July 2012 - Tromsø Bed & Books' Blog

Lilacs

Summer in Tromsø: May lilacs and October rain. The calendar says July, but who could tell? It keeps raining. We forgot what the sun feels like. But the lilacs… the incredibly delightful summer smell when you open the door.

Jeff Buckley helps too. The rain on the windows and a house full of books. A cup of tea and some maps to plan the next hike up a mountain, this too could make for a summer day, in October or May or July… under a lilac tree, under a concrete sky.

Edward Hopper’s reading women

Edward Hopper has made numerous iconic paintings of American life in the 30s and 40s. Among them several images depicting women reading. The images have an aura of peace and calm about them, like this painting called “Hotel Room” from 1931. A woman is sitting solemly in crammed hotel room, her suitcases stacked in the corner, reading in the cold light presumable from a lamp in the room, hat on the drawer, shoes kicked off. Outside it looks like dark night.

Reading and travelling are two activities that go together for many of us – either if you pick literature that relates to the place you’re going, or literature about something else, someplace else, thereby travelling in two levels, both the imaginary and the real.

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Lilacs

Edward Hopper’s reading women