Drama landscapes
A Lucky Man – Contemporary Sámi Dramas (Napkút Kiadó 2017) Many thanks to Napkút Kiadó for sending me the book! The Sámi (formerly known as Lapps, which are no longer used because of their negative meaning) live in Northern Europe, in Sámiland, which is shared by four countries: more than half of the Sámi population live in Norway and the rest in Sweden, in Finland and a small community lives in Russia. In this book we can read four plays and an essay in Hungarian translation, with which we can gain an insight into the multilingual and diverse world of contemporary Sámi theatre. I also really liked that we could read not only the dramas, but also the explanations of the translators and we were also able to learn about the historical implications. The dramas deal with current problems affecting the Sámi people such as climate change, discrimination or meeting…
Online education
Dan Levy: Teaching Effectively with Zoom – A practical guide to engage your students and help them learn (published by Dan Levy 2020) Many thanks to Geopen Kiadó for sending me the book! Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many educational institutions were forced to close their doors in 2020 and teachers had to learn to teach online without any transition. The author of the book, Dan Levy, a professor at Harvard University, did not teach online courses of his own accord either: he was forced to do so. The professor is a committed believer in successful and effective teaching and strives to make the most of the online method in order to pass on as much information as possible to his students. The author stated that there is no substitute for personal interactions, however, he tried to show the benefits of digital education: for example, students can try new types…
Digital nomads
Rachael A. Woldoff, Robert C. Litchfield: Digital Nomads – In Search of Freedom, Community, and Meaningful Work in the New Economy (Osford University Press 2021) Many thanks to Pallas Athéné Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! Advances in technology, mobility and changes in the world of work have made it possible for a group of people to emerge, who have no need for a fixed place to work, can live and work anywhere in the world and need nothing else but a stable internet connection. They are digital nomads. They were mostly members of Generation Y (born between 1981 and 1996) who got tired of working in big cities around the world and preferred freedom. To do this, they sold their assets, got rid of their property, and left behind their family, friends, and often the successes they had achieved until then in their work. This subculture values nonconformism, positivity,…
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog (L’élégance du hérisson originally published by Gallimard 2006) Many thanks to Geopen Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! Muriel Barbery was born in Morocco, but his parents moved back to France shortly after her birth. She completed her schools here and got her doctorate in philosophy. She also lived in Japan and currently lives in Europe. She has written four books so far, The Elegance of the Hedgehog is the second and most successful of her book, which has won several awards, has been reprinted fifty times and has been purchased in millions of copies in the first two years since its publication. The book was published in Hungarian by Geopen Könyvkiadó in a beautiful edition of the Contemporary World Literary Series. The two narrators in the story are Renée, the housekeeper, and Paloma, a little girl living on the fifth floor of…
Senegal
Erika Sólyom: Szenegálom (My Senegal*) (Napkút Kiadó 2020) Many thanks to Napkút Kiadó for sending me the book! Linguist and language teacher Erika Sólyom went on January 11, 2011 on the memorable journey from which this book was born. The author spent 11 days in Senegal giving a glimpse into the everyday lives of the locals. The love for the wolof language, the people, food and music of Senegal was born during the author’s years in New York and has since been waiting for the opportunity to personally visit this interesting country. The book is not an ordinary travel book, we can read the personal experiences and impressions of the author, which is permeated by the love she feels for the country and the people. Her descriptions are so expressive that we can almost smell the scent of the incenses and the delicious food and see the bustle of the…
Illustrators – Paola Escobar
Anna James: Pages & Co. – Tilly and the Map of Stories (HarperCollins Publishers 2020) Tamzin Merchant: The Hatmakers (Penguin Random House 2021) Paola Escobar is a Colombian graphic designer and illustrator who made drawings for her grandmother’s tales as a child and has always wanted to illustrate children’s books. She has worked with publishers around the world and is proud to illustrate stories that celebrate cultural diversity and heroes of the everyday life. She illustrated the award-winning picture book Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré. You can already read about the first two volume of the Pages & Co. series on BogiWrites here and here. In this story, Tilly and Oscar travel to Washington D.C. to unravel a mystery that can affect not only the fictional characters, but ordinary people as well. We can also venture into Shakespeare’s works in this book. The fourth volume…
Chronicles of Beleanord
Nóra Tomcsik: A hercegnő és a sárkányok dala (The Princess and the Song of the Dragons*) (Mogul Kiadó 2021) Nóra Tomcsik: A kapitány és a szirének földje (The Captain and the Land of the Sirens*) (Mogul Kiadó 2021) Many thanks to Mogul Kiadó for sending me the books! Nóra Tomcsik already wrote tales when she couldn’t even write: she drew the stories. After drawing, she was also interested in photography and filmmaking, but in the end, writing novels became what she could best express herself in. She usually writes historical fiction, but the two volumes of the Chronicles of Beleanord are adventurous fairy tales. They have everything you need for a good fairy tale: knights, princes, princesses, dragons and a hint of magic. ’The Princess and the Song of the Dragons’ is the first volume of the chronicles. With the help of Sir Marcus, the famous knight, Edmund and Felicia…
Illustrators – Tove Jansson
Tove Jansson: Comet in Moominland (Sort of Books 2017) Tove Jansson: The Moomins and the Great Flood (Sort of Books 2012) Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Tate Publishing 2011) Tove Jansson is Scandinavia’s best-known children’s author (along with Astrid Lindgren), whose work is also significant as an illustrator, comic book writer and adult’s book writer. She belonged to the Swedish minority in Finland and wrote the first version of her first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in the shadow of the war in 1939 when she needed a story that begins with “ Once upon a time ”, but she didn’t want to write about princes and princesses, so she made the inhabitants of Mumin Valley, whom she had forgotten then. She finished and illustrated the story in 1945. This was her first happy ending as she wrote in the preface to the 1991 reprint of the…
Illustrators – Laura Ellen Anderson
Laura Ellen Anderson: Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball (HarperCollins Publishers 2017) Laura Ellen Anderson: Amelia Fang and the Unicorn Lords (HarperCollins Publishers 2018) Laura Ellen Anderson: Rainbow Grey (HarperCollins Publishers 2021) Enid Blyton: Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island (Hachette Children’s Group 2017) In this new series, I will write about illustrators I love, and who are famous abroad and have already published their work in Hungary as well. The first one is Laura Ellen Anderson, of whom I have written before, which can be read here. Laura Ellen Anderson lives in London and works as author and illustrator of children’s books and comics. She graduated as an illustrator in 2010 and has worked with a number of English and American publishers since then. Her first book, which she notes not only as an illustrator but also as a writer, Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball was published…
Football fever
Nick Hornby: Fever Pitch (first published by Gollancz 1992) I had wanted to reread this book before, but now the Euro 2020 provided the perfect milieu for it. Nick Hornby is currently one of the most successful English writers, but he is also an editor and a screenwriter (for example, he wrote the screenplay for the movie adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn). He may mostly be known for his novel High Fidelity, but Fever Pitch was his first book, which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award back in the year of its English publication (1992). I’ve already written about another one of his books in the past, which you can read here. By the way, his sister Gill Hornby is also a writer, you will most certainly read about her on the blog as well. ’The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no…