Postcards for the Weekend – Autumn Colours

As I haven’t got my cards sorted according to seasons (or colour), I just randomly flickered through one of my postcard albums to see if anything caught my eye… 

RU-2004202 (2013)

RU-2602689 (2014)

Both these cards are from the estate Yasnaya Polyana in Russia, about 200 km south of Moscow, where the Russian author Leo Tolstoy was born (in 1828). It was also here that he wrote his famous novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. (Yes, I have read them both!) Tolstoy called the place his “literary stronghold”. His grave is also nearby (he died in 1910). The estate is now a museum – including his library of 22,000 volumes. (He can’t have read them all, can he??)

(The name Yasnaya Polyana means “Bright Glade”.)

BTT: Ground Floor

 
Booking Through Thursday:

There’s something wonderful about getting in on the ground floor of an author’s career–about being one of the first people to read and admire them, before they became famous best-sellers.

Which authors have you been lucky enough to discover at the very beginning of their careers?

And, if you’ve never had that chance, which author do you WISH you’d been able to discover at the very beginning?

On Wednesday there was also a BTT special about a giveaway of a book by a debutant author. Just enter a comment at that post for your chance to win – if you live in the US, that is. Since I don’t, I just wish those who do good luck!

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Now I have to think… Are there any authors I have been lucky enough to ‘discover’ at the very beginning of their careers?

I’m not sure. If there are, they are probably Swedish… Hmm. The first who comes to mind and whose books have also been translated into English is Karin Alvtegen (grandniece of world famous author of children’s books Astrid Lindgren).



Karin Alvtegen, born 8 June 1965

Her genre is crime fiction but not the regular detective stories. There is no common background story in her novels so you don’t have to bother about in which order to read them. Perhaps I can’t really claim to have caught her on ‘the ground floor’, since it was her second book that I read first. But that one was also the first one to get translated into English - entitled Missing - and I did read it before that.  I first listened to it as audio book in 2002. In 2003 it was published in English, and in 2006 an English TV series was based on it. In 2009 it was published in the United States and nominated for the 2009 Edgar Award for best novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Besides that one she has written five more novels. The last one from 2010 may not yet have been translated, but the previous ones have.



Joanne Rowling, born 31 July 1965

Can’t claim to have discovered the Harry Potter books right from the start either, but I am glad that I did get acquainted with them about half way through. I did not read the first four books until 2002. But with the last three I shared the thrill of getting the new book on the first day of release (the same date all over the world). Between the last two books I also got involved in an internet fan forum and the speculations going on there, which was a lot of fun. I really learned a lot from it – not only about the Harry Potter world. It was a great place to get into international discussion about all kinds of literature and odd bits of this and that. Without that experience, I’m not sure I would have got it into my head to blog in English either. It was the forum discussions that first got me hooked on the whole world-wide communication thing.

As for authors I wish I’d been able to discover at the very beginning, I can imagine it must have been a great thrill to be among the first readers of Charles Dickens (1812-1870), who wrote and published many of his works in serialized form in magazines. Unlike other authors Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized; so the first discussions of his stories among readers were held before they were completed. (Reminding somewhat of the Harry Potter discussions while that series was being written; or of soap opera kind of TV series.)