Barbara's (Ameise1) ROOTing in 2025

Hello everyone, my name is Barbara and I come from Zürich (Switzerland). I'm back to clearing my mountain of books, even if new ones are added every year :-). I've been retired since July 2024, but there's no question of boredom, quite the opposite.
I live together with my husband Thomas. Our daughters and their partners also live not far from us, so we see our two grandsons Juri (who will be three years old on 4 January) and Timo (16 months) regularly.
As I was once a primary school teacher, I occasionally deputise for former colleagues. This would normally be for a maximum of two weeks at a time, but unfortunately a former colleague had an accident at Christmas (he stumbled badly and broke his ankle and has already had an operation) and so I will be standing in for him from 6 January to 14 February. Luckily he only works part-time, so I don't have to travel to school every day.
Apart from that, I'm looking forward to a varied year with various trips, not all of which are planned yet except for the skiing holidays in Davos at the end of February and beginning of March, theatre and concert visits, exhibitions, lots of good books and of course lots of time with my two grandsons.

You can find out about my life and everything I read and do on my main thread here:
Barbara's (Ameise1) world and adventures https://www.librarything.com/topic/366981#

# 1 The Vegetarian by Han Kang (3 stars)
# 2 Zone Defence by Petros Markaris (4½ stars)
# 3 My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk (4 stars)
# 4 Deadline by John Sandford (4 stars)
# 5 AchtNacht by Sebastian Fitzek (3½ stars)
# 6 Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga (4½ stars)
# 7 Café Royal by Marco Balzano (4 stars)
# 8 Das Erbe der Schuld by Hendrik Falkenberg (4½ stars)
# 9 Commissaire Le Floch und das Geheimnis der Weißmäntel by Jean-François Parot (4 stars)
#10 Tödliche Oliven by Tom Hillenbrand (4 stars)

Hi Barbara. How nice to see you here again. Looking forward to keeping up with your reading and you travels. Have a very good year with your family, especially your grandsons!

>4 connie53: Thank you very much, Connie. We will probably come to Maastricht again, but I don't know exactly when yet.

Looking forward to meeting up again, Barb. But maybe in the afternoon when churches and such are open to visitors!

Happy ROOTing in 2025, Barbara

Greetings Barbara! We are fellow Rooters this year! Good luck with your challenge!

Bonne année, Barbara !

Je suis si heureuse que tu sois de nouveau avec nous. Tu me donnes l'occasion de continuer à améliorer mon français.

En fait, je vais devoir réviser encore plus mon français car je vais faire une croisière et je serai au Maroc début avril. Je suis très excitée car ce sera mon premier voyage en Europe/Afrique.

>9 cyderry: Oh, ça a l'air super excitant. D'où part la croisière et pour combien de temps ? J'ai enregistré le Maroc, mais je n'y suis jamais allée moi-même. Dans quels autres pays allez-vous faire escale ?
Je suis déjà très curieuse.

>6 connie53: We'll stay in touch, Connie. I have no idea whether we will come once (at the beginning of December) or twice.

>7 Robertgreaves: Thank you very much, Robert. As my ‘twin’ (we have the same birthday) I will also follow your thread.

>8 Carmenere: Greetings right back to you Lynda. Nice to see that you also want to dismantle your MTR.

>11 Ameise1: Do we? Somebody I work with also has the same birthday

>12 Robertgreaves: As far as I can remember from earlier years. 29 September

Enjoy your reading amid what sounds like lots of fun activities.

>14 detailmuse: Thanks so much, happy reading 2025 to you too.

>9 cyderry: Oh! Je suis contente qu'il y ait quelques francophones! J'essaie toujours d'avoir plus de lectures en français donc si vous voulez pratiquer avec moi, je me porte aussi volontaire!

>16 Cecilturtle: Bonjour Cécile, c'est une tradition du nouvel an que je salue Chèli en français en début d'année. Je suis suisse et nous sommes un pays quadrilingue. De plus, ma grand-mère maternelle était française. Elle ne nous parlait qu'en français. J'essaie de passer deux semaines par an en France, car je m'y sens très bien. Mais ma langue de tous les jours est le suisse-allemand et sur LT, je m'exprime en anglais.

and for all English speaking friends:
Hello Cécile, it's a New Year's tradition that I greet Chèli in French at the beginning of the year. I am Swiss and we are a quadrilingual country. What's more, my grandmother on my mother's side was French. She only spoke French with us. I try to spend two weeks a year in France because I feel very much at home there. However, my everyday language is Swiss German and I speak English on LT.

Hi Barbara. To my own surprise I almost understood all the french text without reading the English below.

>17 Ameise1: Also, vieleicht kann ich mein sehr rostig Deutsch übern :D Frölisches Neu Jahr!

>18 connie53: Well done!

>18 connie53: >19 Cecilturtle: 😃 I think this will be a multilingual thread. I like it.
Congratulations Connie. Cécile, that doesn't sound so rusty, well done. Where does your knowledge of German come from?

Happy New Year! I always enjoy your reviews and your joie de vivre! (That's my contribution to the multilingual aspect of your thread. :) )

>22 rocketjk: Thanks so much, Jerry.
Joie de vivre or savoir vivre is definitely part of my life motto.

>21 Ameise1: I learned it for 10 years in school (over 35 years ago!) but my grandparents lived in Vienna when I was growing up: I fell in love with Austria then and went back a few times as a teen for linguistic holidays. I lived with a family to refine my skills - nothing like immersion to learn. But that was a long, long time ago!

>24 Cecilturtle: That sounds great. Vienna is a wonderful city. I've been able to experience many concerts, theatre visits and exhibitions. I will definitely go back there again.

>10 Ameise1: La croisière part de Lisbonne et passe par les îles Canaries, le Maroc, Gibraltar, l'Espagne et le Portugal.
Elle dure 12 jours. Nous partons avec des amis que nous connaissons depuis plus de 50 ans.

>16 Cecilturtle: Je ne suis jamais allée en France ni dans un pays francophone mais j'essaie de m'y mettre car j'ai étudié le français pendant 8 ans quand j'étais à l'école et j'avais un étudiant français en échange à l'époque qui vivait avec ma famille. Parfois, je ne suis pas sûre d'avoir bien structuré les phrases mais je sais que Barbara me fera savoir si je fais une erreur. Je pense que je devrais m'entraîner davantage car je sais que le français est parfois parlé au Maroc.

>26 cyderry: Ça a l'air d'un merveilleux voyage. Lisbonne est une ville fantastique. J'espère que vous pourrez en voir beaucoup. Je ne suis pas allé aux Canaries, ni au Maroc, ni à Gibraltar. Dans quel port ferez-vous escale en Espagne ? J'ai déjà visité quelques endroits en Espagne

>26 cyderry: Ton français est excellent! Bon voyage! À part les Îles Canaries, je connais les autres pays et je confirme que ce sera un régal!

Hello Barbara, and many thanks for the holiday greetings. I hope you have a lovely reading year!
>17 Ameise1: C’est une très belle tradition!

So, I'm finally getting in on the ROOTing action.

book 1 Read in German The Vegetarian

book 2 Read in German 

Zone Defence is the second volume in the Inspector Kostas Charitos series and it gripped me from the first page to the last.

book 3 Read in German 

My Name Is Red

book 4 Read in English 

book 5 Read in German 

book 6 Read in German 

 Obabakoak

With Obabakoak, which has been translated into numerous languages, the Basque language has conquered its place in world literature.
The remote village of Obaba, somewhere in the Basque mountains, follows its own rules. Here, confused hearts, dead letters, and stubborn chickens live. Here, tomato paste piles up in Rosie's corner shop, and rumors about the shepherds' house and lizards creep into unwary ears. Those who aren't careful get lost on the mountain paths or behind the neighbor's door.
Bernardo Atxaga conjures a sensual labyrinth, narrating fantastically real things, searching for the final word and endless stories.
It is a novel of fabulation, in which the fantastic becomes real and the real becomes fantastic, and all the stories are essentially about storytelling. The fictional village of Obaba becomes an almost mythical place of universal significance, yet remains a small town lost in the Basque mountains. With a playful perspective that ranges from Germany to Baghdad to the Amazon, from Borges to Calvino to Queneau, Atxaga conjures up a bizarre cosmos, distorting and parodying, delightfully playing with words, sentences, and senses.
I highly recommend this book.

>35 Ameise1: That’s one to look out for. I really love the books they publish at Unionsverlag.

>36 MissWatson: Hi Birgit, I can strongly recommend it to you. It's such a lovely story.

book 7 Read in German 

 Café Royal

This book is a quick read. It deals with very different relationships from the microcosm of Via Marghera in Milan shortly after the lockdown was lifted.
Northern Italy was hit hard by Covid-19. I still remember well how the dead were taken away in trucks. This may seem disrespectful to some, but there was really no other option.
Covid-19 is only mentioned in passing in the book. Everyone is happy that they can see each other again, even if only from a distance, and talk to each other. The book is divided into chapters, each of which accompanies one person for a while. What is exciting is that the people mentioned are given their own chapter in the course of the book, linking the whole thing together.
The main themes are relationships, whether homosexual or escapes from “dead-end” marriages. The author writes this book and its characters' life circumstances with great love.
I can recommend this book.

>31 Ameise1: That sounds really good, Barbara

>34 Ameise1: that sounds horrible!!

Hi Barb, just popping in to see what you have been up to.

>39 connie53: Hello Connie, thank you very much, myself and my family are doing well. Marina has returned from Maastricht and is now pursuing a doctorate in criminal law under a renowned criminal law professor and politician at the University of Zurich. Her international master's graduation ceremony in Maastricht is at the end of November. We will be in your area again then. I will contact you when I have more details.
I love Petros Markaris' books. Perhaps they have been translated into Dutch.

book 8 Read in German 

>40 Ameise1:. That would be nice. We could certainly meet again.

And, yes. Some of his books are translated into Dutch. I count at least five titles. I will look into them. Thanks for te tip.

>42 connie53: Yes, it would be great to meet up.
I hope you enjoy his books as much as I do.

Hi Barbara, just popping in to see what you have been reading and how you are doing? I hope you and Thomas are doing great.

>44 connie53: Hi Connie, we are both fine. I'll send you shortly a whatsapp for a meetup.

book 9 Read in German 

book 10 Read in German 

Hello Barbara, congrats on reaching your goal!

>47 Ameise1: Just the other day I talked books with someone who mentioned that she asked her boyfriend to make a detour into Luxemburg on a holiday trip because she wanted to see the place where Kieffer’s restaurant is supposed to be. She just couldn’t picture the enormous difference in height between the Upper and Lower Town, and she says it is spectacular. Now I hope to see it for myself some day...

>48 MissWatson: Thank you very much, Birgit. Thomas and I will be in Luxembourg from 30 November to 4 December to explore the city. Perhaps we will find one or two places mentioned in the books. 😉

>49 Ameise1: I shall look forward to your report!

Hi Barb. I hope to see you soon in real live. Last time we met up was great.