About

“Art and knowledge know no borders”.

Welcome! I am Diana – originally from Russia, but now reside in the UK. I am a law graduate (LSE/UCL) with the passion for books, travel and different cultures exploration.

Mission Statement

This blog is for all those who are curious about the world of literature, but also want to explore fascinating aspects and mysteries as they relate to art, history, music, travel, different cultures, philosophy, psychology and anthropology.

• Diversity of Interests (*KNOW & EXPLORE*)

I have diverse interests and would like to share my enthusiasm for certain subjects through this site, enabling people to KNOW more and EXPLORE broadly. I am insatiable for secrets and mysteries, the deeper and more obscure – the better (the eerie, the unexplained, the fantastical, the unknown). I am interested in the human mind (studies on dreaming and consciousness, and history of mental health), and in psychology, and thus prefer reading stories with deep existential character studies. My other passions are music (everything from classical music (I am learning the piano)) to hard rock), world cinema, yoga, anthropology, mysticism (alchemy) and travel. One day I may be discussing allegories in art, another – talking about the intricacies of the Japanese culture, and yet another – sharing my enthusiasm for Peruvian mysteries.

• A Multinational Outlook (*DISCOVER*)

Being from the UK/Russia, speaking Spanish and French, learning Italian and Japanese, and being interested in many world cultures (from South America to Tibet), I consider myself a citizen of the world and love promoting world literature and different cultures. Thus, the aim of this site is also to introduce world/translated literature and various aspects of world history, while also putting spotlight on artists from all corners of the world. The key is to keep DISCOVER-ring.

• A Passion for Literature (*THINK & FEEL*)

“O, there is lovely to feel a good book, firm in your hand, for its vastness holds rich promise, and you are hot inside to think of good hours to come” [Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley, 1939: 422].

I believe reading is important, and it is essential to appreciate that literature is diverse and life-changing (I want everyone to read!). I started reading at a very early age, and books formed a big part of my childhood since my grandmother had an extensive library. As a child, I started with Alexander Pushkin’s fairly-tales, but was soon reading stories by Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Mark Twain, Mayne Reid, and later also the works of Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Lermontov, Brontë Sisters, Jane Austen, and Miguel de Cervantes. I know read and appreciate many genres: classics, literary fiction, philosophical (existentialist) fiction, historical fiction, science-fiction, thrillers, detective stories, horror and non-fiction, and my favourite authors include Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Honoré de Balzac, Edith Wharton, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, José Saramago, and Orhan Pamuk (see my review index). Thus, one of the aims of this blog is to promote and encourage reading widely and diversely, as well as THINK-ing critically and FEEL-ing deeply about what we read.

So, THINK, FEEL, DISCOVER, KNOW, and EXPLORE with me…