Things Swedish

My occasional forays into Sweden continue with a chance encounter at Epsom Library with a book of homely pictures by one Carl Larsson, well known to the Google image factory. A handsomely produced book, published by Floris Books of Edinburgh (http://www.florisbooks.co.uk/), which led me to wonder whether he had ever done illustrations for Nils Holgersson's wonderful journey through Sweden (see 17th February and 26th March 2013). Did he stray from the cosy, comfortable and probably idealised world of Swedish family life to the rather less comfortable fantasy world of Swedish animal life? The answer seems to be no, although Google did come up with portraits which he had done of the roughly contemporary author, one of which is included left, with thanks to Wikipedia and to Bonnierska Porträttsamlingen, a Swedish art gallery which seems to be fairly relaxed about copyright.

The same visit to the Library also produced an entertaining book, 'From Paper to Pixels', also brand new, by one Hugh Sung about electrical support for those playing or teaching music, support in the form of having the score on a screen rather than on paper, complete with gadgets - which might be either foot or mouth operated - for turning the pages. Mr.Sung seems to think that such support has now come of age, come to the point where having thousands of scores on a laptop really is better than having the rather bulky equivalent on paper. And if the scores have been fully electrified, rather than just converted into images, one can even get the laptop to play them for you, saving you the bother of having to blow across your flute or whatever. See http://www.hughsung.com/blog/.