Reading list, Part I

Just before Christmas in 2012 I mentioned that I had won 3 book gift cards, and I also mentioned two books I would love to read, Ingar Sletten Kolloen's biography about Queen Sonja, Dronningen, and Anders Heger's Egner. En norsk dannelseshistorie about the Norwegian author and artist Thorbjørn Egner. In my blog article The blog - standing published on 2 January this year, I mentioned that I was thinking about writing a series of Reading list articles. This will the the first one.

I got the Queen Sonja biography for Christmas, but haven't started reading it yet. The publisher is Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, and the ISBN is 978-82-05-39525-1. Prince: NOK 449.

After Christmas I won even two more book gift cards in connection with my company's wine lottery, and today I finally got the time to get to the bookstore to use my cards.

The first book on the list was the above-mentioned biography about Thorbjørn Egner. It was published by Cappelen Damm in October 2012 and costs NOK 399. ISBN: 978-82-02-39997-9. Egner's ancestry, which I worked on last fall together with other committee members, can be viewed at the Norwegian Genealogical Society's Slektshistoriewiki (Genealogy Wiki).

The second book I purchased was the historian Jules Stewart's biography Albert. A Life, which as the title suggests deals with Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. I haven't read anything about the biography, but it looks interesting. I have of course read a lot about Albert before, but only in articles and biographies about other royals. I guess it was on time. The biography was published in 2012, the publisher was I.B. Tauris, the ISBN is 978-1-84885-977-7, and here in Norway it cost NOK 249 at Norli, in the UK £19,99. Do people really fall for such silly prices, I wonder?   

I brought with me my daughter, now 2 1/2 years old, into the bookstore today, and of course she was allowed to pick a couple of books as well. The first she fell for was a translation of Julia Donaldson's Gruffalo (original title: The Gruffalo (!)). It was the 2nd edition from 2007, ISBN 978-82-53-03025-8, priced at NOK 119. See the official Gruffalo website for more details. My daughter was so happy with it that she took it with her to bed tonight! I guess I will have to read it to her over and over again in the days and months to come!

The Norwegian translation is published by Omnipax. The Gruffalo movies - one of the Norwegian TV channels broadcasted two short films during Christmas - are quite entertaining as well.    

The second book my daughter picked was Lille Laban Spøkelse. Stor og flink ("Laban The Little Ghost. Big and clever") by the Swedish Inger and Lasse Sandberg, and in Norway published by Aschehough (ISBN 978-82-03-25260-0). The book is based on the animation movie. It seems that the English version of Laban is named Godfrey, for some reason. The book came together with a little Laban/Godfrey doll, so I am not sure what my daughter really fell for. She looked through the book later today and seemed to like it, though.

In other words, plenty of stuff to read in the days and weeks to come, both for myself and for my daughter. I am still into the Tess Gerritsen crime novels (Kindle version), by the way. When I am done with Body Double and then Vanish, I hope to read a few hardbacks for a change...