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Wednesday 4 April 2012

Easter Crime!!!!

I made this: BookElf at 9:00 am
Because I don't already have enough reasons to love Norway, here's another one...
Every Easter, they all read CRIME.
The ENTIRE COUNTRY. READS CRIME.
This frankly weird but beautiful tradition apparently stems from a pretty nifty marketing ploy from the 20s. Over the Easter weekend, normal social activities would be closed to a good Christian community. No cinema, no dancing. And you can't be in Church or Eating all the time.... But READING is FREE. Free and allowed. So they started publishing all their crime novels (because everyone loves a good crime novel) and selling it as a 'tradition', and lo, like Santa wearing red and drinking coca cola, soon everyone believed that it was.
According to my friend, who is Actually Norwegian, this is a real legitimate thing. Norway, who have almost had WARS over which variation of their language is politically acceptable to use (how cool can you possibly be...) all go crime-nuts over Easter! The latest Jo Nesbos and Karin Fossums are released the week before, there are readings in bookshops all over Norway and TV stations run entire crime series from Holy Thursday through till Easter Monday.
I LOVE this idea, and plan to celebrate it in my own little way. Every day over Easter I'll be posting a review of a Scandinavian Crime book, and I'll also be reading some serious amounts of Murder Most Cold in homage to this great country...
...and who knows, next year I might actually be able to afford to go! (HA HA HA HA *chokes with laughter*).

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