MissWatson consults the oracles, part two

Hello, I am Birgit and I live on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

2025 is my second year of retirement. I am happy that I now have so much more time for reading, but the basic problem remains: what shall I read next? This year, I have decided on a mix of expert advice and chance to help me make up my mind. The experts are critics, reviewers and compilers of lists, the random element is provided by time and the luck of the draw.

Meet my cheerleading team: dachshund Strolch, Valerius Maximus, Austin Reed, Arzhel, Richard Sean and Corrado.

All images are my own, except for The VIB list.

I am not setting numerical goals for my categories, but I like to keep track of how many pages I read, aiming for 3,500 per month.



January: 4,150 pages
February: 4,286 pages
March: 4,590 pages
April: 3,167 pages
May: 4,348 pages
June: 2,999 pages
July: 4,096 pages
August: 3,998 pages
September: 3,748 pages

The Big Box



I’m sorting (slowly) through the nooks and crannies of my apartment, and one of the things I ran across was a big shoe box filled with newspaper clippings, all of them reviews for books which I thought interesting. Most are non-fiction books, I think. Once every month I intend to put my hand into this box (with my eyes closed) and either read the book or dismiss the review.

January: Stoner by John Williams. Review "Er war kein Kämpfer, aber ein Sieger", FAZ of 31 October 2013
February: Der Schatz by Eduard Mörike. Review "Unsere Romanhelden – Franz Arbogast", FAZ 11 May 2013
February: Wellen by Eduard von Keyserling. Review "Glanz und Verzweiflung", FAZ 8 November 1988
March: Armut, Reichtum, Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores by Achim von Arnim. Review "Unsere Romanhelden – Gräfin Dolores", FAZ 15 February 2014
April: Der amerikanische Traum by Ernst Augustin, Review "Hawk Steen", FAZ 4 April 2014
May: The natural way of things by Charlotte Wood, Review "The way of the world", Economist 23 July 2016
June: Weil der Mensch erbärmlich ist by Jeroen Olyslaegers, Review "Aus Scherz wird Ernst", FAZ 6 February 2019
July: Blood Song by Anthony Ryan, Review "Die dunkle Blüte", Süddeutsche 23 October 2014
August: Une vie by Guy de Maupassant, Review "Diese Welle im Strom des Bewusstseins", FAZ 23 May 2018
September: The silence of the girls by Pat Barker, Review "Achilles and the heels", Economist 15 September 2018

Author of the Day



One of my daily habits is to check the list of authors who were born or died on that day. The plan is to choose a book by one of these authors if they’re on my shelf and I am looking for a new book to start on this day.

Armance by Stendhal, who was born on 23 January 1783
Die Fieberkurve by Friedrich Glauser, born on 4 February 1896
Montezuma’s Revenge by Harry Harrison, born on 12 March 1925
Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser, born on 2 April 1925
Vor dem Spiegel by Wenjamin Kawerin, born on 6 April 1902 (Julian calendar)
Gerächt / Der Weg zum Friedhof by Thomas Mann, born on 6 June 1875
Ein Glück by Thomas Mann, died on 12 August 1955
Les vacances du petit Nicolas by René Goscinny, born on 14 August 1926
Arc de Triomphe by Erich Maria Remarque, died on 25 September 1970

The VIB list(s)



Like many other readers, I keep an eye on several “You must have read this!” lists. But when the time comes, the Very Important Book has to make way for something more alluring. The plan is to actually read one book per month from my various lists. At least one.

The list pictured here was compiled by Deutsche Welle for a campaign back in 2018.

January
The Quiet American by Graham Greene (1001 BYMRBYD)
Burmese Days by George Orwell (1001 BYMRBYD, Guardian 1000)
Transit by Anna Seghers (1001 BYMRBYD)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré (1001 BYMRBYD, Guardian 1000)

February
Strangers on a train by Patricia Highsmith (Guardian 1000)
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (1001 BYMRBYD, Guardian 1000)

March
Ungeduld des Herzens by Stefan Zweig (Deutsche Welle 100)
Smiley’s People by John le Carré (1001 BYMRBYD)
Die Reise nach Petuschki by Wenedikt Jerofejew (1001 BYMRBYD)
Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler (1001 BYMRBYD)

April
What Maisie Knew by Henry James (1001 BYMRBYD)

May
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1001 BYMRBYD, Guardian 1000)
Der Kummer von Belgien by Hugo Claus (1001 BYMRBYD)

June
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1001 BYMRBYD)
Das Muschelessen by Birgit Vanderbeke (Deutsche Welle 100)

July
Der abenteuerliche Simplizissimus by Grimmelshausen

August
Tschick by Wolfgang Herrndorf (Deutsche Welle 100)

Siren Song



This is the category for books that beckon from my shelves, on other people’s threads, or in bookshops. In short, everything that detracts me from my own categories.

1. Notre-Dame – Geschichte einer Kathedrale by Thomas W. Gaethgens
2. Gefallen by Thomas Mann (No 1 in a collection of his stories)
3. Der Wille zum Glück by Thomas Mann (No 2)
4. Le Petit Nicolas – La Bande Dessinée Originale by Sempé/Goscinny
5. Der Tod by Thomas Mann (No 3)
6. Deacon King Kong by James McBride
7. Der kleine Herr Friedemann by Thomas Mann (No 4)
8. Schlick by Kester Schlenz and Jan Jepsen
9. Frankie by Jochen Gutsch and Maxim Leo
10. Peony by Pearl S. Buck
11. Enttäuschung and Bajazzo by Thomas Mann (No 5+6)
12. Der Schachautomat by Robert Löhr
13. Tobias Mindernickel by Thomas Mann (No 7)
14. Cinq-Mars by Alfred de Vigny
15. Die Schatten von La Rochelle by Tanja Kinkel
16. Der Kleiderschrank by Thomas Mann (No 8)
17. At Mrs Lippincote’s by Elizabeth Taylor
18. A wreath of roses by Elizabeth Taylor
19. The Life of a Stupid Man by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
20. Detstvo sorok devjat' by Ljudmila Ulickaja
21. Maurice by E. M. Forster
22. Gladius Dei by Thomas Mann (No 11)
23. Tristan by Thomas Mann (No 12)
24. A Man and his Cat 1 by Umi Sakurai
25. The Crown Agent by Stephen O’Rourke
26. Die Hungernden by Thomas Mann (No 13)
27. Tonio Kröger by Thomas Mann (No 14)
28. A Man and his Cat 8 by Umi Sakurai
29. Das schwebende Schachbrett by Louis Couperus
30. Der Schatz des Preußenkönigs by Christoph Öhm
31. The buried giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
32. Der Flakon by Hans Pleschinski
33. Die Ottonen by Helmut Beumann
34. König Artus by Heinz Ohff

CATs and KITs



Sir Puss has agreed to preside over the various CATs and KITs. I am just going to keep track of my participation by month. I probably won’t manage to cover them all, but we can have our ambitions. Double-counting is allowed here, but not for my own categories.

January
1. Brunos Weihnachten by Ben Becker ColourCAT: green
2. Der Schattenmann by Kester Schlenz and Jan Jepsen AlphaKIT: S
3. Stoner by John Williams AlphaKIT: S
4. The Quiet American by Graham Greene ColourCAT
5. The Looking Glass War by John Le Carré MysteryKIT
6. Burmese Days by George Orwell ColourCAT, AlphaKIT
7. Der Gin des Lebens by Carsten Sebastian Henn RandomKIT, AlphaKIT
8. Transit by Anna Seghers CultureCAT, AlphaKIT
9. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré MysteryKIT, AlphaKIT
10. Armance by Stendhal AlphaKIT
11. The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré ColourCAT, AlphaKIT

February
1. Mord im Filmstudio by Beate Maly ColourCAT
2. Die Toten vom Lärchensee by Joe Fischler AlphaKIT
3. Die Fieberkurve by Friedrich Glauser AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
4. Der Wald by Hansjörg Küster CoverCat, NatureKIT
5. The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman AlphaKIT, RandomKIT
6. Le Petit Nicolas – La Bande Dessinée Originale by Sempé/Goscinny AlphaKIT
7. Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur by Maurice Leblanc AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
8. Die goldene Stadt by Sabrina Janesch ColourCAT, AlphaKIT, Bingo
9. Auf der Suche nach dem Goldenen Mann by Victor Von Hagen ColourCAT, AlphaKIT
10. Schlumpf Erwin Mord by Friedrich Glauser AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
11. Der wunderbare Massenselbstmord by Aarto Paasilinna CultureCAT, RandomKIT
12. Les confidences d’Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc MysteryKIT, AlphaKIT

March
1. Nordlicht – Die Tote am Strand by Anette Hinrichs AlphaKIT
2. Die Stimme der Violine by Andrea Camilleri AlphaKIT
3. L’homme au ventre de plomb by Jean-François Parot AlphaKIT
4. Montezuma’s Revenge by Harry Harrison MysteryKIT
5. Armut, Reichtum, Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores by Achim von Arnim AlphaKIT
6. The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler ColourCAT, RandomKIT
7. Ungeduld des Herzens by Stefan Zweig ColourCAT, AlphaKIT
8. Smiley’s People by Johne le Carré MysteryKIT
9. The Light of Day by Eric Ambler MysteryKIT, AlphaKIT
10. Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler MysteryKIT, AlphaKIT

April
1. Vor dem Spiegel by Wenjamin Kawerin AlphaKIT
2. Der amerikanische Traum by Ernst Augustin AlphaKIT
3. What Maisie Knew by Henry James AlphaKIT
4. Venedig sehen und stehlen by Krischan Koch AlphaKIT
5. The wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton ColourCAT
6. Der Spurenfinder by Marc-Uwe Kling AlphaKIT
7. The School at the Chalet by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer AlphaKIT, RandomKIT

May
1. A view of the harbour by Elizabeth Taylor CoverCAT
2. Bretonisches Leuchten by Jean-Luc Bannalec MysteryKIT
3. Mord auf der Insel Gokumon by Seishi Yokomizo ColourCAT, AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
4. Slow Horses by Mick Herron MysteryKIT
5. Dead Lions by Mick Herron AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
6. At Mrs Lippincote’s by Elizabeth Taylor RandomKIT
7. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark April RandomKIT
8. Parle-leur de batailles, de rois et d’éléphants CoverCAt, RandomKIT
9. Die rote Wand by David Pfeifer ColourCAT, AlphaKIT
10. Das Mädchen, mit dem die Kinder nicht verkehren durften by Irmgard Keun AlphaKIT, RandomKIT

June
1. Claudine à l’école by Willy et Colette AlphaKIT
2. Die Reliquie by José Maria Eça de Queiroz AlphaKIT
3. Die Gelbe Straße by Veza Canetti ColourCAT, AlphaKIT
4. Wilde Reise durch die Nacht by Walter Moers ColourCAT
5. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens AlphaKIT
6. The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster SFF KIT
7. Weil der Mensch erbärmlich ist by Jeroen Olyslaegers RandomKIT
8. Le chat qui parlait malgré lui by Claude Roy AlphaKIT

July
1. Frau Helbing und der tote Fagottist by Eberhard Michaely AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
2. Die Könige von Köln by Tilman Röhrig ColourCAT, AlphaKIT
3. Frau Helbing und die Schwarze Witwe by Eberhard Michaely MysteryKIT
4. Die allerletzte Kaiserin by Irene Diwiak RandomKIT
5. Der Sonnenfürst by Tilman Röhrig AlphaKIT
6. All Systems Red by Martha Wells AlphaKIT
7. The trail of the serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon AlphaKIT
8. Das Mozart-Mysterium by Christoph Öhm
9. Real Tigers by Mick Herron AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
10. Spook Street by Mick Herron MysteryKIT
11. London Rules by Mick Herron MysteryKIT
12. La Tapisserie de Bayeux by François Neveux AlphaKIT
13. 1066 : Englands Eroberung durch die Normannen by Dominik Waßenhoven AlphaKIT

August
1. Das Judaskreuz by William Boehart AlphaKIT, RandomKIT
2. Les vacances du petit Nicolas by René Goscinny AlphaKIT
3. Töchter by Lucy Fricke RandomKIT
4. Selbs Justiz by Bernhard Schlink and Walter Popp AlphaKIT
5. Das verbotene Notizbuch by Alba De Céspedes ColourCAT, CoverCAT, AlphaKIT, RandomKIT

September
1. Boom Boom Babuschka by Moritz Matthies AlphaKIT
2. Mord im Böhmischen Prater by Beate Maly AlphaKIT
3. Pot-Bouille by Émile Zola AlphaKIT
4. Modesty Blaise : The Black Pearl by Peter O’Donnell AlphaKIT, MysteryKIT
5. Die Akte Marx by Stephan Brakensiek AlphaKIT
6. Mord im Nord-Ostsee-Express by Krischan Koch CoverCAT, AlphaKIT, RandomKIT
7. The silence of the girls by Pat Barker AlphaKIT
8. Frau Helbing und der Casanova aus Winterhude by Eberhard Michaely AlphaKIT
9. Waxwork by Peter Lovesey MysteryKIT
10. Arc de Triomphe by Erich Maria Remarque AlphaKIT
11. The Silver Mistress by Peter O’Donnell ColourCAT, MysteryKIT

BingoDOG



My favourite challenge!
Many thanks to LShelby and Christina for the lovely card.

1: Alle neune by Anni Hof
2: Notre-Dame – Geschichte einer Kathedrale by Thomas W. Gaethgens
3: The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré
4: Claudine à l’école by Willy et Colette
5: Le Petit Nicolas – La Bande Dessinée Originale by Sempé/Goscinny
6: Armut, Reichtum, Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores by Achim von Arnim
7: Der Spurenfinder by Marc-Uwe Kling
8: Die Toten vom Lärchensee by Joe Fischler
9: Cinq-Mars by Alfred de Vigny
10: Brunos Weihnachten by Ben Becker
11: All Systems Red by Martha Wells
12: Der wunderbare Massenselbstmord by Aarto Paasilinna
13: Die goldene Stadt by Sabrina Janesch
14: Schlumpf Erwin Mord by Friedrich Glauser
15: Ungeduld des Herzens by Stefan Zweig
16: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
17: Mord im Filmstudio by Beate Maly
18: Stoner by John Williams
19: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré
20: Der Sonnenfürst by Tilman Röhrig
21: Auf der Suche nach dem Goldenen Mann by Victor Von Hagen
22. Dead Lions by Mick Herron
23: Frankie by Jochen Gutsch and Maxim Leo
24: The natural way of things by Charlotte Wood
25: A view of the harbour by Elizabeth Taylor

Okay, here I am trying to fill a second card.



1: Die Akte Marx by Stephan Brakensiek
3: Das Judaskreuz by William Boehart
6: Frau Helbing und der Casanova aus Winterhude by Eberhard Michaely
10: Les vacances du petit Nicolas by René Goscinny
12: Mord im Böhmischen Prater by Beate Maly
13: Mord im Nord-Ostsee-Express by Krischan Koch
15: Une vie by Guy de Maupassant
16: Boom Boom Babuschka by Moritz Matthies
19: The buried giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
22: Töchter by Lucy Fricke
22: Das schwebende Schachbrett by Louis Couperus
25: The silence of the girls by Pat Barker

Welcome to my second thread! It’s spring, the sun is shining, the asparagus season has begun, and today’s a public holiday.
I will be spending much time away from home, again, catsitting for my youngest sister in Bielefeld, and I probably won’t make my monthly goals. So be it.
Right now I am re-reading another book about Richelieu and Cinq-Mars, as a follow-up to Vigny’s Cinq-Mars, and I hope to finish this today. It’s scary that I had almost completely forgotten about it, but details are coming back as I read. This is Die Schatten von La Rochelle, and it paints a much more nuanced picture of the Cardinal.

Happy new thread, Birgit. Your Bingo card is looking good!

Happy new thread! You are doing well in all your challenges.

Happy New Thread

>10 NinieB: Thanks, Ninie! It is filling up much quicker than last year.
>11 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy! I feel I am slacking on my VIB books a little, but there’s still time.
>12 lowelibrary: Thanks for dropping by, April!

Siren Song

Die Schatten von La Rochelle is an accidental re-read, as I recognised when I was twenty pages in. But I finished it all the same because coming fresh off Vigny’s book it offered many interesting insights. The focus here is on Richelieu’s niece Marie and little about Cinq Mars, and the invented revenge story from the siege was a bit over the top. I think this time I’ll remember it...

I have also consulted my Big Box last night. The first draws were for books I had read already, then came two non-fiction books I would need to source from a university library, that’s inconvenient this month, and finally there was a review for The natural way of things. I will start this as soon as I have finished A view of the harbour.

CoverCAT: several objects / Bingo: about writers

A view of the harbour has a very stylish cover with stylised waves and several lighthouses and houses. And I loved it very much. We are in a small, run-down seaside resort shortly after WWII, a retired navy man arrives to spend the summer and meets many of the people living in one of its streets, and the reader gradually learns about their lives. One of the women is a writer, and there is lots about her writing processes and what it means to her. The atmosphere is quiet, almost subdued, and the descriptions of the town are beautiful.

>16 MissWatson: I enjoyed that one, too. My favorite novel of hers is Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. Lately I've been reading more of her short stories and they are little gems as well.

Happy New Thread!

>17 kac522: I am really looking forward to laying my hands on that, sometime.
>18 LadyoftheLodge: Thanks!

Siren Song

As a palate cleanser before a difficult book, I read the next short story in my Thomas Mann collection: Der Kleiderschrank (The wardrobe). Another very short one, at ten pages, and a little baffling.
Another young man of independent means who enjoys travelling spontaneously leaves his train in an unnamed German city, rents an apartment and finds a mysterious young woman in his wardrobe, connecting to the next flat, who tells him stories during the night. Or is it a figment of his imagination, his approaching death? As I said, baffling.

The Big Box / Bingo: thing in the title

I knew from the review that it would be an uncomfortable read, and so it proved. Ten women find themselves imprisoned on an abandoned sheep station somewhere in the Australian outback, with just two male guards who soon realise that they are very much on their own themselves. The women recognise each other from media reports, and the common thing is that they have all challenged men’s misogynistic behaviour at some point. But it is never made clear who exactly is punishing them in this way, they are simply abandoned and thrown back on themselves. When the stash of instant food runs out, one of them puts some ancient rabbit traps to use.
I found the psychology and the interaction between the women well done, but I’m not sure I get the point of giving us Yolanda’s point of view in the past tense, and Verla’s in the present tense.

ETA: Oops, sorry, of course I am talking of The natural way of things.

MysteryKIT: not your country

My wall calendar for 2025 has photos of Brittany and Normandy, and every time I look at it I get nostalgic for the wonderful holidays we spent there.
Until we go again, there’s the bookshelf, and I just finished Bretonisches Leuchten which is set in an area we have visited often: the Coast of Rose Granite. Officially, Dupin is on holiday. Inofficially, he gets involved in a theft from a church, a missing woman, and at last, a dead woman found in a quarry. I was a bit surprised that we don’t get an explanation of how the granite is quarried, but then, Dupin’s a tourist and does ordinary tourist things here. I think the aquarium in Trégastel would be worth a visit next time...

ColourCAT: Red / AlphaKIT: I / MysteryKIT: not in your country

Mord auf der Insel Gokumon is the second book in the series, and the author frequently reminds his readers of that first murder investigation. Many years and a war have happened since then, and our detective just returns from his post in New Guinea to bring a message from a dying comrade to his family. They live on an island, in a rather isolated community once notorious for piracy, and like many island societies theirs is a very closed one.

Kosuke has barely arrived when the sisters of his former comrade are murdered one by one. The case is baffling, especially to a westerner like me who doesn’t really understand the working of this ancient patriarchy where sons are so important. There are also some haikus, a kind of poetry I do not really "get". But I enjoyed this glimpse of a foreign country.

MysteryKIT: not in your country

I am now installed at my youngest sister’s place, looking after her cat Tilda for two weeks. I remembered in time that my nephew has a copy of Dead Lions on the shelf, so I decided to take the first book in the series, Slow Horses, to read on the train.
The first time I tried this, I didn’t get very far, but this time it drew me in immediately. It is strangely cinematic in its set-up, as the author takes us from one scene to the next, introducing the setting, the various occupants of Slough House, and the kidnappers. And I didn’t realise until very late in the book that Jackson Lamb is only shown from the others’ POV, until we finally get inside his head, too. His character reminds me quite a bit of Charlie Muffin, but he is always at the focus of the story.
Anyways, I fully see why the series has so many fans. I immediately started on the next one.

Happy new thread, Birgit! I hope Tilda leaves you plenty of time for reading :-)

>25 susanj67: Thanks, Susan. She spends most of the day in the garden, and occasionally drops in for food.

AlphaKIT: D / MysteryKIT: not in your country / Bingo: favourite season

So, the next instalment in the Slough House series finds our heroes chasing after left-over spies from the Cold War. Is there a Russian sleeper cell hiding in a Cotswold village, and for what end? Again, we move from scene to scene and witness quite a few convoluted shenanigans, which provides much fun. But I can’t help thinking that this could have been resolved sooner if any of the agents in direct contact with our bad guys had had even a smattering of Russian.
ETA: The book takes place in April, and spring is frequently mentioned, so I am counting it for the "favourite season" Bingo square.

Siren Song / RandomKIT: punctuation

At Mrs Lippincote’s was published in 1945, and written some time before, at one point there is mention that there is no Second Front yet, so nobody knows how and when the war will end. This uncertainty hangs over all the people in the book, it’s always in the background of their domestic life. Julia’s husband is in the Air Force and has been posted to a base somewhere in Bronte country, there’s a ruined Abbey nearby. And she and her son read prodigiously. They live in a house rented from an elderly widow fallen on hard times whom we meet briefly. As usual with this author, there are wonderful descriptions of the town and landscape.

I found this at the local library here in Bielefeld. When the UK downsized their military and civilan activities, they took over the entire holdings of the British Council Library here, and they do not decommission books, but put them in storage. It is so nice to know that you can still borrow those.

Siren Song

I have finished the second of the Elizabeth Taylor books from the local library: A wreath of roses. We are a few years away from the war and meet Camilla on the way to her usual summer holiday at the cottage of the former governess of her best friend Liz. But the dynamics of the friendship are changing rapidly now that Liz is a young mother, while their hostess must come to terms with the fact that her failing health means she can’t paint anymore. There is also a young man whom Camilla encounters on the train, who hasn’t been able to settle in civilan life after the war.
This was another amazing read, the descriptions of the summer countryside are gorgeous. But there’s more darkness than in the first book where there was hope for things to be better after the war. Here is an unspoken disappointment with what peace has brought, I think, especially for women.

Hi Birgit, I finally made it around to your new thread! I hope you enjoy your stay in Bielefeld. I used to visit the city often when I grew up.
I must try Elizabeth Taylor one day, her novels sound wonderful.
And you only have four Bingo squares to cover! Yay!

>30 MissBrangwen: Hi Mirjam! I am doing many touristy things during my stay here, it’s been a long time since I spent more than a week-end here. And I am getting a lot of reading done. I really enjoyed Elizabeth Taylor’s books and plan to read more when I’m home.

VIB lists / April RandomKIT: prime

My sister owns a copy of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and I read this because it’s on two widely promoted lists of books you should read. It was quite enjoyable, and the Edinburgh setting certainly makes a difference, but it didn’t engage me as much as my two previous reads. I thought the girls were depicted very well, I could recognise much from my own school days, and I chuckled over some neat turns of phrase. But I do not think this will stay with me very long.

CoverCat: several objects / RandomKIT: punctuation

I returned the Taylor books to the library and strolled through their foreign language section, and Parle-leur de batailles, de rois et d’éléphants caught my eye because of the complicated title (which is a quote from Kipling, as it turns out). It’s very short and tells of Michelangelo’s brief sojourn in Constantinople, invited there by the Sultan who wants a bridge across the Golden Horn. He spends most of his time exploring the city in the company of a poet, and drawing, until one night he has an idea for the bridge. The Sultan likes it, work begins, but there are court intrigues and he must leave suddenly and secretly.
The story is told in plain, almost simple language and has a dream-like quality, and I enjoyed it very much. Apparently this is a true story, the sketch for the bridge survived, but it was never completed because an earthquake destroyed it.

>24 MissWatson: Glad you gave Slow Horses another try. I was hooked from the beginning and enjoyed it the most, of the series.

I hope you had a lovely time with Tilda.

And, happy new thread.

>34 VivienneR: I am glad I picked it up again. It’s funny how books have their own time to be read.

>35 MissWatson: Exactly! It's for that reason I rarely discard books that don't appeal on the first try.

Things have been pleasantly quiet and I have made headway with a big fat book, Der Kummer von Belgien, which is good. It needs to go back to the library before I leave for my other sister’s place.

Today is a hugely important day for the local football (soccer) team: they’re playing for the German Cup in Berlin tonight. There will be public screenings in the city centre and users of public transport have been warned that traffic will be redirected. A good day to stay at home and read!

>37 MissWatson: I hope your local team wins. I fell in love with soccer when my dad was stationed in Karlsruhe. The practice field for the local team was just across the road and I would climb the wall and sit and watch them practice.

>38 lowelibrary: Thanks, April. Unfortunately, the miracle didn’t happen. The locals are in the third league, while their opponents are in the first. They put up a good fight, though.

VIB lists / CoverCAT: multiple objects

I don’t recall where I first read about Der Kummer von Belgien, it has been on my wishlist for a long time but proved quite elusive. I now found it at the local library in Bielefeld, and it was a quick read despite its 824 pages.
It is also full of things I didn’t know, Belgium is a bit of a blank space in my literary landscape, and from the first page I found it quite unusual. It has an autobiographical feel from the start, and the author paints a rather unflattering picture of his family and his countrymen in this. They are Catholic and Dutch-speaking and do not really feel at home in modern Belgium, there is much evocation of the glorious past of Flanders in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the books they read reflect this. There is much talk of books in this, not least because the father is a printer. They are sympathetic to the NS ideology even before the Germans occupy the country, and like so many other peoples who conveived of themselves as a suppressed national minority they easily collaborate.

What I found most impressive is how the author shows us this world through the eyes of Louis, and as he grows from eleven to eighteen, his understanding of the world around him changes, and events are shown in a new light. I could have done with less teenage obsession with sex, but then again, it’s a Bildungsroman. The scariest thing about it was the indoctrination by the Catholic church in the schools, though. The years in the Catholic boarding school felt claustrophobic.

Happy new thread! I'm glad you are finding some treasures through your local library, and you have re-found your interest in Mick Herron's books. I've never read him, but I enjoy going back to a book after many years and finding out that I like it now, even if I didn't before.

>33 MissWatson: "Parle-le de batailles . . . " sounds fascinating. I did not know Michelangelo designed this bridge, or even that he visited Constantinople!

>41 threadnsong: Thanks. I didn’t know about that journey of Michelangelo, either.

Festival season starts today, with a few concerts in Bad Arolsen. So I’ll be offline for a few days and hope to report on my reading over the last weeks next Monday. Too bad abaout the weather, though, it has been raining for two days and more is on the way.

ColourCAT: red / AlphaKIT: D

I had another book in mind for the ColourCAT, but I found Die Rote Wand at a bookshop in Bielefeld and the story intrigued me more because I once watched a documentary about World War I fighting in the Alps.

It’s the story of a teenage girl who dresses up as a boy and joins an Austrian mountain regiment to find her father who’s been drafted. Soon Italy declares war and she is posted to the Alpine frontier. The "Rote Wand" is a mountain in the Dolomites, in the Rosengarten group. The author paints a vivid picture of the fierce conditions in which the soldiers lived and died, and his heroine shares everything. He never gives her a name, she’s always "the girl", and in the afterword he tells us that this is a true story, the story of Viktoria Savs.
My only quibble is that he should have known that Otto von Habsburg was not a grandson of the emperor Franz Joseph II, but a great-nephew.

AlphaKIT: I / RandomKIT: punctuation

On my sister’s shelf I saw Das Mädchen, mit dem die Kinder nicht verkehren durften, and because it’s very short I managed to finish it in one day, the last day of May, actually. Another girl whose name we don’t learn, who talks about her childhood days in Cologne, as a real tomboy who is a leading member of a boys’ gang, reads boys’ adventure stories and gets up to quite a lot of mischief. Hence the title, which translates as "The girl the other children were not allowed to play with" because she is a very bad influence. It has a very autobiographical feel, and Irmgard Keun is one of those people who remember well what it feels like to be a child in the power of adults.

May roundup

It has been quite a successful reading month, and I am very pleased with the books I borrowed from the library. When I arrived at my other sister’s place, she had a lovely surprise for me, a biography of Elizabeth Taylor! But most of the last days of May were spent at concerts, and they were great.
Now I’m home and what did I see on my first foray into the shopping mall? Hugendubel have put up those grey boxes with cheap books again...

AlphaKIT: C / Bingo: newly in the public domain

Colette died in 1954, which means her books are now in the public domain in Germany. Last year I bought Claudine à l’école in Paris and never got round to it. This edition also names her husband as co-author, I believe today she is accepted as the sole author.

I liked her descriptions of her environments, the woods and animals, very much. The life at the provincial school and the passions among the girls ring true. But I have to admit that the ending bored me, with its relentlessly detailed preparations for the minister’s visit...
My youngest sister owns quite a few of her books, and I had planned to read some when I cat-sitted for her, but I got seduced by others. Next time.

I have rummaged in my Big Box and have unearthed a review of Weil der Mensch erbärmlich ist. It’s about the German occupation of Belgium in World War II and collaboration, and it is quite odd I should have found this right after reading Der Kummer von Belgien on the same subject. Strange coincidence. The author, however, is much younger than Claus, who lived through those times. This should make for a very interesting comparison!
Now I only need to find this in the stacks...

Author of the Day

In the meantime, today is the big day of Thomas Mann’s 150th birthday, and an exhibition opens in Lübeck. I may take a trip to see it this weekend, rain has been forecast and that’s perfect for museums. I started the day with two of his short stories: "Gerächt" is a mere sketch whose protagonist shares a few character traits with the narrator of my present book, and Der Weg zum Friedhof which feels like a morality tale. Mainly because it is narrated in the first person plural and addresses an audience of children. A little odd, but so carefully, beautifully phrased.

AlphaKIT: Q

I ran across a lovely second-hand bookshop near my sister’s apartment in Bielefeld and came away with Die Reliquie by José Maria Eça de Queiroz. He is an author whose books are quite hard to find, so I was very pleased with my acquisition. And it also proved a very entertaining story! The narrator is a young man, orphaned as a child, whose education is paid for by a very pious aunt. She is immensely rich, immensely devout and immensely dictatorial, and if he wants to inherit he must be even more devout than she. On her behalf he undertakes a journey to the Holy Land and brings back some relics...
The author writes in an almost baroque style, long sentences rich with adjectives, and full of subtle irony. That is something he shares with Thomas Mann, and our young hero could have stepped out of the pages of Mann’s early stories. Hoewever, the most remarkable section of the book is when he reaches Jerusalem with his travel companion and suddenly finds himself in the past, a witness to the death of Jesus. There is so much minute detail about daily life in the ancient city and the many different peoples and nations mixing there that I kept wondering where he got all this, and how much of it is confirmed by modern archaeology. I was also intrigued to learn that yellow is the colour of Judas Ischariot (which means I could count Das Judaskreuz towards the ColourCAT).

I enjoyed this very much and will keep an eye out for his other works. Preferably in the English translation, I believe, because this German version had far too many typos and some other oddities, and I wish they had included a glossary for the many Portuguese terms that were left untranslated, mostly weights and measures, I think, but also some peculiarities of landholding and the clergy.

ColourCAT: yellow / AlphaKIT: C

Die Gelbe Straße is one of the many books slowly being rediscovered after having been destroyed by the Nazis. It has an unusual structure, presented as a novel collated from five stories that were originally published as stand-alone episodes. They are all linked by recurring characters and their location, a street in Vienna after World War I. The author writes clear, short, precise sentences, and there is much of the unmistakable Vienna dialect. Her characters are unusual too, especially the children in the final episode.

>51 MissWatson: Taking a BB for that one! I just read the wikipedia article on the author, how interesting.

>52 MissBrangwen: The afterword has lots of information about her work, and it is a pity that two of her novels have been lost for ever. It is sad to think of all we have lost.

ColourCAT: yellow

Yesterday we had nice weather without rain, so I took the train to Eutin where they are showing a selection of works of Wilhelm Busch, with the focus on his paintings. He’s mostly known for Max und Moritz and other humorous comics, so there was something new to discover here.
For the train ride, I packed Wilde Reise durch die Nacht because it is short and has a bright yellow cover. And I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this. We meet young Gustave Doré, aged 12, who wants to become an artist and has an incredible adventure meeting Death who wants him to fulfil five tasks to save his life. He embarks on a fantastic journey, illustrated and also inspired by Doré’s own drawings. Moers has an exuberant imagination (as shown by his best-known creation, Käpt’n Blaubär, but he also writes beautifully. I definitely need to read more of him!

Yesterday, 9 June, is also the day on which Charles Dickens died, so I have picked up David Copperfield as my next read. I had no idea this runs to more than 900 pages!

>54 MissWatson: I have read several works by Walter Moers, including Die 13 1/2 Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär, and mean to read more of him! It has been ages since I picked up one of his books.

>54 MissWatson: I love David Copperfield; I think it is my favorite Dickens. It has so many wonderful characters. I was just thinking last night about the very first line:

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

I have my own opinion on this first line, but I'll wait until you're finished to share it....

>54 MissWatson: >56 kac522: David Copperfield is my favourite Dickens too. I struggle these days with huge books, but DC is well worth the investment and effort! I have cried every time I read it.

>56 kac522: >57 Jackie_K: I have always shied away from it because I found the film and TV versions too lachrymose. I have obviously missed an exciting book, it’s great!

>58 MissWatson: I know what you mean about adaptations. The one that I think is truest to the book and has a great cast is the 1999 BBC TV series. It stars a young Daniel Radcliffe (before he was Harry Potter!) as young David, Maggie Smith as Aunt Betsy Trotwood and a lot of other actors, including a short bit by Ian McKellen as Mr Creakle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copperfield_(1999_film)

If you can find it, it's well worth the time (about 3 hrs).

>59 kac522: I own this. Maggie Smith is so wonderful in this!

>54 MissWatson: Copperfield my fav along with Bleak House)

>60 MissWatson: 👍

>59 kac522: I've never seen any of the films - I first came to the story via a theatre play. Young David was played by Gian Sammarco, who a year or so later played Adrian Mole in the BBC TV series (this was in the 1980s). It was so wonderful, I still have images of many of the actors in my head, and that is still how I imagine the characters whenever I read the book.

>59 kac522: What a great experience! I know how those images stay in your mind when you think of the characters. Know matter how many roles I've seen Maggie Smith play, she will always be Aunt Betsy Trotwood to me😉

>61 Tess_W: Yes, Bleak House is one of my top Dickens novels, too. And Charles Dance will always be Ralph Tulkinghorn to me.
>63 Jackie_K: How did they manage to put all that on stage?
>64 kac522: I think it’s partly because Betsey is such a loveable character, and she brings it across.

VIB lists / AlphaKIT: C / Bingo: features a birth

The first chapter of David Copperfield contains what must be the most famous birth scene in English literature, and from there the book goes from strength to strength. Part of me regrets that I waited so long to read this, the other part thinks that I would have enjoyed it less as a teenager, especially the sentimentality. I still feel uncomfortable with Dickens’ image of women, but the rest makes up for it. I enjoyed the way he looked back on his younger days and his calf-loves, and his reflections on his thoughts then, now tempered with experience. These are what makes the book so remarkable, and what is mostly missing from the film and TV adaptations. Fabulous.

>56 kac522: So what is your opinion, Kathy? For me it’s Betsey.

>66 MissWatson: I'd say the "hero" of David's life is not one person; it's all the wonderful people he meets along the way. Aunt Betsey of course, for making David into the man he becomes; but I could name:

Pegotty--who protects David and his mother (as best she can) from the Murdstones
Mr Pegotty--who won't stop until he finds Emily
Ham--who heroically tries to save Steerforth, his bitter enemy
Tommy Traddles--who has the brains to bring down Uriah Heep
Mr Micawber--who finally has too much of Heep and exposes him for what he is
Mrs Micawber--who will "never desert" Mr Micawber
"Dear" Dora--who used to drive me crazy, but after several readings I realize how perceptive and unselfish she is in the end
Agnes--who puts up with so much suffering, yet is always true to her father
Mr Dick--who, in his small ways, has insight and compassion
Martha--who takes risks to help save Emily

I think the point of David Copperfield is not about David at all, but to remind us that in our own lives there are so many good people that help us along our way, and to realize and recognize their goodness, no matter how big or small.

>67 kac522: Yes, that is very true! I think it needs a re-read at some later time to fully appreciate the tapestry he weaves for us.

Siren Song

After such a big tome, I needed something short and opened The Life of a Stupid Man. This is one of the small black Penguin books and contains three short stories, of which the first, In a Bamboo Grove, provides most of the plot for Kurosawa’s famous movie Rashomon. That was also the one easiest to understand. I did not quite see the purpose of "The Death Register", because I don’t know enough about Japanese customs concerning dead family members. I was struck, however, by the similarities of the family constellation between this and "The Life of a Stupid Man". It may be autobuographical, but without more background about the author this remains obscure.

SFF KIT: anthologies and collections

For the Monthly Author Read, I went to the library and borrowed The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. A thin volume containing two short stories barely constitutes a collection, but both stories are taken from larger collections, and I hope to find those soonish. They are both quite unexpected in their subject matter, totally different from his novels. The first one especially, about the Machine, has things to say that seem uncomfortably relevant for our present days.

Kiel Week is approaching, stages are going up everywhere, and food stalls are multiplying. The first streets are barred for traffic, and the air is humming with expectation.
My sister arrives tomorrow, and I don’t know yet how much time we’ll spend outside. Depends on the weather, largely...

>70 MissWatson: I have this one on my shelf. I ordered it after I saw a video of Graham McTavish reading an extract which really caught my interest, but then I never got to it. Thanks for reminding me that it exists!

>72 MissBrangwen: It’s short but packs a lot to think about.

Siren Song

It has been a busy long weekend, but I wish the weather had been more amenable. Too much heat on Sunday, too much rain since then. Ah well, we mostly went shopping anyways. My sister went home yesterday, and I used the afternoon to finish a library book. When I went there to borrow the E. M. Forster stories, I took a wrong turn among the shelves and ended up in the children’s section, and I was truly amazed to see how many foreign language books they offer.

I picked up Detstvo sorok devjat', a slim hardback with short stories by Ljudmila Ulickaja and tackled it yesterday. It turned out to be really hard work. Partly that is due to the writing style, I think, she makes much use of participles, and identifying the corresponding verb was difficult, which shows how much I am out of practice. Because she can’t be the only writer who writes like this, Russian lends itself to this style.
To be honest, I am dismayed by how much I have forgotten. I think next year I will include a category for Russian and Spanish books. If you don’t use it, you lose it. That was my retirement plan, too, and like so many plans it fell by the wayside...

>74 MissWatson: Retirement is like that! So many plans, but not all of them work out.

>75 LadyoftheLodge: Quite. What I still find incredibly liberating is the luxury of having the choice of how to spend my time.

The Big Box / RandomKIT: invasion

Weil der Mensch erbärmlich ist makes a good companion read to Der Kummer von Belgien. Both describe the German occupation of Belgium, and here in particular Flanders, through the eyes of a young narrator. The fiundamental difference, of course, is that Hugo Claus was an eyewitness, whereas Jeroen Olyslagers wasn’t born then. The other is the narrator’s age: Claus was a boy, Olyslagers chooses a young man just out of school who joins the police force and thus gets a closer look at things. The settings are also different, the small town of Kortrijk versus Antwerp. What they have in common is that both want to be writers.
Olyslaeger writes this as a long monologue, addressed to a great-grandson not even born yet. He meanders through his life, and comments on his frailty now. The tone is biting, sarcastic, and feels sometimes a bit too contemporary in its vocabulary for an old man who no longer follows the news. But that’s not really a problem. Wil shows us what it means to live in a small country overrun by a bigger power, and how everyone tries to survive.

AlphaKIT: C and Q

Le chat qui parlait malgré lui is a lovely children’s book about a tomcat who eats some strange herb in his garden and finds that he now talks like a human. He’s not keen on having the world know this, so he consults his human on how to disguise this.

Siren Song

I re-read Maurice after many years. I don’t think I’ll do so again, I found it rather boring this time around.

edited for touchstone

VIB lists

Das Muschelessen is on the Deutsche Welle list, and when I saw it at the charity shop I picked it up and sat down immediately with it. It is short, and written in a single chapter without paragraphs. I assume this is stream-of-consciousness, and I found it a bit exhausting, but it does have a certain way of sucking you into the story. A mother, son and daughter are sitting at home waiting with a special dinner for the head of the family to arrive, and the daughter narrates her reflections, the conversation at the table, the memories of growing up in this family. It looks typical for the time, and yet like all families, this one too is unhappy in their own way.

The author is two years older than me, and at first there were quite a few similarities in the set-up, but as the evening progresses, more and more of the violence they suffer is unveiled. We never learn why the father is late, the story ends abruptly with the mother throwing out the dish of mussels they have been talking over. I hope for the sake of all of them that this means rupture with the past.

June roundup

Thus ends my June reading. Pagewise, ther has been less than in previous months, too many other things to do. And admittedly, David Copperfield took up a lot of my time, but it was a good read. I also enjoyed my first taste of Eça de Queiroz, and the two short stories by E.M. Forster. I found a complete collection of his short stories on my book-swapping site and look forward to its arrival.

So what’s planned for July? I’ll be off to my sister’s this weekend, and we have two concerts in the third week, so that will be cutting into reading time. And then there’s the weather, we are having tropical temperatures again. 30°C and more is not normal for us here, and it gives me headaches. A diet of short, uncomplicated mysteries may help... especially since the draw from the Big Box is a doorstopper: Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song.

ETA: that will be a re-read, I notice.

VIB lists

Der abenteuerliche Simplizissimus is a carryover from June, I had meant to finish this for the RTT but it took me longer than expected. And I am cheating a little when I count this for the VIB lists, because it is an abridged version for children, but I now feel able to tackle the full thing. And I don’t think many children today could handle this, the text stays pretty close to 17th century speech patterns and vocabulary. You also need some knowledge about the Thirty Years’ War to understand what is going on here. The most surprising thing was that the story of "Das tapfere Schneiderlein" (The Brave Little Tailor) was well-known at this time, more than a hundred years before the Grimms included it in their collection.

>74 MissWatson: I second that, too many plans in retirement! I had "planned" to learn German. There are free classes taught by our local German Village Society. It's a 20 mile drive each way and I don't think I will really ever accomplish it. Every month our Thurber House has a special speaker, a writer, for free "talks." I went to the first two, they were really good! Haven't been to others. I'm weird like that, I like lectures! It's also a thing where oftentimes I don't have anybody to go with. My husband is chairbound. My sons aren't interested! Friends also have children and husbands to care for. My sister, who would go with me, lives 1800 miles away! We plan a vacation together every year. She will be back so we can close our mother's estate and clear out that last storage unit and we also have tickets to several concerts. The first is the Columbus Symphony Orchestra this Sunday playing "on the theme of birds." Some of the selections are Haydn's La poule and Sam Wu's Eagle Huntress. That being said, I'm not complaining! I, like you, love retirement because I can pick and choose when to get up, what to do that day, if anything! etc. etc.

AlphaKIT: T / MysteryKIT: series sleuths

I heard about Frau Helbing und der tote Fagottist when the author was presented in a local news show. He’s a bus driver in Hamburg and writes in his free time, but he also studied music and it shows in the very first pages of the book, when Mrs Helbing attends a classical concert for the first time. Her neighbour has offered her the tickets and she is very much worried if he can survive the concert because his face goes a deep purple playing the bassoon...

The author shares his knowledge about techniques and the musical world without being overly instructive. And he paints a very loving picture of the Hamburg district, the Grindelviertel, where Mrs Helbing has lived and worked all her life. She’s a widow, her husband was a butcher, and when her neighbour is found dead, her curiosity is aroused. She’s an avid reader of mysteries and nobody’s fool, either.

As you can probably tell, I loved every minute of this. The title character is great, there is no excessive violence, and the writing is top-notch, compared to most offerings in this genre. I have already lined up book three, but since neither the library nor my usual second-hand book suppliers have them, I may need to buy the rest.

>83 Tess_W: Hi Tess! Yes, so many of the plans have fallen by the wayside, and I can’t even make the excuse of the tremendous distances that you face. But I always tell myself that these are things I can choose to do – or do not, as the case may be. The freedom of retirement is that my time belongs to me, and I find that very precious.

>82 MissWatson: Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus is on my shelf as well - the original, unabridged version - but is so, so daunting! I truly don't know if I'll ever get to it. But I am looking forward to your review if you read it! It's a good idea to start with a children's version, it might make it easier to get into it.

>86 MissBrangwen: Hi Mirjam! Yes, either a children’s version or a film are a good method of getting into the story. I have vague memories of a Christmas mini-series starring Matthias Habich looking ludicrous dressed in a calf’s skin – Simplizius is a child at the time in the book.
I have an adult version where the spelling and some of the grammar have been modernised, and there are also ample endnotes and an introduction. A few years ago a new "translation" into modern German by Reinhard Kaiser was much talked about, which my library has. That could be quite a little reading project for autumn...but right now it’s summer, it’s way too hot, and my mind longs for cosy mysteries.

ColourCAT: White / AlphaKIT: T

Die Könige von Köln by Tilman Röhrig is a novel about the people who saved the Shrine of the Three Kings (the most important trasure of the Cathedral at Cologne) first from the French Republic, and later from greedy German princelings.
Most of the characters in the book are real people, and by the end I wished he had written this as non-fiction, because the added fictional elements are not very interesting. The action moves from 1793 when the French Army occupies Cologne to 1804 when Napoleon pays a brief visit – after decreeing that the relics of the Kings and their shrine belong to Cologne. Unfortunately, things move in a stop-and-go fashion, none of the characters are likeable, which is of course the more realistic option: people do dither and waver when faced with armed force. But to set up one character as an absolutely nasty person whom you just wish and pray to see come to his deserved punishment and then let him off – it’s a disappointment.
Some time back we visited an exhibition about this time of secularisation when the French first forbade services in the churches, then robbed them blind and finally closed them down completely, so quite a few things here were familiar. It’s almost local history, too, because the Archbishop of Cologne was also an Elector, and they held lots of lands, some of it as the dukedom of Westphalia, and the first place of safety for the kings was Arnsberg, not far from where my sister lives. I think I’ll take a peak at that book she bought...

Ah yes, I am spending a long weekend with her. See you next week.

Enjoy your visit with your sister!

>81 MissWatson: Congratulations on a successful reading month, especially one that included David Copperfield. I started but never finished it, though one of my favorite Dickens is Bleak House. I am sorry that the 30º temps are giving you headaches. We had something called a "heat dome" a couple of weeks ago and there were all kinds of warnings posted about how to stay hydrated, cool, and the like. It was an alternative to all of the rainstorms we had every day for about a month. Oh, and best of luck with your rehearsals. Where will you be performing?

>89 threadnsong: Thanks for stopping by! I’m afraid I gave a wrong impression, though, we will attend two concerts as audience, at our annual music festival here in Schleswig-Holstein. The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields will play Bach, Tchaikovsky and Mozart.

We had a lovely time during the weekend, and the heatwave has been replaced by rains. They had a "yarn festival" in Kassel, which is a kind of fair where producers of fancy yarns present their offerings live and in person, so you can feel the fibre and see the colours in natural light, which is quite different from buying stuff online. So many beautiful yarns, if only they also the time you need to knit them. We did come away with material for a project, of course.

MysteryKIT: Series Sleuths

I packed Frau Helbing und die Schwarze Witwe to read on the train and it was just as nice and cosy as the first book in the series. The old lady actually grows with every case, she makes new friends in the neighbourhood and tries out new things. I left both books at my sister’s, because she lived in the area when she was at university, and can feel even more nostalgic about it than I.

RandomKIT: The hills are alive

For the return journey I borrowed a book from my sister’s shelves: Die allerletzte Kaiserin. The author, Irene Diwiak, is reputed to be one of Austria’s best current writers, and I did enjoy this very much.
A very old lady shows up in an inn somewhere in the less-frequented Alps and tells her life story to the landlord’s daughter. She pretends to be the granddaughter of Crown Prince Rudolf, who apparently faked his (and Mary Vetsera’s) death at Mayerling and lived incognito in Vienna as a haberdasher. It is also a history of post-monarchy Austria, seen through the eyes of a very eccentric and somewhat self-centered woman, and it plays nicely with the nostalgia for Habsburg days. This was fun.

AlphaKIT: T / Bingo: sun in title

Der Sonnenfürst is one of the few books I have with sun in the title. This means Sun Prince, and it refers to Clemens August who was Elector of Cologne, i.e. a Prince-Bishop, in the 18th century. The epithet is never explained, but he probably earned it because he loved to build palaces like the Sun King in Versailles. Augustusburg near Brühl and Falkenlust were built by him.
Again, we have mostly historical figures in this, but this time almost no fictional ones who detract from the main events. Clemens leaves the business of ruling mostly to his First Minister, he prefers music and hunting. The action moves between Clemens and his private world, and the men and women playing politics around him.

This was more interesting than my previous book by the author, mostly because it covers a relatively short period and there are many things happening in the wider world: Emperor Charles VI needs supporters for his Pragmatic Sanction, enabling his daughter Maria Theresia to succeed him, and France wants to prevent this. But I could have done without the detailed sex scenes, especially one disgusting rape.

AlphaKIT: W / Bingo: non-human narrator

All systems red was a very enjoyable way to spend a slow afternoon, and this gives me a blackout on my Bingo card. It’s quite early in the year still, maybe I’ll have another go...
But first I must finish some rather fat tomes.

Siren Song

Two more short stories by Thomas Mann: Gladius Dei and Tristan.
The first is very short and gives us a man who walks into a gallery one day and demands that the owner remove a picture of the Madonna that offends him. End of story, all we are given is a hint that he bears a slight resemblance to Savonarola...
Tristan, on the other hand, gives us many elements that we expect from the author: there are people in a sanatorium for lung diseases, a young woman ailing after the birth of her first child who is descended from a long line of merchants (and fallen into decay like the Buddenbrooks), and the passion for music. The most vivid impression here is how emotionally powerful music can be. I think it is an effect we can no longer really understand, we for whom music is instantly available wherever we go, and endlessly reproducible.

AlphaKIT: T

The trail of the serpent is the debut novel of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and it is quite amazing for a 24-year-old. I liked her style immensely, which borders on the snarky occasionally. And I loved the way she preempts her critics who might accuse her of being melodramatic and unbelievable by having her characters say the same thing. I particularly loved the Marquis de Cevennes who delicately sighs at finding himself embroiled in such a tale. The most surprising thing in the book is the detective who brings the villain to justice, he can’t talk and communicates with sign language.
My edition has copious endnotes which were very helpful, and it includes the author’s "My first novel" which was very funny, too.

>95 MissWatson: I have Tristan.........might have to dig it out. I've been trying to read some German lit this month.

>97 Tess_W: The short stories are far more accessible than his fat novels, and they deal with his favourite topics, mostly.

RandomKIT: The hills are alive

I picked up Das Mozart-Mysterium because it is short and also fits for some other challenges. It’s about Leopold Mozart, father of Wolfgang, who in the year 1755 is invited to join a society of musical experts, the Mizler Societät. But first he must solve 13 riddles which will lead him to books gifted by other members of the society who each have formulated a "law" for composing a perfect melody, and Mozart must find another such law. But the Freemasons and the Illuminati both want to prevent this, so Mozart and his two helpers run into great dangers.

Oh dear, oh dear. Why is it that I find so much more to say about books that annoy me? The story is told in the first person by David Stark, who studies the violin with Mozart. The book is mostly narration, with little dialogue that gives us insight into the characters. The author dismally fails at invoking the 18th century, the style and the conversations are modern. The opposition remains vague. The riddles are pitiful to anyone who enjoys this kind of puzzle-solving, and he ruins them even further by overexplaining. There are too many typos. The author is a professional musician and musicologist, so I assume that his musical facts are correct, and he admits in his afterword that he took some chronological liberties. But the various parts never make a convincing whole. The blurb led me to expect much more than this. The only redeeming feature is that it describes some of the most important monuments and churches in Salzburg.

>99 MissWatson: Oh dear, oh dear. Why is it that I find so much more to say about books that annoy me?

That just made me laugh--it's so true!

>99 MissWatson: Ouch. I will definitely skip this one!

(And yes, the annoying books are much easier to write about at length for me too.)

>100 kac522: >101 charl08: I think with good books I am just eager to find out what happens next, and then the how and why the author did this or that matters less to me.

AlphaKIT: T / MysteryKIT: series sleuths

I had to wait fifteen minutes at the bus stop, so I popped into the library and snatched Real Tigers from the shelf. I cannot understand any longer why I didn’t like this world at my first attempt, because it hits all the right buttons for me. And there’s a cliffhanger at the end! I need to go to the library as soon as the rains lets up.

Siren Song

A man and his cat 1 arrived on my doorstep yesterday and I read it in one sitting. Cute, yes, but I think these Manga aesthetics are not quite what I like.

Well, things are almost back to normal now that my guests have returned home. The weather was almost too hot, and the traffic situation is getting worse and worse: roads partially or completely barred which adds hours to your driving if you’re unlucky.
But we had some wonderful concerts, and a great time just talking and going shopping, so no complaints.

>93 MissWatson: I have one book by Tilman Röhrig, Wie ein Lamm unter Löwen, but I have not read it yet because it is such a hefty tome.

>99 MissWatson: That sounds like such a mess! But as others have said: I, too, find it much easier to write about books I disliked.

>106 MissBrangwen: I bought that one recently, because it looks interesting. But the size is daunting. And ripping a book apart I didn’t like feels like getting my own back for the time I spent on it.

MysteryKIT: series sleuths

It’s a good thing then to report that I liked Spook Street just as much as the previous instalments. I expected some answers to the questions I was left with at the end of Real Tigers, but Herron takes us in a completely different direction. I chuckled over the snappy dialogue, shook my head at River who will hare off without thinking first, and almost bit my nails at the shootout. It won’t be long before I return to London...

...but first I need to look to my own categories. At least I want to read my book for the Big Box challenge. I probably won’t manage any for the VIB lists this month. Never mind, I enjoyed my sidetrip with Jackson Lamb.

>108 MissWatson: You make me want to reread these! I loved them the first time round, wonder if they would stand up to a second go. I'm also not sure about watching the TV series...

>108 MissWatson: I've got book #1 in the Slough series sitting on the shelf. I need to get to it (and 400 others!)

>109 charl08: I have been wondering how often he can repeat that intro, walking through Slough House, and the corresponding endings before it feels like a mannerism...
>110 Tess_W: I had trouble getting into this world on my first attempt, but I am glad I tried again.

The Big Box

Blood Song was a re-read after eleven years, and I am happy that it was every bit as engaging and enjoyable as the first time around, so it will stay on the shelf for now. The review, however, was more of an analysis of current fantasy literature (as of 2014), and not specifically about this debut novel, other than to say it was worth investing the time to read more than 700 pages.

July is almost over, and I won’t manage a book for all the challenges. I get distracted too easily into reading other things. On Sunday I watched a fascinating programme about the ancient Saxons, and now I am seriously contemplating a 900-page doorstopper about Otto I, first emperor from the house of Saxony...But first, the library books!

MysteryKIT: series sleuths

The first library book is London Rules, next in the Slough House series. Again it’s full of fun and mayhem, but I did wonder at Roderick Ho. How deluded can a man be? That said, it’s a good thing the next one is currently on loan to someone else. The constant prodding and poking at the absurdities of modern language is wearing a little thin.

I am going to England with the Normans instead. The other night I was watching a new documentary about the Battle of Hastings, which of course showed many scenes from the Tapestry of Bayeux, and so I took the train to Schleswig yesterday. They are showing a replica of the tapestry in their current exhibition about the Twilight if the Vikings. It was nice to see it again, very close and with less people around, and viewing time wasn’t limited, so you can enjoy the many details at the lower and upper edge.
The exhibits are mostly from the time when Schleswig was under Danish rule, and it is one of the strange coincidences in history that in 1066 the trading town of Haithabu was finally given up by the Danish king and he moved to the other side of the river, to what is now Schleswig. And back home, I picked up the brochure about the tapestry I bought in Bayeux.

AlphaKIT: T

I have finished La Tapisserie de Bayeux and it does quite a few things on 48 pages: explain the situation before William embarked, describe the most important aspects, and sum up its history, as far as it is known. I wish I’d read this before taking my trip, it would have made it easier to identify Normans and Englishmen.

Isn't that the joy of books? To be able to go from Slough House to the Battle of Hastings in one day is stunning.

>115 VivienneR: Oh yes, very much so!

AlphaKIT: T

Of course I didn’t leave the museum without buying a book and I finished it on the last day of July: 1066 : Eroberung Englands durch die Normannen. (The T is for Tausendsechsundsechzig, if you write out the number)

This is from the Beck Wissen series, similar to the Oxford Very Short Introductions, and it packs almost too much information into its 128 pages. It was especially hard to keep track of the Anglo-Saxon kings and nobles, everyone was related to everybody else and continually travelling between England and Scandinavia. The battle is dealt with swiftly, the focus is on the events leading up to the invasion and what happened next, and here I learned quite a few things that were new to me. What I liked best about this is that the author constantly reminds us how little we know for certain. The sources are few and contradictory, and he always refers to at least two when he describes an event. Great!

July roundup

It has been a very successful reading month, lots of interesting books. The cover challenge remains very elusive, and the month usually ends before I get round to things I had chosen for the many KITs and CATs. But it doesn’t really bother me, and I will happily travel down some rabbithole. So I am not planning much ahead for August, other than my Big Box read: Une vie. And I want to finish a book I borrowed from my sister, so she can take it home: Das Judaskreuz.

Siren Song

But first: library books. The Crown Agent caught my eye and the blurb seemed promising. Alas, it didn’t live up to expectation. A former secret agent of the Crown relates his adventures fifty years later: Mungo Lyon, an Edinburgh surgeon, disgraced along with his colleagues after the Burke and Hare scandal, is asked to investigate the death of a lighthouse keeper in the west of Scotland.
My problems with the book are manifold. We are in 1829, and the story is told in a first person narrative, and I never got the impression that we are in the nineteenth century. The constant use of "I’d" instead of "I had" in the narrative jarred every time. The author has no sense of pacing: we spend pages and pages with our intrepid hero in the bowels of the ship with him chained up and miserable, but the uprising on Jamaica he needs to foil is over in the blink of an eye, to name just one thing. Again and again I looked up things that seemed anachronistic to me, and while it is possible (possible, just most unlikely) that the bad guy had an ocean-crossing steamer in 1829, having five such uses of innovative technology before their time is too much.
Ah yes, and what is William Hare (him of resurrectionist notoriety) doing in this farrago?
It’s a good thing I can return this to library and didn’t spend money on it.

edited for touchstone

Siren Song

I needed something to take my mind off the many frustrations with the library book and turned to Thomas Mann’s short pieces. Next up were "Die Hungernden" and Tonio Kröger. Die Hungernden is very short and reads like a trial run for Tonio Kröger, it has an elderly writer who attends a ball and observes a young woman whom he desires and her swain, and he longs for a "normal" life. The same is very much the theme of Tonio Kröger, this time in novella length, and it immediately feels intensely autobiographical. The setting at the beginning is Lübeck, recognisable to anyone who knows it, and the final chapters are set on the Baltic coast of Denmark, and the yearning for the sea is tangible on every page.
We had to read this in school, and I remembered the opening chapter best, some phrases have stuck in my memory. The ending was a surprise, that is something I completely missed in my green teenage years. And his description of the sea spoke to me much more than back in the day.

Siren Song

I wanted to get A Man and His Cat 8 off the shelf and read it between books. This style of drawing is just not my thing. Off it goes to another home where it will appreciated more.

Siren Song / Bingo: published in a language not your own

Das schwebende Schachbrett is an unexpected offering from Dutch author Louis Couperus, an Arthurian romance with a twist. The Knights of the Round Table haven’t had an adventure in years and are growing bored, so they ask Merlin for help, and he suggests a repeat of the adventure where a Floating Chessboard comes before King Arthur and leaves again before the game has been finished. Gawain offers to go looking for it.

The author knows his medieval romances very well, I think, and he maintains an antiquated, stilted style of writing until the end, which gives the book the flavour of something much older than the early 20th century (it was first published in 1917). All in all, I prefer his contemporary novels.

>113 MissWatson: When I was in France I saw the Bayeux Tapestry. For a souvenir I purchased (in English) an 80 page full color glossy book which enlarged the panel scene by scene. That is one of my all-time favorite books. In fact, when I used to teach that era of history (which I haven't done in about 20 years), I had the students create their own version of a tapestry for several other events in history. They loved this project. I heard the Tapestry is going to leave France for London in 2026-2027.

>123 Tess_W: I can imagine your students loved such a project!

Siren Song

Another dud, I really should have known better. Der Schatz des Preußenkönigs is a sequel to Das Mozart-Mysterium. Twenty years later, the narrator is more or less kidnapped by soldiers of the King of Prussia. Recently-deceased Voltaire has left him a letter with riddles to solve which will lead to a treasure that Frederick sorely needs. To make matters worse, David’s own sovereign, the Duke of Württemberg, orders him to return immediately or his father will die.
The riddles are trivial, again, so at least they can be solved quickly in the course of a couple of days while assassins are on his tail. The idea that Voltaire should have hired people to leave all these hints and secret messages around Potsdam and Sans Souci palace is just implausible, so the whole pretty much falls flat. I can put this in the bin with no regrets.

AlphaKIT: J / RandomKIT: a writer / Bingo: writing about writers

Two murders are solved in Das Judaskreuz, so strictly speaking it is a historical mystery. But there is much more in this story: memories of the failed Revolution of 1848, rising antisemitism which is getting organised in various forms, urban modernisation and building speculation, a young woman finding her voice as a writer and her independence, and there is also much about Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, one of the leading men of the Enlightenment in Germany, who is to have a monument in Hamburg, which meets with vociferous opposition.

The author is an American who wrote his PhD thesis about Lessing, and it shows in his enthusiasm for his works which are cited frequently. He worked as head archivist in the Duchy of Lauenburg, where part of the story is set, and he clearly knows his stuff. There is almost too much of it, the knowledge imparted sometimes threatens to drown the story, and he describes in detail every route the characters take when moving from point A to Point B, which is a little repetitive whenever the enter the notorious "Gängeviertel" in Hamburg, soon to be demolished. And like many debut novels, this one needed a final read from someone entirely unfamiliar with the text, to see all the typos and incomplete corrections. But that is a minor quibble, it doesn’t detract from a compelling story which tells some very uncomfortable truths about Germany in 1880.

The Big Box / Bingo: features a birth

I realised a little too late that the review I fished from my box is for the movie based on Maupassant’s novel. But since it is full of praise for the book and what the director made of it, we’ll let it stand.

Une vie is the life of Jeanne, from the moment she leaves the convent where she was educated (well, what passes for education in those days) until her old age, and it is not a happy life. She is the only child of a family of the lesser nobility and they move to a castle in Normandy which is to belong to her. They rarely meet other people, and she marries the first young man they meet, introduced by the parish priest. The honeymoon is spent in Corsica, and once they return to her property, because the young man is without means, he shows his true face. She has a son, and the difficult, painful birth is described at length, her husband is unfaithful, is killed by the cuckolded husband, and she devotes herself to her son as an over-protective mother with disastrous results: he runs off with a prostitute, runs up large debts and wastes her fortune.

The novel invites comparison with Madame Bovary, as they are both set in Normandy. The main difference is Jeanne’s passivity, she never takes the initiative, things happen to her and she suffers, because she has nothing to sustain her: no interests, no intellect, she was brought up to be an ornament, and that’s all there is. Even religion is an unreliable prop. It’s fascinating to see how Maupassant matches the seasons and the weather to her inner life: sunshine and seaside fun when she is happy, frost and cold when she is desolate, and lots of rain. Well, we are in Normandy. The author’s love for the area shines through in every description, but I had a feeling that towards the end he seriously disliked his heroine, as she droops and weeps abundantly, and he piles one misfortune on the other. Then again, he is amazingly frank about the sexuality of his heroine, for which he was pilloried, of course. One of those authors you either love or hate because you either hate or despise or pity his characters, but seldom like them.

Author of the Day

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of Thomas Mann’s death, so I took a break from my current book to read another short story: Ein Glück. Very short, but very elegantly written and bitter-sweet.

Siren Song / Bingo: travel

Kazuo Ishiguro is the Author of the Month in August, and I read The buried giant, the last of his books on my shelves. An elderly couple leave their home to walk to a neighbouring village to see their son, and that’s the thing most clear about the story, but even this is vague: is he still alive? Do they have a son?
This is one of the most elusive, unsettling books I’ve ever come across. The place and the time are nebulous: a Dark Age England, after the death of Arthur? There are still dragons and ogres, but an uneasy peace lies over the land. Mostly because people have no or little memory, and our elderly protagonists are also strongly affected. During their travels they meet a Saxon warrior, a young boy, Sir Gawain and some monks, and a mysterious boatman who reappears at the end. It takes an endlessly long time before it becomes clearer what may have happened, and I was very much tempted to give up on it.

We’re having a heatwave and I’ll stay inside, gladly, not doing much. And because today is the 99th birthday of René Goscinny, I will treat myself to a re-read of a Petit Nicolas book.

Author of the Day / AlphaKIT: N / Bingo: child as a main character

Because it’s summer and I have started packing for my own beach holiday, I have chosen Les vacances du petit Nicolas. Every bit as funny and enjoyable as the first time around, I don’t think I’ll ever get bored with these boys.

Siren Song

Der Flakon was a quick and fascinating read. The year is 1756, Frederick of Prussia has invaded Saxony without a declaration of war, the ruler (elector of Saxony and king of Poland) and his prime minister Count Brühl have fled first to fortress Königstein and then Warsaw, waiting for their allies to bring their armies. The queen and the prime minister’s wife have stayed behind in Dresden and watch the Prussians loot everything that can be carried away and destroy the rest. And then Countess Brühl has an idea how to stop the devastation of her country: why not kill Frederick when he is in Leipzig, being polite to the local philosophers and poets? She packs a vial with poison and travels incognito to Leipzig with her maid of honour. Since the war has disrupted the Saxon transport system (nearly all horses have been commandeered into the Prussian army) she must go by an ordinary mailcoach like a normal citizen.
Most of the book is set in the coach, and the reader learns a lot about life in the middle of the 18th century: all the passengers are readers and offer their opinions on the state of the world. The author names quite a few sources for further reading, and I intend to take him up on that. Prussian propaganda has given Brühl a very bad name, and it will be interesting to see a different point of view.

What a fascinating group of books you have read! I have enjoyed catching up on all the eras you mention, and I remember seeing the Bayeux Tapestry when I visited Normandy in college. The intricate details of the stitching attest to the skills of the women who created it.

I hope your summer continues well and can't wait to see what you read next!

>133 threadnsong: Thanks for dropping in! They have been interesting books, and they all made me want to go off and find out more about the era or the people – and then something else catches my eye. There are not enough hours in the day.

RandomKIT: a writer / Bingo: recommended by a friend

Charlotte’s (Charl08) comments prompted me to pick up Töchter which has been languishing on my shelves for some years. My own catalogue tells me I bought it on the recommendation of Kristof Magnusson, so my expectations were probably a bit high. Especially since the blurb promises "LOL" moments. Maybe I’m just too grumpy. There are numerous scenes where I chuckled, and the author has a nifty hand for turning a pithy phrase, but for me it wasn’t all that funny. Mostly because the messy lives that the author unfolds here for us strike me as sad, occasionally pathetic. Partying and getting drunk, as Betty and Martha constantly do, are not my idea of fun.

VIB lists

Töchter is very much a road trip, and the narrator referred to Tschick occasionally, so I took this down from the shelf. It was something of a publishing sensation when it came out and I had avoided it for that reason. My loss, as it is quite entertaining. It reminded me of Alina Bronsky’s books.

AlphaKIT: J

Last year I read an article about Bernhard Schlink on the occasion of his 80th birthday, and it mentioned his first forays into writing, a trilogy of mysteries, which sounded very interesting. And soon after I found Selbs Justiz in a used bookstore.
Reading this turned out to be like a trip down some overgrown sidepaths of memory lane. It was published in 1987, and the protagonist is 68 years old. Looking back on this time, which I lived through as a twentysomething, today when I’m at the same age as Gerhard Selb, I found myself much more in agreement with him than my younger self. Pop culture is frequently referenced, everyone is listening to Madonna and watching Flashdance, and the Green Party are a much-maligned fringe. Then there is the setting: Selb lives in Mannheim, and right across the Rhine is Ludwigshafen, home of BASF, which provides the barely disguised model for the chemistry plant that hires Selb when their computer system is hacked. I regularly passed through both cities when travelling to university and back, and it was such a culture shock: you left the long distance train in Mannheim, took the local train to Ludwigshafen and beyond, and once you crossed the Rhine everyone spoke Palatian dialect. Suddenly you were in the sticks.
I was surprised to find an early case of computer hacking as Selb’s assignment here, but this is only the entrypoint for a tale that reaches back into the nasty part of the chemical company which Selb slowly uncovers with the oldfashioned methods of the time – and in which he himself was involved in a way that wakens long-suppressed memories. Schlink co-wrote this with a friend and I wondered which one of them provided the distinctive writing style. I guess I’ll find out when I read his solo efforts.

>137 MissWatson: Going to put this on my WL. I read his The Reader and it was superb!

>138 Tess_W: It’s on my TBR and moving up the queue.

ColourCAT: grey / CoverCAT: photograph / AlphaKIT: N / RandomKIT: a writer

Das verbotene Notizbuch is one of those books that had to wait decades to be truly appreciated – like so many books written by women. You would hope to find books like these on those infamous lists, instead of eight or seven by the same old white men. This was written in 1952 and first published in a much-abridged version (Natalia Ginzburg did it, or else the Italian publisher wouldn’t have published it at all). The new translation restores the full text.

A woman in Rome goes out to buy cigarettes for her husband and returns with a notebook in which she starts a diary, a journal in which she reflects on her life, her family, her situation.

This is a marvellous, if uncomfortable book. It reminds you how dull, restricted and unsatisfactory life was (and in many cases still is) for women. She has no space of her own in the crowded flat she shares with husband and two almost grown-up children, and she is obsessive about hiding her book. Noone must read what she says here about herself and her family, because it is often the complete opposite of what she says out loud. She is the one who keeps things running in a difficult economic situation, she does all the work, and she has a job to keep the family finances afloat, but nobody ever thinks of offering assistance with household chores. And when they do at last, she refuses help because she cannot cede control.

Tomorrow we leave for our holiday on Föhr, so I’ll be offline for two weeks. I hope the nice weather lasts. We’re not going to do much, just swim and relax, mabye some reading...

See you again in September.

Have a great holiday -- auf wiedersehen!

Enjoy!

I hope you are having a lovely holiday on Föhr! I just visited your thread after some time and took BBs for Das Judaskreuz, Der Flakon and Das verbotene Notizbuch. You have read such an interesting selection of books!

I also hope you are having a wonderful holiday. I just Googled pictures of the island and it looks like a fun place to explore!

>142 christina_reads: >143 Tess_W: >144 MissBrangwen: >145 DeltaQueen50: Thank you, ladies! I just returned with a nice tan, we had fabulous weather and went swimming every day. I even managed to read a book or two!

Siren Song

I picked up Die Ottonen in preparation for some historical fiction about Germany in the tenth century. It is an overview written for university students, rather dry, and far too many genealogical detail about the various noble houses. Too many typos, too, so I’m not keeping it. The good thing is that it helped me decide to DNF the fiction book I had brought along for our vacation. Der Domreiter caught my eye because it is set in Bamberg, but events as told in this book deviated so far from the academic version that I ditched it.

AlphaKIT: B and M / Bingo: nonhuman narrator

My sister brought some audiobooks, and we listened to Boom Boom Babuschka, the latest instalment in a series about meerkats as private investigators. They have teamed up again with the private eye from the first books, and they are now working for Interpol. It’s light, bright fun.

Siren Song

A far more satisfying reading experience was König Artus, where the author takes a look at the legend of King Arthur and its creation, its possible grounding in fact and its afterlife in modern literature. And it’s very well written, too. Worth keeping for the suggested further reading list.

And now I am back home and ready to get back into reading, as soon as I am done with the after-vacation housework.

AlphaKIT: B and M / Bingo: author has relative’s first name

Mord im Böhmischen Prater is the latest in a series of historical mysteries set in Vienna. Retired teacher Ernestine Kirsch and her hapless friend Anton Böck visit the popular fairground and their dog digs up the bones of a corpse buried under one ot the pavilions. Of course she instantly starts asking questions...
I liked this quite a lot, it’s one of the better entries in the series. The plot is nothing new, but well handled. It’s also short and a quick read for a sunny day.

ETA: the author Beate Maly shares her first name with my youngest sister.

>149 MissWatson: I'm adding this one to my wishlist. Heinz Ohff is a good writer.

>152 MissBrangwen: I think you will enjoy this. I learned a lot I didn’t know before.

AlphaKIT: Z

I have finished Pot-Bouille by Émile Zola. We are in a big, new house of the kind enabled by Haussmann’s re-modelling of Paris, and we meet nearly everyone who lives in it. There is a lot of adultery going on, and some truly shocking scenes, given the time this was published. It was a compelling read, though.

AlphaKIT: B and M / MysteryKIT: Silver Age mysteries

The Modesty Blaise novels and comic strips are not exactly mysteries, more adventure stories, but she is a retired criminal and usually chases criminals, so there. As a complete break from the all-too-realistic Zola I took a wonderfully exciting escape with Modesty to the Himalayas in Modesty Blaise : The Black Pearl.

AlphaKIT: B and M / Bingo: a place you’ve never been

The city of Trier is on my bucket list because it is one of the most important Roman settlements in Germany, but it is also a long, long way from where I live...It is also the birthplace of Karl Marx.
So when I ran across Die Akte Marx, which uses the bicentenary of his birth for its plot, I picked it up. The idea was great, the execution is less than stellar. The introduction presents the first heavy air raid on Trier in 1943, an armoured train carrying looted arts and artefacts is waiting in the yard to have a damaged door repaired, and because time presses, someone suggests just unloading the crates and reloading them into another waggon. And while they are doing that, the bombs start hitting and in the confusion one of the train yard workers manages to steal a small crate and hide it.
And then it’s 75 years later and two Dutch tourists are found shot in their rented holiday home, their son is missing, and their landlord reports that they had found an old chest, marked a Reich property, which held old handwritten documents. This is also missing. The detectives find out that someone has been offering manuscripts written by Karl Marx to various dealers in antiquities, but also to the local museum...
The introduction was way too long, especially since none of the people introduced there make another appearance later. The criminal past of the Dutch couple is slowly uncovered, but has little bearing on the main plot and detracts from its development: the documents would show a totally different light on Marx’s work, and some people are still willing to kill to keep his reputation. So at the end we have the Stasi messing with the affair like a deus ex machina, and that’s where things became almost ridiculous.

The idea of a third person having a hand in the redaction of "Das Kapital" was great, but it all peters out unsatisfactorily. The worst part of it was the writing, though, especially the dialogue. Everyone talked in convoluted sentences, like the poor spokespersons for police or fire departments dragged before TV cameras after some occurrence, full of the administrative jargon they write in their reports, but wouldn’t use when talking among themselves. The author also has an unfortunate habit of sending his detectives to some museum and find out something about Marx, and then two chapters later totally new information is discussed that was gained at this visit, but never mentioned before, leaving the reader floundering. No, this was not a success.

I have also started on José Saramago’s Die Geschichte der Belagerung von Lissabon, and it is heavy going. I am not sure if I can finish this, he’s making his readers work too hard. The end of the month is coming closer, and there’s much else I’d like to get to.

CoverCAT: cat on the cover / AlphaKIT: M / RandomKIT: cardinal direction in title / Bingo: read a CAT

I put the Saramago aside to read Mord im Nord-Ostsee-Express, a mystery set in my home state, Northern Frisia, to be exact. It’s part of a series about a village policeman and his clique of friends who get involved in far too many murders for his wife’s taste. This time they’re planning a trip to Paris with the rest of their French adult education class, but a freak snowfall stops the train and one of the passengers is killed.
This is a tongue-in-cheek hommage to Agatha Christie, and not quite as cosy as you would think, the two hired killers are rather nasty characters. The rest is the usual fun, and a quick read.

I completely forgot my monthly draw from the Big Box, and when I finally did put my hand in it, I found a review for The silence of the girls, so that’s next.

Our State Library has reopened after a complete remodelling and offered an Open Day today, so I went to see what they’ve done with it. They invited Aat Vos to design it as a third space, and it’s turned out great. I’m looking forward to spend more time there, today they were completely overrun by curious visitors. I hope many of them return as actual users.

>157 MissWatson: Blindness is a good read, not too testing.

>160 pamelad: Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll take a look.

The Big Box / AlphaKIT: B / Bingo: features fire

The silence of the girls re-tells the main event of the Iliad from the viewpoint of Briseis, mostly. From most reviews I had gathered that this is a look at the Trojan War from the women’s viewpoint, but I don’t really see this. In the second and third parts we get more and more third-person narrative passages that show Achilles’ POV, and at one point she even states that this is not her story, but that of Achilles. And I can’t say that she does really add anything to it, unless it be her uncompromising description of the stench, blood and squalor of the camps, and the brutality of the killing.
My biggest disappointment is that we never get a sense of being in ancient times. That may not have been the author’s intention, reasoning that we are too far separated from the mindset of these people to get into their heads, but it means that I failed to engage fully with the story. Everyone continually says "god knows" or "my god", we are plainly not in a pantheist world ruled by spiteful, treacherous, libidinous gods, and that simply did not work for me.

ETA note to self: On the same page as the review in the Economist, there is one for a biography of John Law, written by James Buchan which sounds like something to get from the library John Law A Scottish Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century.

AlphaKIT: M / Bingo: long title

To take my mind off the gruesome details of the Trojan War, I turned to a gentle cosy mystery: Frau Helbing und der Casanova aus Winterhude by Eberhard Michaely.
Our old lady has been gifted an aqua gym course and is enjoying it very much, but then one of the other women in her group is found dead. She sets out to find out more about her, and learns more than is quite healthy...
She is a sprightly character and her sleuthing hobby exposes her to new experiences, which she welcomes. And it’s always nice to read about Hamburg.

MysteryKIT: Silver Age mysteries

Still procrastinating over the Saramago, and I took refuge in a historical mystery written in 1978: Waxwork. I found this at my charity bookshop and picked it up on a whim, not knowing the author. It is quite short, compared to modern offerings, well written and a pleasant surprise.
I wondered about the odd parallel narratives: in one we meet a woman who confesses to having poisoned her husband’s employee who blackmailed her, in the other the public hangman goes to London to hang the woman and is invited by Tussaud’s to having his likeness taken, and the two strands never really mesh. There’s also a lot about photography in those days in these few pages. Not to mention the political infighting at the Met...

Erich Maria Remarque died fifty-five years ago today. I watched an interesting documentary the other night, about his relationship with Marlene Dietrich, which said that he wrote Arc de Triomphe for her. I think I’ll read this next, for my Author of the Day category...

Dropping in to say hello and happy almost-October.

>149 MissWatson: This sounds like a great book. It seems to combine two of my own areas of interest: the historical Arthur, and how his legend took such a hold.

>154 MissWatson: Zola was a literary revolutionary in his time.

I'll be following with interest whether you pick up the Saramago again. And congratulations on your new library! Hope you enjoy it and are joined by many of the people who were at the opening.

>166 threadnsong: Hi, nice to see you! Yes, the Arthur book was a real gem, and I would like to read more from this author.
And I borrowed a book already from the remodelled library. The transformation from closed silo to welcoming and open space is very promising.

Author of the Day: EM Remarque / AlphaKIT: M

Arc de Triomphe is the book Remarque promised to write for Marlene Dietrich when they started an affair. However, as the relationship progressed, changed and finally died, so did the book change.
I think the main character here is Paris, or at least the 8th arrondissement where Remarque himself lived during much the same time of the action in the book: November 1938 til September 1939. It shows the precarious lives of the many refugees stuck in Paris without papers, and although the hero is rather lucky when it comes to money (he earns it as a surgeon working illegally), he is not safe, he does get deported once.
The love affair is a strange one, because they talk endlessly, but I never really got a sense of what makes Joan tick. She remains enigmatic, and we learn next to nothing about her history.
What I also found interesting is that Remarque’s long residence abroad affected his language, there are some odd phrases here which are literal translations from English, but do not exist in this form in German. He addressed this problem himself in an interview which was included in my edition.

ColourCAT: Silver / MysteryKIT: Silver Age mysteries

I needed some escapist fantasy after the rather grim Remarque and turned to Modesty Blaise with The Silver Mistress. She never disappoints.

And that’s it for September. I’ve got another book started, but won’t finish it today. Tomorrow I’m leaving to spend a few days with my sister and will be offline. Seems a good opportunity to start a new thread for the final quarter of the year...

You can find me here https://www.librarything.com/topic/374267