hemmelige bokvenn. Nå blir det spennende å se når den dukker opp om vedkommende liker innholdet. Det var i hvert fall fryktelig morsomt å fylle pakken med alskens, både bøker og annet (og egentlig ble konvolutten for liten, jeg hadde gjerne fylt størrelsen større, men det gikk da på et vis).

A Christmas Calendar: December 13th

This is the day people all over Scandinavia – and most especially in Sweden – celebrate St Lucy’s Day. Even though I used to be light blonde as a kid and therefore got to be Lucia at least once (my memory fails me), I’ve thought the tradition of choosing the girl with long blonde hair over any other kid a strange one. I’m not going to claim any laudable insightfulness for my young self, most probably – and therefore an apt theme for this blog, which is, after all, supposed to be about books – I read a book where a dark haired girl – or even a boy – was devastated because they were not even in the running for the part.

In Sweden, apparently, there is a tradition to vote on who gets to be the «leading lady». I can’t remember that ever being an issue with us, but again, my memory may be faulty. In any case, it’s a method fraught with problems. The obvious being maiking it a popularity contest and probably sending signals about looks being more important than anything else. Precisely for that reason, it is likely to be highjacked, especially as the voters get older. Here is an image from a Swedish newspaper a few years ago, from a story that a school voted for a beaver for Lucia:

lucia-baverTwo of my favourite bloggers have also written about St Lucy’s Day and the various problems with the «tradition» thereof, which is what brought on this post: Ketchupmamman and Antibloggeren (in Swedish and Norwegian, respectively). You should read them both.