Anki's 2023 Reading & Book Thoughts

I'm Anki, and I live in New Hampshire. I joined LibraryThing back in 2006, and I've been a part of Club Read (some years lurking almost exclusively) since 2016. I am looking forward to reading and talking books with everyone again (and really hope to do better at updating my thread this year, including potentially writing about non-book things).

I enjoy reading a wide variety of things, though I do tend to gravitate toward genre fiction (primarily fantasy, romance, science fiction, and mystery) and manga/graphic novels. In terms of format, about half my reading consists of physical books, and the other half is some split of ebooks and audiobooks.

Most of my reading falls into the "at whim" category, but I do enjoy group/buddy reads and some reading challenges. I'm participating in a few this year, mostly on Instagram. And in terms of general reading goals, I want to continue to focus on reading a good balance of owned and borrowed books, and to actively work on reducing my owned-but-unread...hillock.

Current Reading/Listening
Found in Translation by Frank Wynne
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
The Pioneers by David McCullough
The Odyssey by Homer
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

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2023 Stats

OWNERSHIP
   Owned: 19
   Borrowed: 8

FORMAT
   Print: 16
   Ebook: 5
   Audio: 6

CATEGORY
   Fiction: 13
   Nonfiction: 4
   Comics: 10

Total Books Read: 27

Last Year Stats

Books Read January - March
* indicates a reread

January
   1. Skip Beat! 3-in-1, vol. 14 by Yoshiki Nakamura (manga, print, owned) *
   2. Skip Beat! (3-in-1 Edition), vol. 15 by Yoshiki Nakamura (manga, print, owned)
   3. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (fiction, ebook, owned)
   4. American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee (nonfiction, print, owned)
   5. The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson (fiction, audio/print, owned)
   6. Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill (nonfiction, print, owned)
   7. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (nonfiction, audio/print, owned)
   8. Spy x Family, vol. 3 by Tatsuya Endo (manga, print, borrowed)
   9. Spy x Family, vol. 4 by Tatsuya Endo (manga, print, borrowed)
  10. The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers (fiction, ebook, owned)
  11. Crumbs by Danie Stirling (comic, print, borrowed)
  12. The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa (fiction, print, owned)

February
   1. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (fiction, audio/print, owned)
   2. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (fiction, print, borrowed)
   3. Spy x Family, vol. 5 by Tatsuya Endo (manga, print, borrowed)
   4. Spy x Family, vol. 6 by Tatsuya Endo (manga, print, borrowed)
   5. Spy x Family, vol. 7 by Tatsuya Endo (manga, print, borrowed)
   6. Spy x Family, vol. 8 by Tatsuya Endo (manga, print, borrowed)
   7. Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers (fiction, ebook, owned)
   8. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (fiction, audio/print, owned)
   9. The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (fiction, print, owned)

March
   1. Passing by Nella Larsen (fiction, ebook, owned)
   2. Ghosts of Zenith by Larry Correia (fiction, audio, owned)
   3. Foxes in Love, vol. 3 by Toivo Kaartinen (comic, print, owned)
   4. Into the Real by John Ringo and Lydia Sherrer (fiction, audio/ebook, owned) *
   5. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (fiction, print, owned)
   6. The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King (nonfiction, ebook, owned)

Books Read Apr-Jun

Books Read Jul-Sept

Books Read Oct-Dec

 

Skip Beat! (3-in-1 Edition), vol. 14 by Yoshiki Nakamura *
Skip-Beat! (3-in-1 Edition), vol. 15 by Yoshiki Nakamura

I was introduced to this series in 2016, and at the time I made the decision to obtain it via the 3-in-1 omnibus editions that were available (cost saving and at least somewhat space saving). This is the story of Kyoko Mogami, who initially moves to Tokyo in order to support the guy she loves while he pursues his career as an idol singer. When he breaks things off with her, she decides to get her revenge by beating him in show business. Yes, things are rather wildly improbable and highly dramatic, but I'm still reading 15 (or 45, depending on how you want to look at it) volumes later. This latest volume ends on a highly frustrating cliffhanger, though it is mostly frustrating because I made the decision to not get the single volumes.

I reread volume 14 before going into 15 because it had been over a year since I picked up the series and I needed to reorient myself in the story. I might do a reread of the entire series later this year, or possibly next year.

Happy new year! I look forward to following along with your reading.

Nice to see some Manga. And i'm curious how Bleak House is going. Happy New Year Anki.

Happy New Year, Anki. January always reboots my reading, not just because of a new thread, although that's part of it, but I get energized to read.

>10 labfs39: same for me

>8 rhian_of_oz: Happy new year to you! I look forward to following along with your reading as well.

>9 dchaikin: Happy new year! I actually just started Bleak House today. It's the current read for the Dickens in Slow Motion group I'm part of on Instagram. We're reading it at a rate of one serialized section per week, so we'll finish in mid-May. I really enjoyed reading Dombey and Son that way last year, so I'm sure that will hold true here as well. I'm going into this with basically no knowledge of the story, or its structure. I was not expecting a switch between third person omniscient and first person!

>10 labfs39: Happy new year! I'm also feeling a January reboot, which is interesting because a bunch of the books on my current reading list are carryovers from last year. It's not like I finished everything up and am starting on a fresh new set of reads, and yet. I've started a new thread, I've started a new set of pages in my physical book journal, the winter reading challenge at my library kicked off, and there's a new Kindle challenge going too. I also did majorly cut back on my current reads (at least for my initial list), which I think has helped with my focus. Also, thank you for the comment in another thread about how to force touchstones with work IDs; this has already proved useful in my posts here!

>12 shadrach_anki: I'm glad the information was helpful. Sometimes I cannot get a touchstone to work any other way. Today in the Messages thread I posted some links to a couple of "how to" pages that someone mentioned on Cindy's thread. There were some neat tips and tricks that I didn't know, like how to show a bracket in a post without having it read as html code.

Waving to a neighbor! Will stop in from time to time to follow your reading.

Reading Project Progress

I mentioned in the introductions thread that I've joined a group (on Instagram) that will be reading the Found in Translation anthology by Frank Wynne at the rate of one story a week (discussing on Sundays). As there are a hundred stories total in the anthology, this project will take two years. My plan is to have semi-regular posts to cover the individual stories, since how else am I really going to be able to talk about them?

First, some general comments about this book: it is a gorgeous and massive hardcover, with two ribbon bookmarks included. All the stories are ones that have been translated into English, and at the start of each story is a brief biographical sketch of the author. I technically started reading this last year, with Frank Wynne's introduction that talks a bit about the short story format, the art and nature of translation, and the art and nature of creating anthologies.

The first story is The Glass Graduate by Miguel de Cervantes, and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it. My initial reaction is that there was a lot more telling than showing, and honestly...not much in the way of a strong narrative. There was something of an almost absurd fairy tale feeling going on, and it ended very abruptly. Not exactly with the fairy tale "and they all lived happily ever after", but it had that same sense of tying everything up very quickly at the end, and no, you don't need more details than you're given, because this is just how stories end.

The second story is The Tiger Guest by Pu Songling, and it is quite short; with the biographical sketch included, it takes not quite three pages. This also gave me strong fairy tale vibes, and I connected with this story better than the previous one. If I had to hazard a guess as to why, it would be that I have a greater personal familiarity with eastern Asian storytelling (primarily via manga and anime) than with Spanish literature. A few of the translator's word choices struck me as odd, and I spent some time trying to figure out how exactly one would sit down promiscuously.

>15 shadrach_anki: I'm tempted to look for this, Anki. Do the stories go in chronological order?

>16 labfs39: While I haven't seen specific publication dates for any of the stories, based on the biographical sketches of the authors things do seem to be arranged more or less chronologically. It's assumed Cervantes was born in 1547, and the final story in the anthology was written by Clemens Meyer, who was born in 1977. There is an extended copyright section at the back of the anthology, but not all (or even most) of the entries in there that I've looked at have specific years attached to them.

If you want to get a copy of the book in the US, you'll probably have to order it online since it is a UK publication. A few months ago I saw the ebook in my library's Hoopla catalog, but it has since disappeared.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
(fiction, owned, ebook)

I picked this up on sale last year after hearing about it on one of the bookish podcasts I listen to, and when one of my friends mentioned it as a potential buddy read I happily bumped it up to the top of my mental TBR queue. The tagline on the cover reads "A novel of high fantasy...and low stakes".

This is the story of Viv, an orc barbarian/mercenary who decides to hang up her sword and pursue her dream of opening a coffee shop in the city of Thune. It is very much a cozy, slice of life fantasy story with a whole cast of delightful characters and just enough conflict to be interesting and keep things moving. The challenges Viv and her friends face are definitely on a human scale rather than an epic, world-shaping one, and it was just what I needed at the start of the year.

American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee
(nonfiction, print, owned)

This was the January selection for my in person book group, and it was a fascinating read. I've always been fascinated by wolves (despite being quite afraid of dogs for years), and I remember hearing at least a bit about the wolf reintroduction effort in Yellowstone National Park. But I hadn't heard much about all the controversy surrounding it, and the various political angles that were taken.

This definitely rekindled my interest in wolves and nature writing, and I want to read more in this vein. Also, I cried multiple times while reading this, so if you pick it up you might want to have tissues handy.

>18 shadrach_anki: What did you think of the actual prose? I have a friend who read some of the free sample, and they were not impressed.

>19 shadrach_anki: That's a book bullet. Adding to my TBR.

>20 Julie_in_the_Library: I wouldn't say the prose itself is going to win any awards, but it also didn't get in the way of the story for me. Fairly standard mid-list quality genre writing, maybe?

The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson
(fiction, audio/print, owned)

This is the fourth and final Wax and Wayne novel, and also marks the end of Mistborn Era Two. The main story picks up six years after the events in The Bands of Mourning, and the story is much more Cosmere-aware than the previous Wax and Wayne books. That isn't particularly surprising, given where things were headed at the end of the previous book.

Writing down all my thoughts about the book would be very long, probably extremely disjointed, and chock full of spoilers. I'll just say that it is in keeping with the previous books in the series, and also with Sanderson's Cosmere as a whole. I found myself wishing I'd reread Mistborn: Secret History before diving into this, mostly because it would have helped refresh my memory on a few key points. I held off going to Coppermind until after I finished, but as soon as I did finish I was poking around to confirm some things (then quickly backing away from a few spots when I saw Tress of the Emerald Sea stuff showing up; that's next on my list of Sanderson novels to read).

There's a lot packed into this novel, and I'm still letting the story settle in my mind. I think it wraps up Mistborn Era Two quite well, and I recommend the series (obviously don't start with this one, though, as it is the last book).

>19 shadrach_anki: Well that looks interesting. The wild wolves of Pennsylvania have been gone for over a century. There's a wolf sanctuary near me, with regular tours but I've never been.

>23 qebo: My partner went on that tour and really enjoyed it and learned a lot. I'm hoping to go one day.

>23 qebo: Ooo, I didn't know about that wolf sanctuary! Looks like it's about six and a half hours away from where I am. I'll have to add it to my list of desired trips. It would probably need to be an overnight deal.

>23 qebo: About three hours from me. I'd love to go someday.

>24 nancyewhite: Glad it's recommended. >25 shadrach_anki:, >26 lisapeet: About 15 miles from me... ridiculous that I've never been there.

Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill
(nonfiction, print, owned)

This is a bookish memoir/essay collection that falls in a similar vein (at least to me) as Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris. The basic premise is that Susan Hill spent a year focused on her home library. No borrowing or buying books (with, as I recall, a couple of caveats in there, for specific professional obligations). The chapters take the form of interconnected essays on the themes of books and reading, and I spent quite a lot of time over seven months book darting passages and pondering my own relationship with books and my library.

One point I found myself disagreeing rather strongly with Susan Hill on was the subject of ebooks/ereaders. That said, I think a lot of my disagreement stems from the fact that I read this in 2023; at the time the book was first published (2009) I was still two years away from my first real foray into the realm of ebooks, so my opinions would likely have been more aligned with Hill's.

This is definitely a book I see myself coming back to in the future, and it's given me a lot of literary angles to explore.

Sounds like it was a nice read and maybe reading companion. I enjoyed Fadiman’s essays.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
(nonfiction, audio/print, owned)

While this is not the first work of Bill Bryson's that I've read (last year I read both Shakespeare: The World as Stage and The Body: A Guide for Occupants), it is the first of his memoirs that I've picked up. I got my print copy from a Little Free Library back in 2017, and I combo read it with an audio version borrowed from the library. On the whole I quite enjoyed it. The pace is good; there's a lot of information on hiking and nature and the Appalachian Trail; and Bill Bryson has a lot of humor in his writing. The only real issue I had was that some of his descriptions of the other people he met and interacted with while hiking the AT came across as, well, mean. Funny, yes, but unkind, and they made me uncomfortable. I'm guessing my reaction was heightened by the fact that I was listening to the book in addition to reading the words printed on the page; audio changes how we perceive things. The age of the book may also play a part here, as things that were just accepted as funny in 1998 may get more of a "you really shouldn't say that; it's not funny or okay" treatment in 2023. Thankfully, those descriptions did not make up the majority of the book, so I was able to focus on all the things about it that I really enjoyed. I've gotta say, though, with regards to the cover of this book...pretty sure that's not a black bear, it's a grizzly bear (or maybe a brown bear). The east coast has black bears, not grizzlies, for which we are thankful.

I do like Bill Bryson's writing, and I hope to read more of his work.

 

Spy x Family, vol. 3 by Tatsuya Endo
Spy x Family, vol. 4 by Tatsuya Endo
(manga, print, borrowed)

I borrowed the first two volumes of this series from the library last year, and I'm continuing to really enjoy it. The setting is a Cold War era style one, reminiscent of any number of classic spy shows/books. Mixed with a family drama/sitcom. Twilight is a master spy who, as part of one of his missions, has to get a family. So he takes on the role of Loid Forger, and picks up a young girl named Anya from an orphanage to be his daughter, but is unaware that she is a telepath. Yor, the woman he gets to pose as his wife, is (again, without his knowledge) a formidable assassin. Basically, everybody is hiding things from each other, though as a telepath Anya is aware that "daddy" is a spy and "mommy" is an assassin. Her primary goal/wish is to keep her new family together, so she's helping however she can. She's still just six years old, though, so things don't always work out!

I've got the next four volumes borrowed from the library, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next. This is a series that I may want to get copies of for myself.

>31 shadrach_anki: This review has me intrigued. I wonder if my library can get them...

The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers
(fiction, ebook, owned)

The sixth of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. This time Lord Peter is in Scotland, in an area full of artists. Presumably he is on holiday, though I don't remember his reasons for being there being clearly specified. One rather belligerent and disliked artist named Campbell winds up dead, and while at first glance it looks like an unfortunate accident, Lord Peter notes some problems with the scene that lead him to believe it was actually murder. The local constabulary are skeptical at first, but then a whole host of suspects start cropping up, all with rather shaky alibis.

Lord Peter has surprisingly little page time for most of the story, and Bunter is almost wholly absent. We spend most of our time following the various suspects and police officers through the course of the investigation, focusing on different people each chapter. I enjoyed the story, but not as much as some of the other entries in the series that I've read. I think my enjoyment was hampered by a lack of geographical knowledge (yes, there was a map, but the ebook format is not particularly conducive to quickly referencing such things); a general unfamiliarity with 1930s British train schedules; and having to slow down my reading significantly in order to puzzle out the written Scots accent a lot of the characters had (a good audiobook version would have helped with that last part, I'm sure).

My favorite portion of the book had to be the last few chapters, where Lord Peter sets about recreating the chain of events that occurred (with the assistance of the various police officers and magistrates working on the case). And I'm looking forward to continuing the series.

>33 shadrach_anki: The Five Red Herrings is often people's least favorite Wimsey book. Looking forward to your reviews of the rest!

>33 shadrach_anki: Your reviews are making me want to read them all again.

>30 shadrach_anki: glad you overall enjoyed Bryson’s most popular book (I think). I like how how reads himself on audio. I listened to one of his books with another narrator, and they just didn’t get his tone right. It went flat, whereas when he reads it, i’m always a little charmed.

Crumbs by Danie Stirling
(comic, print, borrowed)

I started reading this digitally on the Webtoon platform, then borrowed the print graphic novel from the library. I like the art, and the story is pretty easy to follow. The magical world Ray and Laurie inhabit is an interesting one, and I liked seeing the combination of magic and technology. I'm not sure how much was changed between the online Webtoon version and the print edition, but I was impressed by how well things converted over (not all online comics translate easily to the medium of print).

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
(fiction, print, owned)

This was a complete impulse buy last year, based pretty much solely on the cover art an the title. Then it got bumped up to "read this next" status when one of my bookish friends on Instagram posted about reading it as part of a "January in Japan" challenge. I fell in love with the tone and feel of this bookish, philosophical fantasy basically from page one. It's a "bigger on the inside" sort of book, and not just because of the labyrinth that opens in the back of Natsuki Books whenever the cat comes to get Rintaro's help with something. This story invites you to slow down and sit with it, and I know I'll be revisiting it in the future.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
(fiction, audio/print, owned)

My print copy of this book has been sitting on my shelves since 2016, when I chose it as one of my rewards in the adult summer reading program at the library. That was well before I started actively reading more nineteenth-century literature, so at this point I'm not entirely sure what prompted me to select this book as one of my rewards. I should have made a dated note. :)

I read this over a period of eleven days, pairing my print edition with an audio narration by Billy Howle, which I thought was very well produced. I read The Moonstone back in 2021, and it employs the same sort of narrative structure found in this novel, telling the story through multiple characters' testimonies, journals, letters, etc. I think this narrative structure works very well for a story like this.

Things start out simply enough, but quickly become entangled with plots and intrigue, stolen identities, dark secrets, international espionage.... Certain elements of the plot I saw coming right from the outset (As soon as the physical similarities between Laura Fairlie and Anne Catherick were mentioned, I knew that at some point they would get switched, so Laura would end up in the madhouse. I just wasn't exactly sure how it would happen.) while other things were a complete surprise to me (was not expecting the exact nature of Percival Glyde's secret, nor that he would end up dying in the fire in the vestry. Also was not expecting secret societies to show up to deal with Count Fosco).

I really enjoyed this novel, and I have to wonder what it would have been like to read it while it was coming out in its serialized format. Probably like waiting for the next episode of a hit TV drama to come available, complete with speculation and theory building.

In The Five Red Herrings, Lord Peter comments to Bunter that "this case resembles the plot of a Wilkie Collins novel, in which everything happens just too late to prevent the story from coming to a premature happy ending." My reading of these two books overlapped, and I think that influenced my experience with both, especially with regards to that quote. I like that sort of bookish serendipity, where the different things I'm reading pair well together. I rarely seem to be able to make it happen on purpose, though.

I definitely want to read more of WIlkie Collins' works, and more sensation novels in general.

Great posts. Love the cover of The Cat Who Saved Books. And I enjoyed your post on The Woman in White. I haven’t read Wilkie Collins.

>38 shadrach_anki: >39 shadrach_anki: Both of these books have been on my radar too, but I haven't yet read them. I need to sleep less so I can read more!

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
(fiction, print, borrowed)

I will say from the outset that this is not a book I would have likely picked up on my own. It was chosen for my in-person book group, and we were going to read it last November, but the meeting got cancelled very last minute and it was rescheduled for February. As a result, my reading was done in two chunks, with a two month gap in between. From the jacket copy I knew going in that this book tells the story of Agnes Magúsdóttir, the last person to be publicly beheaded in Iceland. In other words, I knew that there would not be a happy ending to this story, and I have to confess that colored my reading experience. Particularly when you add in the time of year I read the book, when it's cold and grey and dark. The writing is very descriptive, and I found the structure of the story to be fascinating. It was clear that Hannah Kent did a lot of research into the history and the region where this story takes place.

Ultimately I'm glad I read it, and I think the book group discussion will be interesting when we meet. But I think I'll stick to lighter fare for the next little while. I don't have to have happy endings in everything I read, but I find I prefer them.

>34 Julie_in_the_Library: It definitely feels different from the first five. Reading it with some overlap in my reading of The Woman in White may have also influenced my perception of it. I plan on starting Have His Carcase very soon. I have the series in ebook format, in a mix of single titles and omnibus compilations.

>35 NanaCC: I'm really enjoying reading through the series. It's my first time, and I'm doing my best to go in order!

>36 dchaikin: The audio version I got from the library wasn't read by Bryson himself; I wonder if that would have changed my perception of things at all. If I go the audio route for the next Bill Bryson book I read, I'll have to make an effort to track down a copy where he reads it himself.

>40 dchaikin: The cover for The Cat Who Saved Books really is gorgeous. The paper they chose for the dust jacket is matte and lightly textured, and the image of the cat wraps around onto the back in a very pleasing way. I'll have to take a picture and post it because the standard "just the front of the cover" image really doesn't do it justice.

I think The Woman in White would be a good place to start with Wilkie Collins. Or The Moonstone, which is where I started. I'll be joining a group read of Basil in April on Instagram (I know next to nothing about that other than the title; I have a free ebook copy on my Kindle).

>41 labfs39: I think there are always going to be more books we want to read than time to read them in. On the whole, I think I prefer that to the reverse situation. I definitely recommend both The Cat Who Saved Books and The Woman in White, when you get to them.

Reading Project Progress

Since I last posted about this (>15 shadrach_anki:) I've read four more of the stories. I'm really enjoying making my way through this collection at the rate of one story a week, and also being able to discuss the stories with a bunch of other people. After reading The Shot I realized I really needed to make space in my physical book journal where I could record my thoughts about each of the stories, including when I read them. Because with a collection like this, you really can't just have one entry for the entire thing.

The Sandman is by E. T. A. Hoffmann, and was originally written in German. I found this to be quite strange and surreal. It starts out as an epistolary story, but after three letters switches to a more traditional narrative style. And it looks like the ballet Coppélia is based on this, so I may want to see if that helps me make more sense of the story. A quote that I marked out from this story: "Perchance, dear reader, you will then believe that nothing is stranger and madder than actual life, and that this is all that the poet can conceive, as it were in a dull reflection of a dimly polished mirror."

The Shot - Alexander Pushkin (Russian). Aside from fairy tales, I'm fairly certain this is my introduction to Russian literature. The translation was smooth and easy to read, and I liked the pace of the story. That said, I was shaking my head at most of the characters because I think dueling is a pretty stupid activity. I'm sure at least part of my view is due to things like cultural differences, the fact I am a woman, and my living in a time when dueling just isn't a thing. I can't help but wonder what the landlord thought about Silvio casually shooting holes in all his walls on the regular (I'm assuming his lodgings were rented). Our narrator seemed to think it was a fine thing, but he is also a duel-happy young Russian soldier, so in this instance I find his views suspect. Reading this got me wanting to explore more Russian literature, and specifically more Pushkin. I've ordered a copy of The Queen of Spades to help me in this endeavor.

The Severed Hand - Wilhelm Hauff (German). This story is narrated by a man named Zaleukos, and is a general tale of the adventures and misfortunes of his life. The translation was easy to read, and I enjoyed the story, but I was left with a lot of questions. Who was the mysterious red-cloaked stranger? Why did he hire Zaleukos the way he did? Why did he later feel compelled to atone(?) for what happened to Zaleukos as a result, buying him a house and sending money every year? The story felt incomplete, even though Zaleukos wouldn't really have the answers to any of those questions. In the group discussion, it turns out that there is more to the story! This is just part of a larger collection of stories (translated as The Oriental Story Book) that apparently includes a frame story that gives more information about Red Cloak and his motives. I snagged an ebook copy of the collection for later perusal. It has a different translator, but that shouldn't be a huge issue.

Immensee - Theodor W. Storm (German). This is one of my favorite stories in the collection so far. The translator did a beautiful job with the poetic and evocative descriptions. This is structured as a series of vignettes, beginning and ending with the main character, Reinhard, as an old man, while the middle portion covers his memories from various points in his life, all centered around his childhood friend (and love) Elisabeth. There are bits of poetry throughout, and it was just a delight to read, even if the story is somewhat bittersweet. Tonally, it reminds me a bit of The Child's Story by Charles Dickens, which I read a few months ago. Both stories have a reflective quality that I really enjoy. In the biographical introduction at the start of the story, Theodor W. Storm is described as one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century German poetic realism, and I'm so glad I got introduced to his work here. I definitely want to read more from him in the future.

>46 shadrach_anki: really nice post. Makes this collection very appealing. I like the variety you get to read through.

>44 shadrach_anki: ok, that’s too bad he doesn’t read his best book. The problem with Bryson is he has a lisp and a distinct humor that only he can capture on audio. So he didn’t read the earlier audiobooks, probably out of caution. But he does read the later ones once he became briefly a major seller on every book. (His audio takes a moment of adjustment, until you pick up his nuance.). I gently encourage you to check out an example where he reads himself.

>44 shadrach_anki:

Oh, that's very cool.

>48 ELiz_M: Thank you for sharing that picture! It's really an amazing cover. I also love that there's an artist's note in at least this particular edition, talking about the cover inspiration. There's also a translator's note, and both were fascinating additions to the book.

>42 shadrach_anki: I remember when I read this (nine years ago?!) I was hoping for a different outcome even though I knew the ending.

>51 rhian_of_oz: My in person book group met on Wednesday to discuss it. And I think we were all pretty much agreed that we all wanted a different outcome to the story, but that the only way to get a different outcome would be to create an alternate history story, and that wasn't Hannah Kent's intention in writing.

>18 shadrach_anki: Oh, my husband loved this and I've only seen positive comments about it on LT! I really want to read it ASAP, if only there weren't so many other reading projects!

>33 shadrach_anki: >39 shadrach_anki: Both Dorothy L. Sayers and Wilkie Collins are authors I intend to read (although right now only Collins is on my shelf). I love these covers and your great reviews!

>46 shadrach_anki: I am so glad you enjoyed Immensee! Theodor Storm is one of my favourite German authors (although I still have only read a selection of his works and not all of them). I love his style and the atmosphere he creates and plan to read more of his novellas and poems in the future.
I have enjoyed what I read of E.T.A. Hoffmann, too. I think it is easiest to see it as gothic horror. In German literature it is Black Romantic and Shudder Romantic (Schwarze Romantik/Schauerromantik), comparable to many gothic works in the English language.

>54 MissBrangwen: I always have more books I want to read than I have time to read them in, but on the whole I far prefer that state of things to the reverse!

Do you have any recommendations on where I should go next with Theodor Storm? I am, unfortunately, only really able to read comfortably in English at present, and I don't know how much of his work has been translated into English. And can poetry really be easily translated in the first place? Is poetry even a good place to start if one only has a Duolingo-level grasp of a language?

>55 shadrach_anki: I suggest The Rider on the White Horse (Der Schimmelreiter), it is Storm's most famous and most widely read work. It is quite dark and sad, but I love the atmosphere of the harsh life on the North Sea coast he creates, and there are influences of local legends and superstitions.
His poems are quite simple and are mostly concerned with themes of nature, love and death. I assume that the vocabulary is not too difficult, but of course it is still 19th-century language.

"I always have more books I want to read than I have time to read them in, but on the whole I far prefer that state of things to the reverse!"
Oh yes, I completely agree! :-)