Great Cristmas gifts and reads: fiction and facts

Are you looking for books to give away or read during the upcoming holidays? Here are a few inexpensive books I really, really like. Above: two novels I cannot get out of my mind! Both are beautifully written (very important to me) - poetic and realistic at the same time, explaining a few of the traumas of our time. I cannot recommend them too much! Don't take my word for it. Check out the reviews below. But first something about each book.  

PURGE 

About the book: Deep in an Estonian forest, two women, one young, one old, are hiding. Both women have survived lives of abuse. But this time their survival depends on revealing the one thing history has taught them to keep safely hidden: the truth. A haunting, intimate and gripping story of suspicion, betrayal and retribution against a backdrop of Soviet oppression and European war.

Reviews:  [A] bold combination of history, politics, and suspense. Sunday Times (UK). Purge is that very rare thing, a sheer masterpiece. A marvel. I hope that everyone in the world who knows how to read, reads Purge." Nancy Huston, author of Fault Lines. A stunner. A compelling look at what we do to survive. Karen R. Long, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland). This wonderfully subtle thriller... captures the universal horrors that war inflicts on women. With a tone somewhere between Ian McEwan’s Atonement and the best of the current crop of European crime novelists, this bitter gem promises great things from the talented Oksanen. Kirkus Reviews. Purge stands out. Murder, sexual violence and political history combine to place Oksanen in the front rank of crime novelists. Sunday Times Books of the Year. 

THE HOUSE OF THE MOSQUE 

About the book: Welcome to the house of the mosque...Iran, 1950. Spring has arrived, and as the women prepare the festivities, Sadiq waits for a suitor to knock on the door. Her uncle Nosrat returns from Tehran with a glamorous woman, while on the rooftop, Shahbal longs only for a television to watch the first moon landing. But not even the beloved grandmothers can foresee what will happen in the days and months to come. In this uplifting bestseller, Kader Abdolah charts the triumphs and tragedies of a family on the brink of revolution. 

Reviews: An impressive book [telling] a tragic story illustrating the power of the human spirit to conquer. The Bookseller. Expertly mingles fiction and personal history to create a thought-provoking novel. Waterstones Books Quarterly. Sensual, beguiling and elegantly translated. Herald Arts

Maybe you prefer to give, or read  (well... more like: look at pictures) about some great Scandinavian design and interiors? Here are two inexpensive books I can recommend: Scandinavian Design and Sweden Style, both published by Taschen. 

About the books:

SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN provides a detailed look at Scandinavian design from 1900 to the present day, with in-depth entries on featured designers and design-led companies, plus essays on the similarities and differences in approach between Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark.

SWEDEN STYLE brings together a warm and colorful selection of cozy, quaint country interiors in the land of northern lights and white nights, from seaside cottages to traditional farmhouses and royal manors.

Happy Reading! 

What books would YOU recommend? 

WABI SABI interior design art photography

Beautiful slow design by Andrea Brugi

I've written about Andrea Brugi's beautiful wooden craft before, 

and here some new images from his studio in Italy. 

Andrea Brugi: I never decide how a piece should look. 

It is the grain and the shape of the piece of wood that determines the final result. 

You may find his work at the SlowFashionHouse online. 

WABI SABI Lisbeth Williams @ Williams Design

Trompe L'oeil paint your wall and fireplace

What a clever way to paint a concrete wall, 

when you want to make a space more personal. 

I guess you need to fix the dominant focal point in the room,

before you start to draw the lines on the walls and on the chimney. 

Any color combos will do, of course.

If you are not into color, how about shades of grey?

I saw this great idea by artist Ernst Caramelle here. 

WABI SABI Lisbeth Williams @ Williams Design

Enter here - exit there

Again, a few images of what interest me a lot: 

the borders between outside and inside. 

This time doors/entrances. 

I'm trying to pick a favorite, but cant! 

They are all awesome! 

Can you pick one? 

In her comment below, Eva Thury made me aware of the term Liminality, 

and wanting know more, I found this information at Wikipedia: 

In anthropology, liminality 

(from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold"[1]) 

is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation 

that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, 

when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status 

but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold 

when the ritual is complete. 

During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" 

between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, 

and a new way, which the ritual establishes.

Click on images to go to the source. 

WABI SABI Lisbeth Williams @ Williams Design

Today I listen to: Monica Zetterlund

Video of the fantastic recording of Some Other Time, with Bill Evans Trio, 1965. 

From a Swedish documentary, where Monica Zetterlund looks back 

at her singing and acting career. 

WABI SABI Lisbeth Williams @ Williams Design

Gotland summer house: just the basics

You can find this stunning atrium house by Tham & Widegård Arkitekter, on the island Gotland in Sweden. The house sits in an open, undisturbed landscape with grazing sheep all around. All wood and concrete interiors. Simple and relaxed. 

 The house is beautifully situated on the shoreline, overlooking the Baltic Sea. 

More photos and information on the architect's website.   

WABI SABI Lisbeth Williams @ Williams Design

How do you see colors?

Interior decoration is really, really hot in Sweden. "Everyone" wants to work as an interior decorator - something I'm aware of as a blogger and educator (my courses are always fully booked). At my courses, the students spend a full day studying, analyzing and discussing color in theory and practice. In one exercise I let my students "calibrate" their brains (!), to understand how different we all interpret color (good to know when you meet your clients). Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Today I found an interesting test online, where you can test YOUR color vision. I just did, and I wasn't perfect ;-) I made 4 misstakes. Test your own color vision here.

WABI SABI Lisbeth Williams @ Williams Design

Today I listen to: Jamiroquai

WABI SABI Lisbeth Williams @ Williams Design

December 13: Lucia celebrations in Sweden

 

On December 13 we celebrate Lucia in Sweden Then, in the wee hours of the morning, young people knock on doors of family and friends, and wake them up with a song, hot coffee and Lussebullar (saffron buns recipe here), as in Carl Larson's painting below. (The two young ladies in the 1919 photo above are Anna Bylander & Kerstin Johansson.)

One theory claims that the Lucia celebration evolved from old Swedish traditions of star boys and white-dressed angels singing Christmas carols at different events during Advent and Christmas. The current tradition of having a white-dressed woman with candles in her hair appearing on the morning of the Lucia day, December 13, started in the late 18th century and spread slowly to other parts of the country during the 19th century. (Wikipedia)

Above: In the Lucia procession in the home, depicted by Carl Larsson in 1908, the oldest daughter brings coffee and St. Lucia buns to her parents while wearing a candle-wreath and singing a Lucia song. Other daughters may help, dressed in the same kind of white robe and carrying a candle in one hand, but only the oldest daughter wears the candle-wreath. (Wikipedia)

Lucia use to scare the living daylight out of the Nobel Prize Winners and their families, while still in Sweden after the festivities. Nowadays the laureats are asked in advance if they want to be woken up by a singing Lucia and her entourage. Why miss out on an old Swedish tradition? Most of them say yes. 

If you are still curious what this Lucia tradition is all about, check out the beautiful video below, filmed some years ago at painter Anders Zorn's studio in Mora:

(This post is a repost from last year.)