Paul's reading list 2012

Okay, let's start again. I try to read 15'000 pages - last year I missed my goal by lousy 195 pages (I could throw in my Bible reading and all the magazines I read in the hospital ward).

I have no theme or subject or ideas for making a plan what to read. I take the books as they come (ahh, far too many) and I let you know when I finished one.

I starred your thread and I look forward to your comments on the books you read, whichever you choose.
P.S. Have you noticed that the book-pile on the German homepage of LT (Startseite on http://www.librarything.de/ ) is compiled of books with Dutch titles, but different (and IMO prettier) than the one on the Dutch homepage? I wonder why...

a little update on my wife's situation: The last report from the doctors is promising, on the last PET/CT (Positron emission tomography) the cancer cells were not measurable anymore - so the chemicals (and our prayers) did their part. She stopped receiving Taxotere (the drug which make all the bad side effects) and gets Herceptine only (which blocks the cancer cells from growing and duplicating). She is stronger now and isn't so exhausted anymore. Tomorrow we will have a meeting with the IV (Swiss disability Insurance) about the future (how much work can she do, how much are they going to pay, etc). She is on sick leave until End of March. So far, her employer paid her salary, but that might change now.

Her niece will marry in February and we are invited to go to Korea - well, that's the part we can't fulfill. But our two daughters will fly over and take part in the ceremony. And we will skype.

2> Hi Monica, thanks for showing up.
I wasn't aware of the Dutch titles (Dutch for Deutsch??) I only read that part ages ago when joining LT and since then I just log in. So, please feel free to take the Dutch titles ;)

Glad to see you back again, Paul, and am so happy to hear about your wife's progress!

Hi Paul, so glad to hear of your wife's progress. I pray that it will continue. I'm sorry you both won't be able to make it to your niece's wedding in February. Will she be living there after? Perhaps later when your wife is stronger, you can both visit.

Hi Paul. Good to see you here again. Trust that this year will bring comfort to you and your wife and that she can take on and conquer the big C.

Hi Caroline - her niece is Korean, well, the whole family is. Yes, they are going to stay there, and we hope to visit them some time. We met in April 2011; she and her friend wanted to show us, how modern teenagers do drinking games in a Korean liqueur bar. It was fun. But I am glad that their intention was not to get drunk - I guess the husband-to-be wanted to test my stamina (?)

Hi Paul, pleased to see you here. It will be a tough time, but we will reduce the C to a small c because the big C is Christ and, as another Paul once said, "to live is Christ, to die is gain", and then the task is easier. I hope to take a bit more part in this group. I had neglected some threads.

Paul

Please add my good wishes and prayers to those who hope for continued good news for your wife.

May 2012 be a healthy and happy one for you and your family.

Hi Linda

Thanks for coming by - a blessed 2012 to you, too.

Welcome back! Glad to hear the good news about mrspaul!

Found you! So pleased that the news is positive about your wife, may she continue to recover well and may the true big C continue to strengthen you!

I think you should count those bible readings and other pages in your last year total! But in any case, I wish you success with your reading challenge for this year, and above all, interesting and enjoyable reads however many there may be.

Just wanted to say hi and I have found your thread at last. I'm really glad to read the positive news about Suki. Hope the meeting with the IV went well.

Hej Jim, Genny, Cushla
Thanks for calling. The meeting with the IV (disability Insurance) went well. Since Suki's employer is not going fire her in the next few months, Suki will still get her salary and the insurance pays the employer compensation.

And Suki is recovering pretty good. Yesterday she invited a few Korean ladies for a wellness evening (I was banned to my quarters). Suki and our oldest daughter were the 'wellness nurses'. Don't ask what they did. I heard them - it must have been fun.

Hi Paul, I'm so happy things are going the right way for Suki (and you). And I have to chuckle reading about your wife's wellness-evening and you being left out. Nothing like a wellness-treatment to lift or consolidate the spirits:-)

Happy to hear that Suki's employer is not going to fire her so that she will get both her salary and employer compensation. Sounds like her 'wellness night' was fun and a big lift for her.

Hi Monica and Stasia
It was good for Suki and her friends to have such an evening in the midst of all weakness. And I had time to play all these silly games on LT.
I have formulated badly: the insurance compensation goes to the employer (so everyone is happy). The medical costs are paid by the health insurance (I don't understand why some Americans are so opposed to that), apart from a relatively small amount we have tp pay ourselves.

Monica, have you ever heard of Regula Stämpfli, a Swiss lecturer in political science living in Bruxelles? I just have a book here, Aussen Prada - innen leer? which has intersting quotes like,
" Do high heels elevate women or do they keep them from running away?"
"Brüssel ist wie Bern, nur halt etwas grösser und ja, das Essen schmeckt in Brüssel tausendmal besser. Dafür ist das Wetter oft so trübe, wie es der belgische Autor Hugo Claus in 'Sorrow of Belgium beschreibt."
"Wissen heisst noch nicht denken."

No, I've never heard of Regula Stämpfli but I'll add her book to the wish-list, based on those quotes. Thank you!
I just came across another book that interests me by Alicja Gescinska, a Polish young philosopher who emigrated to Belgium as a child and who has written a book De verovering van de vrijheid about freedom and the battle against laziness that is vital in order to gain real freedom.

I checked our libraries here, but Gescinska seems not to be translated yet - and the Dutch title isn't available.

Well, it's only been released quite recently, I think. I'll order a copy soon and keep you posted.

1) Plötzlich Shakespeare : Roman by David Safier. not exactly an overwhelming start into the new year. But funny. This girl doesn't know what true love is, so she gets hypnotised into the body of William Shakespeare and helps him to write one of his sonnets until she finally realizes what true love is...

The Shakespeare in the title caught my eye in the library and I didn't read the blurb on the cover properly. But having it at home, I had to do something. If you like entanglements and cultural changes/shocks, that's for you. It has some good insights into 'true love' but otherwise it's just an easy, light reading.

#21: I hope your next read is more to your taste, Paul.

our flowering amaryllis

2) Vom Windows verweht : die besten Computer-Cartoons aus der c't by Harald Ritsch. Some computer cartoons - a change in reading

3) Das Geheimnis des Bücherhüters by Corinna Gieseler. A fantasy book for young adults; some kids find a book keeper (looks a bit like a rat) and help it to find a new home (private library), easy, simple

De-lurking to gush over your beautiful flowers! Thanks for sharing the picture!

Hi Paul, beautiful flowers. I guess it colours well with the snow, this time of year?

Hi Amber and Monica, well, there is no snow in this part of Switzerland. We had been walking on a hill with my mother - but there is no snow; we could see the Alps (Jungfrau etc.). So, the contrast to the flower is the brown-green-gray background of our little garden.

4) Seelsorge an sich selbst by Jakob Hitz. A little book about self-counselling; a little outdated (it was published in 1974), but the chapter on prayer was useful

Say hello to Calvin, our Bonsai Tiger:

Hello Calvin!

Miau

Oooh, lovely cat! Good morning, Calvin!

I am saddened by the death of Janet Katz (janetinlondon) on 4th January. I enjoyed her contributions and comments.

Calvin again

Delurking to say I love the photo of Calvin in the sink! Reminded me how my black and white short haired domestic cat used to do the same thing in our sink. I never did understand the attraction with the sink or why he loved it when the faucet was left on a slow trickle.... he could sit on the vanity beside the sink for hours just watching the water drip. ;-)

5) Mumins : die gesammelten Comic-Strips by Tove Jansson. I read Mumin as a youngster and found this collection of her comics. Great fun to read these stories again.

Love Calvin in the basin too. He looks surprisingly comfortable.

And Moomins are great (we spell them differently in English - I wonder what the Finnish spelling is?).

Yeah, the sink is one Calvin's cosiest place ... don't know why. Especially so, when sink is cleaned ...

Moomins is Muumit in Finnish, but I guess that Tove wrote it in Swedish, so it would be Mumin. I enjoyed especilly the books.

6) Die chinesische Geliebte by Ying Hong. A Chinese novel about romance, erotic, and cultural clashes in the China of the 1930s. The nephew of Virginia Woolf goes to China in order to teach English literature and becomes enslaved to the sexual knowledge and experience of a Chinese writer. She shows him the Chinese fulfillment of sexuality (some explicit descriptions). But he never understands her or the Chinese, he is too self-, and Western-centered. I liked the story but sometimes I wanted to slap Julian for his Western arrogance (that was probably the intention of the writer). The novel is on the Index in China.

Chiming is as another Moomin fan - my Charlie loves them!

I love the photos of Calvin! And, what a wonderful name for a cat!

Hi Amber, Lady of Leisure, I love lists, too, I guess that's why I started with library science... When reading Moomins the first time, I actually believed that there are all these funny animals up there in Finland and I would have just to go up there to meet some moomins or snorks or hatifnatten... I missed the exhibition here in Lucerne last year in memoration of Tove Jansson's anniversary (she died 2001). {sniff}

Hi Linda, my daughter brought the cat home just as a 'trial stay'. We didn't want any cats but she just brought one home and thought to give it back after a week or so! You can't do that with cats, they bond with the house ... okay, so it stayed. The name comes from the comic strip 'Calvin and Hobbes'. Last year our daughter married and moved out ... what happened to cat? It was orphaned and forsaken and had to stay here, and I (well, my bed, actually) was chosen as a new home. Whenever I change my bed linens the cat comes along puts its prints all over ... just to show me who the boss is. Also, when I bring my fresh laundry back from the drying room and put it on my bed - I have to put away pretty fast before it is occupied by Calvin (the Occupy movement was started by Calvin).

I love the story about Calvin - and the pictures, Paul!

#36 You are right, of course - Tove Jansson was Finnish, but of the Swedish-speaking minority and wrote in Swedish not Finnish. I hadn't quite got that straight in my head!

Mention of the Moomins has made me want to go out and find copies of all the books - I see that there are a couple of them I did not read as a child. The copies we had were technically my sister's not mine, so I don't still have them in my own collection. I do have The Summer Book, one of her books for grown-ups rather than children, waiting to be read.

Hi Genny,
I've never read anything else by Tove Jansson, you mentioning her other books lets me make a mental note to look for them in the library. thanks for the hint.

7) Historische Firmenetiketten aus der Schweiz für den asiatischen Markt by Stefan Sigerist. A short collection of trade mark etiquettes some Swiss used in East Asia; almost no text, but some intersting pictures, like the cats below

How do people get all these ideas for books like "Historische Firmenetiketten aus der Schweiz für den asiatischen Markt".
At the risk of being booed in this cat-friendly environment (what is it about the obvious connection between a love for cats and books?) I must admit I'm not a huge cat-fan because they keep trying to ruin my garden. For some reason, all the cats in my neighbourhood seem to prefer my garden over all the others. I do admire their excellent taste because I feel the same way about my garden. If only they would stop leaving "things" behind in shallow holes, we'd get along just fine.
If you like cats, you might enjoy Thomasina and Jennie by Paul Gallico. Even I enjoyed it immensely years ago.

The book has not just cat pictures in there - more of anything else than cats. The author published articles and books on Swiss in Asia and apparantly came across all these etiquettes and made a picture book. He also wrote 'Schaffhauser in den Diensten der niederländischen Ost- und Westindischen Handelsgesellschaften im 18. Jahrhundert' published in Swiss magazine.

As I already told here, having a cat was not my idea, and I still don't like it much. Having a cat means, that other cats don't show up in your garden...

I have Jennie somewhere but wasn't inclined much to read it (yet).

Monica, remember your remarks about the Dutch book titles on the German starting page of LT? I asked Tim about it and he promised to fix it.

8) Eine Frage des Vertrauens by DiAnn Mills. A CIA mystery. Paige is an agent in hiding because she was betrayed by an other CIA agent who wants to become governor of Oklahoma. She now works as a librarian in a small village, until one day her hiding is discovered. A good read (a Christmas gift from my wife).

The opening sentence: "Die Bibliothekarin Paige Rogers hatte schon aufregendere Tage erlebt" - I like librarians

9) Gottes Willen erkennen und tun by Reinhard Deichgräber. A little but very good book about God's will and ways to recognize it and live accordingly

10) Der Geheimgang by Loïc Jouannigot. A nice little comic about two kids who came through a tunnel into the hidden world of mice. I like Loïc Jouannigot's stile.

Hello from Denmark. About the Bible: Of course it should be counted as well. Why not? I try to do some daily Bible reading but when finished I just mark it one book read, not 66 - otherwise the 75'ers task would be quite easy :)

Hope and pray for a speedy recovery for your wife.

Hi Carsten, Thanks for the prayers. She is much better now. She started a proper German course two weeks ago. She is fluent in spoken German, but her insights in prepositions etc. are wobbly.

Good to hear Paul. Ah, yes those prepositions....I understand quite a bit of german but the grammar, ehem...that's all gone now. Schade.

Ah, German. I know Latin, ancient Greek, French, archaic Italian, I can squeak by with reading modern Italian, and I can even read Hittite, but German will not stick in my head. I have tried multiple times to learn it, but it just won't happen for me. Sad.

Hi Carsten, there are some pretty easy mistakes to make (as in English, too). A coming mistake is to muddle up 'mit' (with) and 'bei' (by, at): Often East Asians would say 'Ich schlief mit meinem Vater' (I slept with my father) meaning 'Ich schlief bei meinem Vater' (I slept at my father's).

Hi Amber, with all these languages you know, you wouldn't miss German. I once learned ancient Greek an Hebrew but never went far. And know it's all gone. Shame. Now I learn Korean again. Tomorrow I meet other Swiss and Germans married to Koreans who want learn to read Korean in order to sing Korean songs and the 'Our Father'-prayer for taking part in the service in the Korean church. We meet during the service and hopefully learn a few easy songs to sing along in the services.

Ah, yes, that could result in an awkward misunderstanding :) One of my cousins is married to a korean girl - I guess you could say she's fluent in danish - although I have a hard time understanding her. She speaks quickly and with a very heavy accent.

11) Tour de Suisse : eine nostalgische Reise zu den schönsten Plätzen der Schweiz by Peter Graf (Editor). As the subtitle says: a nostalgic travel thru Switzerland, writing a little bit about each place and shouting historic posters. Don't use it as a travel guide, but it gives some hints to interesting places in Switzerland.




'Basel ist eine sehr schöne Stadt." "Und freundlich sind die Basler, vielleicht die freundlichsten Leute in der ganzen Schweiz." (and friendly are these Baslers, maybe th most friendly people in Switzerland )


"Dann ist da der Pilatus mit seiner rätselhaften Schönheit." "Von oben hat man einen Rundblick von atemberaubender Schönheit über den ganzen Luzerner See und auf die Alpen vom Berner Oberland bis zum Engading." (from the top of Mount Pilate you have a breath taking view over the Lake of Lucerne and the Alps from the Bernese Oberland zu the Engadin)


"Aber wenn Sie auch noch so gute Vorsätze haben, so können Sie auf die Dauer doch nicht der Anziehungskraft der Jungfrau widerstehen, und bald sieht man auch Sie wandern, klettern und auf die Berge steigen wie einen echten Touristen." (even with good resolutions one cannot resist the attraction of the Virgin (Jungfrau), and soon you will be climbing and hiking in the mountains like a true tourist)

Hi Paul - I never been to Schweiz (our danish spelling of the country) - and I hope someday to do a hiking tour there in the spring/summer. Last year I read Heidi - can't remember where it took place, but it gave me an urge to go. Seems this book represent some beautiful spots.

Do you go a lot on hiking in the alps?

>58 yes, I like hiking. 'Heidliand' Meiringen http://www.maienfeld.ch/de/ would be a good place to hike.

Next weekend we go to Habkern near Interlaken in the Bernese Oberland and will hike in snow, I guess, and probably try out snowshoes for the first time.

12) Katharina von Dornach : ein Comic ; 500 Jahre danach by Reto Gloor. An historical comic about the battle of Dornach 1499. We have 1501: A painter travels home from Italy to Germany and gets lost in the forest south of Basel. He meets a young woman who helps him with his horse and tells him of the gruel fights and looting by the Swabians and the last battle near Dornach which lead to the Peace of Basel. a nice historic graphic novel.

Have fun with the snowshoes!

Thanks, did you ever use snowshoes?

Yes. My husband is a biologist, so, now and then, I volunteer to assist him with field work. Sometimes snowshoes are the footgear-of-choice for the job at hand--like hooting for spotted owls in the middle of winter, in the middle of the night. Fun, fun, fun.

Thanks, Jadebird for the encouragement. I hear it to be fun, but I never seen it.

Snowshoes does sound like a lot of fun, although I can imagine you can feel it in your legs afterwards - have a good hike, Paul. I envy you the nature you have in Schweiz.

13) The girl who played with fire by Stieg Larsson. The 2nd part of Lisbeth Salander's story. An intriguing story, worthwhile reading (I guess that so many have read it, there is nothing I can add).

Greetings from frozen Basel ( the Fastnachtsbrunnen, the Carneval Fountain)



funny expericence with google translater: I put "fastnachtsbrunnen basel" and got "almost eight wells basel" but that would be "fast acht brunnen".

14) Der Ring des Feuers by Pierdomenico Baccalario. An Italian fantasy for young adults. Four teenagers meet in Rome in the same hotel and find out that they were all born on 29th February! On New Year's Eve they meet a man running from his enemies who gives them a small suitcase with a mysterious content and so the hunt for the meaning of the artifacts in the suitcase enrolls. A lot of references to the Italian (European) history. The first volume of the 'Century Quartet'. Good read, mainstream fantasy (but, I guess I am too old for that kind of literature).

We are back from snowshoe walking. That was fun. Suki has enjoyed it very much - but she felt her bodily weakness and our hike on the second day was (almost) too much for her.

But being out in the mountains and snowshoeing around in good, cold air - definitely worthwhile. We could have stayed longer (but my boss wouldn't have been as pleased about that...).


the view from our hotel room in the direction of Interlaken and the three most famous Swiss moungtains (just behind these rocks).


Habkern is a little village "at the end of the world" (as our hotel has written it on its homepage). It is the only one in this region which has a hawk (Habicht) in its coat of arms and not an eagle, as so many other Bernese villages have.


On the way home we visited Kemmeriboden Bad in the Emmental (it's just a few kilometres away from Habkern, but there is big mountain in between, so it took us almost two hours to drive around). It is very famous for meringues, ah, just the best and the biggest this side of the Mississippi (and the other, too). There you may check in into an igloo hotel (sleep, eat in a properly made igloo). It's warm inside, just don't lean against the walls...

Interesting photos.

Yes, thank you for sharing all the wonderful pictures! Looks like you had a great time.

15) Nicht wie bei Räubers ... : vierzehn Abenteuer für grosse und kleine Leute by Ursula Marc. A very good book. A robber boy lives in the forest and gets rescued by the king's son and because a child of the great king. All these chapters show how someone can become a Christian and then how live accordingly. My wife had to read it for counselling group and I read it to her since that was quicker than reading it herself (her German is good, but reading it is tiresome work).

16) Carlotta by Alex Varenne. A graphic novel, a rather brutal story. A sexually misused girl kills her tormentors... I am disappointed.

17) Die Tour de France : der Comic by Laurent Jalabert. A comic about the Tour de France by the former elite cyclist. A funny story about cycling and cyclist's mentalities.

18) Vincent und Van Gogh by Gradimir Smudja. A comic about the Van Gogh - but with a split personality: One day Van Gogh takes a cat home. His paintings are useless but the cat named Vincent starts to redo his paintings and so Van Gogh becomes famous. Funny idea

Came across your thread for the first time today. I looked up Die Tour de France: der Comic for my son on the UK Amazon site. He is learning German at the moment and his German teacher recommended reading comic books to improve his language, and he is a big fan of the Tour de France, so I thought it might be useful. Unfortunately, on the UK site while there is a used French version for £4.89 the German version is £49.39 so I'll have to give a miss on this one.

19) Dann bist du tot! by Anton E. Kratz. 'Notes on South Africa' says the German subtitle. A disturbing book about apartheid and the social injustices in South Africa in the 1960s. The 'coloureds' were always second class, they had no rights, and a Boers could treat there fellow citizens as they liked (well, they were not even seen as citizens).
The book starts with a kind of lullaby every boer child learns:
Siembamba, mama se kindjie,
dry sy nek om, gooi hom in die slot,
trap op sy kop, dan is hy dood.
=Siembamba, mama's child,
dry his neck, threw him into the slot,
stepped on his head, then he died.

Kratz gives a short history of South Africa and reports stories he himself experienced (he lived 20 years in South Africa) or quotes it from different papers. The brutality and the heartless behavior of the Boers towards Blacks and Asians is horrifying. It's good that the regime had to change - but for many that change came too late. He ends his book with that remark: 'The whole world contributes to the discrimination that goes on in South Africa and carries the guilt to a certain degree, because the indifference is as bad as the offense itself.' {Die gesamte Welt trägt an der Diskriminierung, die in Südafrika vor sich geht, eine gewisse Schuld, denn die Gleichgültigkeit ist ein ebenso schlimmes Vergehen.}

(Thanks, rolandperkins for mentionig the book)

20) Marina : Roman by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. A Spanish surreal love story. One day a teenager meets this girl Marina in a rundown mansion. They solve the mystery of some zombie like puppets. A well written story. I like the main characters but not so much the surrealistic part. I like reading Ruiz Zafón.

21) Das Orakel von Port-Nicolas by Fred Vargas. Ex-inspector Ludwig Kehrweiler finds a piece of a toe in dog shit and goes out to find the murderer of this piece of evidence. Slow going mystery with fascinating twists.

Thanks for sharing the photos of "frozen Basil."

What an interesting mix of books you've been reading lately! Where do you come across things like the comic books about Van Gogh and about the Tour de France?

Hi Linda, sadly all the snow is gone now, and the fountain ias free of ice again

Hi Genny, we have a good public library here, and sometimes I get comic-attacks and I get a bunch of them in the library and read them

22) Onna Maria Tumera, oder, die Vorfahren by Leo Tuor. I saw that the book was written originally in Raeto-romanian (Romansh), our fourth language in Switzerland. It is a difficult read, since there is no story behind it, there are a whole bunch of anecdotes from the author, basically about his grand parents. It gives some insight into life in a Surselvan village. There is the grandfather who lost one arm and gets admitted to a psychiatric home. The book is full of quotes from different sources (Pushkin, Loetscher, Melville, Genesis, Koran...) and events which happened in the area (finding of gold). If you are from the Grisons, you might like the book, but otherwise it is just a collection of incoherent anecdotes.

23) Die Tür zur Zeit by Pierdomenico Baccalario. Another teenager mystery/fantasy. Three kids in a mansion in Cornwall find different hints for a secret room in this mansion and get ou to solve that mystery.

24) Die Kammer der Pharaonen by Pierdomenico Baccalario. the second part of the adventures of the three kids. They find the way to ancient Punt in Egypt. A teenager mystery.

25) Zürich by mike by Mike van Audenhove. A comic about life in the city of Zürich. Well drawn and well spotted daily 'adventures', often written in Swiss German. The author died 2009, an American who moved to Switzerland. There are 14 volumes of 'Zürich by mike'.

26) The girl who kicked the hornets' nest by Stieg Larsson; the third part of Lisbeth Salander's ordeal. Lisbeth is seriously injured in a hospital bed and her father tries to kill her. A well written mystery, but with brutal scenes I would not miss.

27) Poetry Slam : das Buch ; die 40 besten Bühnen-Texte ed. by Mischa-Sarim Vérollet. Gives a good cross-section of German (and a few Swiss) slammers.

28) Curry-Connection : wie ich zu fünf Tanten, 34 Cousins und einem neuen Namen kam by Bruno Ziauddin. Bruno is the son of a dark-skined Indian immigrant to Switzerland, born here. After the death of his father he travels the first time to India to visit his relatives. A tongue-in-cheek (right?) account of his culture clash in his 'home' country. As soon as he (and his girlfriend) arrives, his life is taken over by these cousins 24/7. No chance of privacy or making your own plans. He also makes some interesting observations and remarks about having foreign looks in Switzerland and his growing-up in one cultures and going (not back) into another. Easy, funny read, with some serious thougths.

The book was given to me by the head of the Women's Library in Riehen (despite the fact, that the book is written by a man - which they do not collect) (not men, but books written by men)

29) Die erstaunlichen Talente der Audrey Flowers : Roman by Jessica Grant. Audrey/Oddley flies home because her father was hit by a Christmas tree and lies in hospital. But he is already dead when she arrives and she meets her uncle and tries to understand what happened to her father and what happened in the past with her family. She leaves a tortoise back home which comments the story from back home. funny, sometimes sad story

I really liked Come Thou, Tortoise and like you found it funny and sad at the same time. Very touching.

Thanks ccookie for passing by.
Sometimes I had mixed feelings about the change of characters telling the story, you know when the tortoise is talking and when Oddley.
I have two turtles (water tortoise?) at home. They are in a tiny garden pond in summer, in winter we have to take them inside. So, that's why I choose this book in the first place (there is a turtle on the cover but the German title doesn't mention the Schildkröte).

30) The visitation by Frank E. Peretti. A well written Christian mystery. In Antioch, Washington, appears a man who heels people, works miracles etc. and seems to be a second Christ. A retired pastor doesn't believe that and starts to find out who this man really is and how he came to be such a betrayer. It shows the life of this pastor and gives some insights into the different denominations present.

31) In the month of Kislev : a story for Hanukkah by Nina Jaffe. A very nice little story about a poor family in a shtetl in Poland, having no potatoes for making latkes for Hanukkah. The poor children went to the rich man's house in order to smell the newly baked latkes there. But the rich man got angry and asked the rabbi to sentence the poor family to pay a fine for smelling the goodies... What did the rabbi answer? Read the book (32 pages only with nice pictures). A good story for telling children. (I know that this book is totally out of season - but I couldn't resist its charm at the Salvation Army book sale).

32) Im Dunkel der Wälder : Roman by Brigitte Aubert. A great French mystery. A blind, paralyzed woman, Elise, gets visited by a little girl which tells her of murdered children. The only way of communication is one finger - Elise understands everything and we follow her train of thoughts when she slowly unravels the mystery of these murders.

33) Joseph, der Patriarch by Adolf Helling. A short commentary on the life of Joseph, the patriarch. A new edition of a 1954 publication. I used it for the Bible studies in our home study group.

34) Operation Freiheit Sieben : Sebastian in geheimer Mission by James L. Johnson. A preacher comes to Florida and gets involved in a rescue mission of (for?) Cuban refugees. Good idea, plot, but the characters were too vague and inconsistent

35) Totenbuch : ein Kay-Scarpetta Roman by Patricia Cornwell. Not one of her best mysteries.

36) I wie Intrige : Kriminalroman by Sue Grafton. Kinsey Millhone takes over a case from a dead colleague. She should tray to surface evidence in murder case which lays six years back. Well written whodunnit.

Hi Paul, it looks as if you're in some sort of thriller & detective-mood too.

Hi Monica, yes, certainly, I am reading two more at the moment, written by german authors. And I found Melnitz - but the German edition has over 700 pages. Did you already peek at the last sentence? Interesting. I just put it into the ck part of the book.

I thought when reading American mysteries, that their heroes take shooting a subject too easy and cold (Kinsey in Grafton's mysteries for example). The French and German heroes aren't so cold blooded. At least with those mysteries I read this year.

Hi Paul, I can see what you mean about the blood & murder-level. I prefer crime-novels where the psychology is more important than the violence. Lately, I've been reading a lot of Scandinavian crime (what is it that makes them so special?) and I don't think I really know of any German (of Swiss) crime-authors. I must check them out when I'm in the thriller-mood again.
Interesting indeed, this last sentence of Melnitz. My edition has quite small print which makes me realize how easy it is to get addicted to an e-reader where I can adjust the font-size. However, I'm an avid supporter of the library and they only lend out paper-books so far. Well, I'll have to use the glasses, I'm afraid...
I usually don't like to read chunksters of 500+ pages, but I make an exception for authors I've read and enjoyed before.

37) Grappa im Netz : Kriminalroman by Gabriella Wollenhaupt. A journalist launches a partner-finding show on tv. A few men get killed by date partners in hotels. The journalist sets out to find the killer(s). Basically a good story with witty remarks. But the idea that raped women get a licence to kill promiscuous men is simply wrong. I do somehow understand that the raped women would go out tp get their offenders, but not, that when these offenders are in prison the women date specifically married men and then kill them, has nothing to do with justice.

*waving* at Paul

I think I will give a pass to your last book, even if it is translated.

*waving back*

I guess, you wouldn't miss much. Apart from some dialogues the journalist has with her cat...
I will try to get another book in the Grappa-series in order to find out if the other books are also hostile to men.

The journalist talks to her cat? Oh well, I talk to the dog - and she is not even mine!

the cat is a he (what's that in English: a male cat, a boy cat?). The answers are written in cursive (italics). Some of the dialogues revolve around food, cat hairs, dirty feet/shoes; but often the content is more of a sexual nature (the cat wants to visit the neighbour's red hair cat, but Grappa reminds him of his neutering operation, and the cat complains about the men who stay over night... )

Male cats are called tom cats around here. There may be other terms for them with which I am unfamiliar.

I would say overall that the Grappa series is not one for me.

thanks, Stasia, it's good to learn new words. I saw Tom Cat once in a novel, but thought that to be the name of the cat (because of the capitals).

No problem, Paul.

38) Männer, Geld und Schokolade : eine Geschichte über Liebe, Erfolg und wahres Glück by Menna van Praag. The story of a young woman finding her way. The few recipes at the end are the best part of the book.

39) Der Bär : Kriminalroman aus der Eifel by Jacques Berndorf. 111 years ago, in a German town, a Gypsy was murdered. An historian wants to write a paper on the case and a journalist helps her to trace down all the data necessary. Interesting case, a good mystery.

Paul said, "The few recipes at the end are the best part of the book." So, my guess is that you didn't like the book very much, hmm? That would be too bad, but at least you were able to read a good one in your #39.

Karen O.

Hi klobrien2, it was an easy read. I sometimes fall for certain words in a title, like chokolate - it's not always a wise decision. The main character won some good insights during her life, but I was bored after some time and just finished it because iI had chosen it myself from the local library.

40) Das Seidenband by Hannes Nüsseler; a graphic novel telling the history of an investigation of a Swiss bank by a Frenchman. Napoleon imposed a continental barrier against the British, which also harmed the textile industry in Basel (and elsewhere). Banks tried to get money out of smuggling goods to the British (one of them was a forerunner of the UBS). At the same time the canton of Basel split because of the suppression of the country through the city. A nicely drawn comic, the first done by Nüsseler.

41) Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius : Rundgänge durch die Metropolen des Baltikums by Volker Hagemann. Reading the Vilnius part and a bit of the Riga part for my second visit to Lithuania. We have to leave Switzerland at 3 in the morning (I am no good at raising early), drive to Karlsruhe, fly to Vilnius, stay there, in Alytus, Siauliai, Ginkunai, and Kaunas, fly from there to Frankfurt Hahn, take the shuttle bus to Karlsruhe and drive home. We'll be back Sunday night. I will work the whole of Saturday in the library in Ginkunai again. The theological college is seeking accreditation. I'll help in getting the library in a better shape, well the catalog, basically. I hope to see something of the old Vilnius, but I am afraid there is not much left of the Jewish heritage.

42) Hour game by David Baldacci; a killer copies killiungs of former killers and two ex-secret service agents solve the mystery. Well written.


43) Die Pension Eva : Roman by Andrea Camilleri; thê story of a brothol on Sicily and the coming of age of a boy. Readable

44) Immy and the city : depresso to go : die traurigste Geschichte der Welt by Mimi Welldirty. A graphic novel about the depressing life of a young woman in the city. Pure loneliness

45) Das Fest der Fliegen : Kriminalroman by Gert Heidenreich. A fundamentalist Catholic group go out to save Mary's reputation, start the inquisition anew and kill those who fail to live up to their standard. A retired police officier, Alexander Swoboda, solves the mystery. Fascinating background.

46) Flutzeit by Anne Provoost. A retelling of Noah's story of building the arch and surviving the flood. I found it disappointing.

Here a goolge tranlsation of my blurb:
Re Jana moved with her ​​father, her paralyzed mother, and a stray orphan from the native inland marshes away to a life without the threat of living by water. You go to the site of the ark. The father is a good boat builders of Noah helps to build his ark. Noah is at God's command and builds the ark for himself and his family and all the animals. There is dispute as to who should and who is not on the ark. Re Jana also make it to the ark.

An interesting retelling of the biblical story from Genesis. But the characters are somewhat flat and make it difficult to feel sympathy, and so to cheer on. The description of the contemporary culture in itself is not consistent ('read riot act' expressions such as dingoes and are certainly not at that time).

The biblical God has been replaced and was not only the 'ineffable' (his title in the book) but also the unapproachable. Thus the story loses the hope of a new beginning, as it lights up in Genesis. In the end, the author draws some kind of political 'moral of the story', although it has previously Canaan career falsified and therefore drowned her last sentence as a false justification of Canaan.

Hi Paul, I'm catching up with your thread. You've done quite a bit of reading.
RE. Flutzeit, it probably won't surprise you that Anne Provoost is an advocate for atheism. I haven't read this particular book, but I have read others by her and I can't say that I really enjoyed them either. They feel a bit too artificial to me.

Thanks Monica. I didn't know about her atheist attitude, but felt that her text showed that the idea of a living God is alien to her. But then it surprised me that she kept the length of the Flood as in Genesis.

47) Das Blut der Lilie : Roman by Jennifer Donnelly. Andi is a teenager who blames herselt with the death of her little brother. She is suicidal and wants nothing but playing guitar. Her father takes her to Paris in order to write on her school paper about a musician who lived during the French Revolution. She finds a diary dating from the same time and dives into that time period. An interesting historical account of this time in Paris and the coming to terms with the loss of her brother.

48) Korea und ich ... = 나와 한국 : Lesehäppchen aus dem Land der Morgenfrische by Jonas Ley. A German manager goes to Korea to work and he tells stories about his experiences. Really good.

49) Fleisch. Albin : zwei Horrorutopien aus der Zukunft by Martin Harníček. The Czech author signed the Charta 77 and so his books were banned in Czechoslovakia. I thought that to be a good reason to read his books. But I was mistaken.

Fleisch (Meat) is a horror science fiction: The future urban world is determined by the demand for meat. Meat is the only food available - human meat. It's a cannibalistic society. People have no names. So this man tries to survive in this hostile environment - eat or be eaten. It's not just horror, it's also horrible. I didn't care to read the second story in the book.

50) Chumm, häb chli Zit! : Gschichte für ufem Gartebänkli by Paul Stalder. That's not me, but the reason for reading this book. Paul tells different stories from his village in the canton of Bern in Bernese German. Very interesting to read, not so easy because I am not used to rread the way I talk.

The first story tells about to old friends, one a painter who is painting outside and explains his friend his last painting: The cross section of a tree trunk. This is the way he paints his own history.
(to be continued) He chose Yellow and Red for joy and life, for his carefree youth. Brown-Violet for the death of his father, Violet is his colour of death, Brown for his father who worked with earth and went back into it.


My laptop broke: 'Hard drive reading error'. The recovery cd I've made didn't help. My son recovered some of the data on it, but now I have to bring the corpse to the shop and hopefully get another one.

still no laptop....

51) Der Mann aus Želary : Novelle by Kveta Legátová. A young doctor makes courier services for the resistance movement in Bohemia and Moravia in 1942. Suddenly she has to disappear and goes with a wounded and now cured man back to his village (Zelary) in the deep countryside. She marries him in order to get a new identity and starts her new life in this village, far away from the rest of the world. She experiences the village life, and starts to feel at home. A good description of life in a far away country village in former Cechoslovakia.

52) Gift : zwei Erzählungen by Josef Burg. Two short stories by an Ukrainian Jew. Both stories play in Vienna in 1940s. Gift (ssam=poison) means the poison of the Nazi philosophy. In Rasse (race), an SS group leader commits suicide - no-one knows why. In Ein Fremder (a stranger), two Jews meat in Vienna, both lived in this city since several years, but they are still strangers in this Austrian world after the Anschluss (connection, annexion). Short, tight stories which make you think.

Hi Paul, you read some interesting books lately. I have Legátová's books on my wishlist. I actually started one of her other books earlier (Zelary), which I believe is either a prequel or a sequel, but I yet have to finish it. It seems she is quite an old lady who only got her books published after the Wall went down. So many hidden treasures behind that Wall!
I hope all is well with you and with your wife. I hope she's enjoying or has enjoyed her trip!

Hi Monica, thanks for asking: Suki enjoyed her trip home very much, she came back on 31st May. Since Monday she is working in the hospital again, three hours in the evening. That's quite enough for her. She is very tired when she comes home.

There are two novels which deal with Zelary: Zelary (= Die Leute von Zelary) and Jozova Hanule (= Der Mann aus Zelary). The movie Zelary is based on the latter. It's not much action in the story but a lot of character descriptions and developments.

53) Wohnungen der inneren Burg : vollständige Neuübertragung by Teresa von Avila. Teresa writes for her sisters of her religious order on the subject of prayer. She compares the soul with a castle with many apartments. Each apartment has different rooms and gardens and stands for a development in prayer. She urges her readers to concentrate fully on Christ who lives in the inner most apartments and awaits the soul there but also gives many blessings on the way. Not an easy read but a very good, interesting work on the mystic of prayer.

54) Das Leben des Parmigianino by Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574). Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzuoli) was a young, very talented Italian painter in the 16th century. Vasari tells his life, that the young man lost his parents and was brought up by his uncles who discovered his talent for painting. Wit 14 he painted John the Baptist baptizing Christ - and was sent to the pope. Vasari tells us of almost all his paintings and the whereabouts of them. He also describes Parmigianino's interest into alchemy and his loss of money, time, desire to paint and his decline in appearance.

This little booklet contains most of Parmigianino's paintings and gives a good introduction to his life.



The baptism of Christ



his self portrait

55) Dämmerung : Erzählungen by Josef Burg. Short stories from the Vienna at the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich. He tells about Jewish authors and other artists in Vienna, their thinking, and their meeting in the Café Central. Loneliness and the loss of Heimat is the main subject of the stories.

56) Schutzpatron : Kluftingers neuer Fall by Volker Klüpfel. St. Magnus is the patron saint of the Allgäu in Bavaria. His treasure is now about to come back. So Kluftinger becomes part of a team to protect this treasure - but the main object is stolen - but how, when and by whom?

57) Gordon : Roman by Edith Templeton. Louisa follows a psychiatrist who talked to her in a pub and then rapes her. He tells her to meet her again, she meets him again and gets raped again. She is enslaved by him and cannot break free. The book was banned when published in 1966. A somehow fascinating but repulsive story.

58) Der spazierende Mann by Jirō Taniguchi. A quiet, in great detail drawn comic. A graphic novel about a man who walks around and looks at the details of his surrounding. A very peaceful read - a Japanese manga without the action rich heroes.

59) Die Masken von San Marco : Commissario Trons vierter Fall by Nicolas Remin. In order to promote his popularity, the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph hires an assassin who should fire space-cartridges at his visit to Venice. An historical mystery in pre-Donna Leon Venice. A good mystery, but a bit overloaded with different characters.

60) Haarmann : Graphic Novel byPeer Meter. Hannover, Germany, in 1924: Findings of bones in the river Leine. There were several young men gone missing. A police informer has always fresh meat to sell. A gripping mystery, based on the true story of the serial killer Haarmann. A well drawn graphic novel, no colours, very detailed, no atrocious drawings; it reminded a bit of Robert Crumb. Very good

61) Partitur des Todes : Roman by Jan Seghers. An interesting mystery starting in Paris with the discovery of a lost operetta by Jacques Offenbach which was smuggled out of Auschwitz. Soon after that became known five people were murdered and Kommissar Marthaler has to find the murders. The author apparently did some research on the Jews. A good story but a bit too many characters.

62) Die wundersamen Irrfahrten des William Lithgow ed by Roger Willemsen. Lithgow's travels to Paris, Italy, Jerusalem, Malta, Northern Africa are a refreshing account of his experiences and a light description of countries and people. For him, London is the best governed city in the world - well the best place to live. Damascus is the most beautiful in the whole of Asia. He was captured by bandits on the way, by pirates on sea. He visited Jerusalem and complains about the Catholic morals, the cunning of the Arabs etc.I enjoyed that very much.

63) Xaver Imfeld, 1853-1909 Meister der Alpentopografie by Madlena Cavelti Hammer. I didn't read the whole book. Imfeld had very good ideas concerning mapping Switzerland. A good volume on his biography and the art and history of map making in Switzerland.


a map of Mount Everest:

64) Herbstlaub by Michael Rast. A nice little booklet about autumn leaves. Rast made fotographs from single leaves and added some poems by different authors (Joachim Ringelnatz, Sarah Kirsch, Heinz Piontek etc.). There is also a description of each tree and its leaves

65) Die Wirklichkeit, mit Fleisch nachempfunden BY Ruedi Widmer. Well, there is no text in the booklet. The photographer took pictures and made his copy out of meat. Like 'Shave a döner', or play table soccer with sausages.

66) Millionen-Studien : mit dem Bilde des Dichters und einer Einleitung, sowie drei Abbildungen by Multatuli. An interesting, somewhat outlandish treatise about gambling, especially roulette. Eduard Douwes Dekker (Multatuli is his pseudnonym, he is also the author of Max Havelaar) argues that the casino is more honest in its statements than other banks and institutions, because it is evident that a gambler is always going to lose in the end and the casino never goes bankrupt because of a lucky streak of a single gambler; and that all systems fail. Interesting are also remarks about events at the time (the Prussinas taking over other German states). Tedious, slow going read, but worthwhile.

67) Die Tote im Pelzmantel by Fred Vargas. A woman is shot dead and a homeless tramp sees it, but is not prepared to help the police until Adamsberg comes along. Well written and well drawn graphic novel.

68) Charles, 1854, Margrit, 1886 ... Die Steenforts by Jean Van Hamme. The story of the Belgian beer dynasty Steenfort, a story of intrigues, politics and passion for the brewing of beer, from 1854 to 1997 in 8 volumes.

69) Quatemberkinder und wie das Vreneli die Gletscher brünnen machte : Roman by Tim Krohn. A Swiss story of a young man, coming of age in the Glarner Alps. He is an orphan who grows up on the Alps guarding the cows. He has to ward off evil and bad luck and learns some magic. A story full of superstition any myths. The author is German and writes the story with German grammar filled with dialect and Helvetisms. Fun and full of Swiss myths and tales.

70) Das praktische Igelbuch : Nahrung, Krankheiten, Schutz, Pflege, Überwintern by Michael Lohmann. We saw a hedgehog in our little garden and I went to the library to get some information. But now the hedgehog didn't show up again. We had one (the same?) two years ago who stayed over winter in our garden. Still, this is a very helpful book when dealing with such an animal.

71) Wo fahren wir hin, Papa? by Jean-Louis Fournier. A father gets two severely handicapped children. Now, after 30 years they are both dead and he tells their/his story. He realizes that laughing at a handicapped child is well received. A child who smears chocolate in his face is laughed at -but no-one laughs at a handicapped child and so this child is deprived of the experience. An interesting tale of the French tv producer about his experience with his handicapped sons.

72) HHhH : Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich ; Roman by Laurent Binet. Binet tells the story about the assassination of Heydrich in Prag very detailed. He made a serious search for every single detail (what color did the Mercedes have? who borrowed a bike?...). His style of writing is more a listing of catalog cards (257 chapters) than a story. I like his detailed description of the backgrounds of the persons and the places and issues involved. But I didn't like his self centered comments so much.

We spent three days in the Alps, near the Aletsch Glacier - wow, what a view. We also crossed the hanging bridge at the end of the glacier. Some years ago the glacier was much longer and could be crossed near the place where this new hanging bridge was built, it spans over 120 m above a gorge of over 80 m depth. Gorgeous!! My wife is stronger now but still gets medication every three weeks and works 3 hours per day. The change of climate did her good.
Enjoy the view






a self portrait of me:

Here are some impression from the anniversary of the airfield Birrfeld 2012 this weekend:






my brother-in-law made us a special gift: a flight with the Tante Ju (Auntie Ju), a plane bought by the Swiss army in 1939:




the link to the show: http://pistenfest.ch/

73) Paradies by Ville Ranta. A Finnish comic about Adam and Eve, their sin and the exit from paradise. Interesting that Ranta describes the original sin as a sexual sin and not disobedience.

Hi Paul, just checking in after a fairly long absence from LT (well, I've been checking but not been very active). I see you read HHhH. I liked the personal notes of the author, because it gave me an insight how a fellow-historian created his story (or at least he made me believe so), but I can understand it's not to everyone's taste.
And oh my, that looks like a scary walk over the Aletsch. I guess these walks you do are of the white and red-striped sort ?

Hi Monica, nice to hear from you again. I wasn't too busy either on reading - I was on holidays, in the Alps walking on the red striped paths, as you properly guessed (did you hike some if these routes? at least you know the signs and could find your destination). Definitely an experience. If you make a search for 'google+ paulstalder' you can see some more pictures (I put them on public, but I'll change that back to private in a few days).

Binet's story is very well researched, but his style of writing resembled Heydrich's style (at one point Binet describes Heydrich's system of cards of notes) of collecting information. I felt like reading two different books: one about Heydrich, one about Binet.

I was on a trip with my mother to Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava and Passau. It was an interesting trip through the former Habsburg cities.

74) Narrations of the Kavango : folktales and documentary texts from Northern Namibia and Southern Angola edited by Marc Seifert. A collection of folktales from tribes from the Kavango valley. Stories from everyday life, marrying animals was quite common and so leads to problems, or the river snake likongoro kills people on the river if they don't bring a sacrifice or intonate the right incantation. Likongoro also disturbes your mind when drinking its waters and the only solution will be to strip naked and redress all clothes the wrong way round (heed this advice when travelling near the Kavango river!). The stories were told by natives and printed in their languages (all different Bantu languages) and in English.

I am way behind on your thread, Paul. Congratulations on almost being at 75! I will give you a 'Woo Hoo' in advance of the magic number :)

Hi Stasia, thanks for celebrating with me. I hope your feet don't hurt too much from the jumping and clapping.

I got 75 now
75) I'll see you again! by Myron S. Augsburger. This is a fictionalized biography of Felix Manz, the first Anabaptist martyr. Felix received a solid humanist education and was teaching Hebrew in a Bible school in Zurich - and he was a friend of Zwingli, the reformer. But because of his stance about the church-state relation and baptism, he was put to death and drowned in the Limmat river. This novel is quite detailed about the teaching and travels of Felix and other Täufers (Anabaptists). Augsburger embellishes the story with dialogues with Felix' mother, other leaders, a girl friend of Felix' (to giver it a romantic touch?) etc. Quite a difference to Binet's style of telling Heydrich's story (my number 72).

Congrats!

76) Liebe zwischen zwei Welten by Susanne Wittpennig. Maya meets this rough guy in school and falls for him. Bur after vowing eternal love to each other, he and his drug addicted brother escape back home to Sicily. Maya goes there, too, in order to find out if he still loves her. But it gets a bit more complicated than that. A well written novel for young adults.

77) Die Insel : Rückkehr nach Terminal ; Roman by Julia Conrad. A fantasy novel with three young people who attempted to commit suicide and woke up in a fantasy world called Terminal. They came back to Earth, still in contact with the other world and get the task to fight the evil which lives in the asylum they are in order to recover from their suicide attempt. Well written, some of the described dreams and visions are pretty scary.

Moon rising on the Schleifenberg near Liestal (Basel), 5 hours ago

Hi Paul - am loving your photos! We didn't get to Andermatt but all your mountains are stunning.

I've seen HHhH here in good NZ bookshops but have resisted buying it. The reviews on LT are even more mixed than usual and you're not raving about it. Might be a good one to get out of the library...

Congratulations on reading 75 books already.

Hi Cushla - thanks flying by.

You're right: HHhH is good if your are new to the subject and tend to read in a 'stop-and-go' mood. It's not a story but a collection of clippings - but you would get all the minute details.

Here another mountain picture from the Furka Pass (sadly the weather was as cloudy as the steam from the engine):

78) General Joh. Aug. Suter by Martin Birmann. A short biography of Johann August Sutter, the founder of Nuevo Helvetia in California. His small business in Switzerland went bankrupt and so he left for the New World. After traveling and doing all sorts of things in New York, New Mexiko, Honolulu, and Russian Alaska, he came to California and received a huge piece of land from the Mexicans. But when one of his workers found gold, the whole area was invaded by thousands of people looking for gold. Despite a court decision, that all the land actually belongs to and he should receive compensation, he lost everything and died impoverished in Washington DC. The whole city of Sacramento is stolen property. Well, the American dream started with the theft of land: The Mexicans stole it from the Indians and the Americans from Sutter.

79) Ich war tot : Ian McCormack erzählt seine Jenseits-Erfahrungen by Ian McCormack. A New Zealander travels around the world with his surfboard. While diving off Mauritius he was stung by box jelly fishes. The doctor in the hospital considered him to be dead, but he came back to live and tells now his story of near-death-experience. 'Seeing' darkness and light, and becoming a Christian. A thought provoking story.

What an interesting story....Please tell me more. Do you know if there is an English translation?

Hi Linda, well the original is English. There is his homepage: http://www.aglimpseofeternity.org/ go for his testimony and watch one of these videos, and ignore the rest (too commercialized). I could tell you more from the book, but listen first to his interview and we discuss it.
I also found, that some people call him a fake. But what interested me was his basic story about his near-death-experience and the conclusions he draws from that.

By the way, I was on your LT page and found these covers of the books you read. How did you do that? Would look nice on my page, too, I guess.

*delurking* you have been reading some very interesting books :). I am especially interested in this one Wo fahren wir hin, Papa? that sounds very interesting.

Have a nice week :)

have a nice week, too and enjoy Wo fahren wir hin, Papa?. A father telling about his experiences with his handicapped children. My nephew is in a wheel chair, and my sister often told me her experiences with him and other people.

We had a lecture here in our archices about Bata, the biggest shoe company in the world. First we had Tobias Ehrenbold who talked about the first 'Bata-village' in Switzerland, where Tomas Bata built a whole village with factory and houses in Münchenstein (near Basel). He just published his book Bata: Schuhe für die Welt – Geschichten aus der Schweiz. Then came Anne Sudrow, a German shoemaker and historian, who told us about the growing of the company in Europe, their unique features, and the reasons people were buying Bata shoes. Bata was apparently the first patron to pay a 13. monthly salary and letting the workers have part in the profits. But in some countries he got into troubles because he didn' care much about collective labor contracts, and he met a stiff opposition by Bally for example and others. Bata wanted to give every bare footed person in the world a shoe, and so he made a shoe which was affordable for everybody. Sudrow had written an 800+page-book on the history of shoes, expecially during the Nazi time in Germany (Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus : eine Produktgeschichte im deutsch-britisch-amerikanischen Vergleich). That was a very interesting lecture.

why, oh why, don't the touchstones what they should??

80) Eine Titelfrage by Karl Bücher. I just got this pamphlet about 'A question of title', published 1912. The author was the editor of a journal and had to list all the titles of books which were sent to this journal. He complains about the lengthy and complicated titles some authors or publishers put on their books. He says that titles should be short, concise, and distinctive. They are not intended to replace the contents page. And the authors name should always given in full form, and not just 'Meyer' or 'Smith' 'Lieutenant of the 65th regiment' or something like that. He also states the listing of honors, medals and honorary membership speaks of bad taste. (cf. the quotes on the book's page)

81) Novembermord : Roman by Berndt Schulz. A gruesome murder on a meterologist in a small Hessian town - because of a false weather prognosis? Kommissar Velsmann investigates and finds a group of esoterics/satanists. Velsmann is old and insecure but has a good sense for the connections. But he reminds of other such inspectors. The plot is okay but not so good that one wants to read more of Kommissar Velsmann.

82) Long time coming by Robert Goddard. Eldritch Swan was locked up in an Irish prison for 36 years. He is out now to prove that there were Picassos faked years ago. The hunt for the prove brings him and his nephew to Belgium. It's also a story of political intrigues during WW II in Dublin.

Paul

Here is Tad's information.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/129158

Looks like you already know how to import covers, but if you are asking how to achieve uniformity, following Tads instructions regarding how to confingure the height of the image
then follow the directions for importing covers.

I don't put any space between the above instructions and in that way the book covers bump up against each other.

Does this help? If not, let me know.

Thanks, Linda, I'm going to try that later.
Tomorrow I'll off for Lithuania - working in the fridge. I'll catalog the books of a local Bible Institute and they don't have the resources for heating the library. So, I move the computer to the bedroom, get some books and catalog them there, then return to get some more.

83) Die weissen Handschuhe : Krimi by Kim Småge. A mystery that doesn't start with a corpse. 'The curtains fall' and the story starts: Lena just played the last time a male role on stage. Her brother is a member of the Freemasons and too ill to attend his receptive ritual for a higher grade. She dresses up as him and goes to the lodge. Most of the novel is a description of (Norwegian) masonic rituals and philosophy. When reading these oaths and esoteric backgrounds, one cannot but doubt on the sanity of masons regarding freedom and historicity.
The translation from the Norwegian is fluent but there are some inaccuracies which may be the authors fault or the translator's (the crucifiction of Christ has happened around year 30, not. 0; alttestamentarisch should be alttestamentlich).
Småge has some interesting comments to make when Lena talks about some aspects of the male society of the brotherhood.

84) Das Pinguin-Prinzip : wie Veränderung zum Erfolg führt by John Paul Kotter. We travelled by train to Lithuania and my friend was given that book to read. So, I read it first. It was a quick and easy read. I especially liked that fable about the pinguins (I know that pinguins don't talk). With that fable Kotter translates the ideas of change management for a broader audience. The basic steps of change management become clear.


We are still in Siauliai, Lithuania. We will travel back on Monday. It's cold and windy here.

I am off to find Siauliai on a Google map. I hope you took some warm clothes!!

Wow - it looks lovely and VERY far from Basel - how long'd it take on the train?

Hi Cushla

Yeah, it's way off and far off on the cold side. We left Basel with the 21.21 night train (couchettes), changed train in Berlin sometime in the morning (2 hours in the train station watching the news about Obama), arrived in Kotna, Poland, too late for the connecting train to Lodz at about 16.00. There some friends fetched us from the train station and brought us to their home near Lodz. the next morning (08.15) we travelled by car to Kaunas, took the bus there and arrived in siauliai around 21.00. My sitting meat was, ah well, I am alive. The building of the Bible Institute was built in the 19th century by a Russian Graf. the heating was installed during the Soviet occupation, that means, that then the oil/gaz for heating cost almost nothing and you could heart any dog hut up to 21° C. Now they have to pay normal prices and so they only heat the offices, the child day care, the school rooms and those bedrooms which are used - but NOT the library! so I moved the computer to my bedroom and every so often got some more books to catalog into their system. Their is no bad weather, there are only bad clothes. Outside temperature was just above 0 today, and it was windy

Hi Paul, that journey with trains, busses, cars would make a great backdrop for a book... something psychological, or maybe a spy-novel. :-) Take care and keep warm over there. How long are you staying?

Hej Monica, just came back and had a shower. First move now: start the computer and look into LT - kind of LT risk here?
I have some impressions from the trip which would fit into Psycho-spy-stories, I guess.
1) another missionary's car broke down on the motorway near Lodz. He was towed away by a local mechanic who then wanted to exchange the whole transmission/gear part - for ca. 1000 €!! He had to pay 900 Zloty (€ 250) for towing and opening the hood!!! another Pole we knew then towed the car from this mechanics back yard to Lodz (three times the first way) for 400 Zloty.
2) We could use the flat of an owner of a well running beauty clinic on top of the building. This clinic mustg be one of the top facilities in that field - they have clients from all over Europe, the USA and Canada (and Eastern Europe and the Near East I can only guess). Can I offer you anything here? I am not so much interested in changing my looks - I only got a new hair cut there (10 Litas = € 2.50, including hair washing)
3) Driving back through the Black Forest, we drove through little villages and woods at midnight. Suddenly there were blue lights flashing from behind and the front. the police checked us - they were looking for somebody else. We were to stay inside the car, the in-lights on, engine off and wait till they checked every single document of ours...

We have been to the cinema in Lithuania, too, and watched Skyfall. I also was reading Lithuanian fairy tales - now put all these ingredients together... but I am not so good in writing, I should get a ghost writer - anybody interested?

85) Von Laumen, Deiven, Zauberfrauen : Märchen aus Litauen byEdita Werner. A collection of fairy tales from Lithuania. Grimms Märchen are well known and systematized. The Lithuanians are different: they are much more naturverbunden (close to nature). People change into trees and animals, wells, animals, trees can sing and talk.
The king of snakes got, through a deal with the father, a beautiful maid as wife. But the other members of the family killed him (with the help of the youngest daughter) and so the wife took all her children, went to a quiet place and they all became trees; the treacherous daughter became an aspen, shaking with fear at any movement.
Laumen are a kind of fairies or witch: One Lauma kidnapped a boy and wanted to roast him and invite her friends. She ordered her daughter to prepare the food while she went inviting her friends. The boy tricked the girl into the oven and prepared a delicious meal. but put the girl's head into her bed. The Lauma only found out after the meal, what she has eaten by checking the bed; and she went after thy boy. But with the help of some geese and other birds, he could escape and return to his parents.
There 15 tales in the book, and a short paper about the history of oral tradition in Lithuania.

Hello Paul,
very interesting to read the adventures of your journey, have to admit it made me chuckle a lot.
Great review on Von Laumen, Deiven, Zauberfrauen, put it straight onto my wishlist. That one will fit perfectly my collection of fairy tales. :)

Hej drachenbraut, there are no dragons in these fairy tales, but other interesting creatures. Grimms Märchen are mostly black-and-white stories (the good is always good, the bad is always bad), but Lithuanian tales are not so clear cut. The 'victims' often act or react in a 'bad' way and so the hero is not always the shiny good example of German tales. Lithuanian tales are also not 'normed' as the German are: We know how a fairy tale goes: from 'Once upon a time...' until 'lived happily ever after.' This standardization didn't happen to the Lithuanian tales. Also, the translation in this book is close to Lithuanian, so it is not smoothed out.

The book also has nice pictures in it, and some tunes of the original songs which appear in the Lithuanian tales. I put the first and last words of every tale into the CK on the book's site.

No dragons is fine :), although I obviously do have stories about dragons as well *smile*. I have ordered the book in our local bookstore and will let you know what I thought about the stories.

I agree with you on the Grimm Märchen that they are all black-and-white stories. However, the Grimm Brothers only collected the stories and most of their origins are from the early middle ages and even earlier than that and only some of them got adapted by them to suit the German culture at that time. I find that a lot of these stories reflect these early times in society and very much show the importance of Religion during these early time periods.

86) Der Tod von Reval : kuriose Geschichten aus einer alten Stadt by Werner Bergengruen. Classic German short stories about living and dying in the Baltic city Reval, todays Tallinn. Bergengruen was born in Riga and died 1964 in Baden-Baden. These stories were first published in the 1930s.
There was this noble man Karl Eugenius who was not buried but was laid in a church in Reval because he made too many debts in life and the locals hoped to get the money back from his family.
A tramp finds a warm bed for the night, and then was woken by neighbors who found him in the bed of the dead landlady.
Whenever there was a funeral, a lady in yellow went ahead of the funeral procession. Nobody knows her name, she is just called the 'gelber Totenvorreitersche' (she who rides ahead of the dead).
A fischer finds his dead wife in his fish trap and so benefits.
A young man builds a tombstone for his dead wife and enlarges that to small house he visits every Sunday and other holidays...

185> Hi Bianca, you're right, the Grimms didn't 'norm' the tales. I wanted to say, that we all know how tales 'work' because we all know the Grimms Märchen and learned these as a kind of norm for what we call 'Märchen'.

87) Rioja für den Matador : Kriminalroman by Paul Grote. A German wine journalist is sent to the Rioja province in Spain in order to write an article on a new wine cooperative. But as soon he arrives the oenologist dies in a car accident. Accident or murder? The journalist starts to investigate and finds interesting oenological and historical hints. There are also a lot of facts about wine and bullfighting. A nice mystery with a lot of wine talk.

>174 Hej Linda, I did some covers on my profile now. It's a shame that one has to work with the URLs and can't move the pictures around with the mouse. I wanted to put some nice ones together - but that's just too much work for a little aesthetics.

I visited the Botanical Garden of Basel in order to see the Titanwurz (Amorphophallus titanum), one of the biggest flowering plants which blossoms only every year once for three days (and stinks tremendously).
Through the hole in the lower part of the plant, the botanist fertilized the plant with pollen from another Titanwurz.

The installed two mirrors in order to look at the plant from different angles, and that gives an interesting picture:

We have one of these "corpse flower" plants at Como Park in St. Paul, Minnesota. I haven't seen it (or smelled it!) myself, but what a plant! Thanks for posting!

Karen O.

88) In unnütz toller Wut : Roman by Maarten 't Hart. A photographer comes into a small Dutch town and makes pictures of some inhabitants. But then one after the other of the portrayed persons die. Any connection? Not a mystery as such but a description of life in such a Dutch town, with humour.

Hello Paul, thank you very much for posting the picture of that stinking plant. I have seen it somewhere before as well, but unfortunately I can't recall anymore where. Looks quite impressive.
Have a lovely weekend with your family :)

We went to a great classical concert yesterday in Seltisberg (a small village outside of Basel).

These four musicians played excellently.
Robert Zimansky - Violine
Monika Clemann - Viola
Nebojša Bugarski - Cello
Jürg Luchsinger - Akkordeon

They played
* Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) Orgelkonzert
* W.A. Mozart (1756-1791) Duo für Violine und Viola G-Dur, KV 423
* Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904) Bagatellen für Streichtrio und Harmonium, op. 47
* Astor Piazolla (1921 - 1992) Vardarito, Chau Paris

The accordion replaced the organ and the harmonium. Very well played. Especially the Chau Paris (Nuevo Tango) was new to me and the audience was so pleased with that one, they played it twice.

Sounds like a good concert.

Thanks Lori, for coming by. This concert was definitely worth its price.

BTW did I tell you that I once drove through Morristown? I was an exchange librarian from Switzerland to Vanderbilt ion Nashville. And my host librarian showed me the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (among other places), and on the way back we drove through Morristown.

89) Madame Zilensky und der König von Finnland : Erzählung by Carson McCullers. Mr. Brook, a lecturer in music, was able to make Madame Zelinsky to join the staff at his college. But she tells him that she has met the King of Finland... that made him wonder. A lovely short story, published in a mini booklet (7,2x4,5 cm).

90) Zwinglis Humor by Fritz Schmidt-Clausing. An essay about humour in Zwingli's writings. Zwingli was basically a very serious man but when talking about his enemies he could become quite mocking (he called the bishops 'bys-d-Schof' = bites the sheep in Swiss German). He also wanted to help to lighten some earnest theological matter with a bit of humour. 'Ich kann's nicht lassen, muss auch mal scherzhaft über Dinge reden.' (I can not help it, sometimes I have to talk jokingly about things).

91) Hunger : Roman by Knut Hamsun. An emerging but not very successful writer tries to earn his living by writing. But he loses more and more and feels hunger. His own behavior doesn't help to find support either. Dense story,

92) Krankmeldungen : Roman by Gwendoline Riley. Esther returns home to wintry Manchester and tries to pick up her life, but she basically avoids the seriousness of life - even true love.
In the beginning Riley gives a very short reference to Hamsun's Hunger, i just finished, too:
"Ich lese ein Buch, das 'Hunger' heisst", sage ich.
"Und worum geht's?"
"Hm ... wie soll ich das erklären ... also, was bisher geschah: Ein Mann ... hat Hunger ... dann isst er was und ist satt ... dann kriegt er wieder Hunger, und dann isst er nichts, und dann kriegt er noch mehr Hunger ... dann verkauft er sein Unterhemd und isst. Und dann ist er satt."
("It's about a man who goes hungry, eats and is satisfied, then he gets hungry again and doesn't eat and so gets hungrier ...")

93) Der Aufstand der Drachen : Roman by Julia Conrad. Conrad puts a lot of phantasy into this fantasy. A young maid goes through different adventures with a pure heart and body and in the end becomes queen of the country. Miranda is a dragon who can change her body from dragon to human. The details are sometimes confusing and confused (at what age happened what, where exactly is South or North?)

Have you ever eaten an ironed chicken? Wrinkle free ones taste much better and they are flattened out, I guess

seen in Budapest

94) Die Brust by Philip Roth. A professor for literature wakes up in darkness one day and then gets told he is now a female breast, 1.78 m high. He (or it?) tries to understand his situation ... Roth plays on the ideas of Kafka and Gogol. A good read.

95) Der Granatapfelbaum by Yaşar Kemal. 5 farm hands go down from their homes in the mountains into the Cukurova plain in order to seek work. But the Marshall plan brought many tractors and other machinerie into Turkey and so a lot people lost their jobs. They couldn't find work easily. They met with arrogant landowners who chased them away and other poor people who helped them. A melancholic story.

96) Wolken. Heim. by Elfriede Jelinek. the Austrian Nobel prize winner wrote an essay on 'Deutschheit' (Germanness, Germanhood, Germandom ?), it's a hymn for the German tribe(s). I guess she wanted to include all German speaking countries. The Germanics are the true People, the Urvolk, the only people which is true to itself and self-sufficient. If you know German well, read it, otherwise you won't get much out of it.

97) Das fünfte Kind by Doris Lessing. Harriet and David marry and want to have a lot of children (at least six), and so they become a happy family in a big house with lots of relatives coming during the holidays. But then the fifth child arrives and all happiness start to fade. Who or what is that child?

98) Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo. The cousin of ex-cop Fabio Montale disappears. When trying to find her, he gets into the underworld of Marseille - Mafia, police corruption, Islamic fundamentalists... A good mystery. (Chourmo = rowers in a galley)

99) Die Konferenz der Tiere by Erich Kästner. A classic childrens' book, published in 1949. I remember having 'read' it as a child. Four years after the war and 86 conferences without any results, the animals had enough of the rule by the humans and started their own conference. They destroyed all (paper) materials of the conference and all uniforms of the army personnel - but to no avail, the humans had no intention to make peace...
A nice story for children, but with an interesting 'diplomatic' solution. Kästner was a pazifist, and this book was part of his contribution to peace.

With the help of Team Viewer, I was able to get a list of ISBNs from the Evangelinis Biblijos institutas (EBI) in Siauliai (Lithuania) and then open an EBI in LT and put the list into LT (Member: EBINSTITUTAS). So 400 of their 1500 German and English titles are in LT now, the Lithuanian and Russian books will still be missing). I have a list of the other English and German books, but have no idea how to put them into LT (without ISBNs) without a lot of manual work. Any ideas? It's a html file taken from a Lotus Access file...

100) Eine Rose für Emily by William Faulkner. An old spinster dies in Jefferson, Mississippi, and the whole town turns up for her funeral. Then her sad life and her inability to change is reported. A very good and short read.

101) Die Liebe der Fische : Roman by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir. A young Icelandic woman starts an affair, full of passion. But it's an 'amour fou'. There is no real solution to their relationship. Dense, Nordic literature.

Occasionally I should read books, articles or papers we have here in the library, and now I got this paper about shame killings:
102) Ehrenmord : ein Verbrechen zwischen Migration und Tradition - rechtliche, soziologische und religiöse Aspekte by Christine Schirrmacher. Honor is a very important part of a family in Islamic societies. And women can through their (sexual) behavior diminish that honor so much so, that the male parts (often a brother or father) are forced to act and remove that shame with blood. It's actually not part of the Koran, but Mohammed's comments about women don't actually help. In most Islamic countries the shame killer gets mitigation for his acts. Now, it's becoming more and more a problem in European countries with immigrants.

Since the title has so many letters I put in the relevant TIIOLI challenge.

103) Kleiner Vogel, klopfendes Herz : Roman by Miriam Toews. A Canadian story about the coming of age of a Mennonite woman in Mexico. She is 19, married to a Mexican (not accepted by her parents) who is more away than home. She helps a film crew and tries to find her identity. Well written. I was a bit disappointed because I expected to learn something about Mennonites. But the way the Mennonites are presented is not so favorable.

104) Strange maps : an atlas of cartographic curiosities by Frank Jacobs. A library user brought this book and I couldn't resist to have a closer looks at it. Jacobs 111 different maps: the map of the highest mountains of the world in 1831, the Island of California, Utopia, Sequoyah, Jesusland, United countries of Austria, Country code top level domains, underground maps, etc. What pleased me was the map of Switzerland made of Rösti (fried grated potatoes), showing the Rösti ditch (the 'border' between French and German in Switzerland.

105) Rauhnacht : Kluftingers neuer Fall by Volker Klüpfel. Kommissar Kluftinger is invited to attend th reopening of a luxury hotel. He should play Hercule Poirot in a murder game during their stay in the hotel. But as soon as the fake murder happens, a real corpse turns up. Reminds me of another story ... But this German mystery is well written and the character of Kluftinger is in full swing.

106) The moon is down : a novel by John Steinbeck. An easy, simple story/play, but with a deep content. An army conquers a city and wants to hold it. But the conquered never go along and the conquerors get more and more uneasy. "... one of the tendencies of the military mind and pattern is an inability to learn, an inability to see beyond the killing which is its job."

Paul - I'm glad you got to see my corner of the world. I'm heading into the park again next week. I decided to get the item I was debating as a Christmas gift in the park store at the Sugarlands Visitor Center.

Paul - well done to my namesake for whizzing past 100 books again this year. Not so sure about the strange maps book though?
Have a great weekend.

Lori - I was twice in the Park, once from the East (I have a sister-in-law living in Florence SC) and once from the West. I have been in a visitor's centre with old farm houses and stables and so, and on a tower from where we had a quite good view, and a Cherokee (?) centre. And I think, this stone head (Devil's Head or something) is near this area, too, isn't it? Well, it's a long time ago. Have fun and a safe trip when going to the Park. And hopefully you find the right gift.

Paul - thanks for coming by. I am amazed myself. I really read a lot these last few weeks. I like the strange maps book (well, I like maps). Yes, I whizzed through it. There are several historical maps which were quite interesting: for example the map of Sequoyah and Oklahoma - there was a debate about joining the US as a twin state. Have a good weekedn, too.

Our house in the early morning hours:

Lori - I was twice in the Park, once from the East (I have a sister-in-law living in Florence SC) and once from the West. I have been in a visitor's centre with old farm houses and stables and so, and on a tower from where we had a quite good view, and a Cherokee (?) centre. And I think, this stone head (Devil's Head or something) is near this area, too, isn't it? Well, it's a long time ago. Have fun and a safe trip when going to the Park. And hopefully you find the right gift.

There are stables near Sugarlands, but when you mention the old farm houses, it sounds more like Ocanaluftee (on the NC side and has an official visitor's center), Cades Cove (TN), or perhaps Roaring Fork (just outside Gatlinburg). Clingman's Dome is probably the tower to which you refer. There is a space needle in Gatlinburg which offers a view too, but it's more of the Gatlinburg area which is at a lower elevation.

I think the stone head rock to which you are referring is probably Chimney Rock.

Lori - Ocanaluftee sounds right, and also Chimney Rock. Thanks for reminding me

107) Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch by Michael Ende. An evil sorcerer and a witch want to make a devilish potion in order to destroy nature. A cat and a raven try to hinder them. A children's book with which didn't get warm - not like with the other Endes.

108) Ich steh an deiner Krippe hier edited by Heidi Rose. Short stories, poems and songs about Christmas, including some information about the history of the manger. It has a triangular bronze pendant of a manger embedded in the cover, so I listed it in the 'special cover' TIOLI challenge.

214 + 218) Paul, did you know that Malaysia is the antipode of Peru, and Switzerland's the sea? That was one of the maps among these strange maps. Thomas Jefferson once drew a map for the subdivision of the Northwest Territory and gave the ten new states names like: Assenisppis (around Chicago), Metropotamia, Saratoga, Polypotamia, and Pelipsia. An other interesting maps are Eisenhower's Interstate System or a cartogram of the world's population, where Russia becomes pretty small and China and India are far bigger. Or take the idea of a Brazilian to take the US and compare each state with the economic power of a country and rename the US states... so South Carolina beclomes Singapore, Idaho becomes Lithuania, Maryland becomes Switzerland

109) Die Verwandlung by Franz Kafka. Gregor wakes up one morning being transformed into an insect. The whole family changes their daily routines and their interactions. Disturbing story.

110) Töchter des Himmels : Roman by Amy Tan. Four Chinese mothers tell their stories and their differences in views compared with their daughters, and the daughters tell of their 'coming of age' in the way of understanding their mothers and their Chinese background. Well written, with some interesting insights into Chinese mother-daughter-relationships.

111) Hilfe, das Monstrum kommt! by Heiner Gross. The AG Pinkerton, a group of young detectives, find the Technorama (a technical museum) quite interesting and are fascinated when there was a special show about pressing coins coming there. They pressed only one side of golden coins, but still, something is wrong. A teenage mystery, a bit like '5 friends'. Heiner Gross, a Swiss author, has written several books for young people.

Morning mist at the Lake Cauma, Flims (the Grisons)

112) Freudenstern : Weihnachtliche Geschichten, Gedichte und Gedanken by Friederike Tegge. A Christmas book with poems and stories (for example: Agatha Christie's Die Versuchung = The temptation, or Werner Reiser's Die drei Gaben = The three gifts)

<a href="http://www.glitter-graphics.com">

Merry Christmas everybody

Thanks, Linda, looks very nice

113) Mit dir ist Weihnachten so schön! by Jan Fearnley. A little Christmas story about a Robin which makes all the animals happy.

Hallo Paul :) Dir und Deiner Familie Frohe Weihnachten und einen Guten Rutsch ins Neue Jahr!

Hej Bianca, thanks a lot. Auch Dir und den Deinen eine gesegnete Weihnachtszeit und alles Gute fürs 2013!

Frohe Weihnachten Paul!

Hi Paul, I'm far too late to wish you a Merry Christmas. May the peace of Christmas guide you and your family all through the next year. I'll add my New Years' wishes on your 2013 thread!
I notice you read Kafka too. I'm reading Der Process now. I think there are few authors like Kafka. I don't think his name's become "ein Begriff" by chance. Hard to decide whether I like it or not. Weird's the best way to describe the feeling.
Btw, beautiful photo of Flims. You're so lucky to live in Switzerland!

Hi Cushla, auch Dir eine gesegnete Festzeit und alles Gute fürs 2013.

Hi Monica, welcome in Switzerland (at least on the computer). I guess, there are beautiful spots in België, too. I once drove along the coast from Holland to France (ages ago) but remember that as a nice area.

Kafka is different. One book at a time reading is enough, at least for me. It will take awhile till I start another.

I read two books by Josef Burg this year, an Ukrainian Jew who wrote in Yiddish. It's not a well known author, but it may be worthwhile to have a go at one of his works (if they are translated into Dutch, that is).

114) Die Sehnsucht der Kakerlaken : Roman by Nina Kramer. Kramer was born in Riga, Latvia, writes in Russian and now lives in Berlin, Germany. After the breakdown of the Societunion, an elderly lady comes back from Siberia and gets her parents house back. She moves in and wants to renovate it. That's the reality part. Then you meet different tenants of the house. With time one realizes that some tenants must be humans, others are Kakerlaken (cockroaches Blattella germanica). Then there is Oscar, a Hollywood souvenir which comes alive and helps his aunt to renovate her house... I liked the idea of mixing humans and cockroaches and compare their basic needs (home, food, love, offspring), but the outcome is rather disappointing.

Hi Paul,

thank you very much for that beautiful story you made from my book title meme *big smile*.

To chime in on your Kafka discussion, he is one of my fave authors and I have to agree you can't just read him like other authors as he needs to be seriously digested first. Metamorphosis and The Penal Colony are my faves by him, but there are quite a few short stories I also enjoy - even so I am not a short story fan -

I have noticed that you read quite across genres. Did you ever read something by Haruki Murakami? Very complex, but interesting Japanese writer. He is definately not a Kafka, but what makes them similiar is their ability to pull your imagination, their interest in riddles and that you can interpret, interpret, interpret.......... :)

Again, I wish you and your family Ein Frohes und Gesundes Neues Jahr :)

Thanks Bianca, for the meme idea. Here is mine:

Describe yourself: Ich war tot I was dead

Describe where you currently live: Im Dunkel der Wälder In the darkness of forests

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Paradies

Your favorite form of transportation? Der Bär

Your best friend is? The girl who played with fire

What's the weather like? Flutzeit Time of flood

You fear? Gift zwei Erzählungen Poison

What's the best advice you have to give? Gottes Willen erkennen und tun Get to know God's will and do it

Thought for the day :) Chumm, häb chli Zit! Come, share some time

How I would like to die? Herbstlaub Autumn leaves

My soul's present condition In unnütz toller Wut In useless, foolish anger

That's really not easy. I first wanted to give 'correct' answers - but alas, that's what came out

(äh, how do you make fat letters?)

And, Bianca, I have Kafka am Strand by Murakami somewhere here, But didn't read it yet.

I had to read something by Kafka in school, and I just remember that I didn't understand nor like his book (whichever it was). So I always was adamant (?) to reading his books. But then I read Roth's Die Brust and thought, that Kafka must be better.

Here my story:
In der Dämmerung im Dunkel der Wälder trafen sich Marina, die chinesische Geliebte, Vincent und Van Gogh in the month of Kislev und sprachen über Männer, Geld und Schokolade. In unnütz toller Wut erschien das fünfte Kind durch die Tür zur Zeit und brachte Hunger, Gift und Flutzeit statt Fleisch und Rioja für den Matador. Hilfe, das Monstrum kommt riefen alle, hhhh. Wo fahren wir hin, Papa? fragte das Kind nur, chumm, häb chli Zit weinte es. Da kam Gordon, erzählte Märchen von Laumen, Deiven, Zauberfrauen aus dem Totenbuch und nahm das fünfte Kind nach Zürich. Mit dir ist Weihnachten so schön!, seufzte das Kind glücklich in den Wohnungen der inneren Burg.


In the twilight in the darkness of the forests met Marina, the Chinese mistress, Vincent and Van Gogh in the month of Kislev and talked about Men, Money and Chocolate. In vain foolish anger came the fifth child through the door at the time and brought hunger, poison andhigh tide instead of meat and Rioja for the matador. Help, the monster is coming, all cried, "hhhh". "Where are we going, Dad?" asked the child only, "please, share some time with me", it was crying. Then came Gordon, told tales of Laumen, Deiven, magic women from the Book of the Dead and took the fifth child to Zurich. "Christmas with you is so beautiful!" Sighed, the child happily in the housing of the inner castle.

LOL you are seriously, a great storyteller Paul. I have got Das Fünfte Kind and Gordon on my TBR pile for next year. What did you think about this two books.

To come back again to Kafka, it is really odd that you say that with having him at school. I didn't, because I didn't go to grammar school, but my younger sister had him. She had such bad experiences with Kafka in school that she still despises him today. I came quite late (in my early twenties) to read and appreciate his writing.

Das fünfte Kind was a sad story. It started out like a Bollywood-film: sunshine, singing, and love, and then it turned strange, like a 'Filme noir'. I liked her descriptions of the characters. I can understand the reactions of both, the father and the mother. But the story as a whole left me a bit uneasy, disturbed, waiting for an end (I won't talk about the ending because that would rob you of the flow of the story when reading it).

Gordon was different. An easy enough story. But there were times I wanted to throw the book aside because this woman just is stupid enough to go back being abused again and again, arrgh. So much self-destructing behavior. I experienced the sexual descriptions to be more repulsive than erotic. But well written (and translated).

Kafka: I told my daughter today at supper about Kafka's Die Verwandlung, and both, she and her husband, told me of their bad encounters with Kafka in school. So, be lucky, you didn't have him in school. What are schools doing to our children??

Dear Namesake - Happy New Year!

115) Erstaunliche Geschichten vom Zauberer und Schwarzkünstler Doktor Johann Faust und vom gehörnten Siegfried by G. O. Marbach. Four old German tales/legends about kings, virgins, knights, dragons, sorcerers, giants, and other German figures. Old expressions, cold style, but funny. Sometimes quite predictable.

My reading this year:

1) Plötzlich Shakespeare : Roman by David Safier - 314
2) Vom Windows verweht : die besten Computer-Cartoons aus der c't by Harald Ritsch - 63
3) Das Geheimnis des Bücherhüters by Corinna Gieseler - 223
4) Seelsorge an sich selbst by Jakob Hitz - 87
5) Mumins : die gesammelten Comic-Strips by Tove Jansson - 95
6) Die chinesische Geliebte by Ying Hong - 269
7) Historische Firmenetiketten aus der Schweiz für den asiatischen Markt by Stefan Sigerist - 160
8) Eine Frage des Vertrauens by DiAnn Mills - 361
9) Gottes Willen erkennen und tun by Reinhard Deichgräber - 63
10) Der Geheimgang by Loïc Jouannigot - 47
11) Tour de Suisse:eine nostalgische Reise zu den schönsten Plätzen der Schweiz by Peter Graf - 139
12) Katharina von Dornach : ein Comic ; 500 Jahre danach by Reto Gloor - 60
13) The girl who played with fire by Stieg Larsson - 569
14) Der Ring des Feuers by Pierdomenico Baccalario - 325
15) Nicht wie bei Räubers ... : vierzehn Abenteuer für grosse und kleine Leute by Ursula Marc - 93
16) Carlotta by Alex Varenne - 70
17) Die Tour de France : der Comic by Laurent Jalabert - 46
18) Vincent und Van Gogh by Gradimir Smudja - 70
19) Dann bist du tot! by Anton E. Kratz - 113
20) Marina : Roman by Carlos Ruiz Zafón - 349
21) Das Orakel von Port-Nicolas by Fred Vargas - 285
22) Onna Maria Tumera, oder, die Vorfahren by Leo Tuor - 171
23) Die Tür zur Zeit by Pierdomenico Baccalario - 201
24) Die Kammer der Pharaonen by Pierdomenico Baccalario - 233
25) Zürich by mike by Mike van Audenhove - 40
26) The girl who kicked the hornets' nest by Stieg Larsson - 602
27) Poetry Slam : das Buch ; die 40 besten Bühnen-Texte ed. by Mischa-Sarim Vérollet - 219
28) Curry-Connection : wie ich zu fünf Tanten, 34 Cousins und ... by Bruno Ziauddin - 214
29) Die erstaunlichen Talente der Audrey Flowers : Roman by Jessica Grant - 493
30) The visitation by Frank E. Peretti - 437
31) In the month of Kislev : a story for Hanukkah by Nina Jaffe - 30
32) Im Dunkel der Wälder : Roman by Brigitte Aubert - 283
33) Joseph, der Patriarch by Adolf Helling - 77
34) Operation Freiheit Sieben : Sebastian in geheimer Mission by James L. Johnson - 208
35) Totenbuch : ein Kay-Scarpetta Roman by Patricia Cornwell - 444
36) I wie Intrige : Kriminalroman by Sue Grafton - 301
37) Grappa im Netz : Kriminalroman by Gabriella Wollenhaupt - 248
38) Männer, Geld und Schokolade : eine Geschichte über Liebe, Erfolg by Menna van Praag - 254
39) Der Bär : Kriminalroman aus der Eifel by Jacques Berndorf - 210
40) Das Seidenband by Hannes Nüsseler - 108
41) Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius : Rundgänge durch die Metropolen des Baltikums by Volker Hagemann - 314
42) Hour game by David Baldacci - 722
43) Die Pension Eva : Roman by Andrea Camilleri - 173
44) Immy and the city : depresso to go : die traurigste Geschichte der Welt by Mimi Welldirty - 124
45) Das Fest der Fliegen : Kriminalroman by Gert Heidenreich - 384
46) Flutzeit by Anne Provoost - 399
47) Das Blut der Lilie : Roman by Jennifer Donnelly - 445
48) Korea und ich ... = 나와 한국 : Lesehäppchen aus dem Land der Morgenfrische by Jonas Ley - 142
49) Fleisch. Albin : zwei Horrorutopien aus der Zukunft by Martin Harníček - 171
50) Chumm, häb chli Zit! : Gschichte für ufem Gartebänkli by Paul Stalder - 109
51) Der Mann aus Želary : Novelle by Kveta Legátová - 155
52) Gift : zwei Erzählungen by Josef Burg - 32
53) Wohnungen der inneren Burg : vollständige Neuübertragung by Teresa von Avila - 399
54) Das Leben des Parmigianino by Giorgio Vasari - 87
55) Dämmerung : Erzählungen by Josef Burg - 48
56) Schutzpatron : Kluftingers neuer Fall by Volker Klüpfel - 388
57) Gordon : Roman by Edith Templeton - 287
58) Der spazierende Mann by Jirō Taniguchi - 165
59) Die Masken von San Marco : Commissario Trons vierter Fall by Nicolas Remin - 347
60) Haarmann : Graphic Novel byPeer Meter - 175
61) Partitur des Todes : Roman by Jan Seghers - 475
62) Die wundersamen Irrfahrten des William Lithgow ed by Roger Willemsen - 381
63) Xaver Imfeld, 1853-1909 Meister der Alpentopografie by Madlena Cavelti Hammer - 191
64) Herbstlaub by Michael Rast - 47
65) Die Wirklichkeit, mit Fleisch nachempfunden BY Ruedi Widmer - 68
66) Millionen-Studien : mit dem Bilde des Dichters und einer Einleitung by Multatuli - 274
67) Die Tote im Pelzmantel by Fred Vargas - 95
68) Charles, 1854, Margrit, 1886 ... Die Steenforts by Jean Van Hamme - 306
69) Quatemberkinder und wie das Vreneli die Gletscher brünnen machte : Roman by Tim Krohn - 247
70) Das praktische Igelbuch : Nahrung, Krankheiten, Schutz, Pflege, ... by Michael Lohmann - 95
71) Wo fahren wir hin, Papa? by Jean-Louis Fournier - 155
72) HHhH : Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich ; Roman by Laurent Binet - 444
73) Paradies by Ville Ranta - 71
74) Narrations of the Kavango : folktales and documentary texts from Northern Namibia and Southern Angola edited by Marc Seifert - 284
75) I'll see you again! by Myron S. Augsburger - 232
76) Liebe zwischen zwei Welten by Susanne Wittpennig - 287
77) Die Insel : Rückkehr nach Terminal ; Roman by Julia Conrad - 317
78) General Joh. Aug. Suter by Martin Birmann - 32
79) Ich war tot : Ian McCormack erzählt seine Jenseits-Erfahrungen by Ian McCormack - 94
80) Eine Titelfrage by Karl Bücher - 39
81) Novembermord : Roman by Berndt Schulz - 283
82) Long time coming by Robert Goddard - 522
83) Die weissen Handschuhe : Krimi by Kim Småge - 213
84) Das Pinguin-Prinzip : wie Veränderung zum Erfolg führt by John Paul Kotter - 157
85) Von Laumen, Deiven, Zauberfrauen : Märchen aus Litauen byEdita Werner - 159
86) Der Tod von Reval : kuriose Geschichten aus einer alten Stadt by Werner Bergengruen - 157
87) Rioja für den Matador : Kriminalroman by Paul Grote - 343
88) In unnütz toller Wut : Roman by Maarten 't Hart - 347
89) Madame Zilensky und der König von Finnland : Erzählung by Carson McCullers - 37
90) Zwinglis Humor by Fritz Schmidt-Clausing - 46
91) Hunger : Roman by Knut Hamsun - 236
92) Krankmeldungen : Roman by Gwendoline Riley - 203
93) Der Aufstand der Drachen : Roman by Julia Conrad - 503
94) Die Brust by Philip Roth - 93
95) Der Granatapfelbaum by Yaşar Kemal - 126
96) Wolken. Heim. by Elfriede Jelinek - 56
97) Das fünfte Kind by Doris Lessing. - 218
98) Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo - 268
99) Die Konferenz der Tiere by Erich Kästner - 111
100) Eine Rose für Emily by William Faulkner - 44
101) Die Liebe der Fische : Roman by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir 95
102) Ehrenmord : ein Verbrechen zwischen Migration und Tradition by Christine Schirrmacher - 36
103) Kleiner Vogel, klopfendes Herz : Roman by Miriam Toews - 284
104) Strange maps : an atlas of cartographic curiosities by Frank Jacobs - 244
105) Rauhnacht : Kluftingers neuer Fall by Volker Klüpfel - 361
106) The moon is down : a novel by John Steinbeck - 120
107) Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch by Michael Ende - 237
108) Ich steh an deiner Krippe hier edited by Heidi Rose - 44
109) Die Verwandlung by Franz Kafka - 107
110) Töchter des Himmels : Roman by Amy Tan - 315
111) Hilfe, das Monstrum kommt! by Heiner Gross - 157
112) Freudenstern : Weihnachtliche Geschichten, Gedichte und Gedanken by Friederike Tegge - 45
113) Mit dir ist Weihnachten so schön! by Jan Fearnley - 32
114) Die Sehnsucht der Kakerlaken : Roman by Nina Kramer - 186
115) Erstaunliche Geschichten vom Zauberer und Schwarzkünstler Doktor Johann Faust und vom gehörnten Siegfried by G. O. Marbach - 300

24459 pages - I reached my goal this year

These I liked best:
Eine Frage des Vertrauens by DiAnn Mills
I wie Intrige : Kriminalroman by Sue Grafton
Das Orakel von Port-Nicolas by Fred Vargas
Das Geheimnis des Bücherhüters by Corinna Gieseler
Im Dunkel der Wälder : Roman by Brigitte Aubert
Der Tod von Reval : kuriose Geschichten aus einer alten Stadt by Werner Bergengruen
Rioja für den Matador : Kriminalroman by Paul Grote
Rauhnacht : Kluftingers neuer Fall by Volker Klüpfel

Non-fiction:
Wohnungen der inneren Burg : vollständige Neuübertragung by Teresa von Avila
Ich war tot : Ian McCormack erzählt seine Jenseits-Erfahrungen
Das Pinguin-Prinzip : wie Veränderung zum Erfolg führt by John Paul Kotter
Wo fahren wir hin, Papa? by Jean-Louis Fournier