Liuba's Blog

“What we crave from others far more than money or material assistance is love and attention.” ~ page 155 Teeny Tiny Review I have just finished reading “MADONNA IN A FUR COAT” by Sabahattin Ali, and WoW, what a masterpiece. Written by a Turkish dissident who was murdered in 1948. This short, partly autobiographical novel follows a Turkish man (Raif) who falls in love with an artist (Maria) while living in Berlin in the 1920s. A love story that doesn’t try to impress. It simply tries to be true. If you are thinking of getting this book, please buy from  uk.bookshop.com and support independent bookshops.  * i may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.  My Favourite Quotes “… why do we assume that it is the easiest thing in the world to know and judge another?” ~ page 31 “There was nothing extraordinary about the way she played the violin, but her voice was even more beautiful than she was.” ~ page 68 "Never before had I felt such happiness. I could feel my heart ...

I just read this short article in The Week magazine and, as a very bookish woman, I wanted to hear your opinion too. Here is the article: Why teenagers don’t read “Look at the GCSE reading list: Macbeth, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies. Murder; murder; authoritarian rule; social breakdown, the bullying of fat boys with glasses – then murder. If teen reading rates are plummeting, maybe it’s because the reading list is so dry and depressing. Where are P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Adrian Mole, Oscar Wilde, Nancy Mitford, Terry Pratchett? I’m a 51-year-old author of nine books and even I wouldn’t want to spend a long, hot summer going line by line through Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I too would want to go on TikTok and watch a girl with rainbow eyes eat noodles.” — Caitlin Moran in The Times I believe Caitlin Moran is right. Teenagers need laughter too. Give them humour, adventure, comic fiction. Something that makes reading feel like pleasure, not an unending curri...

Completely absorbed in this one. The book is written by composer’s brother Modeste Tchaikovsky. “One evening the Tchaikovskys gave a musical party at which the children were allowed to be present. At first Peter Ilich was very happy but before the end of the evening he grew so tired that he went to bed before the others.  When Fanny visited his room she found him wide awake, sitting up in bed with bright, feverish eyes, and crying to himself. Asked what was the matter, he replied, although there was no music going on at the time:  “Oh, this music, this music! Save me from it! It is here, here,” pointing to his head, “and will not give me any peace.”  *Fanny was Tchaikovsky’s French governess. She cared for and educated the Tchaikovsky children and was particularly close to young Peter. What are you reading this weekend? 

I picked this book from a small gift & book shop located in the crypt of St Martin in the Fields Church at the edge of Trafalgar Square and I am very glad I did. The book is written by Joan Koenig, a pioneering music educator and owner of L’Ecole Koenig Conservatory, Preschool and Kindergarten in Paris. I picked this one up almost by chance. Very glad I did. The Musical Child is about the positive impact music can have on children’s development in their early years. The book follows a child’s development from infancy to age six. For each age, Koenig describes the different stages of a child’s development and demonstrates how music can fit into each one like a therapeutic puzzle piece. This is exactly why music deserves a place in childhood. “Music provides a lifelong emotional outlet, a means of expressing our complex feelings of joy, longing, or nostalgia. Music is one of the principal triggers of nostalgia, along with taste and smell. Music can create the feeling of nostalgia, bu...

It feels a little strange to be writing here again as the last time I wrote a post here was in 2017. Nine years have passed. I am not quite sure how that happened, but somehow life became busy, the years passed and I forgot about this little corner of the internet. To be honest, I had completely forgotten about this blog. A few days ago, I decided to check the stats and was amazed to see how many views my old posts still get every day. So, if any of you who used to follow my posts all those years ago are reading this now, a big hello from us! We are doing very well.    My little boy is not so little anymore. Nikita is 10 years old now, which is quite difficult for me to believe when I look back at the old photographs and posts here. He has grown into a boy who loves music, books and art. He plays piano and violin, he loves to read and  also, he enjoys drawing and creating. Music has become a particularly big part in our family life, and watching him grow into his own...

Hello, hello, hello to everyone! We are back and I am really happy to be here again. I will share some photos with Nikita to see how big he is now and to fill the time gap. My last post was when he was 9 months and now he is 14 months. ahhh time flies so fast!  TEN MONTHS OLD I still remember that day. It was 8th of March. We were in Moldova and in Moldova on that day people celebrate International Women's day. We had a great day out, took lots of nice photos and after we went to my sister's house to celebrate the day. We had a day full of laughter, joy and happiness.