[Friday Reads] - sick at home (early bird) editon (it's technically still Thursday here)

So, yeah, the flu got me. And it's really the flu, even though I don't feel as bad as I thought the flu would.
Anyway, as I'm home sick, but not too sick to read (well, most of the time... I do get tired quickly...) I thought I might as well try with the blogging again. And maybe catch up on some reviews.

What I'm reading these days:

Ur-Pippi by Astrid Lindgren, with a commentary by Ulla Lundquist

I've been meaning to read this for years. Ever since it came out, actually. But I somehow never got around to even buying the book. At least that I managed in February and now I even started the book (well, considering it's only 170 pages including the commentary I'm actually half way through). And I really enjoy reading it! I don't think I ever read the Pippi Longstocking books as a child, even though I did read many, many of Lindgren's other books. I only always watched the tv adaptation of Pippi. And so it is very interesting to finally read it and also to read the kind of unpolished and uncensored version of it. I'm comparing it a bit with the official published version, but I'm very interested to get to the commentary about the changes and the whole background to it.
This Pippi girl really is a kind of a brutish character and I love reading about her, she's not very nice or likeable, though. I see how this version of the famous redhead is more appropriate to a personal story telling or in a rather grown up context. I don't think that children would not have understood this version of Pippi or would have gotten all sorts of "bad" ideas from her. I just don't think that she would have gained as much sympathies and such a dear place in the hearts of many children as the "cleaned-up" version has.


Worlds of Exile and Illusion by Ursula K. Le Guin

Reading Le Guin is always such a pleasure! In this book the first three, rather short, novels of the Hainish cycle (which of course is not a "cycle" at all) are compiled. I already read "The Dipossesed" and "The Word for World is Forest" (about which I have review half written...) of this series. And before I read "The Lef tHand of Darkness", which I've had on my shelf for quite a while, I decided to read the books in order, as far as that's a thing with these not really connected novels. Still, I like reading things in order.
So in this compilation I just finished the first book "Rocannon's World", which felt much more like Fantasy than SF, but that was okay. So far it was the one Le Guin book I enjoyed less of all I read, but it was still a great read! I love her prose and she makes world building and characters so easy to just get. It is kind of noticable that it was a really early work and her later stuff I read read even easier, more polished and perfect. I was kind of dissappointed that the really, really uncanny and scary part about these insect-like beings in their weird sleek and unhuman city was so short. That would have made for great SF moments!
But I did enjoy reading it and am now moving on to the second book "Planet of Exile". (The title's btw - great!)


Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

As there is a group read over on goodreads, and some of my favorite booktubers have been mentioning reading the book and also been showing off the pretty, pretty cover - I spontanously decided to get this one as an audio book. I thought I needed a new audio book for my car commute time (not knowing about staying home due to sickness back then) and it just sounded and looked so good. I already had another Nnedi Okorafor book on my shelf, so she's an author I definitely wanted to check out anyway.
I'm only 5 chapters in so far (because I really mainly read audio books in my car... it is very strange for me to listen to audio books at home, but I manged to listen to some chapters) but I'm loving it! The narrators are great, too.
Still I ordered a print copy as well today. The languages, naturally with Pidgin and slang, feels so rich and special that I feel the need to also see the written words to get a full impression of the book. Also another opportunity to see the cover more often! I might be tempted to touch it a lot...


Erfolg (also "Success" in its English translation) by Lion Feuchtwanger

This is - still! - my work/commute book. And since I a) stopped using public transport during the last weeks (first out of necessity and oportunity and then because it turns out driving just makes me so much happier) and am now b) sick at home... well I didn't make much progress on this one. The few pages I read during last week I still enjoyed a lot and it's so easy to feel right in the book even if only reading a couple of pages. On the other hand I've been carrying this one around for quite a while now and I would like to finish it at some point. So maybe I'll pick it up on the weekend and just sit down and finish it. Not a must, though. We'll see how my weekend goes and also how much like big reading sessions I'll be feeling with this kind of a cold in my head.



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Okay, so, have a great weekend everyone! If you're sick like me (like everybody around here seems to be) - get better soon! If you have to work/study/whatevs today - still have a great time!