After the end of WWII, various members of a German middle-class family (2 appalled by nazism, others former nazis, including passionate believers & 1 wartime criminal) all end up in Rome for a few days for different reasons. It's incredibly bleak & shows how the nazi ideology never went away: people were just more discreet & biding their time. I hope it hasn't come. Not good for my anxiety level but an important book, written in the 50s.

Another Finnish graphic work, this time about the author's grandmother. She tells her grandson about her life and her family in 20th-century #Finland - and then writes it down because he never stays long enough to hear all, despite all the coffee and pastries she serves him...
Clearly, they had a hard, hand-to-mouth life for quite a long time. This is quite a bittersweet book.

#Finland #FoodandLit
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Book's narrator is a Southern Finn with a fascination for Lapland (Sápmi) who finds a job as a librarian in a small Sámi community & becomes a local artist's boyfriend (the frog-woman of the title) as she spirals into a depression triggered by her grandmother's death & cultural alienation. Very literary & quite didactic, with lots of jumping-off points for further research, which I like. Sámi author.
#Finland #FoodandLit
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For lunch today, I ate the last of the Karelian pasties, and finished with a salted coffee. This is how one of the older characters who does things in the old-fashioned ways drinks his in the tagged book, and I was curious. I found it OK flavour-wise, but difficult mentally: to me it tastes of coffee-flavoured tears. It's reminiscent of heartbreak & funerals 😂
#Finland #FoodandLit
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Today, I made Karelian pasties, using mainly this recipe: https://www.saimaalife.com/recipe-finnish-karelian-pies/ I was very bad at shaping them 😞
I served them with mushroom soup, which although not specifically Finnish I thought would go well with them. Quite nice.
#Finland #FoodandLit
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I made pyttipanna (or pyttipannu) using the Moomins cookbook 😁: it's fish, potatoes and onions fried together, and served with beetroot, gherkins and a fried egg. Easy comfort food!
(French readers will notice a spelling mistake on the page 🙄)
#Finland #FoodandLit
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I found a book about Finnish female artist Helene (Helena) Schjerfbeck at the library. It feels extraordinary that in the 19th c. she was able to travel freely, receive grants to study in Paris, join like-minded painters, win medals. Surely, she should be better-known.
The book centers on her portraits, which I enjoyed, but I would have liked it better if some of her other work had been included...
#Finland #FoodandLit
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French Wikipedia says today (December, 9 - Saint Ann's day) is the day Norwegians and Finns start soaking stockfish so they can have lutefisk (called lipeäkala in Finnish) on Christmas eve. Making it from scratch is a deeper dive into Finnish cuisine that I am ready to commit to for #FoodandLit, but if I ever see lutefisk on a restaurant menu somewhere, I might order it. Did someone here try it?
#Finland
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I read The Last Book of Hope (not in the database) rather than the tagged book, but it'll have to do. Those comic strips are melancholic and rather obscure sometimes. I chose a quintessentially Finnish page, with sauna nudity cropped out. Most strips went over my head, but they were still interesting.
#Finland #FoodandLit
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Grandkid's haul for Saint-Nicholas's Day is a charming book about children helping Saint Nicholas, translated from Dutch. The pictures are cute, inclusive and detailed, and best of all, without a trace of blackface!
The Mexican hot chocolate cookies I made, inspired by @Bookwormjillk and @TheBookHippie were fabulous! The recipe is a keeper 😁

Today is #Finland's Independence Day!
“From the 1970s onwards, Independence Day celebrations have taken livelier forms, with shops decorating their windows in the blue and white of the Finnish flag, and bakeries producing cakes with blue and white icing.“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(Finland)
#FoodandLit
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The trailer for Stormskerry Maja (out Jan, 1st in France) was pushed to me on Youtube. I hope there's been some joined-up thinking & a translation of the Finnish book it's based on will be available soon.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22257924/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
trailer w/ French subtitles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aaAW10lJc4

#Finland #FoodandLit
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Bailing. A history of #Finland by an author who thinks nomadic tribes are uncultured and violent conquests are good for a country. Amateurish, unclear writing. You'd never think it was published in 2010 and not 1910.

#FoodandLit
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Pic of Olavinlinna by Mikko Paananen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Sorted Food YouTube channel has just done a video for a Finnish tinned food challenge. Warning: it's fun, not informative, and it's possible Finn watchers will cry tears of frustration - or laugh 😋
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnclkd5nwHo

#Finland #FoodandLit
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Fun fact: I think I sampled the reindeer meat tin once, bought by my mum from a Turku city/university stand set up in my (French) town's square 1 year

Glad I read it as it's a modern classic, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. The constant shop/product/celebrity name dropping was distracting. Sad that the slang has grown old but all the social issues (drugs, anorexia, paedophilia...) are just as current as ever.
I'll probably leave the book in a little library so it can go to someone who will appreciate it better.

Here's my pile of books for #Finland
- A kids' Moomins cookbook
- A history of Finland
- A novel (the French title means “The frog-woman“)
- A cheffy trilingual cookbook
#FoodandLit
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Starting my 1st Simenon ever, The Madman of Bergerac, as part of my 2024 Dordogne challenge. And since today (Nov, 29) is the day of juniper in the French revolutionary calendar, I am having juniper tea. I don't know why this berry is so underused these days: it's lovely and so fragrant!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar#Autu...

My last Canadian book: I'm now ready for Finland 😁
Amiante (Asbestos) is a poet's novel about a boy in 80s/90s Thetford Mines that punches you in the gut. I was surprised at how similar cultural references were to mine in France.

#FoodandLit #Canada
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Pic by Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/asbestos-bape-hearings-1.5386092

It's all in the title: Le nazi de ma famille : Enquête sur un SS français (The nazi in my family: investigating a French SS). Extremely well-constructed and finely-drawn, with constant backs-and-forths between then and now, family history and European history, today‘s nazis and yesterday‘s. Sensitive, empathetic and serious. A stand-out read for me.
Pic of Barnave, near the author's family home, from Wikipedia

@tournevis This is my attempt at pot-en-pot and I have the nagging feeling that I got it wrong, although it was perfectly nice to eat.
I am thinking that perhaps “big potatoes“ are bigger for the writer than for me because my dish looks stingey on the potato front.
I assumed the final stage was baking because we were told to layer the ingredients. So, I did it in a pyrex dish fitted with a lid.

#FoodandLit #Canada
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Here's my gâteau aux bleuets (blueberry cake). Nice but on the mushy side (there's quite a bit of milk) in it. I used a recipe from the tagged Acadian cookbook.
#FoodandLit #Canada
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From a fantastic poetry collection by Katherena Vermette, a Métis author. Found on Everand.
#FoodandLit #Canada
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Pic of St Theresa Point, Island Lake by Timkal, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24819273

This is the story of Elie, a young Innu convicted of murder & banned from his community who ends up homeless in Montréal (called Tiohti�:ke in Mohawk) - like many other First Nations men & women - before turning his life around. Not a masterpiece, but both moving & informative.
Written by a Mashteuiatsh Innu author

#FoodandLit #Canada
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The life of a young teacher in 30s Manitoba. Her pupils‘ poverty is incredible. Meanwhile, where I live, the fog outside is so thick right now it‘s like living in cotton wool...
#FoodandLit #Canada
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Cross-cultural fiction at its finest: a kid's chapter book about a young Korean girl who discovers Astrid Lindgren's books. They help her make sense of her life (her father is dead; her mother is sad, poor and has a short fuse), work through her emotions and relate to others. Maybe a bit too edifying for me, but I'm sure the child who connects with this book won't mind. I liked the sense of place and season.
#Korea

Since it is #Canada month and I'd never read it (it's not so well known in France), I thought now would be the time to see what the fuss is about 😋 I downloaded Anne of Green Gables from Project Gutenberg. 9% in: Matthew Cuthbert is thinking of keeping Anne. Oooh, what is going to happen? Will Marilla agree? 😂 😁
#FoodandLit
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A man in the final stages of cancer tries to reach his native #Montenegro to die. He is pursued in the forest and the mountains by a group 2 men soon to turn into a mob. This novella was a random find at the bookshop and I was bowled over.
#Serbia
Pic of Čvrsnica by Ante Perkovic, via Wikimedia bc I couldn't find one of Prekornica from a free source

Yesterday's poutine at a local Canadian-themed bar/restaurant. Followed by a very indifferent tea that did not taste at all of maple. The poutine was nice, though, and the portion was very generous. My toppings were smoked meat, onions, mushrooms and brown sauce. I felt full all day!

#FoodandLit #Canada
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I don't usually read murder mysteries, but I made an exception for this book because it the 1st time I came across a novel set in the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia. Only, the descriptions of the corpse & sea pollution combined with current news (the deadly freak storm in Spain and the US elections) to give me one hell of a nightmare, so I've been up since 3:45 AM & I am wary of picking the book up again.
Pic of Mekiro island by FRED, wikimedia

Today (November, 7) is International Inuit Day, a holiday established by the Inuit Circumpolar Council representing First Nations people living in Alaska, #Canada, Greenland and Chukotka.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Inuit_Day

And Sweetest Kulu is a lovely book for babies and young children written by an Inuk artist and writer from Nunavut.

#FoodandLit
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Literally, “The people of Auberoque“, Auberoque being an imaginary village in #Dordogne in 1866, possibly a disguised Montignac-Lascaux (pic of its castle from wikimedia). A lot of politicking, meanness & stupidity. And two perfect MCs 😂

This is my haul from the SF convention I went to last weekend. I've been a good girl this year, partly because I did not manage to explore the bookshop thoroughly. It was either too crowded or I was running after an overexcited toddler. She's the one who found the 2 books with the graphic covers. She - and I - wanted all the books in this collection, but I whittled it to 2 😁. There is also 1 kids' book and 1 non-fiction ab. plurality in SF.

I thought I'd start #Canada Month with something quick & easy. This is a selection of Champlain's maps, drawings & writings about his travels to North America, reworked into a graphic work. Interesting as a teaser, but the lack of “meat“ and context is frustrating, despite the few pages of explanations tacked to the end. A giant wood & metal version toured Canada in 2008.
#FoodandLit
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A quirky, arty book pitched at younger children, with a female superhero whose trigger is chili pepper with whipped cream 😂

Selected by the grandchild once I'd managed to steer her to the bookshop's kids' corner in the SF convention we went to last weekend. Her first choices were all German adult novels with interesting geometric covers 😅

Tried and gave up on the tagged book - it wasn't for me.
Cooked seswaa (pulled beef) & Bogobe jwa lerotse, a porridge made with sorghum (or in my case, cornmeal, after I realised my sorghum meal had gone off 🙁) & lerotse melon, a cooking, non-sweet melon. Wholesome but I have to admit #Botswana's national dish was a bit too plain for my taste, which it might not be if you're using local Setswana ingredients😊
#FoodandLit
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This is the limit of what I'm prepared to do for #Halloween: felt pumpkins & mushrooms on a string, 1 book of vampire stories (Somadeva's Vetala Panchavimshati), 1 lovingly-drawn paper pumpkin to stick on the front door so that children know they can knock & ask for sweets. And that was enough for the curmudgeon in my life to roll his eyes... The seasonal fruit & veg are there... because they're in season 😁

Thank you https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Denizard for this article on Marie Denizard, a suffragist who, to make a point, ran for the 1913 presidential election at a time when women could not vote in France. It complements perfectly the book on the fights for political and personal rights I am reading. BTW, poor old Marie was committed to a psychiatric hospital for - I kid you not - “chronic delirium of political and social claims“.

A late & indulgent breakfast and a pop history book about civil rights gains. I am hoping they will cheer me up, given a) the current political climate; b) the grey, depressing whether we've been having; c) the fact that I have so much housework to do before the flat is decent for visitors.

Medieval Georgian epic poem with much adventure, fighting, passion and intense male friendship (see miniature above). All set further east than what I am used to: Arabia, India, Persia, Central Asia and Cathay (China). An international classic!
#Georgia #UnescoRepresentativeWork
public domain pic from Wikimedia

Yesterday's treat (a pistachio éclair). I needed extra fuel to compensate for all the effort it took me to read from right to left 😈

Not the easiest read (I thinks with some exceptions, my brain doesn't get on well with graphic works, compared with just text), but I still liked it and I can recognise its quality.

My 1st book from this year's #NobelPrize winner. I was impressed by the first half, but disappointed that the narrator's quiet & moving story was pushed aside for almost straight non-fiction, admittedly also moving, and about events in #Korea's history that needed telling. So the fiction ended up being an artificial framing device for near-journalistic work. I was happy to read it all & learned a lot, but with a slight sense of frustration 😊

After being 3rd in the library request queue for ages, I've now gotten hold of Shubeik Lubeik. I know what I'm doing tonight 😎 Reading this book from right to left, manga-style 🙃

Found in The Dark (issue 50): Who Will Clean Our Spirits When We‘re Gone?, a short story by the same author as the tagged book. A ghost (or spirit) story set in a university campus in #Botswana. Lacks polish but poetic & has potential.

#FoodandLit
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pic of Environmental Science Building at the University of Botswana in Gaborone by Iulus Ascanius, via Wikimedia Commons

This was a bit of a chore, which is why it took me 2 weeks to finish it... The translation is amateurish, which might colour my perception, but I don't think comparing the writer to Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe is warranted, despite similar themes of christianisation and colonisation. Still, I got enough out of this short novel that I never felt like giving up.

Pic: old palapye church https://www.botswanatourism.co.bw/explore/old-palapye

Photos from our Saturday walk. We picked chestnuts: not only were they pretty, shiny and pristine, with not a maggot in sight and hardly any mud on them, but they were also delicious.
And Little Witch Hazel is a fantastic book for children. Grandkid loves the stories & I like the underpinning “hippy“ outlook on life - kind, understanding and tolerant (including of leg hair on women 😅)

I went overboard at the charity shop's book sale but there was a lot more choice than usual on the English book shelves. I think someone (probably American) must have moved away.
I left all the autobiographies of US politicians and business people and all the romances for others....

I've inhaled the 1st 1/3 of this book partly set in the highlands of Jeju Island in 1 sitting. So glad the Nobel Prize spurred me to read Han Kang now rather than at an indefinite point in the future.

I love the pic of mountains in Jeju I got from Wikipedia. It's perfect for the current season where I live (although it's winter AND snowing in the book).

Literally, “Edwardian female poets“. I requested it from the library thinking - mistakenly - that it would be a poetry anthology. It isn't. It's a collection of academic papers, some more interesting and intelligible than others. Very interesting overall and useful for all the names of forgotten and half-forgotten female poets I can now explore.

The 2024 Nobel Prize winner is Han Kang. I wasn't expecting it: I'll have to read her now 😁