Shelf Indulgence – “The Solitaire Mystery"

Ahoy, camerades!

We made it through another week! 🤗

Good morning to all you divine souls! ✨

I am sending lots of light and hope and happiness your way on this wonderful Saturday morning! 🌿 While I am typing this, I can hear the birds chirping in our Jackfruit tree, a pot of coffee steams hot and strong right next to me, and the agenda for this weekend is crystal-clear: I will binge-read a book! 🤓 #Yeahyeahyeah

I have been reading all my life, and hopefully will do so until I die. 

Books and the act of reading are staple parts of my daily diet. I just can’t get enough! 🙈 I hoard them, I talk to them, I sometimes give them hugs… If I don’t read, I get cranky (my dear husband knows this, and makes sure that there is always an ‘emergency book’ around), and going to a book store is almost a religious experience for me.

The act of walking past crammed shelves full of thoughts that whisper for attention; the feeling of putting your nose between untouched pages and taking deep breaths inhaling ink and ideas; the joy of studying the artwork, maybe the first sentence, or the blurbs, before you decide to give it a forever home with you or not… Uff, you can tell, I REALLY miss going to a book store. 😅

Today’s reading recommendation is a fun one, and was shared with me by a dear friend with whom I grew up together at the lake of Constanze, Germany. He loaned me a hard-bound book (that has a lovely inscription by his mum in it) and said “When I come to India to visit you, I will pick it up.” Kirk, come on! Its only been eight years! 😜

“The Solitaire Mystery” by Jostein Gaarder

The world is filled with two categories of books: Those you read once, and then forget about them, and those that live in families (and inside you) for many generations.

As a child, you listen to them with excitement during the evening reading ritual; as a teenager, you secretly gobble them up again at night under the covers (you don’t want to be caught reading ‘baby books’, do you 😅 ); and as an adult, nostalgia overcomes you every time you leaf through the slightly yellowed pages. You could never even think of giving it away, and speaking in Mary Kondo-terms, these kind of books truly spark joy.

What connects us to those books is the love for the story and its heroes, and a literary truth that is greater than time and space. 💖

Jostein Gaarder’s “The Solitaire Mystery”, like so much of his work, falls into this category. It tells the story of a road trip from the perspective of 12-year-old Hans-Thomas, who travels to Athens with his father – a man who likes to drink and think about the big questions of life. Together, they search for Hans-Thomas’ mother who left Norway eight years ago to 'find herself’ (hint, hint: a classic Gaarder clue!), and then simply disappeared. 

On the way, many strange coincidences take place: dazzling rainbow-coloured goldfish in glasses appear across timelines, a trip to a mysterious German-speaking island in the middle of the Atlantic gives more questions than answers, and a dwarf, who follows the father-son-duo into all interwoven narrative dimensions, shows up as Joker in a card-deck. Or is it the other way around? 😊 Further clues are given in a mysterious book hidden in a bread roll. Yummy! What a brilliant invention (bread and book in one? YES!) - and what a literary adventure.

Trust me, it will be hard to put away the 350 pages thanks to Gaarder's ultimate 'signature move': playfully excite the reader, no matter his or her age, for the big questions of philosophy and life. Who are we? Why are we here? Does this all have meaning? And where do I find books baked into bread?  😅

“The Solitaire Mystery” is a wonderful book about the magic of our existence, and the fact that the world of ideas can be as real as, well, reality. Light, heart-warming and exciting - absolutely worth a read.

Now go, and cuddle into your couch, and enjoy your weekend, lovelies. You have been wonderful this week – thank you so much for your support, and all those lovely comments and messages. I will be back on Monday! ✨💃

With love from Goa, 
Isabelle 🌿