The hedgehog revisited

I was talking to the editors at Sekwa publications, that translated and published L'élegance du hérisson, Muriel Barbery, in Swedish. I understood that a 2nd and 3rd print had been requested, so far reaching a volume of 18.000. A recent article about the publishing house and it's success here (in Swedish). Naturally, I have read the book and enjoyed the story about the friendship between Renée, the concierge in bourgeois Paris and Paloma, a twelve-year old girl living in the building, two extraordinarily intelligent individuals (women). Soon, Mr Ozu, a courteous Japanese man, is moving into the building and join their little circle of friends. It's sweet, it's insightful and even funny. My main critique was that I have read too many books lately switching narrative perspectives between different caracters in every second chapter. During summer I saw the movie, too. Instead of keeping her diary, Paloma is here filming her family member to their nuisance. Even though Josiane Balasko is doing a great performance as Renée I preferred the book.

The hedgehog, now in Swedish

The French novel the Elegance of the Hedgehog (L'Elégance du hérisson) by Muriel Barbery has now been published in Swedish: Igelkottens elegans . Critics were good and the book went straight to the top of the sales as most popular book at the internet bookstore adlibris. However, while the sales in France exceeded a million books, the Swedish edition is quite modest: 6500 for a start .

Guerlain Cravings

Oh, I just discovered this amazing coffret with a selection of 18 fragrances from Guerlain...

Shifts

I joined the Swedish group blog Skiften (in Swedish), blogging about the future society, shifts and disruptive evolution. There is 6 of us blogging and we comment on each others posts, and receive comments from readers, check it out!

Perfume - the Story of a Murderer

Too much nano- and microblogging and too little blogging lately. Still, I read the Perfume - the Story of a Murderer (1985), Patrick Süskind. I don't know what took me so long, it's a precious gem that turns around Jean-Baptise Grenouille in 18th century France. If it was originally written in French I would definitely had gone for that version, but no (it's in German). The novel explores the function of scent and contains quite a lot of technical descriptions of scent extraction, but not too much. Grenouille, born without any odour whatsoever, has an amazing sense of smell. He becomes an apprentice in the making of perfume and leaves Paris for Grasse, on a quest for the ultimate human scent.

A Year of Creativity and Innovation!

The next year has already started and in the European Union it will be the year of creativity and innovation, just great! The European Year of Creativity and Innovation has the objective to raise awareness of importance of creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic development, to disseminate good practices, stimulate education and research, and promote policy debate and development.

Pattern Recognition

"We have no future because our present is too volatile. […] We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern Recognition." /William Gibson

August Prize Laureates 2008

Per Olov Enquist received tonight the Swedish August literary award for his novel and autoportrait Ett annat liv (Another life), (Norstedts). This was his second time as August Prize laureate. In the category of non-fiction it was by Paul Duncan & Bengt Wanselius who received the August Prize for Regi Bergman (Bokförlaget Max Ström) about Ingmar Bergman's life long work and achievements. It is a heavy masterpiece!