Introducing Silje

Hello everybody, I am one of the new bloggers here at Escape in a Book. I´m very excited about blogging with Mari and Sylke. It´s my first time blogging in english, so I hope you´ll give me some time to adjust:-)

My name is Silje, I´m 31, and I live in Bergen, Norway with my almost 2-year old daughter and my boyfriend. I´ve been a book blogger since 2007 and started to blog about books when I began working as a school librarian. Now I have both a private book blog and a shared blog with all the school librarians in my county (both in norwegian).

 I still work as a school librarian at two different high schools so reading is both a hobby and part of my job (lucky me!). Even though I´m no longer a young adult (I guess just a plain adult), I really enjoy reading YA-novels and especially in the genres Dystopia, Sci-fi and Fantasy. You can also find me on Goodreads and Twitter.


So to the more interesting part (I guess, cause this is a book blog:-). Here are some of my favorites:

Books:
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Let the Right One In by John Avjide Lindqvist
Darlah by Johan Harstad (this was released earlier this year in english with the title 172 Hours on the Moon)
Stolen by Lucy Christopher
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Series:
Harry Potter by J.K.Rowling
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R.Martin

Movies:
La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful)
Little Miss Sunshine
Goonies
The Lord of the Rings (haven´t read the book, shame on me!)

TV-series:

The Good Wife
The Big Bang Theory
Game of Thrones
Glee
Criminal Minds
Sopranos
Dexter
Homeland
Veronica Mars
The X-files

As you might suspect I´m a big fan of TV-series and as Mari I also enjoy watching sports both live and on the television (but I ´m no fanatic:-)). Football/soccer is my favorite but I enjoy many sports, and I actually was an audience in the World Championship in figure skating in Gothenburg in 2008. I also like to travel and I dream about travelling more by train around Europe, and also to see places outside Europe .

You´ll see my reviews and other book related stuff  here at the blog from now on. I´m looking forward to it!

Introducing Mari

So I guess I never really told you guys anything about myself at all. I've decided that it's about time to do something about that(about time after blogging for two whole years). I mean isn't it nice to know something about the person behind the blog you're reading?

This is me at a costume party back in winter 2010 I think it was.

Hi y'all so this is me, Mari. I started this blog back in 2009 because I wanted to share my passion for reading with someone. In May 2011 I decided that I needed a blog partner.

I'm a born and breed Norwegian with 1/16 part Swedish and 1/16 Czechish blood thrown in the mixture(yeah I want to feel a little more international so I had to include some distant ancestors). I live on the countryside with my little family and I absolutely love it.

I'm 32 years old, but sometimes I still feel like I'm somewhere around 18- 15, I guess that's why I'm able to love YA as much as I do. I'm not married but I've been together with my significant other since the day before I turned fifteen. Together we have two wonderful children, objectively speaking that is ;).

Some favorites of mine:

Favorite books(oh, it's so hard to choose!):
On Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Blue Is the Warmest Colour by Julie Maroh(a heart breaking graphip novel, originally written in French, but translated into English)
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion(I adore the language in this one)

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Knife( Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter) by R.J. Anderson(a cute middle grade read, perfect for the screen in my opinion)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer


TV-series:
The Newsroom(come back, please)
Green Wing(this is just hilarious - a British parody on series like the E.R. and Grey's Anatomy)
Firefly(I want more of this one as well)
Sherlock

I also enjoy watching movies, documentaries and sports(like cross-country, soccer, handball) on TV.

Interests besides reading:
Spending time with my children, genealogy, playing soccer with my 'old' girls, learning and keeping an eye on things that happen in our world.

So that's a little something about me. Anything else you would like to know just ask.

My Norwegian Christmas - Merry Christmas!

It's not Christmas without Disney and Jiminy Cricket(in English with Norwegian subtitles).

Today (December 24th) is the day we celebrate Christmas here in Norway and I thought I might write a bit about my family's Christmas traditions. 

First of all a short lesson in Norwegian: "Merry Christmas" is "God jul" and "Santa" is "Nisse" in Norwegian. Good to know, right? ;)

I'm like a child I still love Christmas just as much as when I was a little girl. In our home we never start decorating for Christmas until the 22 or 23rd December, usually the latter and we do not take away the decorations until the 13th day of Christmas. That is an old Norwegian tradition, I know lots of people start decorating these days on the 1st of December but that is way to early for me.

When I was living at home I used to get up after midnight on the 24th with my younger sister and brother and we would tiptoe downstairs and watch the beautiful Christmas tree and of course we couldn't resist squeezing a bit on some of the gifts with our names on it. These days I have a family of our own and we do not keep the Christmas lights on at night, due to the danger of fire, I think it is so sad but better safe then sorry. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is turning on the Christmas lights.

Three Wishes for Cinderella(not a great trailer but the best one I could find):

We usually start out our day with a family breakfast and then we watch traditional Christmas cartoons on TV. Then we might venture out to deliver the last of the Christmas presents to our closest family members. Only thing is that I HAVE to be home at 11 AM to watch Three Wishes for Cinderella. The one year I didn't get a chance to see it I never got quite into the right kind of Christmas spirit, it is such a romantic and wonderful story. It is actually an old Czechoslovakian movie that somehow has become a part of the Christmas traditions here in Norway and the state channel airs the movie every Christmas Eve. It's been dubbed into Norwegian and one man does all the voices, it is laughable really but it is a tradition. They once tried to send a version with multiple voices but that was never a hit with the audience so the had to go back to the version with one man as all the characters. Has anyone of you seen this movie? 

The barn gnome(we call it Fjøsnisse)

In the middle of the day we usually go to my parents to eat rice porridge. Usually there is hidden an almond in the porridge and the one who get's the almond receives a little gift, usually a marzipan pig covered with chocolate. After we're done we go out to the barn with our son and set out a bowl of porridge there for the barn gnome. This is an old tradition, before some believed that little Santas was living on the farms, helping out and caring for sick animals. This year I'm planning on placing a Santa hat somewhere to make it a little more exiting. 

About 5-6 PM we eat Christmas dinner consisting of  roast pork rib(which we call "ribbe" in Norwegian) with lovely crispy rind, Christmas sausage(made of pork), boiled potatoes, large meatballs, sauerkraut, red cabbage, brown saus, gravy, lingonberry jam and pickled cucumber. You chose what you like and just dig in. For dessert many people use the rest of the rice porridge they ate earlier that day mixes it with sweet cream and serve it with red saus. We always eat that at my parent-in-laws but at home the past years we have eaten fruit salad and ice cream.

What kind of traditional meal one serves on Christmas Eve here in Norway may vary a bit from where one comes from in the country; some eat ribs of lamb and others have a tradition of eating lutefisk.

Christmas dessert: Rice pudding with red saus

After dinner and dessert comes the tradition I love the most. The entire family gathers in a large circle around the Christmas tree and hold hands, we walk around the tree and we sing Christmas carols. After awhile, it happens when we sing a special song about Santa; Santa appears in our living room with his sack filled with gifts. Of course the tradition is for the children, not me really LOL but I still like it, I just love looking at our sons face when Santa comes into the living room and starts giving out gifts. Our son is only five and he still believes in Santa and I for one will not be the one crushing his dream and telling him that Santa isn't real. I guess he'll figure out sooner or later on his own.

When we have opened the gifts we usually just chat and enjoy each others company (the kids playing with their gifts) while we eat some snacks and fruit, perhaps have a coffee or tea. And that my friends is how we celebrate Christmas Eve in our family.

I wish each and every one of you a merry Christmas! 

If you're interested in reading more about different Christmas traditions do check out my book blogging friend Blodeuedd's traditional Christmas post. There you can read about Christmas traditions in Finland.