Glimpses of life in Austria

I haven't made it a habit to share on the blog the images I post on Instagram, but these last months the time for blogging has been limited and a lot has happened: We recently moved to Austria, both our daughters went to university abroad and I decided to switch gears: I started my Master's in Museology, which I'm fortunate to be able to study online at the University of Iceland. Textbooks, lectures and assignments are keeping me busy but I felt the blog needed updating and decided to use images from my archive, of the Traunsee region, a bookshop in Vienna and two study-related still lifes.

This was my first visit to the Traunsee region and I will never forget the moment I first spotted the lake: My heart skipped a beat. The scenery was achingly beautiful. On a sunny Sunday we drove through small villages, enjoyed lunch by the lake in Altmünster, and afterwards headed to Gmunden. Later we were invited to a garden party in Gmunden, where we dined al fresco on the hillside overlooking the lake, with the Traunstein mountain so close it almost felt as if we could reach the hand out and touch it.

I love finding books in my mailbox. The staff at Fitzcarraldo Editions sent me a copy of I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux, published last week in the UK (translated by Tanya Leslie). This is how I described the book on Instagram: 'It's the author's account of losing her mother to Alzheimer's disease. This short book is powerful, filled with raw, gut-wrenching emotions. Sometimes I need to take a break from the reading to let a sentence, or one word only, sink in.' The book will be on my next reading list and later I will review it.

After accompanying our oldest daughter to the Vienna airport one morning, I spent the rest of the day in the city. I hadn't been there in a long time, headed straight for the metro and got out on the Schwedenplatz station. From there I walked a short distance to Sterngasse, a street where Shakespeare & Co. is located, a bookshop that sells English books (independent, not a brand of the one in Paris). It's small, vintage-looking, with a surprisingly good collection.

After strolling in the vicinity of the bookshop, I headed east along the Fleischmarkt and Postgasse streets. This part of the city was bursting with life, people everywhere sitting outdoors at small cafés and restaurants. Wonderful mood, distinctively European, if that makes sense. I grabbed sushi and found a bench in Stadtpark where I sat in the shadow of a tree and did some people watching. Then I headed south towards the Belvedere Palace and enjoyed its beauty. This time I didn't enter the museum; I have been there before and promised my daughter that I would later go with her to see The Kiss by Gustav Klimt and other paintings.

As I will be busy with my studies, I will not have much time for pleasure reading, and for photographing books, but soon I intend to share a new reading list. I have some ideas about how to keep my blog more alive during my studies and one is starting a new category where I feature book covers.

You may have noticed that I renew and rotate covers in the blog's sidebar and footer. These are new editions that I'm particularly interested in, and sometimes books coming out in paperback for the first time. I would like to give some of these covers a more permanent place on the blog, mainly to praise a beautiful book design. Then there are a few entries that I still owe, mainly Reading journal entries. If you think not much is happening on the blog you can always check my Instagram, where I occasionally share photos of books, mainly.

images by me, appeared on Instagram in August & September 2019

№ 21 reading list: essays by Zambra

Well, it's time for the summer's first reading list. In keeping with tradition, it has an essay collection, Not to Read by Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra (No Leer in Spanish). In the opening essay he, as a kid, admits to watching Madame Bovary (1949) for an exam instead of finishing the book. Next to a red F his teacher wrote: 'Vincente Minnelli!!' These short essays are the book lovers' treat. I meant to include a novel I had started reading, The Friend by Sigrid Nunez which won the 2018 National Book Award. I found it interesting, especially the literary references (the narrator is a writer), but then I got bored of the writing style and I didn't finish it. It's therapeutic to reread something good after a disappointing read; I chose The Seagull by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.

№ 21 reading list:
1  Not to Read  by Alejandro Zambra
2  The Collected Stories of Grace Paley 
3  Milkman  by Anna Burns
4  Disgrace  by J. M. Coetzee
5  The Voyage Out  by Virginia Woolf
6  Journal of Katherine Mansfield  ed. by John Middleton Murry
7  The Seagull  by Anton Chekhov

Translated by: 1) Not to Read: Megan McDowell; 7) The Seagull: Laurence Senelick

Those who follow my blog know that Virginia Woolf is one of my favourites. The Bremen University Library has old editions of all her works by Hogarth Press, which she founded with her husband Leonard. They are attractively green hardbacks and initially, I borrowed The Voyage Out, her first novel, just to leaf through it. It's not my favourite book by Woolf but I couldn't resist the temptation and decided to read it again.

Sometimes, I have to admit, I do miss my old way of blogging, when I collected images of interiors in folders and couldn't wait to share them. As you may have noticed, I sometimes use images of paintings in my blog posts, but this time I decided to add two spaces in the Chelsea home of artist Sarah Graham, featured in House & Garden UK. These artistic corners - that glimpse of the coffee table and the bookshelf by with window - spoke to my inner interior enthusiast. Elegant and tasteful.

Chelsea home of artist Sarah Graham. House & Garden UK

images by me | credit: House & Garden UK · Greg Funnell

№ 20 reading list | Lee Krasner exhibition

I am sitting on the patio, under an awning, taking in the spring, the scent of purple and white lilacs from a corner of the garden. One by one, book podcasts are playing on the tablet. Let's take a look at the reading list. Last year a new translation, by poet Michael Hofmann, of the classic Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin was published by New York Review Books. I like their book design and have added many of their titles to my wish list. I never read the old translation and therefore, have no comparison. It's set in the underworld of Berlin, the Weimer Republic in the 1920s, and the book starts when Franz Biberkopf - shall we say the colourful? - is released from prison, determined to turn his life around. The other book I bought for the list is The Years by Annie Ernaux, which I mentioned in my last entry. The others are from the library.

№ 20 reading list:
1  The Years  by Annie Ernaux
2  Berlin Alexanderplatz  by Alfred Döblin
3  The Wife  by Meg Wolitzer
4  The Mexican Night  by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
5  The Garden Party  by Katherine Mansfield
6  It All Adds Up  by Saul Bellow
7  The Diary of Anaïs Nin 1931-1934 

Translated by: 1) The Years: Alison L. Strayer; 2) Berlin Alexanderplatz: Michael Hofmann

It has been years since I read a volume of Anaïs Nin's diaries and it felt soothing somehow to pick up the one on the list, which starts in 1931. For a long time, I have been meaning to read stories by Katherine Mansfield, having been introduced to her work through Virginia Woolf's diaries and letters. The short story collection The Garden Party starts well and the writing style already appeals to me. Mansfield was only 34 when she died and one can only imagine what she could have accomplished as a writer.

Lee Krasner, Desert Moon, 1955

This summer I wouldn't mind taking a cultural trip to London, to see the exhibition Lee Krasner: Living Colour in the art gallery of the Barbican Centre, which opens on 30 May. Lee Krasner (1908–1984) was an American artist, born in Brooklyn; a pioneer of abstract expressionism. The catalogue says that her 'energetic work reflects the spirit of possibility in post-war New York' and the exhibition 'tells the story of a formidable artist, whose importance has too often been eclipsed by her marriage to Jackson Pollock.'

This is the first major presentation of Lee Krasner's art in Europe for more than 50 years, organised by the Barbican Centre, London in collaboration with these museums: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and Guggenheim Bilbao. Coinciding with the exhibition is the Thames & Hudson publication of Lee Krasner: Living Colour by Eleanor Nairne.

In October, here in Germany, we can enjoy the art of Lee Krasner when the exhibition opens in the museum Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

Artist Lee Krasner in her studio

Lee Krasner, Palingenesis, 1971

top image by me | Lee Krasner paintings via Barbican Centre: 1) LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) 2) Kasmin Gallery, NY | Krasner in her studio: Kasmin Gallery via Artsy. © The Pollock-Krasner Foundation.