I’ve been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember. We had a great variety of books at home. I read children’s books at first of course, but moved on to adult literature around my tweens. Classics, detective stories, travel stories, adventure stories, and so on. (Everything except contemporary English-language literature, which was hard to get hold of until the early nineties.)<\/p>\n
At my grandmother’s cottage where we spent our summers, there wasn’t much to read. Partly due to a lack of space, I imagine. The cottage consisted of a single large room, with the kitchen open into that same room. 35 m2<\/sup> maybe? – and that housed as many as five of us at times. Or maybe the expectation was that we’d all be outdoors most of the time.<\/p>\n We took the train to town, to Tallinn, at regular intervals for laundry, baths, groceries and whatever else the adults did. My grandma’s apartment there was not much larger, but it did have a bookcase… which, however, contained almost no books that I recognized or that looked interesting. There was really a surprisingly small overlap between her library and my parents!<\/p>\n There were two or three (quite literally) children’s books from my father’s childhood in the 1950s. One was a picture book about how trucks were produced in the 1950s. One was about how spacecraft worked. I read both. <\/p>\n I read and browsed books about cooking and gardening, including giant gardening encyclopedias in German, which had gratifying amounts of illustrations. I’ve always liked well-written, illustrated “how-to” books.<\/p>\n I opened dull-looking books at random and stumbled upon a collection Tolstoy’s stories for children (in that same 14-volume series from the 1950s) and read most of those.<\/p>\n There was one small oasis in that reading desert – two books that I truly enjoyed and kept returning to. I think we may even have taken them with us to that tiny cottage. Both were memoirs. One was Kirurgi s\u00fcda<\/i> by Fyodor Uglov<\/a>, a pioneering Russian doctor and surgeon. (“Heart of a surgeon”<\/a>, full of fascinating medical case histories, not available in English as far as I can see.) The other was Eesriie avaneb<\/i> (“The curtain opens”) by Mari M\u00f6ldre, an Estonian actress.<\/p>\n My grandma passed away in 2003. Now I have her copies of these books in my bookshelf, and they always remind me of her.<\/p>\n Olen lapsest saati ablas lugeja olnud. Meie kodus oli lai valik raamatuid. Alustasin loomulikult lasteraamatutega, aga varases teismeeas l\u00e4ksin t\u00e4iskasvanute kirjandusele \u00fcle. Klassika, krimkad, reisikirjeldused, seikluslood, jne. (K\u00f5ike pealse kaasaegse inglisekeelse kirjanduse, mida polnud saada enne 1990-ndaid aastaid.)<\/p>\n Minu vanaema suvilas, kus me oma suved veetsime, polnud eriti midagi lugeda. Osaliselt vist ruumipuuduse t\u00f5ttu, oletan ma. Suvilas oli \u00fcksainuke suur tuba, ja k\u00f6\u00f6k avanes samasse tuppa. 35 m2<\/sup> v\u00f5ib-olla? – ja seal elasime kuni viiekesi. V\u00f5i oli arvestatud sellega, et k\u00f5ik veedavad suurema osa ajast \u00f5ues.<\/p>\n S\u00f5itsime aeg-ajalt rongiga Tallinna pesu pesema, vannis k\u00e4ima, sisseoste tegema ja mida muud t\u00e4iskasvanud veel tegid. Mu vanaema linnakorter polnud suvilast palju suurem, aga seal oli raamatukapp… mis k\u00fcll ei sisaldanud peaaegu \u00fchtegi raamatut mida ma oleks \u00e4ra tundnud, v\u00f5i mis huvitav n\u00e4iks. Tema raamaturiiuli sisu ja meie pere oma vahel oli \u00fcllatavalt v\u00e4he \u00fchist!<\/p>\n Seal oli kaks v\u00f5i kolm lasteraamatut minu isa lapsep\u00f5lvest 1950-ndatel aastatel. \u00dcks oli pildiraamat sellest, kuidas 1950-ndatel veoautosid toodeti. \u00dcks oli sellest, kuidas kosmoseraketid t\u00f6\u00f6tavad. Lugesin m\u00f5lemat.<\/p>\n Lugesin ja lappasin raamatuid kokandusest ja aiandusest, muuhulgas hiiglasuuri saksakeelseid aianduse ents\u00fcklopeediad, milles palju illustratsioone oli. H\u00e4sti kirjutatud, paljude piltidega k\u00e4siraamatud on mulle alati meeldinud.<\/p>\n Avasin suvalisi igava v\u00e4limusega raamatuid ja leidsin sedaviisi Tolstoi lood lastele (osa tollest samast 14-k\u00f6itelises sarjast) ja lugesin suurema osa l\u00e4bi.<\/p>\n Selles raamatuk\u00f5rbes oli \u00fcks v\u00e4ike oaas – kaks raamatut, mida ma ikka ja j\u00e4lle t\u00f5elise r\u00f5\u00f5muga lugesin. Vist v\u00f5tsime nad isegi kaasa sinna pisikesse suvilasse. M\u00f5lemad olid m\u00e4lestused. \u00dcks oli kuulsa vene arsti ja kirurgi Fjodor Uglovi \u201eKirurgi s\u00fcda\u201c, t\u00e4is p\u00f5nevaid haigusjuhtumite kirjeldusi. Teine oli n\u00e4itlejanna Mari M\u00f6ldre \u201eEesriie avaneb\u201c.<\/p>\n Mu vanaema suri 2003. aastal. N\u00fc\u00fcd on need tema raamatud minu riiulis, ja nad meenutavad mulle alati teda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember. We had a great variety of books at home. I read children’s books at first of course, but moved on to adult literature around my tweens. Classics, detective stories, travel stories, adventure stories, and so on. 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