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First novel I have read in a while, mostly because I borrowed this on my e-reader to read next to a sleeping kid.

I wish it was easier to borrow good ebooks or buy DRM-free copies. I’d do this much more often.

Also a bit melancholy that I only discovered Ursula K Le Guin’s works in my thirties; I like to think they’d have meant a lot to me if I had read them as a teenager.

I got this from the library (after a long wait) and managed to read Part 1 before returning it today. Definitely a thought provoking read, I hope to borrow it again to read Part 2.

Finally finished with this book in time to return it to the library before going on summer vacation. I found it moving, and some of the stories were sad or difficult to read - but also, it's a book full of reasons for optimism. It was telling to see common themes emerge in people's stories; I learned a lot about the different intersecting cultures, traditions and power structures one finds amongst Sámi peoples, and also in Sápmi (definitely not always the same thing). Taken as a whole, many of the people interviewed really are queering Sápmi - questioning existing structures and norms. It would be interesting to know how much has changed or improved since this book came out over a decade ago.

Bought this on impulse yesterday; it's going to be one of my summer vacation books. Only a few more days to go!

This has to go back to the library before I leave for summer vacation this weekend, so time need to hurry up! But at the same time, there are so many moving stories, I want to read them all carefully and think about them.

Took a while to finish because in the mean time I became a parent and time for reading became quite limited...

Spotted it randomly while showing my dad around Oodi (Helsinki central library) yesterday. Borrowed it on impulse.

Lainasin tämän kirjastosta, ja reseptit ovat todella houkuttelevia. En kuitenkaan ehtinyt lukemaan sitä, ennen kuin joudun palauttaamaan kirjan. Pitää lainata uudestan. Haluaisin kokeilla vaikkapa liinajuuston valmistamista tai löytää uusia tapoja nauttia naurista.

I discovered my copy of this book again a few months ago and decided to finish reading it after maybe 13 years. It was not particularly easy going for me, even though the descriptions of nature and how humans interact with their surroundings are laden with lovely imagery. I can see why I stopped reading it many years ago, but I am also glad to have finished it.

Somehow the writing reminds me a bit of Nan Shepherd's The Weatherhouse in how it is both meaningful and beautiful, and yet hard to get into.

Now that I can read Norwegian, if I had the time I would like to try reading it in the original language to see how it works. I'd also be interested in reading more works by Tarjei Vesaas.

The started reading date is an estimate, but I certainly bought this in-person from a branch of Daunt Books before I moved away from London, which dates it to before mid-2011. That makes it quite possibly the book I have spent the longest reading.

This is from Naomi Mitchison's short story Beyond this Limit, a collaboration with the illustrator Wyndham Lewis.

I love the imagery of the dialectic as a machine, almost like a legendary device akin to the sampo.

I got this book out the library a while ago and only got around to starting it last month, and today I have to return it... I made it about halfway through so far. The stories inside are by turns moving, heartwarming and also a bit sad.

But there are positive threads running throughout the book: the belief that things can get better - and that they are getting better, and pride in the contributors' intersecting queer and Sami identities.

This was an excellent and highly readable biography!

I find Naomi Mitchison an absolutely fascinating person. Inspiring in some ways, of her time in others, and (she would be the first to admit) outrageously privileged. But she also - to use a metaphor repeated throughout this book - swam against the current in every stage of her life. She championed unpopular ideas or spoke uncomfortable truths. Furthermore she was prevented from pursuing a scientific career because she was a women in a British upper class household in the early 20th century.

I’ve mostly read her diaries (Among You Keeping Notes…), memoirs (You May Well Ask) and poetry (The Cleansing of the Knife), but next I want to give her historical fiction (The Conquered, The Bull Calves) and science fiction (Memoirs of a Spacewoman) a try.