When you strike gold

Denmark has, in my opinion, one of the best library systems in the world. I’m not sure “systems” is the right word, but everything is connected. All the libraries are connected. I can order something from the database, and it might be plucked from the Royal Danish Air Force library and sent to my local library to be picked up. I’ve ordered articles from old newspapers and a librarian scans it and sends me the PDF. I can watch 100 films or documentaries every month, and borrow the DVDs of those films not available for streaming. CDs, board games, computer games – anything you want, and more, when you’re not careful. Like the time I thought it would be interesting to read Sir Richard Burton’s notes from 1001 Arabian Nights. Well, they arrived, all 13 volumes, but they were so old I had to read them at the library.

I must admit, I bit off more than I could chew there. But nevertheless, it is a rare occasion indeed when the Danish library cannot deliver.

Sometimes it feels like magic, as a certain character of mine might say.

However, another character of mine is rather less loquacious. And whereas I know where he got his name from, I did not know the name Maratse also belonged to the man believed to be the very last shaman in Greenland.

I only discovered this recently, but now, thanks to the library, I have Kirsten Bang’s book in my hand.

There’s not much to say at the moment, other than how cool I think it is that with all the shamanism (fictional and heavily dramatised) in my books, I love the fact that there’s a link, if only in name, to my main character.

So I’m going to put aside A Very Stable Genius which I’m currently reading, and crack open a very old book about a very old man, and see if I can’t lose myself in East Greenland for a while.

More on that later.

Chris