Easter reading list

The Easter weekend has finally arrived. Here in Norway Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and 2nd Day Easter are all public holidays, which means that I have a long weekend coming up. I really look forward to a few days off with my family! I hope to do some cross country skiing and I have put up a few items on my Easter reading list.

The latest issue of the Swedish Kungliga Magasinet (No. 2, March 2013) has just arrived. It marks the royal magazine's first anniversary, and the list of contents reveal articles about among others the late Princess Lilian, the future King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, King Gustaf III of Sweden, Queen Victoria of Sweden as well as her namesake and great-great-grandchild Crown Princess Victoria. 23 well-known Swedes and 2 princes - Leka of Albania and Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy - give their views on why the crown princess is so popular. Not sure why a royal magazine needs to bring an interview with the pop artist Carola Häggkvist, though. And is the make-up piece about Princess Máxima an advertisement or a journalistic work? It is hard to tell. The magazine seems to develop, like the former royal magazine Queen, more and more into a women magazine, which I find sad.

There is, on the other hand, no doubt about the contents of The European Royal History Journal. I received the last 3 issues of Volume 15 (2012) at once 1-2 weeks ago, and have saved them for my Easter vacation. It is a pity that one can never know when to expect the journal to arrive, as it almost never gets out on time, but at least it provides a lot of stuff to read.

Reading crime and detective novels has for a long, long time been an "Easter tradition" here in Norway, besides watching crime series on TV! Of course I have to keep up with my fellow Norwegians, so I have recently bought Tess Gerritsen's The Keepsake (2008) (Rizzoli & Isles series), which finally has become available for Kindle as well. I will start reading it as soon as I have finished Tom Clancy's Patriot Games. I have got most, if not all, the Jack Ryan/John Clark books on my Kindle and have decided to read them in "a Ryan/Clark universe chronological order". I have read some of them before, but that is a long time ago. After that I will finally return to my list of biographies again...

Happy Easter!

Updated on Thursday 28 March 2013 some time in the evening (minor correction) and last time on Tuesday 2 April 2013 at 09.05 (couple of words added).

Tjukke Slekta No. 2-3, 2012

I have several periodicals on my reading list these days. The same day I received the latest issue of Våpenbrevet, the newsletter of the Norwegian Heraldic Society, I also received Tjukke Slekta (No. 2-3, 2012), the newsletter of Sør-Østerdal Slektshistorielag (Sør-Østerdal Genealogical Society, which covers the municipalities Elverum,  Engerdal, Stor-Elvdal, Trysil og Åmot in the county of Hedmark).

I have been a member of the society for a few years now, and one of the main reasons for joining up was because my Hoelseth family comes from the former farm of Holset in Åmot. I also have ancestors from Elverum. As long as I have been a member, the newsletter has not touched on any of my ancestral families, but it still has many interesting articles on various families from Sør-Østerdal and on genealogy and research in general. The latest issue  has, for instance, two large articles on two different persons from Elverum but descending from Trysil with examples on how DNA testing can assist the research.

All but one of the articles focus on Trysil, hence the use of the top photo, which shows Trysil Church. I have no idea when the photo was taken, but it was found in the photo album inherited from my great-grandfather's elder sister Ingeborg Louise O. Hoelseth (1882-1963). I have - as far as I know - no ancestors from Trysil, but two of my great-great-grandfather's sisters, Marte Tollefsdatter Hoelseth (1852-1917) and Valdine Tollefsdatter Hoelseth (1866-1907) married and settled there and are buried at the cemetery next to the church.

I will bring photos from the cemetery later on.

Postscript 6 March 2013 at 00:05: It has been suggested at the Digital Archives' users' forum that the photo was taken just before 1900.

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...

The blog - standing

I have decided to continue my tradition of giving some statistics for my blog, as well as to look back on the year that has passed and to point at topics of interest and what one can expect of this blog in 2013. My previous statistics articles were published on 1 January 2011 and 8 January 2012.

The number of articles in 2012 went down from 104 to 98 compared with 2011, but that was more or less as expected. I don't have enough time to write more than 1-2 articles a week on average. Obviously I had more spare time in the first part of the year (I wrote 13 in January and 14 in February 2012), while only 2 in July (I was abroad for 3 weeks in July and August). The number of unique page views is as of today (2 January 2013) 173 391, as compared to 95 537 on 8 January 2012 (counting from August 2009), so the blog is well visited, even though it is not updated as regularly as one could have wished.

Most of my blog visitors come from the United States (57 116), UK come second with 11 762 visitors, while Germany is third with 11 218 page views. Now for the main statistics - the most popular articles...

 Top ten counting from August 2009 to January 2013

1. 20.05.2012: HH Princess Athena Marguerite Françoise Marie of Denmark (5061 page views)
2. 26.10.2011: Princess Tatiana of Greece is pregnant (1473)
3. 02.09.2012: Confirmation of Marius Borg Høiby (1039)
4. 25.07.2010: Countess Ruth of Rosenborg has died (944)
5. 16.11.2010: UK: Prince William of Wales and Kate Middleton engaged to marry (931)
6. 23.02.2012: Royal birth in Sweden (879)
7. 30.11.2011: 'King' Leka of the Albanians has died (864)
8. 21.02.2012: HM King Harald V of Norway's 75th birthday (845)
9. 23.01.2010: Cimetière de Passy, Paris, France (791)
10. 29.01.2012: More on Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s Twitter account (698)

The latter was a follow-up to my first article on the subject, which was published on Friday 20 January 2012. It should be added that the numbers show unique page views. The Princess Athena article has in reality got 5359 hits as of today, while the article about Countess Ruth of Rosenborg's death has been viewed 1338 times.

Last year I was still amused that the Countess Ruth article still topped the statistics, but fortunately it has been passed by 3 other articles during 2012. The first to take Ruth down from the throne was the article covering the false pregnancy news - as it later turned out - about Princess Tatiana of Greece, the spouse of Prince Nikolaos, the third child of former King Constantine. The number of views really took off when the postscript was added on 12 March 2012, telling that she was not pregnant at all. A somewhat embarrassing story, and I can only wish I had been more critical when I wrote the article back in October 2011, although I guess most readers would agree with me that Billed-Bladet should take most of the blame!

Thankfully enough, the number of views almost exploded when I wrote about the names of Princess Athena, the second child of Prince Joachim and Princess Marie of Denmark. But why the article became that popular still puzzles me. Anyway, 5 of the 10 most read articles were written in 2012, which means I did something right during the year... When I look back on my contributions in 2012, I feel most satisfied with my articles on Crown Princess Mette-Marit's Twitter account, Painting in Canada and the many cemetery articles (there are many more to come!). On the other end of the scale, I was not too happy with my article on the names of Princess Estelle of Sweden, published on 25 February 2012. It started well, but then I made a mess (among others) of the rather easy task of giving examples of other Bernadotte descendants who were named Estelle (but not necessarily as a call name). As I don't remember all the Bernadotte members by heart, I consulted Ted Rosvall's latest edition of Bernadotteättlingar, but didn't read the relevant pages well enough, and couldn't even turn the page to find the last example, and I was duly corrected... I just have to laugh it off and try to being more focused in the future...

US elections 2012

As I am very interested in US American history and politics, I was very ambitious in writing several articles on the primaries in January, but it all stopped in February. I just didn't have the time to follow it up on my blog, but used my Twitter account instead. I wrote on my blog on 3 January 2012 that "It is of course far too early to predict who will win the election in November, but as of now I think the chances of Mitt Romney becoming the next US President is greater than that Obama will be re-elected", stating the weak economy as the reasoning behind my view point. I made all the necessesary reservations, of course. During the spring of 2012 I gradually changed my mind, as I came to realize that Romney had even more weaknesses than the president had. The voters, or at least the small majority, didn't manage to identify themselves with the GOP candidate, and he wasn't especially liked by the right wing of the Republican party either. Most in the know predicted the presidentical race to be close, and it was, but most of the time President Obama was leading the polls in the most important states, so it shouldn't really come as a big surprise that he won. Still, considering the bad state of the economy, I find it somewhat amazing that Obama actually pulled it off.

The US political dynasties still fascinate me. It is interesting to note that yet another Kennedy - Joe Kennedy III - was elected to the House of Representatives. One of the more moderate Republican voices in the Senate, Scott Brown, lost the election against Elizabeth Warren, but might get a comeback later in 2013 as John Kerry's senate seat becomes vacant.

It will be interesting to see how Obama will perform in the next four years. There are many aspects of the 2012 election and the candidates which could be interesting to discuss further, but I will leave it, at least for now. There are so many other blog topics worth discussing as well. It is safe to say, however, that considering the many biographies I have read on American politicians during 2012, I must say that my interest in US history and politics have deepened even further during the year!

Reading

I have already touched on my reading list. My sparetime has become rather busy due to family obligations, organisation work etc., but still I have managed to read quite a few books, mostly biographies, during 2012. My most valuable reading time is on the metro (T-bane) on my way to work and back again, which explains why I use my Kindle device for most of my reading, as it is most practical. I have planned for a long time to write a longer article about my reading list and my impressions of the various books I have read, as it could be a nice exchange with my blog readers, but it has to be done later. The best biograophy I have read in 2012? Not exactly a new title, but Donald Rumsfeld's Known and Unknown from 2011 was very impressive. On the other end of the scale, Senator Marco Rubio's An American Son. A Memoir, was a big disappointment. Not well written - too superficial, too many repetitions. I know that autobiographies written when the author tries to position himself for a possible office - Rubio was mentioned as one of several possible VP candidates for Romney before Paul Ryan was picked - comes into a category on its own and should be judged with that in mind. I also know that many consider Rubio to be among the favourites to win the GOP nomination for presidency in 2016 (yes, it is very early still!), and although I understand that his Cuban background could work well with the Latino voters, I would be surprised, almost disappointed, if the Republican party should elect a politician with so little substance. Give me Governor Susana Martinez or even former Governor Jeb Bush any time...

Best novel? It took a while for me to discover Tess Gerritsen, but her crime novel The Surgeon from 2002 was excellent. One of the best crime novels I have ever read, and I have read a lot! Her latest, Last to die, is also recommendable.

Travels

I love traveling, and although I couldn't add a new country to my list, my trips abroad was very enjoyable also in 2012. I have already written about my visit to the island of Tjörn back in May, while I have just started to write about my US visit in July/August. I will have to come back to my two trips to Norwich as well. Then later I have to go further backwards to write about other trips in Norway and abroad. And of course there will be new trips...

2013

There will be lots of topics to write about and discuss in 2013, I am sure. In Norway the general election will take place in September. Exciting! The forthcoming royal birth in the UK will give lots to write about, and hopefully the process to the change the succession law will go well in all the countries Queen Elizabeth II is head of state of. There will be a royal wedding in Sweden in June, and the Romanovs will celebrate their 400th anniversary. I can't promise that the number of articles will be higher in 2013 than in 2012. I expect, however, that the majority of my articles will cover genealogy (including cemeteries) and royalty. Anyway, thanks for stopping by! And once again I wish you all a very happy new year!

Photo: Outside the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston with the Lincoln monument, July 2012. Inscription: "Abraham Lincoln created the state of West Virginia by proclamation and signature / West Virginia joined the Union June 20, 1863".

Updated on Thursday 3 January 2013 at 08:05 (link added to Painting in Canada article).

Christmas reading list

After long days at work it is great to have a little vacation and to celebrate Christmas with my dear ones. I hope to get some time to read during the Christmas weekend, and one of the items on my reading list will be the 5th issue of the Swedish royal magazine Kungliga Magasinet. I missed out on issue 3 and 4, so it will be interesting to see how the magazine has developed (go here for my comments on the magazine's first issue). In the latest issue you can read about the Nobel party, King Carl XVI Gustaf's father Prince Gustaf Adolf, Queen Silvia's visit to Finland, the Portuguese pretender Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza, Princess Madeleine and Chris O'Neill's engagement, Prince Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar and much, much more!

I have also bought the latest issue of the Swedish ice hockey magazine Pro Hockey, which first of all deals with the National Hockey League. Oh, how annoying isn't the current NHL conflict!

In addition I have several books waiting to be read on my Kindle device, including several Rizzoli & Isles crime novels by Tess Gerritsen. Maybe I will get a book or two for Christmas as well? If not, I have 3 book gift cards ready to be used after Christmas. At my work we arrange a wine lottery at lunch every Friday. The person who wins the first draw gets one red wine and one white wine, while the third and last bottle of red wine goes to the winner of the second draw. But if you don't want any wine for whatever reason, you can get a book gift card instead. So, on the last two Fridays I have won 3 gift cards. Oh, there are so many books I would love to read, including the new Queen Sonja biography and Anders Heger's biography about Thorbjørn Egner.

I wish all my blog readers a Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year!