[Friday Reads] Sick at Home - 2nd Edition: Reading is exhausting!

Yep, sick at home - again... might be because I didn't quite get over the flu the last time? Or: wtf is the problem with my immune system? Or: Why hasn't it been spring sooner?!

What I didn't read first: This Easter I didn't pick up "Krabat" by Otfried Preußler, a German
children's classic, which I usually like to read around Easter (because Easter features an important time in the book). I don't do this every single year, but probably every other year. At first I felt like doing it, then I kind of forgot and then I didn't feel like it anymore. Now I'm a bit sad, that I didn't get to read it this year, because it's just such an awesome book. Naturally, as there is no law that it has to be read only at Easter, I could just pick it up and read it, but that wouldn't feel right. So now I'll be preserving the book and hopefully enjoy it next year.

What I'm currently reading (or not really reading, because reading is really exhausting when you're sick, all the tiny letters, holding those heavy books, thinking all the thoughts...):

1984 as an audio book.

This is a re-read. I've read the German translation of it years ago. But I can hardly remember anything. So it's really interesting to finally actually read one of the most quoted and referenced books ever - again. I'm not too keen on the writing style. It's getting better now (about half way through), or maybe I'm just getting used to it. But it did feel rather clumsy in the beginning and also really dry. I'm also only getting used to the narrator of the audio version I'm listening to. He's not bad, but I'm am really annoyed by him not being able to breath as a narrator or actor should be able to. He draws a really sharp breath at the beginning of every other sentence and that is just wrong.

Getting Things Done: well, persuaded by the hype I started this one. Not very far into it yet, so I can't really say anything about it. It might also not quite be the right moment, me being sick and all...








Dvori od oraha by Miljenko Jergović

I stumbled upon this one totally by chance (the pleasures of working in a bookshop!), I had never heard about it before, which is weird, because I did have a look into Croatian and Yugoslavian lit last year. Maybe it just didn't stand out. And that is a shame, because it's a seriously good book! Took me about one page to be totally immersed in it. And that despite the the way it's told. I won't actually mention this, it's not a spoiler, but in retrospect I think it was great that I didn't know this before I started reading it (it might have even turned me off). But I'm gonna say it's style is beautiful and every now and then I stumble over things that I'm, well, not liking as much, it's all part of the narrative and has to be there. I love it and am so glad this customer ordered it - and then didn't want it! ;) Good for me. His loss. I'd say: Go read it, everybody! But I'm afraid there's only been German and French translations from the original Bosnian.



PS: Turns out you need to hit "publish" for your posts to go live... who would've thought? Anyway, this is why this is going up on a Sunday.

#FridayReads - again, otherwise I won't blog...

So, what's up with books here?
I finished "Ancillary Justice" this week. I really liked it and it definitely made me want to anticipate the rest of the trilogy. And it also got me back in the SciFi mood.

I finally found our copy of "The Name of the Rose" (because I knew we had to have one; I do not think that there is a household in Germany that does not have at least one copy of this book...) and started reading it! Yay! I've been wanting to read it ever since Linda Hutcheon kept mentioning it her book I had to study for my exams.
And then I found out that there's a buddy read at the booktube buddy reads group and I'll definitely try and join that. But first I need to make some progress with it.

And I got back into my car audio book, which is a wonderful reading of Dicken's "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11292942-our-mutual-friend" by Mil Nicholson.

So I'll hopefully be spending the weekend reading...

#Friday Reads aka an UPDATE!

Oooo-kay... so I'm back. Back to reading, back to blogging hopefully.


It's still Friday, I'm on vacation, I just (like 10 minutes ago) finished a book, so I thought a #FidayReads was in order.

So what am I reading?

I just finished "Der Gang vor die Hunde" aka "Fabian" or "Going to the Dogs: The Story of a moralist" by Erich Kästner, which is still as brillian as I remembered it and the new edition (the originally intended version) is even better. And I'll write a review about this one.

Two days ago I started "Ancillary Justice" as my designated beach book and that worked out well so far. Im a good hundred pages in and liking it so far. I have a kind of a hard time actually folling the who's who against whom of it, but that might still be coming and it doesn't take away from the reading experience of it.

For a non-fiction I'm reading "Selbst Denken" (German, obviously), a book about how astonishing it is that people do not like to use their brains and actually draw their own conclusions about stuff, but rather just follow whatever is told by media, social media, politics, what have you. I'm only in the first third of it and it reads very swiftly and I find myself constantly nodding along (bad sign with such a book? ;) ), but nothing really new so far. It feels like I'm not really the actually intended addressee (yes, I checked, there's just so many d's, s's and e's in that word), as I'm not leading a live of pure meaningless and mindless consumersim with three SUVs and a new set of clothes every month.
So I do not agree with all the conclusions and interpretations of facts by the author, but it still does contain interesting facts and food for thought.

Coming up for air...

Okay, so, well. Starting this blog right before my final exams started was not an especially smart move, but that's what I do...

I was planning on updating here much more, but the end of May has been pretty crazy busy (studying and work) and the last weeks were just frenzied studying. Also, although I'm reading a lot (studying for lit exams does that to you), I don't read a lot I want to blog about... and even if I would want to, I certainly don't have the time to think about writing a review or any such thing.
So, what I read and maybe might be worth an extra post at some later time are "The Overcoat" by Gogol, some stories by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya and maybe a history book "Catherine the Great" by Madariaga, which I found to be a great (and relaxing, compared to Russian lit) read.

So, yeah, that's it for now. Mid week I'll switch to Spanish lit, we'll see how that goes.

[Bout of Books] Before the Weekend

So, well. I wish I'd had more time to read during the week. But research has kept me busy every day and after spending 8+ hours in the library, looking through library catalogues, databases and other sources to figure out the literature for my exams I was way too tired to read. :(

But, here comes the weekend and I hope I can make up tonight, tomorrow and even on sunday during work (which will hopefully be zero busy and give me plenty of opportunity to hit the books - study books and a bit of pleasure reads as well).

So far basically all I've read this week were some pages from "Cat's Cradle", a good 4 hours of the audio version of "North and South" (which has been such a comfort!) and a super short short story ("The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin).
And a few pages of required reading about Russian History.

Yep, that's it. So sad - and there's so many books at home that I desperately want to read...

But tomorrow! (Also, I'll hopefully be able to go to that booksale my hometown library is holding tomorrow... looking forward to that! More books!)