Paul S' attempt to read at least 75 books and acquire less books in 2016

Just seen this new page and mark my place here. Pics etc will come when I'll be home and have some time....

Great to see you here, too, Paul. I'll be following you also in 2016.

Welcome back!

Happy holidays, Paul!

Great to see the original Paul will be back in his niche as normal.

Welcome back, Paul! Hope you read lots in 2016. Are you just trying to give PaulCranswick a chance to win in the acquisition war in 2016? I always marvel at both of your acquisition skills.

Have a wonderful bookfilled 2016, Paul.

>2 Ameise1: Hej Barbara, great to see you here. And thanks again for the Adväntskaländer. I enjoyed it very much.

>3 drneutron: Thank you, Jim, for setting up the group for 2016. I am pleased to be part of it.

>4 SqueakyChu: Thanks Madeline. Looking forward to more challenges and froggy awards.

>5 PaulCranswick: Hej Paul, pleased to be called original - 'ein Original' in German means also somebody authentic and unique - and I think we both are that. Looking forward to a new year of book sharing with you.

>6 thornton37814: Welcome, too, Lori. I wouldn't speak of 'war' - since I don't pay for the books, that can't be fair. It's more - we spur each other on to get more books and find places to store them (which is the more complicated part, I guess). Even my colleagues in the library and my church bring books to me (to the utter horror of my wife). My mother just brought me 3 books yesterday .... How can I acquire less, if the year starts already like that? *happy sigh*

>7 DianaNL: Thanks, Diana, for the good wishes. Happy 2016 for you too.

>8 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara.

>9 PaulCranswick: Oh, Paul, you want to take my eyes off the books and on that poor, shivering lady? Distract me like that? There is an Indian (?) saying: 'Better bare footed than without books'. With that in mind, one may say 'Better topless than without top books.'
Looking forward to this year's new and old books and authors, both of us can find, and enjoy these 'stolen moments'.

>10 paulstalder: Paul, I'm glad you enjoyed the Adventskaläbder.

Happy new year! Looking forward to seeing all the lovely covers of your acquisitions in 2016.

Lori (thornton37814) made a meme based on her books read in 2015. I think I try it out as well. So, that what came out:

Describe yourself: J'aime pas les fumeurs (I don't like smokers)

Describe how you feel: Kuschelmuschel (cuddly-snuggly)

Describe where you currently live: Atlantis

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Place de l'Étoile

Your favorite form of transportation: Purzelbaum rückwärts (somersault backwards)

Your best friend is: Pippi Langstrumpf

You and your friends are: Die Zukünftigen (the future; those coming in the future)

What’s the weather like: Oft bewölkt, doch vorwiegend heiter... (Often cloudy, but mostly sunny...)

You fear: Rust

What is the best advice you have to give: Jesus heilt gerne! (Jesus is pleased to heal)

Thought for the day: Krebszellen mögen keine Himbeeren (cancer cells don't like raspberries)

How I would like to die: Immer an deiner Seite Am helllichten Tag (always at your side in broad daylight)

My soul’s present condition: Geh' aus mein Herz (Go out, my heart)

>12 Ameise1: You're welcome, Barbara. I especially enjoyed the ways Christmas is celebrated in other countries.

>13 charl08: Hej Charlotte. Happy new year, too. Yes, I like covers. There are so many nice covers, and I like sharing them here.

>14 paulstalder: I was just doing the meme that we've been doing for years. I don't know who the originator was. Does anyone else know?

1) Lord Peters schwerster Fall : Roman by Dorothy L. Sayers. Lord Peter's brother discovers a corpse in front of his house when returning home after midnight. His sister finds him bent over the corpse and thought him to be the killer. A tricky challenged for Lord Peter. A good old mystery.

>17 paulstalder: Starting off the new year with a Dorothy Sayers book sounds like a win!

>18 thornton37814: I started reading it last year already, but you are right, it's a good start.

There are no Dorothy Sayers' books at my library branch.

>20 Ameise1: shame. They don't have them anymore at the Stadtbibliothek Basel either. I think they wait till there are some new editions of her mysteries.

2) "Einsamkeit 19" : Erzählung by Fr. Lehne. Published 1906. Eva is a 19-year-old young baroness who is not happy about her mother marrying another man after her father died few years back. She doesn't accept him and flees to her aunt and uncle. But there she gets so bored that she makes a newspaper advertisement asking for a female penfriend. She receives a very nice letter from a Josepha. What she doesn't suspect in the beginning: This Josepha is actually a Joseph who answered the advertisement just for fun ...
All written in diary entries and letters. A nice tale of pre-world -war-I Germany.



Übrigens fühle ich und weiss jetzt, dass Langeweile die besten Menschen schlecht machen und auf dumme Gedanken bringen kann! (By the way I feel and know now that boredom can make the best people bad and bring silly ideas!)

Merkwürdig, alle guten Gedanken sind schon vor mir gedacht! (Strangely, all the good ideas have already been thought before me!)

Doch ich verstehe von solchen Dingen nichts - die Hauptsache ist, dass man immer genug Geld zum Ausgeben hat - je mehr, je besser! (But I understand nothing of such things - the main thing is that you always have enough money to spare - the more, the better!)

3) Bahnwärter Thiel : novellistische Studie by Gerhart Hauptmann. A German classic, first published 1887. Thiel is a flagman on remote crossing in a forest. He is happily married and has a son, Tobias. But then his wife dies and he marries later another woman, Lene. Lene also has a baby and then she starts to beat Tobias. Thiel does not react at first, but then a catastrophe hits the family and everything is changed.
As so called 'Naturalism' novella. The story develops from happy family to disaster.

OK. I think I finally found your thread. I don't have a thread of my own so once-in-awhile I hijack the threads of other people to tell about the books I have read. I might do the same thing here on your thread.

I do have one thread for the ROOT group and use it to keep track of books I read that come off of my shelves at home or from the long and old lists of books I want to read at some point in my life. I just started my thread for the ROOT group yesterday.

Welcome Benita, and thank you again for the two Zafón books.
You wrote, you are a 'curriculum materials librarian' - can you tell me in short what that is, please?
Have a good stay at the ALA conference. I once took part in an ATLA conference in Durham NC. Good memories of meeting with different people - and getting some books (the limit was my luggage on the plane .... )

It's about time I put some pictures here:
Sunrise in Basel (the sun reflected by the Roche tower)


Sunset in Basel (seen from the Bridge of the Three Roses)

4) Das Muschelessen : Erzählung by Birgit Vanderbeke. West Germany before the Fall of the Berlin Wall. A family waits for the father who has been on a business trip which should also bring along his promotion. The mother prepared mussels for the feast - but the father doesn't show up. The 'normal' family gets more and more frictions and the dysfunctionality shows. The mussels serve as a symbol: they make strange noises when they are awaiting their being boiled and killed. A German novella hinting at the situation of the German countries of that time.
Written in a hasty style - not many full stops, many, many commas, almost impossible to catch air in between. Describing only a few hours of the family preparing the food and sitting at the table, waiting.

5) Die Taube by Patrick Süskind. Little things our of the ordinary can cause huge changes in a persons life. So happened in the life of 53-year-old bank guard Jonathan Noel. One morning when wanting to leave his rented room in order to go to the bathroom, a pigeon sits outside his door and stares at him. When the pigeon closes its eye, he also closes the door, and is afraid of leaving his room. His whole changes now. He takes his things and leaves his room and goes to a hotel ... How to get back to normal after such an experience?
Another German novella dealing with the depth of human soul and behavior.

A Curriculum Materials Librarian is in charge of the Curriculum Materials Center. The CMC is the area of the library that collects and maintains the Children's and Young Adult books collection and the materials for K-12 teachers that students need to have access to when they are in the Teacher Education Program in the College of Education. We have a large collection and work space in our library devoted to this collection and the students who use it. Because of the nature of the materials in my part of the library I work mostly with undergraduates. However, in the last two years I have begun to work more and more with the faculty in other areas in the College of Education. As a result, I am starting to do lots of work with Citation Analysis. This involves working with the faculty to find out their productivity and impact on the profession. They are increasingly being evaluated on the effectiveness of what they publish and how important that work is to their profession. To do this I spend many hours going over Curriculum Vitae's and doing citation analysis for them and their departments. It isn't as much fun as working with the students in the Teacher Ed program but it isn't as exhausting either.

>29 benitastrnad: Thanks for the explanations, Benita. That's a quite different library from the one I work in. We have basically economics and sociological subjects, and the Swiss Economic Archives. So we are a mixture of library and archive. We do also have material which is used in the department's curricula. But that's a very small part.

Lovely photos of Basel!

Yes, Basel, has some nice spots.

>27 paulstalder: I thought this title looked familiar. I'm waiting for it in English translation from the library.

>33 charl08: It sure does. Though, the covers show different aspects of the plot: The German cover shows two members of the family sitting at a red empty table in front of a bleak red wall. A forced calmness.

I just read this one as well and came to your thread to see how you liked it. I really liked the slow reveal of the family's dysfunction.

>35 avatiakh: Hej Kerry, it really starts off as a normal family meal preparation, everything OK. But the end seems almost like trying to get back to some normality - life must go on, almost as usual.

Enjoy!

6) Tag für Tag in Christus : Andachten fürs ganze Jahr by Neil T. Anderson. A devotional book with a daily spiritual input. I got that as a Christmas present in 2014 from my wife. When I was away and couldn't read the message for the day, I read on the next day. That's I 'my' year is just over now. Very good daily messages.

Wishing you a most lovely weekend, Paul.

>37 DianaNL: and >39 Ameise1: Thank you, Diana and Barbara for the good wishes.

7) Die Jagd nach dem gelben Krokodil by Wolfgang Ecke. Detective Patò is called to Copenhagen in order to find a crocodile made of ivory his client has inherited. It disappeared. Patò finds a good assistant in the 13-year-old Toffi. A delightful detective story for teenagers.

>41 paulstalder: Ah, another great Ecke. I really enjoyed their readings when I was a teeny.

>42 Ameise1: I've seen that paperback laying around and took it home. I like his books (okay, not as much as liked it when I was younger).

8) Kaffeepause für die Seele : was Sie aufmuntert und entspannt by Dorothee Dziewas. A true 'coffee-table-book'. The author compares drinking coffee with our lives: We like different kind of coffees (black, espresso, cappuccino, decaffeinated, sweetened ...) and so we are different types of people. So, we accept each others tastes so we also should accept each others temperaments. We filter the coffee and take only the best out of it - so it should be with spiritual things: filter these and keep only the best and tasty ones... And there are a lot of anecdotes and quotes about coffee and community.

9) Eifel-Gold : Kriminalroman by Jacques Berndorf. The Eifel is a rural, quiet part of Germany. Nothing ever happens there and then a money transport disappears - the drivers were not hurt, only bound on a tree, hanging in potato sacks - 18 Million D-Marks are missing. The journalist Siggi Baumeister starts to ask around, the Bundeskriminalamt is clueless and thinks about international terrorists, internation organized crime ... entertaining, humorous mystery

>45 paulstalder: Ah, you hit me with a BB. My library has got several books of this serie. Have you read some more?

>46 Ameise1: I also read Eifel-Blues, Eifel-Träume and Der Bär of the Baumeister series. I also read Der Kurier which I didn't like much.

10) Das Geheimnis der Dinosaurier by David Unfred. How old are dinosaurs? The author shows that the facts do not support the evolutionary theory. There is too much guessing and believing. To take a certain fossil in sediments and then define this as 'index fossil' and somehow give that fossil a certain age is very superficial. Once the Quastenflosser (coelacanth) was an index fossil in sediments believed to be 60 Million years old - then such fishes were found alive in different parts of the world. So how old can such a sediment then be? All over the world we have reports about a total earth covering flood. The Bible reports that over a year the whole earth was covered with water - so any calculation with half-life of elements is useless for measuring anything before the flood. Using this method one needs to believe that the atmosphere and other things were always the same since the beginning - a strong faith.

See you are off to a flyer reading wise this year Paul and long may it continue as we both have pretty weighty TBR mountains to reduce.

Have a great last part of your Sunday evening.

>49 PaulCranswick: Hej Paul, pleased to see you in these parts of the world. I had some time reading last week and I did my best to reduce my TBR mountains, as you rightly observed. So, now I've got other things to do and my reading time is used for other things.

I wish you a good use of your time.

Yesterday I passed the Open Book Cupboard in Basel and couldn't resist to fill my bag - expecially since I found another Wolfgang Ecke mystery ... and I just read that one.

11) Perry Clifton oder Der Herr in den grauen Beinkleidern by Wolfgang Ecke. Some diamonds were stolen. Then Perry gets a mysterious inheritance: a cube which makes one invisible. With that cube Perry starts his true career as a detective in London. The first Perry Clifton detective story. A bit much of tomfoolery, but a nice story for teenagers (well, when I was a teenager, I guess).

12) S Chamäleon Sowieso und anderi Tiergschichte by Elisabeth Heck. A children's book with 11 stories about different animals: The first one tells the story of Sowieso (Anyway), a chameleon, who wants to please all the birds in its tree and so changes its color whenever a group of birds appear ... There is also the story of the young tiger Taps in the circus who becomes dangerous because the caretaker chases its friend, the cat Tätzli, away. Good, little stories for telling the kids. Written in Swiss German.

13) Fäbu, Regi & Thundi auf der Suche nach dem Schatz vom Thunersee by Eveline Brand. The 7-year-old Fäbu and his 9-year-old friend Regi and their dog Thundi discover the beauties of Lake of Thoun. They experience some adventures and free the dragon in the Beatenberg cave. A children's book published by the tourist office of the Lake Thoun Region (Berner Oberland). Well done.

14) Ds Lukas-Evangelium bärndütsch translated by Hans Bietenhard. Luke's Gospel in Bernese German - a challenge to read at the beginning but after some time it goes quite good.



some verses in German (Luther) and Bernese:
Lk 1,1 Scho mänge het sech a d Arbeit gmacht, für alls der Reie naa ufzschrybe, wo bi üüs passiert isch.
Luther: Sintemal sich's viele unterwunden haben, Bericht zu geben von den Geschichten, so unter uns ergangen sind.

Lk 2,14 (the angels to the shepherds:) Ehr für Gott i der Höchi und uf der Ärde Fride für d Mönsche, won är lieb het.
- Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe und Frieden auf Erden und den Menschen ein Wohlgefallen.

Lk 23,46 (Jesus on the cross:) Da het Jesus ganz lut grüeft: "Vatter, i dyni Händ übergiben i my Geischt!" Und mit dene Worten isch er gstorbe.
- Und Jesus rief laut und sprach: Vater, ich befehle meinen Geist in deine Hände! Und als er das gesagt, verschied er.

Have a lovely weekend!

Thanks, Diana, have a good weekend yourself.

15) Das Kind von Noah : Erzählung by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Josef, a 7-year-old child, is taken to friends by his parents. The Nazis are looking for Jews in Belgium and so Josef's parents want to bring him to a safe place. He ends up - with many other children - in the orphanage of Father Bims (Pons in French). The Catholic is very interested into Jewish theology and life and teaches Josef Hebrew and Jewish feasts. He has a collection of Jewish artifacts and thinks of himself as Noah who collected all the animals unto the Arc for safety. And so Josef becomes Noah's son...
A good story about being Jewish and Catholic in a time of turmoil. Respect of each other and the love to the word of God.

Paul, I've been very much enjoying your reviews of your reading. If my German were better, I think I'd already have some books added to my wishlist -- and I may end up inspired to brush up on my German and add them.

>17 paulstalder: I read that one just a month or so ago and also found it "a good old mystery".
Love the photos of Basel!

Paul, I wish you a relaxed weekend.

>58 harrygbutler: Hej Harry, thanks for coming by. Some of the books are translated into English, but not the young adult ones.

>59 mstrust: Yes, Jennifer, it was a good read. I am pleased that you enjoyed the pix.

>60 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. Today we became members of the Freie evangelische Gemeinde Riehen. And we sit inside and look out of the window, enjoying the falling snow. But the snow doesn't stay, it's too warm.

greetings from wintery Switzerland

I read 123 books last year and added 750 books to my collection.

The oldest book I read was 1 and 2 Samuel, written around the 11th Century BC, oldest manuscript available from Qumran (the oldest Samuel text 4th Century BC). The physically oldest book I read was printed in 1818: The influence of Bible Societies on the temporal necessities of the poor by Thomas Chalmers. I read three books printed in the 19th Century.

The newest books were all from 2015: Rust : the longest war by Jonathan Waldman, Oft bewölkt, doch vorwiegend heiter... by Kurt Baer, Nachsuche : Noldi Oberholzers erster Fall ; ein Tösstal-Krimi by Roswitha and Jacques Kuhn, Verräter ihres Glaubens : das gefährliche Leben von Muslimen, die Christen wurden by Andrew (Bruder), and Die Tage in Paris : die romantische Vorgeschichte zu Ein Bild von dir by Jojo Moyes.

My favorites:
Fiction
Bruno, Chef de police : Roman by Martin Walker
Der Eindringling : Erzählung by Melvin J. Sandström
Jerusalemverschwörung : ein Roman by Alton Gansky
Alibi by Agatha Christie
Das Schloss und die Insel : Die gespiegelte Pilgerreise by C. S. Lewis
Das Schweigen der Tukane by Anne Gold

Non-fiction
Ritter des Ku-Klux-Klan : die Geschichte des Richard C. Harris by Damaris Kofmehl
Vom Leben, vom Tod und vom Übrigen auch dies und das : Frankfurter Poetikvorlesungen by Urs Widmer
Rust : the longest war by Jonathan Waldman
Unsere Vollmacht in Christus : Anleitung zur biblischen Seelsorge by William Lerrick
Verräter ihres Glaubens : das gefährliche Leben von Muslimen, die Christen wurden by Andrew (Bruder)

I better start with the add-ons before there are too many:
1) Die Frauenzimmer kommen : 16 Zürcher Portraits by Irma Hildebrandt
- Im Zürcher Kunstmuseum hängt ein verblüffendes Ölgemälde: das Selbstbildnis eines knapp dreizehnjährigen Mädchens mit herausfordernd kühnem Gesichtsausdruck.
2) Vom Glück mit Büchern zu leben by Stefanie von Wietersheim
- Wo Bücher wohnen, da ist Leben, Freiheit, Farbe und Fantasie.
3) Welt in Flammen : Roman by Benjamin Monferat
- Der Himmel im Osten war flüssiges Feuer.
4) Gesetz und Gesetzlichkeit by Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum
- Das Gesetz des Mose und das Gesetz des Messias ist ein sehr wichtiges Thema, denn viele Gläubige sind sich nicht sicher, in welcher Beziehung sie zum mosaischen Gesetz stehen.
5) Der gottsuchende Mensch und der menschensuchende Gott : Fragen und Antworten by Adolf Köberle
- Von der nordischen Schriftstellerin Anna Maria Roos ist vor einiger Zeit ein Buch in deutscher Sprachübersetzung erschienen, das den Titel trägt: Der Ruf der Zeit.
6) Der Wille des Menschen - frei und doch gebunden by Walter Chantry
- Seit mehr als 1500 Jahren ist die Kirche in eine erregte Debatte über die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens verwickelt.
7) Das Verhalten der Christen gegenüber den Mohammedanern by Armen Gessarentz
- Warum diese Schrift?
8) Ein Mensch wie wir by Wim Malgo
- "Und das Wort des Herrn kam zu ihm und sprach: Gehe weg von hinnen und wende dich gegen Morgen und verbirg dich am Bach Krith, der gegen den Jordan fliesst" (1. Kön. 17, 2-3).
9) Gefährlicher Ausstieg : eine Kriminalgeschichte by Eckart Zur Nieden
- Markus Tanner las noch einmal durch, was er eben geschrieben hatte.
10) Der Schwimmer : Roman by Zsuzsa Bánk
- Ich hatte wenige Erinnerungen an meine Mutter.

-- -- -- --

11) Ripley's game, oder, Der amerikanische Freund : Roman by Patricia Highsmith
- "Den perfekten Mord, den gibt es nicht", sagte Tom zu Reeves.
12) Fragt morgen nach mir : Roman by Margaret Millar
- Spätnachmittag.
13) Herkunft : Roman by Oskar Roehler
- Kurz bevor die Westmächte das Grundgesetz der neuen Bundesrepublik Deutschland genehmigten, bewegte sich mein Grossvater Erich Freytag durch die Strassen eines Ortes, den er noch nicht kannte, und näherte sich einem kleinen, verlassenen Provinzbahnhof.
14) Jäger in der Nacht : Kriminalroman by Oliver Bottini
- Ein Blick auf das dunkle, lautlose Wasser des Rheins, und alles war für einen Moment vergessen.
15) Die Wundärztin : Roman by Heidi Rehn
- Für einen Moment wurde es totenstill in dem schmalen Hof.
16) Félix Vallotton by Jacques Monnier
- Die Zeit ist vorbei - wenn sie auch nicht sehr weit zurückliegt -, wo der Philosoph Charles Secrétan behaupten konnte, das Waadtland sei die Wiege der Künste - dort schliefen sie nämlich so fest.
17) Ferdinand Hodler im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen Kritik by Jura Brüschweiler
- 1853 Geburt Ferdinand Hodlers in Bern am 14. März, als ältestes von sechs Kindern des Schreiners Johann Hodler aus Gurzelen (Kanton Bern) und der Margarete, geborene Neukomm, aus Langenthal, Köchin und Wäscherin.
18) Cuno Amiet by Max Huggler
- Cuno Amiet hat gern gesagt und oft wiederholt, sein Schaffen sei unmittelbar und spontan - der Spiegel seiner Empfindungen vor der reichen Natur.
19) Le Corbusier by Jean Petit
- Am 30. Januar 1921 schrieb der Leiter der Gesellschaft für Industrieunternehmen und -forschung (Société d'entreprises et d'études industrielles) in Paris: "Was meine Geschäfte betrifft, so sind sie an einem kritischen Punkt angelangt - entweder kommt es zum Krach, oder es geht wieder bergauf.
20) Alberto Giacometti by Carlo Huber
- Schon zu Beginn seiner bildhauerischen Laufbahn sieht sich Giacometti vor ein grundsätzliches formales Problem gestellt.

-- -- -- --

16) Pater Brown und der Hammer Gottes by Gilbert Keith Chesterton. A collection of 7 Father Brown-mysteries. Der Hammer Gottes: A snob is murdered with the smallest hammer of a smith - but should the smith take the smallest of his hammers, as such a huge and strong man? Father Brown comes along and solves the mystery.... Der Mann in der Passage: Two men meet an actress at the theater, one brings a bunch of flowers, the other an antique knife with a short blade. The actress then is murdered with a short blade... Der geflügelte Dolch: A foster-child should inherit a huge fortune but the three sons of the men challenged the will. They inherited everything and the cheated one vows to kill them. Two brothers were already killed and the man asks for police protection now. They send Father Brown. can he save the man?
Good stories, sometimes with strange combinations and conclusions.

#64
I have a copy of Bruno Chief of Police somewhere in my collection. It is good to know that it is a favorite of yours so when I get around to reading it, I will know it is not a waste of my time. The reviews of it were very good but it is nice to know that somebody I know thought it was a good book.

>68 benitastrnad: Hej Benita, I like Bruno as a character and also the way Walker writes. I think it is worthwhile reading that book.

Happy weekend, Paul.

Nice to see some normality over here Paul with the book add-ons continuing a pace.

Thank you Diana, Barbara, and Paul.

It was a very busy weekend. My wife planned to visit her mother sometime next month but then we got news that her health is deteriorating rapidly, so Suki flew over last Saturday. Before that she had to go to the hospital for more checks - the resultas are not good but we didn't have time to look at them yet. Then on Thursday friends of us from Korea informed us that they arrive in Lausanne (on the lake of Geneva) on Saturday and stay there for a week only. So I went alone to Lausanne on Sunday (two-and-a -half hours by train one way). When we entered tha cathedral we realised that they were having a concert just then. The wife of our friend was so pleased that she wanted to stay - so we listened to a choir of a 110 singers, two solists and the organ, they performed Giacomo Puccini's Missa di Gloria. That was a great experience. After leaving the church we saw an awesome sunset over Lake Geneva - they warmly thanked me for the perfect planning of the day :)

The choir inside Lausanne Cathedral


Sunset over the Lake of Geneva

17) Das Spiel des Engels : Roman by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. David Martín's mother left him and his father when he was little. Later his father was killed in his presence. He worked for a newspaper - mixed messages. but always wants to be a good writer. He meets a strange person who invites him to write a book for him - money should be no problem. But he gets into other problems. A melancholic story.

I read the first book by Zafón on 'The Cemetery of Forgotten Books' with pleasure. This time I didn't get warm with it. It's written in lively style, but two many characters and too many lengthy parts.

Hi Paul, I'm so sorry to hear that Suki's mother is in a bad state and it doesn't make it easy that Suki's result aren't good. I keep you and yours in my thoughts and prayers.
I'm glad you could enjoy a lovely concert. Lausanne is a wonderful town.

Thanks Barbara, I am glad for your thinking of us.

18) Die Todgeweihte : Basileia und die letzten Tage des Mittelalters ; historischer Roman mit mittelalterlichen Illustrationen by Titus Müller. Tam is the son of the Maire of Basel in 1349. His father despises him for his weakness - he should be strong knight and not a dreamer. And Tam is in love with Saphira, a Jewish girl in a feather shop. An impossible situation for the two at that time. Saphira is then is seduced by Tam's best friend and gets pregnant. Since all the knights and even the bishop of Basel are hugely indebted to the Jews, they seek a solution and start rumours against the Jews (poisoning the wells in the city and others). So the poor citizens and some knights start rioting. The Maire then decides to burn all Jews and ban them from Basel for the next 200 years.... 7 years later the judgment comes and Basel was destroyed by the big earthquake of 1356. A story of love and adventure against the backgroup of serious uplifting and turmoil in the Middle Ages. Most facts concerning the Jews and the earthquake really happened. A sorrowful time for Basel. History coming alive in a good story.

Sorry to hear about the family health problems. Hope that your wife had a safe journey to see her mother.

Your cathedral concert sounds wonderful. Serendipity.

I'm sorry to hear of the health issues that your wife and her mother are facing. Hoping for comfort and healing.

>79 charl08: Hej Charlotte. Suki arrived safely in Korea - one-and-a-half hour late because of bad weather in Seoul - the Asian 'Snowzilla'.
The concertr in Lausanne was really a unexpected, very good experience - it was a benefit concert for the 'Offered Hand' (or Helping Hand), the Swiss phone number 143 which one can call when in trouble. https://www.143.ch/ There is a whole team of trained counselors (professionals but also many laypeople, psychologists etc.) who are picking up the phone, 24 hours/7 days.

>80 harrygbutler: Thank you, Harry, for your good wishes. Now, all her daughters arrived from all over the world. They are having some good time together, singing old songs, sharing old memories, crying, ... My mother-in-law looks very fragile on the phone.

Concerts of a serendipitous nature are always wonderful and remembered for a long long time. I am glad that you had the opportunity to attend and had a wonderful day.

I see that you read Angels Game. I liked the novel and wasn't as hard on its imperfections as you. I have the third novel in the series on my shelves and will try to read it this year. I understand that Zafon is going to do four books about Barcelona that feature the characters from Shadow of the Wind. I'll read them just so I can try to understand what he is trying to do with these works of fiction.

Package arrived! Many, many thanks!

Great, I am very relieved to hear that.

I hope you like the books. I first checked your wishlist and then I checked LT's feature about Comparing books.

19) Maigret und die junge Tote : Roman by Georges Simenon. A young girl is found dead on the pavement near Montmartre in Paris. She wears a borrowed evening dress and was apparently very shy and inconspicuous. Inspector Maigret arrives at the scene after a long night of interrogation and is very much taken in about the personality of this young girl. A police procedure mystery with a lot of time - no special effects, but a sensitive detective doing his job.

20) Die Hetzjagd : Roman by Alejo Carpentier. A revolutionary, a traitor is chased through Havanna, Cuba, and cornered in a concert hall, where they played Beethoven's 3rd. (Carpentier is a musicologist). The story is not easy to read, interwoven are different people: the chased (no name), the old woman, the ticket seller, and the prostitute Estrella. A melancholic somehow fast, in a staccato, but then also more in the mood of a march or dirge.
Interesting to read a Cuban novel but sometimes I felt a bit lost in his style.

add-ons
21) Drachenmeer. Elfenfluch by Nancy Farmer.
- Jack erwachte kurz vor Tagesanbruch und lauschte dem eisigen Februarwind, der ums Haus pfiff.
22) Blitz und Feuerteufel by Walter Farley
- Alec Ramsay sass in dem Zug, der vom Pennsylvania-Bahnhof in New York City etwas nach 19 Uhr abgefahren war und der die Roosevelt-Trabrennbahn in Westbury, Long Island, gegen 20 Uhr erreichen würde - genau eine halbe Stunde vor Beginn des ersten Abendrennens.
23) Mit Geist beschenkt by Klaus Haacker
- Als Fragehorizont dieses Aufsatzes ist der Bereich des Gemeindeaufbaus ins Auge zu fassen, besonders die Frage der Zuständigkeit und der Wirkungsmöglichkeiten der Amtsträger einerseits und der übrigen Gemeindeglieder andererseits.
24) Ihr Katerlein kommet : auf Samtpfoten durch die Adventszeit by Edith Schreiber-Wicke
- Weihnachten ... Kann mir bitte irgendwer sagen, was das ist?
25) Ausflug zum Ammersee : Liebenswertes zwischen Augsburg und Andechs by Rüdiger Schablinski
- Die Bilder und Texte dieses Buches nähern sich dem Ammersee vornehmlich von Westen her, aus der Augsburger Richtung also.
26) Wetter- und Bauernregeln : von Januar bis Dezember ; mit Naturbeobachtungen, Garten- und Gesundheitstips by Horst Leisering
- In der Nacht ist der Himmel so hoch wie sonst nie, Tausende von Sternen brennen kleine Glanzpunkte in die Schwärze der Nacht
27) The language of bees : a Mary Russell novel by Laurie R. King
- As homecomings go, it was not auspicious.
28) Eine Reise in das Land der Jakuten
- Kennst du das Land der Jakuten?
29) Jiddisches Wörterbuch by Ronald Lötzsch
- Jiddisch ist die dem Deutschen nächstverwandte westgermanische Sprache.
30) Faust : der Tragödie erster Teil by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Ihr naht euch wieder schwankende Gestalten, Die früh sich einst dem trüben Blick gezeigt.

-- -- -- --

some more:
31) Die Leiden des jungen Werthers by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Was ich von der Geschichte des armen Werther nur habe auffinden können, habe ich mit Fleiß gesammelt und lege es euch hier vor, und weiß, daß ihr mir’s danken werdet.
32) Die Versuchung des Pescara : Novelle by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
- In einem Saale des mailändischen Kastelles sass der junge Herzog Sforza über den Staatsrechnungen.
33) Der Menschenfeind : Komödie in 5 Akten by Molière
- Was haben Sie? Was gibt's?
34) Nora oder ein Puppenheim : Schauspiel in drei Akten by Henrik Ibsen
- Verstecken Sie nur den Weihnachtsbaum gut, Helene.
35) Miss Sara Sampson : ein Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
- Hier meine Tochter?
36) Don Giovanni (Don Juan) : Oper in zwei Aufzügen by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Keine Ruh bei Tag und Nacht,
Nichts, was mir Vergnügen macht,
Schmale Kost und wenig Geld,
Das ertrage, wem's gefällt!
37) Ice Candy Man : Roman by Bapsi Sidhwa
- Meine Welt ist begrenzt.
38) Das Gleichgewicht der Welt : Roman by Rohinton Mistry
- Der überfüllte Morgenexpress verlangsamte seine Fahrt bis zu einem Kriechtempo und ruckte dann plötzlich vorwärts, als wollte er wieder zur vollen Geschwindigkeit zurückkehren.
39) Neues Gemeinschafts-Liederbuch
- Grosser Gott, wir loben dich. Herr, wir preisen deine Stärke.
40) NeÜ bibel.heute
- Im Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde.

-- -- -- --

21) Playgrounds 1972 - A plea for Utopia or the re-cycled empty lot by Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. A Canadian architect looks at good playgrounds for our children. Adventure Playgrounds were started in 1943 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where they provided different parts on a empty space: left-over lumber ends, hammer and other tools, rope, old car tires, gardening tools etc. And a competent leader needs to be on the place. The idea spread slowly to the USA and Canada. Now she is urging the city planners to plan such playgrounds today.
I guess the idea of an 'Adventure Playground' was born everytime some kids came together and did something together with things they found laying around. Today the idea of children playing changed quite a lot. So our 'Robinson Playgrounds' (as we call them here) are not so well used anymore. But it's still a good place for children in the cities.

22) Ich warte auf dich : Gespräche zwischen Gott und Mann by Heinrich Christian Rust. Rust wrote several prayers and answers along the 'promises' of the Promise Keepers. All good basics for me being a Christian man.

23) Paul und Virginie : nach Bernardin de Saint-Pierre by Emil Ernst Ronner. Mr. and Mrs. de Latour marry against the wishes of the families and emigrate from France to Mauritius in 1726. But then Mr. de Latour dies and leaves a pregnant widow behind. She meets another woman with a young child, Paul, and together they are given some land from the governor. Then Virginie is born and they live happily together until one day a letter from France arrives ...
A nice little story about immigration and coming of age in Mauritius.

24) Gut gebrüllt, Löwe by Max Kruse. the Sultan of Sultania, and his friends and advisers, Lion and Camel travel on their Flying Carpet to Nekaragia where the bad uncle Rao with his adviser Gibbon try to put away the Prince Panja and rule themselves. A fun fantasy story for kids.

25) Noah's compass by Anne Tyler. A 60-year-old teacher loses his job and moves into a smaller apartment. In the first night, he is knocked on the head by a burglar and wakes up in the hospital. His memory about the incident is totally gone. Then his ex-wife tries to help him, his youngest daughter moves in because she can't along with ther mother. ... a character study of a sad, lonely man.

I'm a big Maigret fan. Penguin are just reissuing Simenon in new English translations, so I am enjoying those a great deal (although if I see a cheap green penguin Maigret I struggle to resist it!).

26) Der Löwe ist los by Max Kruse. The first volume of this well-known children's books about the Lion who escaped from the zoo in Irgendwo (Somewhere). He was lonely and homesick and there fore was looking for a way home. The people of the city were all afraid. Then Pips, a girl from town, found Lion in a pit where both fell into and she helped Lion because he had a thorn in his paw ... Later they helped the Sultan of Sultania
I saw the whole series on the TV when I was little. I loved the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augsburger_Puppenkiste Augsburger Puppenkiste, a marionette theater where they performed the Lion books.

>95 paulstalder: I love the cover illustration!

>96 thornton37814: Looks nice, doesn't it?

statistics for January

4150 pages, 26 books

23 books were written in German, 1 in Swiss German, 2 in English

nationalities: CH 4, GB 2, B 2, D 10, USA 3, E 1, Kuba 1, CDN 1
dead 10, alive 14
male 16, female 8
(2x Ecke, 2x Kruse)

the oldest book was published 1906, the most recent ones in 2009

27) 4 ½ Freunde und die Spur der stinkenden Socke by Joachim Friedrich. Kalle, Steffi, Friedhelm, Radieschen, and the dog Tausendschön (thousand times beautiful) form the 'Kalle & Co., Detective Office. Now they are heading north to Fanø Island, Denmark, for a holiday camp lead by their school teacher. Friedhelm finds a valuable piece of amber, made by the old Vikings, on the shore. Before they can bring the artifact to the local museum the piece is stolen...
Fun reading, but not as good as Kalle Blomquist, Jan by Knud Meister or Enid Blyton.

28) Jan, wir kommen! : eine Detektivgeschichte für Buben und Mädchen by Knud Meister. Jan and his friends are invited to visit their uncle in Ulvsborg, Jutland (today there they celebrate a knight's festival http://www.ulvsborg.dk/). Then a film crew of a never-heard-of-before-company starts making a smuggler's film. But Jan and his friends soon find out that the filming is just a pretext ... an easy detective story

29) Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer by Michael Ende. Luke is the engine driver on Lummerland, a small island in the ocean. There is also a king, a subject, and a shopkeeper, yes, and the engine Emma. One day they receive a parcel addressed to xuMMRlANT, written in an almost illegible hand, on the back a '13' as sender. When they open it they find a black baby in it. They all love him, givbe him the name Jim, and are quite angry at the people who put a such little baby into a box and send it overseas. But later the king starts to worry about the space on his island: When Jim grows into a full citizen, the island was too small for everybody, so he asks Luke to get rid of Emma. But Luke doesn't want to abandon Emma and makes a plan to sail away with her. Jim wants to accompany his friend. So they leave Lummerland and sail to China...
A witty, fantasy story of my childhood. Another puppet show I saw with the Augsburger Puppenkiste on TV. Great book

Just trying to catch up with all the threads. There are some great readings, Paul. I know most of the children books.

Hej Barbara, it's fun to read these old classics again. It's a good change to other literature.

30) 'G' is for gumshoe by Sue Grafton. Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator, moves into her newly renovated apartment. And she gets a new assignment: Look for an elderly woman in a trailer somewhere in the Californian desert. At the same time she gets a hint that someone wants her dead and set up a few bucks for doing her in. She gets shot in the tyre when driving to the trailer and so hires a personal gumshoe, Robert Dietz, to protect her, and she goes on solving the mystery of the old woman... A good mystery with a lot of abnormal people - and some words I had to check.

31) Geheime Botschaften für Tanja by Sophie Rosenberg. Another book for young adults, this time girl-talk. Tanja is in a boarding school, somewhere in Germany, the Eulenburg (castle of the owls). Two thirds of the pupils are girls, so it's natural that the girls are looking forward to the arrival of a new boy: Jerome from Trinidad. Tanja is also working with others on a project: they want to discover the history of the old castle they're living in, and she is part of the surfer-group (written 2002). They find an old edition of Oliver Twist with strange numbers in certain pages. Tanja solves the riddle and discovers an old message written in the book by an unhappy Miss Constanze who planned to run away with a dubious cavalry captain, but the run ended deadly.... Okay, not bad. A lot of gossip about boys and their shortcomings but also interesting tales about an old castle in Germany.

Happy weekend, Paul.

Thank you, Barbara

32) Wein aus Graubünden : eine Kulturgeschichte ; beiderseits der Alpen by Heribert Küng. A cultural history of wine in the Swiss canton of the Grisons. In some of the valleys North of the Alps there were growing white vines, the Romans brought the red grapes (Pinot noir) to the Southern valleys (which belong to Italy nowadays). It is not clear who invented the barrels/casks for storing wine, the Celts or the Romans. But the transport of wine overt the Alps becomes more and more important. Wine is a means of payment, part of the pay, daily beverage for most people in the three parts of the confederation during the Middle Ages. Even the prisoners in the town hall of Chur/Coira were entitled there evening pint of wine. Then the climate became cooler in the Alpine valleys, so the Northern vineyards became smaller and smaller. Only since the 1950s the wine production increases again. Nice short history.



Once a German tourists wonders about the mountains he sees travelling over the Bernina to Italy, and asks the conductor: 'How high are these mountains?' 'Oh, about 8000 m high,' is the short answer. Then another passenger gets in and says: 'There are no mountains in the whole of Europa so high.' The conductor: 'Yes, you must consider how deep the mountain reaches into the earth.'

33) Unheimliche Ferien für Tanja by Sophie Rosenberg. The next part of girl talk. Tanja's parents have a business trip over Christmas so she has to stay in the boarding school. It becomes more and more wintery, a lot of snow. And there are sightings of poachers - or are the rumours true that some criminals are waiting for a chance to kidnap a rich parent's kid? And Tanja's love goes home to his family and she feels totally abandoned ...

34) Der rote Kimono : Kriminalroman by Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot travels on the Orient Express from Istanbul back to London. But then the train is stopped somewhere in Yugoslavia and a man is found murdered with 12 stabs .... A classic deployment of Hercule's gray cells.

Hi Paul, I thought I'd stop by to star your thread and wish you a happy belated new year. I've recently joined the 75'ers again and I'm still tangled up in all those threads. I'm sorry to hear about your wife's and mother-in-law's health-issues. My thought are with you.

You read some interesting books, lately. And I find the German book-title of Murder on the Orient Express quite strange.

Hej Monica, I am very pleased to hear from you again. Thanks for visiting my thread.

I have no idea why they changed the title on Christie's mystery: Der rote Kimono is showing up in the train in order to distract Hercule Poirot, maybe the German publisher wanted to stress that point.

My mother-in-law had a undetected pneumonia and had to go to the hospital, there they took 1.2 l water out of her lungs. She is still in hospital and Suki and her siblings are celebrating Chinese New Year in hospital now. The mother is too weak to come home.

>112 paulstalder: I know pneumonia has been rough this year here as well. I hope your mother-in-law recovers soon.

>113 thornton37814: hej lori, she is very ill and will probably not be able to come home anymore. Suki and another sister are also suffering from a cold.

>112 paulstalder: I'm sorry to hear about your mother-in-law and that your wife has a cold, but I think it is good that they were able to celebrate Chinese New Year together. It's good that the family is united, although I presume you miss your wife now.

>115 Trifolia: Suki is planning to come home next week. I hope that they will bring the transfer of her mother to a new home to a good end.

35) Geschichte der Stadt Basel : dritter Band by Rudolf Wackernagel. The 3-volume-work by Wackernagel is the main work on the history of Basel, published 1907-1924. So we scanned this work now into wikisource and I helped proofreading volume three, this we finished now. Volume 3 treats the area of humanism and reformation. It shows the formation of a new belief and therefore a new church structure, the difficult diplomatic acting of the city rulers (the guilds), the closer attachment to the Swiss cantons, and the first ideas of democratic government. Very interesting reading.

36) Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13 by Michael Ende. The 2nd part of this fairy tale. At midnight the post ship bumps into the little island of Lummerland. So the king Alfons decides that there must be something done about it. Jim Knopf has the idea of bringing Mr. Tur Tur to the island, because he is a 'Believe Giant', a giant who only looks a giant from a great distance. So Jom Knopf and his friend Lukas caulk out Emma the tank engine again and go on a second trip to End of the World. On gthe way they repair the Marine Luminescence and invent the pertuum mobile which makes Emma fly ... fun reading.

You are doing some very diverse reading, Paul!

Yes :)

>101 paulstalder: >118 paulstalder:
The author changed the name of Li Si's home country from China to Mandala - I don't know why.
The publisher also changed the illustrator of the books. Here some examples:
-
Jim Knopf arrives

-
Emma as a ship

-
Mr. Tur Tur, the believe giant

-
Mrs Mahlzahn

add-ons:
41) Eiszeit : ein Fall für Carol Jordan und Tony Hill ; Thriller by Val McDermid
- Jeden Morgen erwachte er mit einem Gefühl prickelnder Erregung.
42) Die Nacht am Fluss : Roman by Deborah Raney
- Ein beeindruckender Vollmond warf einen schattendurchsetzten Lichtstreifen über die Lafayette Avenue.
43) Stille Scheiterhaufen : Gedichte by Slavko Mihalić
- Ich wüsste gern, woher
diese Leere kommt, so
dass ich mich in einen klaren See verwandle, dem
ihr auf den Grund sehen könnt, doch ohne Fische.
44) Hilfe, es wird Weihnachten : Anregungen zur Gestaltung - Geschichten und Gedichte by Kathi Kaldewey
- Das Weihnachtsprogramm unserer Haushaltsschülerinnen-Klasse ist soeben zu Ende.
45) Der arme Spielmann : eine Novelle by Franz Grillparzer
- In Wien ist der Sonntag nach dem Vollmonde im Monat Juli jedes Jahres sammt dem darauf folgenden Tage ein eigentliches Volksfest, wenn je ein Fest diesen Namen verdient hat.
46) Emily und Cambridge : Roman by Caryl Phillips
- England. Das Schiff war segelfertig.
47) Obsession : Thriller by Simon Beckett
- Er entdeckte die verschlossene Kassette am Tag nach der Beerdigung.
48) Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen : Roman by Daniela Krien
- Es isst Sommer, heisser, herrlicher Sommer.
49) The Zookeeper's wife : a war story by Diane Ackerman
- At dawn in an outlying district of Warsaw, sunlight swarmed around the trunks of blooming linden trees and crept up the white walls of a 1930s stucco and glass villa where the zoo director and his wife slept in a bed crafted from white birch, a pale wood used in canoes, tongue depressors, and Windsor chairs.
50) Fair play : a novel by Tove Jansson
- Jonna had a happy habit of waking each morning as if to a new life.

-- -- -- --

>121 paulstalder: Beautiful illustrations, especially like the older ones (on the left). Roughly how long did it take to get everything into Google for the Basel history? Is it something your library does a lot of (sorry if you have said this before).

some more:
51) Insel des Sturms : Roman by Nora Roberts
- Ganz offensichtlich, gar keine Frage, war sie übergeschnappt!
52) Nächte des Sturms : Roman by Nora Roberts
- Irland ist ein Land der Dichter und Legenden, der Träumer und Rebellen.
53) Träume wie Gold : Roman by Nora Roberts
- Er wollte nicht hier sein.
54) Das Rätsel des Philosophen : Roman by José Carlos Somoza
- Der Leichnam lag auf einer Trage aus dünnen Birkenreisern.
55) Mah-Jongg : das chinesische Glücks-, Kombinations- und Gesellschaftsspiel by Ursula Eschenbach
- Das Mah-Jongg-Spiel ist ein jahrhundertealtes chinesisches Gesellschaftsspiel.
56) Nanyar by Vijay Sharma
- When Nanyar had not yet turned into Nanyar, he lived in a suburb of Bombay.
57) Die geborene Krause : Roman by Fr. Lehne
- Die schweren Schritte des Mannes auf der mit weissem Sand bestreuten kleinen Vordiele liessen die Frau, die, mit ihrer Näherei beschäftigt, in dem niedrigen Wohnzimmer am Fenster sass, ängstlich aufhorchen.
58) Verzeih, wenn du kannst : Roman by Erich Ebermayer
- Im gewölbten Flur des Landgerichts standen Polizisten, die den Neugierigen, meist Frauen, die noch in den Schwurgerichtssaal eingelassen werden wollten, den Eintritt verwehrten.
59) Working wonders by Jenny Colgan
- 'Stop kicking me.'
60) Garamonds Lehrmeister : Roman by Anne Cuneo
- Es war wieder kalt geworden.

-- -- -- --

>123 charl08: Hej Charlotte, I like the older illustrations more than the new ones - maybe a nostalgic feeling because I remember from childhood ...

Last year, somebody from the University of Basel scanned the whole work of Wackernagel's history. Then someone else transcribed the text from Fraktur to a modern script. A Wikipedian then put that into Wikisource and then three different people from our library were proofreading the text since beginning of December 2015. I did the difficult part for the time of the Reformation and some last check reading for the appendix. So someone has still to do the last reading for some parts of volume three. I will start with volume 1 next week I guess. We started projects like that three years ago.

add-ons
61) The heavenly man : the remarkable true story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun by Brother Yun
- My name is Liu Zhenying.
62) Hamlet, Prinz von Dänemark : Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen by William Shakespeare
- Barnardo Wer da?
63) König Heinrich der Vierte : historisches Schauspiel ; erster und zweiter Teil by William Shakespeare
- Erschüttert wie wir sind, vor Sorge bleich,
Ersehn wir doch für den gescheuchten Frieden
Zu atmen Zeit, und abgebrochne Laute
Von neuem Kampf zu stammeln, welcher nun
Beginnen soll an weit entlegnem Strand.
64) Gockel und Hinkel : Märchen by Clemens Brentano
- In Deutschland in einem wilden Wald lebte ein altes graues Männchen, und das hiess Gockel.
65) Das Erdbeben in Chili. Das Bettelweib von Locarno. Die heilige Cäcilie. Über das Marionettentheater und andere Prosastücke by Heinrich von Kleist
- In St. Jago, der Hauptstadt des Königreichs Chili, stand gerade in dem Augenblicke der grossen Erderschütterung vom Jahre 1647, bei welcher viele tausend Menschen ihren Untergang fanden, ein junger, auf ein Verbrechen angeklagter Spanier, namens Jeronimo Rugera, an einem Pfeiler des Gefängnisses, in welches man ihn eingesperrt hatte, und wollte sich erhenken.
66) Dantons Tod : ein Drama by Georg Büchner
- Sieh die hübsche Dame, wie artig sie die Karten drehte!
67) Phaidon oder Von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele by Platon
- Warst du selbst, Phaidon, beim Sokrates an jenem Tage, als er im Gefängnis den Giftbecher trank, oder hast du von einem anderen darüber gehört?
68) Abhandlung ber die Methode des richtigen Vernunftgebrauchs und der wissenschaftlichen Wahrheitsforschung by René Descartes
- Der gesunde Verstand (bon sens) ist die bestverteilte Sache der Welt, denn jedermann meint, damit so gut versehen zu sein, dass selbst diejenigen, die in allen übrigen Dingen sehr schwer zu befriedigen sind, doch gewöhnlich nicht mehr Verstand haben wollen, als sie wirklich haben.
69) Antigone : Tragödie by Sophokles
- O Schwester, du mein eigen Blut, Ismene,
Sag einen Fluch von Ödipus, den Zeus
Nicht schon erfüllt in unser beiden Leben!
70) Maria Magdalena : ein bürgerliches Trauerspiel in drei Akten ; mit Hebbels Vorwort betreffend das Verhältnis der dramatischen Kunst zur Zeit und verwandte Punkte by Friedrich Hebbel
- Dein Hochzeitskleid? Ei, wie es dir steht!

-- --

some more:
71) Eindeutig Mord : zwölf Fälle für John Rebus by Ian Rankin
- Es war der perfekte Mord.
72) Publikumsbeschimpfung und andere Sprechstücke by Peter Handke
- Sie sind willkommen.
73) In meinen Träumen läutet es Sturm : Gedichte und Epigramme aus dem Nachlass by Mascha Kaléko
- Lass mich das Pochen deines Herzens spüren,
Dass ich nicht höre, wie das meine schlägt.
74) Goya oder der arge Weg der Erkenntnis : Roman by Lion Feuchtwanger
- Gegen Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts war fast überall in Westeuropa das Mittelalter ausgetilgt. Auf der iberischen Halbinsel, die auf drei Seiten vom Meer, auf der vierten von Bergen abgeschlossen ist, dauerte es fort.
75) S Chamäleon Sowieso und anderi Tiergschichte by Elisabeth Heck
- Uf eme Baum sitzt s Chamäleon Sowieso.
76) Paul und Virginie : nach Bernardin de Saint-Pierre by Emil Ernst Ronner
- Herr von Latour, ein junger Mann, reiste im Jahre 1726 in Begleitung seiner Frau von Frankreich nach der im Indischen Ozean gelegenen Insel Mauritius.
77) Das Stinktier kann doch nichts dafür : und andere Geschichten aus der Arche by Avril Rowlands
- Herr Noah war schon ziemlich alt, als Gott eines Tages ein ernstes Gespräch mit ihm führte.
78) Troposphere : Roman by Scarlett Thomas
- Sie haben jetzt die Wahl.
79) Erweckung hinter Gittern : ein argentinisches Hochsicherheitsgefängnis wird auf den Kopf gestellt by Michael Richardson
- Lassen Sie mich Ihnen von meinem ersten Besuch im Olmos-Gefängnis im November 1992 erzählen.
80) Wer sein Leben verliert : Roy Orpin im Dschungel Thailands by Mertis Heimbach
- Roy Orpin blätterte in Gillians Choralbuch und fügte seinem Autogramm eine Strophe aus seinem Lieblingslied hinzu, indem er sie laut wiederholte:
"Nicht Freude, Friede, nein
nicht einmal Segen: Gott selber ist mein Ziel.
Nicht ich, doch er führt mich dorthin,
um jeden Preis, auf jedem Weg,
wie er es will."

-- -- -- --

and more:
81) Komodo! : Wo die letzten Drachen wohnen by Peter Sís
- Auf Klassenfotos bin ich immer leicht zu erkennen: Ich bin der mit dem Drachen-T-Shirt.
82) Kommt, lasst uns singen : Lobpreis- und Anbetungslieder ; Liederbox by Albert Frey
- Dankt dem Herrn, sagt es laut, wer euer Gott ist.
83) Folklore Schweiz : Brauchtum, Feste, Trachten by Michael Wolgensinger
- Bräuche, Feste und Feiern - wo finden wir sie, mannigfaltiger und vielseitiger als in der Schweiz?
84) Der Mensch auf seiner Erde : eine Befragung in Flugbildern by Georg Gerster
- In den allerletzte Dezembertagen des Jahres 1858 stieg Gaspard Félix Tournachon alias Nadar in einem Fesselballon zum ersten erfolgreichen Fotoflug auf; vorsichtshalber hatte er schon einige Monate vorher ein Patent auf die Verwertung der Luftfotografie zur Herstellung von Landkarten angemeldet.
85) Gleis 4 : Roman by Franz Hohler
- «Darf ich Ihnen den Koffer tragen?»
86) Schneefrei : die schönsten Wintergeschichten by Karoline Adler
- Sie schickten dem Bären ein Killerteam hinterher.
87) Fingerfood : zubereiten, dekorieren, geniessen by Christina Kempe
- In jeder Esskultur gibt es sie, die kleinen Köstlichkeiten, von denen man nicht genug bekommen kann: klassisches Fingerfood, das mit einem Happs im Mund verschwindet, appetitliche Snacks, die man aus Gläsern löffeln oder gabeln kann - ganz wie die Franzosen ihre Verrines.
88) Nebbich : oder, Löcher im Lachen by Ben Witter
- Ich stürzte in ein Schneeloch und winkte.
89) Perry Clifton oder Der Herr in den grauen Beinkleidern by Wolfgang Ecke
- "Dicki!!"
90) Die gordische Schleife : Roman by Bernhard Schlink
- Georg fuhr nach Hause.

-- -- -- --

up to 100
91) Artemis Fowl : Roman by Eoin Colfer
- Ho Chi Minh City im Sommer.
92) Wässerwasser : Roman by Urs Augstburger
- Eden war noch unbewohnt, als Agnes zur Welt kam.
93) Das grosse Buch der Lieder und Songs by Reinhard Michl
- Kuckuck, Kuckuck ruft's aus dem Wald.
94) Aus ruhmreichen Tagen : Roman ; kriegerische Fehden und ungezügelte Leidenschaften im Kampf um eine Trutzburg im wilden Wales by Penelope Williamson
- Die Schale des Barden fühlte sich warm an in ihren Händen.
95) Endspurt : Roman by Colin Forbes
- Nachdem der Mord geschehen war, nahm man an, dass Charles Warner - der doch immer so wachsam gewesen war - seine Unachtsamkeit der herrlichen Stimmung jenes Tages zu verdanken gehabt hatte.
96) Blindes Vertrauen : Roman by Sandra Brown
- "Gut sehen Sie aus, Mrs. Merritt."
97) Nackte Lügen : Roman by Stella Cameron
- Männer wie Roman Wilde wussten die Nacht zu schätzen.
98) Elli gibt den Löffel ab : Roman by Tessa Hennig
- Tiefe Sehnsucht und unerfülltes Verlangen sprachen aus seinen Augen, die Gewissheit, die Liebe seines Lebens nie wieder in die Arme schliessen zu dürfen.
99) Schwert und Säbel : Roman by Simon Scarrow
- Die Galeere tanzte auf den sanften, pechschwarzen Wellen des nächtlichen Meeres.
100) Spa & Wellness in Europa : Hotels, Anwendungen, Rezepte by Ginger Lee
- Spa und Wellness in Europa ist Ihr optimaler Guide für wundervoll entspannende Erlebnisse zwischen Moskau und Portugal, Schottland und dem türkischen Çeşme.

-- -- -- --

>121 paulstalder: I was an actor for the Jim Knopf musical 1981/82. It was a fabulous time. I played the role of Frau W. Jim's foster mom.

Sorry to hear about your MIL bad condition. I hope Suki's cold isn't too worse.

100 books added already - way to go, Paul.

Hope your Mother in Law is on the mend. My mum has had pneumonia more times than I care to remember and the recovery process is a long and winding road.

>130 Ameise1: Then, you know the Jim Knopf stories well. They are really a highlight in Children's literature. Suki is not coming this week - finding a good home for her mother is much more complicated than anticipated. I think all three sisters there suffer from a cold - none been able to properly recover *sigh*

>131 PaulCranswick: Hej Paul, too many books actually. There are some titles which I really want to read. I should stay home reading and not walking around listening to the pleas of the abandoned books to give them a home :)
My mother in law is feeling better now, but she can't come back home to her daughter's for sure.

Will you get up early tomorrow? I wish you a wonderful Morgestraich, Paul.

No, I will not go to the Morgestraich - it rains and alone doesn't make it any fun.

So true.

37) Sturm by Miguel Angel Asturias. A small village at the coast of Guatemala. A big American company is making money with the local bananas. But they just exploit the farmers and the land. Social injustice. A young American appears who sells 'everything you need for your sewing basket'. Then he starts supporting the independent banana pickers - but the company hits back ... is Lester Mead going to succeed and help the locals to get independent of the big despicable company?
Nobel prize winner Asturias shows the way a big American company treats the local workers and exploits them. A social study of the time. A bit difficult to follow.

38) Der Banküberfall by Damaris Kofmehl. Holidays. Bärbel is invited by her uncle to spend the holidays in his mansion in Wetzikon ZH, and five friends of hers join her. Conny, who is one of them, invites her friend Roman to come along, too. But then robbers rob a bank in Wetzikon and hijack Roman with his car for their escape ... The kids find the hideout of the gangsters but Conny gets caught, too. ...
A good, Christian mystery of this Swiss author who later worked with street kids in Brazilian favelas.

39) Emily und Cambridge : Roman by Caryl Phillips. Emily is a 30-year-old English woman who is sent by her father to their plantation in the Caribbean. At first she is shocked by the treated the slaves get but she soon finds herself 'better' because she is white and therefore civilized. Cambridge is a slave who says to be a Christian but is apparently the only who is not afraid of telling the truth.
A rough story about the arrogance and blindness of English slave owners and the sadness and cruelty of living as slaves in an English colony in the 19th century.

>129 paulstalder: - Now is that title of your thread a promise or wishful thinking?? :-) Enjoy!

>139 Trifolia: *sigh* It was a promise ... but how can I walk past books by Agatha Christie, Barbara Demick (Nothing to envy) or The hare with amber eyes or Patricia Highsmith and so on? I got a dozen books today.
But I also sent 5 books to the Swiss National Library today, all Swiss publications they didn't know about so far and are happy to add to their collection.

40) Mord auf Alemannisch : der badische Krimi by Ralf H. Dorweiler. Rainer Maria Schlaicher is a test thief who steals things in a shop and then trains their detectives to protect their house of such thieves. At a hush-puppy-dog-meeting he hears of the killing of such a dog and also meets the owner of a well known textile factory in Lörrach (Black Forest). She suffers from a heart attack during that weekend. Some days later her own basset is stabbed to death and this time she dies. A strange way of killing somebody. Who is behind these basset-killings? Any connection to the beautiful niece of the deceased who cheats on her husband who works in the company and himself needs money? A local mystery happening in places I know. A good story for a first mystery.
What I didn't like is the ignorance about spelling street names in Switzerland: When driving to Basel they pass the Wettsteiner Platz and the Dornacher Strasse. Wettstein is a former Maire of Basel and not a place name, so the correct name would be Wettsteinplatz and we write street names in one word, so Dornacherstrasse. It seems that the German publisher is pretty ignorant about such details.

41) Bilderräuber : die grössten Kunstdiebstähle by Mario Giordano. a little book about the greatest robberies of art. Remberandt's pictures are the most stolen ones, so his Self Portait (1630) was stolen from a museum in Stockholm, five minutes before it closed. They had machine guns and escaped with a speed boat (and were captured five years later). The Cry by Edvard Munch (1893) was stolen twice. The first try failed because the thief fell off a ladder but he tried again and stole it in 1994. But the police found it. 10 years it was stolen again. Andy Warhol's Portrait of Lenin was stolen from a storehouse in Germany in 2001. Upon payment of a ransom it was returned the following year. Paintings by Pieter Brueghel, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, William Turner and others were stolen, some like Picasso's Maya with Doll didn't surface again, they are still missing. Interesting reading.

Some of the stolen paintings:


Rembrandt, Storm on Lake Galilee (1633). Stolen 1990 during the biggest art robbery in the USA from a museum in Boston. Disguised policemen cut the paintings rudely out from their frames - savages. The painting is still missing


Carl Spitzweg, Poor Poet (1839). Stolen 1989 from a museum in Berlin, still missing

Claude Monet, At the Beach of Trouville (1871). Armed robbers stormed the museum in Paris and took several paintings from the walls. Never caught, a trail led to Japan. Five years later the paintings were found again.


Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Field with Crows (1890). The thief hid over night in the toilet. But the robbery failed because his car wouldn't start ... (I like that car)

Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893). Stolen 1994 and 2004 in Oslo. When first stolen, the thieves left a note saying: 'Thanks for the safety measures'. The painting is back in the museum again.


Gustav Klimt, Portrait of a Lady (1917). Stolen 1997 from a museum in Piazenza - with a fishing pole through a skylight :) Painting is still missing. Never trust a fisherman.

42) Schalkhafte Geschichten by Felix Moeschlin. Four short stories by a Swiss author from Basel, humour.
Die Selbstmörderin: A young lady was betrayed by her friend and therefore thought about suicide. But her money in the bank account made her thinking about just using that money for new clothes and then jump into the water. But then she wanted, just for once, wear these clothes in public and walks through the city - and all men turn their heads. What now?
Der Lederhändler: A fifty-year-old leather merchant sells his business and wants to enjoy life - but he doesn't know what that entails: some say, wine or girls, books or theatre, or travelling ... he tries out everything but he doesn't enjoy llife. He misses his profession...
Die Mörderhöhle: A newly married a couple is on the way home when the axis of their carriages breaks. They have to spend their first night in a run-down inn in the forest. They are afraid that this is a den of thiefs and don't sleep in the bed, they don't sleep at all. And the landlord and his staff are disappointed not to be able to peek at the young couple's first night.
Der umstürzlerische Neubau: There are rumours that a consortium is buying some houses in down-town Basel and people are afraid of a new hotel, or a new shopping mall, or even a new Salvation Army center. In the end a German citizen comes and builds a huge garden with a small house in the middle for his family. A garden with fruit trees, a running creek and a fish pond. The children are happily playing there and everybody gets envies and think of enjoying a healthier life - but the financiers and speculators are very unhappy because house prices fall in the city and people prefer the country side and the banks are losing money. So they oppose that 'revolutionary' ... An interesting economic tail - with money you may do everything you want but as soon as you make financiers lose money through your generosity, you've got enemies.

Love your comments about the stolen paintings. Lovely photos.

BTW how is your MIL and Suki?

>147 Ameise1: Art robbery is quite an interesting subject. But what I never understand is the the behaviour/ the mind set of the one buying a stolen painting, I mean, you can't show off with it, can you? You have to hide it, you can't talk about, you can't share photographs of it, no selfies with it ... totally boring ... and a waste of a lot of money.

They found a place for Suki's mother but in a small home, but there are six women in one room - all old, all in need of care. Today Suki wrote that she 'escaped' with her mother with the help of a nephew and a wheel chair to make an outing to her mother's church. But most of the time she has to stay in that room.

43) Der Seemann, der die See verriet : Roman by Yukio Mishima. A depressing reading. A widow with a 13-year-old son meets a sailor and fells in love with him. But the son and his friends form a kind of philosophical club with quite destructive views of society and mankind. Didn't like it much.

>148 paulstalder: Oh dear that doesn't sound like a wonderful place or is this just normal South Corea standards for such homes?

I am not sure if that is normal SK standard. Suki is not happy but she left SK some 40 years ago and worked as a nurse in geriatric hospitals in Switzerland since then - so she can only compare with Swiss (or German) standards but doesn't know the 'normal' standard in South Korea. Medical treatments are up to high standards - if you have the money, that is. But nursing care for the elderly was (and so still is) more in the hands of the family - and the government is not paying much, if at all.

Sorry to hear that. Is some of the family living close to her?

I'm sorry to hear about your mother-in-law's situation. I know how helpless one can feel in a situation like this.
I share your ideas about Mishima's book. I read it when I was in my early twenties. I don't remember much about it except that I had no idea what this book was about. A bit weird and not appealing to me.

Thank you Barbara and Monica.

MIL lived with one of her daughters and they wanted to find a home nearby so she can visit her after work or after church. Another daughter lives some hours away from her place. Suki is now coming back next Tuesday. She was cutting her mother's hair last Friday :) I guess, as a kind of saying good-bye.

44) Der Schatz auf der Insel by Damaris Kofmehl. Volume 3 of the 'Adventure Class'. Two girls hear strange sounds out of an old abandoned bicycle workshop, like a harmonica. Then they find out that the former owner was playing harmonica and so they have the idea that his ghost is guarding a treasure. so a treasure hunt starts. But a former co-worker is also on the hunt and he is pretty dangerous. A good detective story for teenagers.

Just found an interesting epigraph in Tödlicher Absturz:
Lumpen ergeben Papier
Papier ergibt Geld
Geld ergibt Banken
Banken geben Darlehen
Darlehen ergeben Bettler
Bettler ergeben Lumpen
(Rags give paper
Paper gives money
Money gives banks
Banks give loans
Loans give beggars
Beggars give rags)
saying from the 18th century

>156 paulstalder: How true. History is always repeating itself and nobody learns of all the failures.

Cycle of life :)

45) An account of the Grisons or, a description of the free and independent common-wealth of the Three Rhætish Leagues : with some remarks relating to the case of Mr. Masner by John Leonhardi. An interesting historical document. Leonhard is a minister from the Grisons travelling to London in order to recommend this part of Europe to the English in 1711. He gives a very favorable description of the country, her politics and government, and history. He describes a hero, 'who being wounded and fighting with his Bowels in one hand, and Sword in t'other'. He tries to explain the democratic system of the Three Gray Leagues to the English, whereas every single man is free and has one vote and the deputies have to count the votes and then they are sent to the assemblies/Dyets of the Republic. He also describes the snow and ice called 'Glatscher'. At that time the Grisons were independent and had diplomatic envoys from Venice, Paris, and now London. They all want to secure the free passage over the Alpine passes there. At that time the Valtellina also belonged to the Grisons (today it's part of Italy). So he recommends the Veltliner (a red wine) which makes the inhabitants of the Grisons becoming so very old and strong.
Interesting reading
(The Grisons became a Swiss canton in 1803).

46) Muttertag : Kriminalroman by Alexander Heimann. Hans Kammermann is a widowed ex-policeman with heart and motivational problems. Sile is an alcoholic and a single parent. One day another woman who lost her baby some time, stole Sile's little boy and runs away with him. Sile asks Hans to help her find her baby. A simple story but written excitingly. A Swiss mystery.

47) Sutters Gold : die Lebensgeschichte von General Johann August Sutter ; Ausstellung im Schlossmuseum Burgdorf vom 18. April bis 1. November 1998 Katalog by Werner Lüthi. Johann August Sutter was born 23rd February 1803 (an anniversary tomorrow) in Kandern (near Basel). He moved to Burgdorf (Bern) and married there. His business went bad and he left the country for the Americas leaving his family and debts behind. He visited (then) Russian Alaska, King Kamehameha III. in Oahu before he came to the Mexican province of California and settled near the Sacramento and American River. There he founded New Helvetia and trained Indians as part of his army. But in 1848 James Marshall discovered gold when helping to build a mill for Sutter. The gold rush started and Sutter's was taken by adventurers and thieves. Then Sutter's son arrived in New Helvetia, too, and founded Sacramento City. Sutter was also the representative of the Sacramento District in the first constitutional assembly of the now American state of California. But the new immigrants slaughtered the natives. The Californian government paid $5 for each Indian head they received (50 cents for scalp), so many indian tribes were extinguished then. The government later wanted to compensate Sutter for his land loss but the central government in Washington repealed that decision. So Sutter died impoverished in Washington DC.
This is a well done annotated exhibition guide.

Today is Johann August Sutter's birthday and I have noticed that the English wikipedia has the wrong date. I checked the Swiss sources: 23rd is correct

>162 paulstalder: Good job we weren't planning to send him a birthday card then, Paul!

Have a great weekend.

>163 PaulCranswick: Well, I corrected the false date in wikipedia, and if we'd sent it too early that wouldn't be too bad, only one week early...

Suki came back, pretty exhausted. She has still a cold and didn't leave the house since she came back. And our daughter visits us today and she is in a bed now with a cold, too. So good that our son works as a nurse in an old peoples' home - he can take care of them :)

48) Frau Regel Amrain und ihr Jüngster by Gottfried Keller. Regel lives in Seldwyla, an imaginary city in Switzerland, where the people are lazy, uneconomical, not diligent and politically always incorrect. Her husband left Switzerland for the USA because he got into debts. Regel was not from Seldwyla and therefore economical and industrious. She brings up her kids alone and especially the youngest she educates in the best behavior. A good old Swiss short story first published 1856.

49) Mord in Monticello : ein Fall für Mrs. Murphy ; Roman by Rita Mae Brown. In Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's hometown they want to restore the slave houses. Then a skeleton of a murdered white man is found who was apparently killed in that slave hut around 1803. An uproar goes through the community: a white man meddling with a Black slave girl among Jefferson's family? That's something the descendants can't believe - one even goes as far as killing the archaeologist who discovered the bones. Sheriff Shaw, Harry and her friends, and Mrs Murphy, the cat, investigate. An easy read with some interesting historical references but not a mystery highlight.

So sorry to hear the Suki and your daughter are ill. Sending healing vibes and hope they feel better soon.

50) Der Besuch : die Geschichte einer unverhofften Wiederkehr by Adrian Plass. The church gets the notice that their founder will be visiting them next Sunday. How will the Lord meet all those who say they believe in him? and how will they behave when they will meet him face to face? He comes but not as they expected. A thought provoking tale with a humorous touch.

>167 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara. Suki was in the garden, today, looking at the plants when we had some sunshine in the afternoon. She feels a bit better today. Daughter is now tucked in bed and I hope she can sleep well.

51) Psychopolis : Abschied aus L. A. by Ian McEwan. An English poet wants to celebrate his farewell from Los Angeles. There are his friends, a feminist bookseller, a womanizer, and a seller of party accessories. But the party turns nasty. I didn't get warm with that story.

52) Die Physiker : eine Komödie in zwei Akten ; Neufassung 1980 by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Three physicist are treated in a sanatorium for their mental illness. But then within a few month each one kills a nurse. What is behind all that? A good play.
A serious background to all that: the physicists may explore the world and come with more and more dangerous 'toys' (like Einstein with the Atomic bomb) which in the end would destroy the world. How much responsibilities do the scientists take and how much are they the slaves of politics and economy?

>171 paulstalder: Always a good reading. Love it.

>172 Ameise1: It's a somewhat disturbing read: The easiness with which murder is seen as necessary for the 'higher good' makes me uneasy. Also the readiness of certain people just to do what they are told, regardless of the consequences for others.

53) Korea 1945-1960. An old propaganda book from the North Korean 'Foreign Languages Publishing House' in Pyongyang. It starts: 'On August 15, 1945 Korea was liberated by the great Soviet Army from the Japanese colonial rule.' It propagates the achievements of Kim Il-sung and his comrades. It shows pictures of industrial sites, agricultural products, and happy people. It also shows pictures of beggars of the South Korean part and American soldiers hitting Koreans. It is really interesting that in the beginning the North was much more developed than the South. The North got much quicker practical and financial help from their red brothers, the South and the Americans were basically fighting communism and not building a country. It's sad but both parts were dictatorships and not much different in the 1960s.

--
Happy people in North Korea

--
Lots of fun to do

--
happy and industrious workers and farmers

--
Pyongyang railway station --- the great leader

--

in the South: atrocities by the American troops --- poverty and floods

looking into a peaceful future

Thanks for sharing these photos, Paul. How are feeling the ladies today? Thinking of you and yours and sending healing vibes.

Welcome, Barbara.
Suki is feeling a bit better, she went out yesterday and our daughter went to work yesterday - weakly, but okay.

Glad to hear that both are on the recovery.

54) Blumhardts Kampf : zuverlässiger Abdruck seines eigenen Berichts über die Krankheits- und Heilungsgeschichte der Gottliebin Dittus in Möttlingen by Johann Christoph Blumhardt. That was not an easy read. Blumhardt was a German pastor in Möttlingen (Württemberg) from 1838-1852. There was a young lady in his church, Gottliebin Dittus, who suffered from various diseases and demonic manifestations. He accompanied this woman over two years and experienced cramps, bodily shakings, strange voices speaking from her, liquids (blood and water) flowing out of her, strange metal items coming out of her mouth as well. He was careful to always take other men and women along when he went to this lady. Demons were speaking of their dealings with this woman and told Blumhardt that there were over 1000 demons with her. Through prayer and fasting he (and others) was able to cast them all out and Gottliebin got healed and free. Then he wrote this report to his superiors in order to explain the situation and his dealings with this woman. The most detailed and well witnessed case of demon possession I know of.

55) The house at Pooh Corner : the color edition by A. A. Milne. Lovely read. I knew Pooh from the cartoons on TV. It was a pleasure to read these stories about Pooh bear and his friends. And it has some wisdom in it, too. Like about poetry: 'It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come.' So Pooh always makes his little hums and rhymes.

>185 paulstalder: Sears used to have a Winnie the Pooh clothing line for kids. As part of their promotional efforts, you would often see Winnie the Pooh walking through the mall when I was a kid! Once in awhile, Tigger would be with him.

>186 thornton37814: I really love the stories and I also enjoy the English it is written in. I think it would be a great book for an English reading group of non-English speakers.

>174 paulstalder: Fascinating pictures from the propaganda book. Reminded me of much earlier Soviet pictures.

Glad to hear your family is feeling better.

>185 paulstalder: Love this - my gran read these books to me so pure childhood memories for me.

>188 charl08: It was propaganda, and some picture remind of tourist info for certain destinations and resorts today.

statistics for February

5217 pages, 29 books

24 books were written in German, 5 in English

nationalities: CH 9, GB 4, DK 1 , D 6, USA 2, Guatemala 1, St. Kitts 1, J 1, ROK 1
dead 13, alive 12
male 20, female 5
organisation 1
(2x Rosenberg, 2x Ende, 2x Kofmehl)

the oldest book was published 1917 (my edition), 1711 (originally published) , the most recent ones in 2015

56) Zeit wie Wasser : Roman by Christiane Höhmann. Henry's mother dies. He was taking care of her during her last few years. They had escaped from the GDR and his mother never settled properly in the West. Then one day he was waving to his neighbor who was cutting his apple tree. When waving back his neighbor fell of the tree and died. Henry was taking care of their dog already and so he cares about his neighbor's wife also. But then he realizes his physical aging...
A story of coming into age, learning to deal with one's past and memories, and also finding one's own personality. A slow moving story of decay and some humour, too.