... to the Ancient Greeks, virtue wasn't goodness or nobility, but the ability to do a certain thing in the very best way - arete was their word, the capacity for excellence.

Han Kang (Greek Lessons)

When I walk into complete darkness, is it all right if I remember you without this unreleting ache?

Han Kang (Greek Lessons)

I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.

Charles Bukowski (Women)

But she felt something else far more, and far stronger - which was that she wanted Benoît to walk down the lane and board a train and walk out across the globe that she’d spun with her finger on winter nights. To see oceans. Run. She’d smiled. ‘Don’t say.’

Susan Fletcher ‘Let me tell you about a man I knew’

“You can’t always wait for the perfect time. Sometimes you just have to jump.”

— Unknown

I like life, that's my real weakness.

Albert Camus (The fall)

At least for some people, believe me, not taking what you don't want is the hardest thing in the world

Albert Camus (The fall)

Books read 2020

Reading across many different genres. So much tempting stuff out here :-) Some of it not what I expected. Makes it even more exciting. In the actual order of reading:

Yuko Tsushima (2017) Territory of light. Penguin Books, London, 122pp.

Nikolai Gogol (2014) The Government Inspector & other works. Wordsworth Classics, Ware, xxxv + 552pp.

Han Kang (2018) The white book. Portobello Books, London, 161pp.

Jonas Jonasson (2016) Hitman Anders and the meaning of it all. 4th Estate, London, 370pp.

Francis Fukuyama (2012) The end of history and the last man. Penguin Books, London, xxiii + 418pp.

JK Rowling (2014) Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban. Bloomsbury, London, 462pp.

Jean-Paul Sartre (2000) Nausea. Penguin Books, London, xx + 253pp.

Ole Schultz Larsen (2017) Håndbog til dansk. Systime, Aarhus, 356pp.

Mary Beard (2016) SPQR - a history of ancient Rome. Profile Books, London, 606pp.

John Williams (2003) Augustus. Vintage Books, London, xv + 317pp.

Tom Shippey (2005) The road to Middle-Earth. HarperCollinsPublishers, London, xxi + 474pp.

Paul Collier (2011) The plundered planet. Penguin Book, London, xv + 271pp.

Steven Pinker (2018) Enlightenment now. Viking, New York, xix + 556pp.

Piero Boitano (2020) A new sublime. Europa Editions, London, 268pp.

Elizabeth Strout (2019) Olive, again. Viking, London, 289pp.

Erich Fromm (1990) The sane society. Holt Paperbacks, New York, xiv + 370pp.

Éric Vuillard (2019) The order of the day. Picador, London, 129pp.

Edward O. Wilson (1998) Consilience. Abacus, London, 374pp.

Adam D. Kiš (2018) The development trap. Routledge, New York, xvii + 171pp.

Anthony Everitt (2013) The rise of Rome. Random House, New York, xxxii + 478pp.

Chris Scarre (1995) Historical atlas of ancient Rome. Penguin Books, London, 144pp.

Steven Radelet (2015) The great surge. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, xiv + 354pp.

Sulmaan Wasif Khan (2015) Muslim, trader, nomad, spy. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, xxiv + 189pp.

Keigo Higashino (2019) Newcomer. Abacus, London, 322pp.

Anton Chekhov (2018) The lady with the dog and other stories. Stories: Volume one. Riverrun, London, viii + 471pp.

George R.R. Martin (2011) A storm of swords. Part I: Steel and snow. HarperVoyager, London, 623pp.

Julius Caesar (2008) The Gallic war. Oxford University Press, Oxford, li + 260pp.

Alice Monroe (2015) Lives of girls and women. Vintage Books, London, 320pp. 

Petronius Arbiter (undated) The satyricon. Ægypan Press, Milon Keynes, 289pp.

Dorthe Nors (2018) Kort over Canada. Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 137pp.

Alan Lee (2005) The Lord of the Rings sketchbook. HarperCollinsPublishers, London, 192pp.

Douglas Murray (2020) The madness of crowds. Bloomsbury, London, 293pp.

Peter H Diamandis and Steven Kotler (2014) Abundance. Free Press, London, xiii + 412pp. 

Daniel J. Miller (2008) Drokpa - nomads of the Tibetan plateau and Himalaya. Vajra Publications, Kathmandu, 133pp.

Leslie S Klinger (ed) (2014) The new annotated H.P. Lovecraft. Liveright Publishing Corporation, London, lxx + 852pp.

Lawrence Durrell (2012) The black book. Faber and Faber, London, 244pp.

The discovery of the statue of Antinous, Delphi, Greece,1894

“You have never been so connected to me. Distance have never been so completely defeated.”

— Nikos Kazantzakis, from a letter to Emmanuel Papastefanou c. Jan. 1923

“If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”

— Vincent Van Gogh

“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.”

— Rumi

“I conceive of God, in fact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others.”

— James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

Books read 2019

Herman Hesse (2000) The glass bead game. Vintage Books, London, 530pp.

Benjamin Linder (2017) Beyond the creeping light. Vajra Books, Kathmandu, xix + 48pp. JRR Tolkien (2018) The fall of Gondolin. HarperCollinsPublishers, London, 304pp. Ken Follett (2017) A column of fire. Macmillan, London, xiii + 751pp. Franz Kafka (2014) The complete short stories. Projapoti, Calcutta, ix + 412pp. George RR Martin (2011) A clash of kings. HarperVoyager, London, 911pp. Arne Drews (2018) Himalaya gold - a Nepal detective story. Vajra Books, Kathmandu, ix + 118pp. Nikita Gill (2017) Wild embers. Trapeze, London, x + 150pp. Elizabeth Strout (2017) Anything is possible. Viking, London, 254pp. Maggie Nelson (2015) The Argonauts. Melville House UK, London, 180pp. Stephen King (2013) Doctor Sleep. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 485pp. Roland Barthes (2002) A lover’s discourse. Vintage Books, London, 234pp. Anton Chekhov (2015) The prank. New York Review Books, New York, xvi + 114pp. Kurt Vonnegut (2006) God bless you, Mr. Rosewater. Dial Press Trade Paperbacks, New York, 275pp. Hans Rosling (2018) Factfulness. Sceptre, London, x + 342pp. Alexander Pushkin (2010) Yevgeny Onegin. Everyman Classics, Gurgaon, xxix + 232pp. John Howe (2018) A Middle-Earth traveller. HarperCollinsPublishers, London, 192pp. Alice Munro (2007) The progress of love. Vintage Books, London, 309pp. Heinrich Harrer (1997) Seven years in Tibet. HarperCollinsPublishers, New Delhi, xv + 288pp. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2017) Americanah. 4th Estate, London, 477pp. Heinrich Harrer (1985) Return to Tibet. Penguin Books, London, 184pp. Roy Jacobsen (2014) De usynlige. Rosinante, Copenhagen, 216pp. Jussi Adler-Olsen (2016) Kvinden i buret. Politikens Forlag, Copenhagen, 379pp. Peter Høgh (1993) Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne. Rosinante, Copenhagen, 435pp. Dorthe Nors (2016) Spejl, skulder, blink. Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 191pp. Albert Camus (2000) The rebel. Penguin Books, London, xii + 260pp. Hermann Hesse (2014) Strange news from another star. Pygmaion LLP, i + 28pp. Aksel Sandemose (2010) En flygtning krydser sit spor. Schønberg, Copenhagen, 439pp. Celeste Ng (2017) Little fires everywhere. Penguin Press, New York, 338pp. GRR Martin, EM García and L Antonsson (2014) The world of fire and ice. Bantam Books, New York, 326pp. Paul Auster (2011) Oracle night. Faber and Faber, London, 207pp. Hermann Hesse (2012) Knulp. Pygmaion LLP, i + 91pp. Erich Fromm (1995) The art of loving. Thorsons, London, viii + 104pp. Yoko Ogawa (2009) The diving pool. Vintage Books, London, 164pp. Rune T Kidde (1999) 101 mak og mesterværker. Forlaget Modtryk, Århus, 160pp. Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (2005) Paul and Virginia. Peter Owen, London, 142pp. Halfdan Rasmussen (1969) Forventning. Det Schønbergske Forlag, Copenhagen, 85pp. Carl Gustav Jung (2003) Aspects of the feminine. Routledge, London, viii + 213pp. Sally Rooney (2018) Normal people. Faber & Faber, London, 266pp. Rabindranath Tagore (2012) Gitanjali. Penguin Books, New Delhi, lxxxvi + 257pp. Hermann Hesse (1998) Rosshalde. Picador, New York, 213pp. Gregory David Roberts (2015) The mountain shadow. Little, Brown, London, 873pp. Patrick Süskind (2010) Perfume. Penguin Books, London, 263pp. Kurt Vonnegut (1990) Hocus pocus. Vintage Books, London, iii + 268pp. Haruki Murakami (2018) Killing commendatore. Vintage, London, 681pp. JK Rowling (2018) Harry Potter & and the chamber of secrets. Bloomsbury, London, 360pp. William Shakespeare (2016) King Lear. Penguin Book, Gurgaon, 160pp.

Wassily Kandinsky 

1866-1944 

KREIS UND RECHTECK || CIRCLE AND RECTANGLE, August 1932

Watercolor and gouache on paper mounted on card  20 ¾ x 12 ½ in. | 52.7 x 31.7 cm.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

— Anaïs Nin, Diary, 1969