The days are becoming shorter and the air is cooler….. and soon it will be time to light a fire in the fireplace….. and snuggle on the couch with a nice cup of steaming tea and a good book.

….. and if you need an idea for a book that will creep up your backbone and make you tremble with excitement and disgust….. then this book is for you:

For me, Bagsværd (a town close to where I grew up) has always been a place I associated with pleasant jogging around the lake and old villas with apple trees….. but after reading Lotte & Søren Hammer’s debut “Svinehunde” (translated to: Barstards), Bagsværd has transformed to a gloomy and creepy place.

And it is in Bagsværd this book takes its start. On an early morning, two schoolchildren find five men hanging naked and mistreated from the ceiling in the gymnastics hall at their school. Who are they? Who has done this? And not least - what is the cause of such violent killings?

Chief Inspector Konrad Simonsen and his colleagues are summoned and investigative work is started….. there is a link to the past, and as the net tightens, more crimes are committed.

“Svinehunde” (Barstards) is probably one of the books which has received most publicity (both before and after release), and that has created high expectations - at least on my part. I think the book comes to a real good start, and I quickly became trapped by the cruel atmosphere in the gym.

The characters in the book are good and realistic and I quick felt sympathy for the Chief Inspector….. and also a hint of sympathy for one of the criminals, as it dawned on me how it’s all connected……

….. a kind of sympathy is also what the population in the book feels, and that complicates the investigation…… as there are acts of nature so ugly, that you can almost justify vengeance.

…..and if you’ve read my blog, you know that I have been on a holiday in Denmark, and that this holiday has primarily been about relaxation and good food….. but I have also found time for a book or two….. and one of them was:

Nynne 4 - Everything must go (Alt skal væk)

I am sorry, but I can’t help it….. I had to read it …… one might say, that I’m kind of addicted…… but you know, it is hardly surprising I wanted to spend a few hours in Nynnes always entertaining company.

And Nynne is back….. forty, fat and finished? No, not quite - but at least forty, slightly overweight and still only just begun.

Nynne is 45, and still battling with embarrassing details, confessions and life - she has half of Poland living in her basement, and she still hasn’t cleared up the Husum thing….. and finally, her ex-boyfriend Thomas is trying to erase the ex…

But although she is somewhat older now, she is still an important person…… not just for us readers….. certainly for her children…..or perhaps most the youngest boy, who at eight has started a somewhat early teenage rebellion, with black dyed hair and plenty of mood swings.

And then there is this Icelander who suddenly pops up. Who would have thought Nynne had a father?….. at the age of 45 mind you! Or that she would share house with a bunch of Polish craftsmen.

And then she has to carry her friend Merete to alcohol treatment…. and about time….. that woman was surely becoming a bit of a drunk…… you know, to send live-web from the bathtub….. it really does not work….. not in the long run….. and when the Handyman can’t handle the task, Nynne has to step in…… Thank good, I don’t have such problems…… Yet…… who knows what life has in store for all of us, who are approaching the middle forty’s.

Anyway, my recommendation: Off you go….. of to the bookstore and buy that book….. it is candy for Nynne fans. Nynne is (unfortunately) not my friend (but I wish she was). She is entertaining, she is (sometimes) wise and she follows both high culture (x-factor) and policy (the summit) and all of it with fun and crooked comments……

….. and if you are not a Nynne fan yet - buy all the books, I promise you will be wonderfully entertainment, for the rest of the summer.

….. we’re on tour again: Asserbo, Tisvilde and Tibirke, charmes in the sun with soft coast poetry, delicate lighting and intense flavor of the plantation, dry pine with red-brown resin and thriving beach roses….. swallows crackling under the bright sky…..

….. sea, wind and seagulls ……

I met this beautiful lady on my way through the dunes…..

….. and her sister on the way home.

Today’s menu:

Carrots with olives, feta cheese and parsley

1.2 kg. carrots
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 chopped garlic cloves
cayenne pepper
2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
200g black olives with stones (preferably Greek Kalamata)
100 g feta cheese
parsley (preferably broadleaf)

Do this:
Peel carrots and cut them into sticks.
Put them in an ovenproof dish and turn them with oil, garlic and cayenne pepper.
Bake them in the oven at 200 degrees for approx. 20-25 minutes (they should be golden and tender but still have bite. Turn the carrots during baking.
Remove olive stones and chop them coarsely.
Turn the carrots gently with olive and lemon juice.
Serving: Crumble feta over carrots and garnish with chopped parsley.

Tips:
A good feta and olives with lot’s of flavor makes the big difference here.
The dish is good with bread and all kinds of fish and meat (we serve it with grilled tenderloin and salad).

Photos: private, womman-hood

“Great parties, after all, are never about boring realities but an opportunity to live out our heightened selves… ”

 - Thomas Persson / Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director, Acne Paper

….. and in celebration of its 10^th issue, Acne Paper captures the spirit of creative people coming together, over dance, drink and chatter. In it’s pages you can expect interviews and appearances by the world’s most legendary hosts and party people, like Leigh Bowery, Andy Warhol, Brigitte Bardot, Cecilia Dean, Benjamin Liu, Graydon Carter, and Lady Bunny .

From The Last Supper (the worlds most famous dinner party, after all) to Versailles, from La Palace to Max’s Kansas City - this season’s Paper sees the celebration not only as a center for debauchery, but also a place where some of the most exciting ideas have been exchanged. With its wine-stained pages, it’s the perfect counter part when you’re all dressed up with nowhere to go….. Plus, there’s no hangover included.

Get your issue here!

Wallpaper from Katie Ridder

….. with my daughter. A girl’s night with “Sex and the City 2 - The movie”, but I must admit: my expectations are not Big (the last movie was not a hit - in my opinion)….. but who knows?

One of Carrie lines in the movie is: “I’ve been cheating on fashion with furniture”….. here are some photos from Mr. Big and Carrie’s home….. and Ohhhh horror….. I am sorry Carrie, but you don’t have much style when it comes to home interior….. or maybe it is the designer Lydia Marks one should blame.

But anyway: the blue pouf in their living room is lovely….. it’s designed by Anne Kyyrrö Quinn. The gray armchair comes from Bergdorf Goodman, and it is from the forties and designed by the English architect TH Robsjohn Gibbings. The pillow lying on the floor is from Paul Smith and is called Birdie Blossom.

Foto: Sex and the city 2 - The movie interior HBO

“The smell of coffe”; which is written by Marlene Dietz. Back then, I among other things wrote in my review, that “The smell of coffee” was a very entertaining book that was worth reading. I’m sorry I can’t say the same about Marlene Dietz new book: “Cocktail Club”.

Cocktail Club is too predictable and the main character Cecilie is so naive that it interferes with the reading.

The plot: Cecilie, who is bored in her life as a medical student, grabs the chance for a more colorful life when it is offered to her. Head over heels in love, she follows the object of her desire to Copenhagen where she receives a job offer she can’t turn down, and ends up in an apartment with a bunch of other girls. Before she knows what happened, her life is suddenly focused on entertain men….. for money.

Cecilie is now a part of The Cocktail Club. Suddenly champagne, fancy parties and expensive dinners are all part of her everyday life. Cecilie is thrown into a life of drugs, alcohol, partying and eating disorders, and only too late does she realize that the coin has an unexpected flipside.

My recommendation: Perhaps the problem whit this book primarily is, that I expected to read a pleasant and entertaining chick book….. and for me it is impossible to read about a serious theme as student prostitution, as light and amusing chick lit.

What a great book…..

….. usually Tracy Chevalier’s books center around a painting or some artistic element, but this time, it centered around a place. An old, church-of-England cemetery, where the Catholics are buried next to the suicides, in a section referred to as “the dissenters”. If I can say one thing about this book, I have to say I learned so much about Victorian traditions regarding it (you can visit her site HERE).

The book centers around two families, during a time of change in England. Queen Victoria (the current queens Great-Grandmother) has just passed away and her son Edward has taken power.

The one family is looking forward, and their daughter Maude is having an effect on her best friend, Livy’s, family for this. The friends family is looking back and the mother especially is digging her feet in towards the changes. Maude’s mother gets involved in Women’s Rights, and starts to abandon the Victorian rules. She even bares her ankles *gasp!* and shows spirit, during a time when it was still a faux pas to do so.

A great and very telling book.

Happy Reading!

Lisa Nilsson….. today, can’t wait!

(Image:here)

….. some reading this weekend….. and the choice fell on “The Hypnotist” by Lars Kepler….. and Ushhhh that’s intense and shocking reading.

The plot: Erik Maria Bark, a doctor specializing in treatment of highly traumatized people (in the past also with hypnosis), is in the middle of the night called to Karolinska hospital, where a 15-year-old boy is seriously injured. He is the only survivor of a family massacre.

It turns out there is also an older sister, who is now disappeared. To find her before the killer does, criminal commissioner Joona Linna decided to use unconventional methods: He wants Bark to gently interrogate the boy, under hypnosis, to try to get a description of the murderer.

Bark has however promised himself never to use hypnotize again (Bark is in general a little unstable). Where Linna, is a rock, calm and reliable, Bark is a man who is under a lot of strain.

Bark has problems with stress and insomnia and he is taking a lot of pills…… he is carrying a old guilt, because of something that happened during those hypnosis sessions, which ended abruptly a decade ago….. besides that, he also lives in anxiety for his son who is suffering from a bleeding disorder - something which has not become easier now that his son is a teenager with his own life.

As a result of above, his marriage is dysfunctional. So when the phone rings in the middle of night, and Bark starts seeing demons again, his wife believes that it’s a ten years old adultery story that has started again.

But if Bark thought his life was hard before, it is nothing to compare against the far more extensive and frightening chain reaction, which is launch after he gives in to the police’s strong plea for help.

Within a few nerve racking December day, in a Stockholm, which is currently shut down because of snow and Christmas, Bark must together with Linna confront himself with the suppressed chapters of his own history, as well as the dark chapters of his fellow human beings.

I thought: It’s an intense and shocking tour de force through - in more than one sense - desolate and deserted landscapes. In search of a criminal who is obsessed with the strongest and most vulnerable human point: the relationship between parents and children. This book is gripping, creepy and scary, but at the same time an unforgettable reading experienceIt.

But read it and judge for yourself.