Hey! As soon as the sun came out of its winter hibernation here in southern Norway, I dragged the camping chair out of the basement shed and set up in the backyard with a book. Reading outdoors gives me a blissful sense of calm, but it also means that I keep a close eye on my surroundings, plants, animals and insects. Therefore, this week’s book letter is partly about man’s relationship with nature, which is also related to my Tolkien project. I have also read America’s most banned book, and am moved by a publication in a language I did not know existed. The city is also nature When I visited the legendary essayist Joan Didion in her Manhattan apartment in 2012 (sneak peek), my eyes fell on a magnificent book on the coffee table. It was called “Birds of Central Park” and was as thick as a family Bible. Were there really that many birds in the park in the middle of this skyscraper jungle? It opened my eyes to the fact that there is also lots and lots of nature in the city, if you just look for it. Norwegians are generally fond of conquering nature, collecting on summit trips and getting as far away from civilization as possible. But when corona locked us all at home, many of us opened our eyes to the very closest nature. Right outside my place lives a family of seven people. Instead of being annoyed by their squabbling, I now play David Attenborough and follow the conflicts and friendships in the pack. On hot days, I put out cold, fresh water for them. It is a feast to watch the magpies lick their beaks and then swim a bit before they spread their wings to dry in the sun. When I sit like this with my book in the camping chair, I can think that it is really the birds, cats and insects that own the backyard. I am just one of several animals that stay here. Last week the book “Insektene i hagen” fell into the mail shelf. It fits perfectly into my project of discovering the local nature. Author Andreas Tjernshaugen has gone on a journey of discovery in his own garden at Nesodden. In the course of four summers, he has discovered over five hundred species of insects! Many of us get chills from crawling insects. But knowledge dispels fear, I think, and start softly by reading about pretty butterflies and cool beetles. I’m postponing Bladlusa’s chapter for a while longer. Photo: Xin Li / news Tolkien as nature portrayer You gave me as homework to read “The Lord of the Rings”, and now I am in the middle of book two, “Two Towers”. I struggle a bit to keep up with the battles, but what I didn’t see coming was how good Tolkien is at depicting nature. I usually find nature scenes boring as shit, and tend to skim past until people come on again. But when I read about Middle-Earth, I really like the globe. Tolkien is very concerned with weather, and not many paragraphs go by without us hearing about the sun setting, about a fog creeping in over the landscape, about a cold wind that goes through the marrow and bones. Since I read in English, I have to look up words like willow and rowan to find out what kind of landscape our friends are moving through. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at types of wood, so it doesn’t always help to find out that it’s called willow and rowan in Norwegian. I didn’t have parents who pointed out aspen and ash for me, and what I learned at school is long gone. Again I was helped by a new release. “The world around 80 trees” is a lovely reference book about trees from all over the world, written by a British botanist and beautifully illustrated. I have started on trees we find in Norway; the goal is to see the difference between the trees in the park where I live. In the novel “Girl, 1983”, Linn Ullmann has found out how many types of trees there are in Torshovparken. I have lived by that park for almost 20 years, but only recognize birch and pine. It’s a shame. I also gain a new respect for trees that I have taken for granted. For example, I hate Norwegian fir trees. They are tall, narrow, unsympathetic, and they completely dominate the forests in the east. But in “The world around 80 trees” I read that it is spruce that provides the best violin wood. The barren conditions the fir tree has grown up in, the better the violin, in fact. Impressive. Now I am grateful that my Tolkien reading has also led me into this adult education project about trees. The characters I thought were silly in the film adaptation are very nice in the book. These wooden creatures are the oldest beings in Middle-Earth, and they speak and think slowly, for they have seen generations come and go. This summer my goal is to become more single. I will think long, slow thoughts, and try to just be with the trees. Which book helps you see nature with new eyes? Is it non-fiction about trees, nature poems or a practical handbook about birds? Tell me in the comments! Summer time = reading time? – I have suddenly read five books in a very short time, exclaimed my colleague Turi just now, a little pleasantly surprised at himself. Turi discovered that she reads a lot more in the summer. It should have been the other way around, we agreed. After all, it’s winter when we’re indoors and lying on the sofa. In the summer, we’ll run around in the summer meadows and fish for crabs and play block, right? So why did the reading of Turi rise when the sun emerged from its winter lair? In her case, it could be that she has a balcony, and doesn’t have children she has to feed and drive to training. You can’t just sit on the balcony doing nothing, so reading a book becomes the perfect after-work activity. What about you? What is your peak reading season? When do you read the most? In the summer, definitely In the winter I read as much/little all year round Show result Anne Holt-gate The talk this week has been author Anne Holt’s furious reaction that Klassekampen’s journalist had interviewed the wrong Anne Holt (a pensioner) for a case about digital communication . The author himself reacted by becoming “flying, jumping, crushing, killingly pissed off” on his Facebook page. Both private individuals and other media have seen more humor in the case. Bransjeavisa The journalist, for example, interviewed six other Anne Holts about the case. One of the reasons why the author was so angry was that she had a deadline for proofreading her book and thought the case was stealing valuable time. Now, however, she has gone on holiday with her wife Tine, and shared this exchange of lines from the airport in Nice on her Facebook page: It won’t be the first time that line has been dropped, @therealanneholt. She has created that smash herself. The most banned book in the US What is shaping up to be one of the battle issues for the Republicans in the presidential election in 2024 is young transgender people, we are to believe the New York Times podcast The Daily. Although only a little over one percent of young Americans identify as transgender, this issue has a high payoff among Republican voters, politicians have discovered. Within the book world, this takes the form of campaigns to remove books about gender and identity from libraries. Governor Ron DeSantis shows off the law he signed that bans Florida teachers from teaching gender identity and orientation in schools. Not all the kids look so happy about it. Photo: Douglas R. Clifford / AP The book that tops the list of banned books is “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe. It is a drawn autobiography about a young person’s struggle to understand his gender and his orientation. Maia ends up calling herself asexual. She feels neither like a boy nor a girl, and does not experience any particular sexual desire or satisfaction. Maia was born in a girl’s body, but hates her tits and periods, and feels strong disgust at the thought of being penetrated by anything. A Pap test at the doctor is depicted in such a strong image that I will not share it here. We can thank author and publisher Bård Nannestad for the fact that the book is now available in Norwegian. As the father of an asexual boy, he looked for good literature to understand his child. The best he found was “Gender Queer”, and he bought the rights and published it on his small publishing house. Photo: Tristan Crane For me, the book was a strong and useful introduction to a part of the LGBTQ spectrum that I knew very little about. A striking aspect of Maia Kobabe’s story is how important books are to finding out who she is. Maia trawls her local library in search of books that can provide the key to the riddle “who am I”, and she finds many answers there. It is these books that are now being removed from libraries, for fear that children and young people will read them and “become” gay, trans or asexual. Had they read “Gender Queer” with an open mind, they would have seen that Maia goes to the books because she suffers in her own body. The pain experienced by young people will not go away because if they cannot find the right books in the library. This is how Maia Kobabe describes her gender identity in her drawn autobiography. Illustration: Maia Kobabe/Gender Queer / Måltrost forlag We should not forget that it is not only Americans who think that you can suddenly change your orientation and gender by reading a book. The prominent psychologist Benjamin Silseth published the book “Proud” last week, which is about being young and queer in Norway. When the publisher promoted the book on TikTok, there were strong negative comments. The idea that such a book can “taint” a young mind still stands strong. How to save a language – a bit Ok, now I’m going to talk about a publication that is both very narrow and completely global. Haile Bizen is an Eritrean who fled to Norway because of his criticism of the regime. He became a freelance writer in Kristiansand, now he lives in Lillehammer. He is behind a completely unique publication: The book “Let us say that I am” is a poem in Tigrinya and Norwegian. Haile Bizen is so disliked by the regime in his home country that it can be unsafe for other Eritreans to be seen together with him Photo: Siss Vik / news I have heard of the Tigray province, but I did not actually know that there was a separate language there. In Norway, there are approximately as many Tigrinya speakers as Danish speakers. Scattered across the globe, there are Eritreans and Ethiopians in exile, but how will they keep their language alive? Haile Bizen is hated by the regime in Eritrea and it is forbidden to own a book by him. Everything that is published there must go through the censorship. So in practice there is no free tigrinja. And who is going to publish poems in a minority language in links? Aschehoug has taken his share of the responsibility here. With this book, which is part of their Parallel series, they have made an offer to Tigrinya speakers all over the world. The book can be downloaded as an e-book, whether you live in Paris or Toronto. There’s just one more little problem. Several Tigrinja speakers cannot read their own written language. Haile Bizen’s mother, for example, is illiterate. His children can speak but not read Tigrinia. But the book also jumps over this obstacle, just as easily as Karsten Warholm. QR codes have been added to each poem, so you can hear Haile Bizen read them. This is what the setup looks like. Tigrinya is a Semitic language, based on 26 consonants. Photo: Aschehoug There is a lot of work behind such a publication, and I am glad they have taken the trouble. Haile Bizen writes bravely about flight and exile, but also has a subtle sense of humour. In some poems, he writes about Norwegian cities and phenomena, and makes me see them in new ways. I am therefore sharing a poem about Munch’s famous painting. Two screams Suddenly I’m face to face with the scream of Munchen’s older brother I’ve finally found I who was born and fattened up on the snarl of the war when the country’s supports snapped, clinging to the ice now Don’t answer with my own cry, he probably has enough to sit but in my mind I rustle loosen the frame and replace it with the scream in me Then the painting jerks and shudder Summer’s reading list Whether you read in the garden, on the balcony or in the backyard: My colleagues have collected good tips for summer reading in this list. It reminds me that I absolutely must read a book by Elizabeth Strout. Hope you also find something that tempts you. Perfect books for lazy summer days Comment Which book gives you new joy in the nature around you? Ten good answers get Bokbrevet’s new bookmark in the mail. Hello! Welcome to dialogue at news. 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Book letter #17 Tolkien’s description of nature has made me want to learn more about trees – Siss Vik’s book letter
