Ursula's Relaxed Reading and Listening (2)
This is a continuation of the topic Ursula's Relaxed Reading and Listening.
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1ursula
I realized the image-heavy nature of my thread was taking too long to get into, so I'm starting a new one. With an image, haha.
My intro:
Hi! I'm Ursula. I am originally from central/northern California, but I have been living in southwestern Germany for 3 years at this point. If you know me, you know there have been a bunch of other places I've lived since 2007. If you're new, the list is: Denver, Colorado; Ghent, Belgium; Antioch, California; Padua, Italy; Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Fresno, California; Istanbul, Türkiye.
I'm 54, and my husband Morgan is 45. We live here in Germany with our 3 cats (2 American, 1 Turkish). I honestly don't know what I read anymore - generally I've always gravitated towards darker literary fiction but for the last couple of years I've had a hard time getting the same kind of enjoyment out of my reading that I used to. And yet, I have a hard time reading light books. It's a quandary! But that's why I titled my thread "relaxed" reading - I'm intending to follow my whims more. We'll see how that turns out.
In addition to reading, I do a lot of urban sketching (drawing what I see, on location), an example of which you can see above, and I listen to a lot of music. I like to listen from various lists in addition to whatever I choose for myself - I've done the Rolling Stone 500 and the 1001 Albums You Must Listen to Before You Die*, I listen to year-end best-of lists, and whatever else grabs me.
*I got tired of what that list was choosing for 2006 so I crowd-sourced recommendations instead and I'm working through a ton of albums from that year at the moment
My intro:
Hi! I'm Ursula. I am originally from central/northern California, but I have been living in southwestern Germany for 3 years at this point. If you know me, you know there have been a bunch of other places I've lived since 2007. If you're new, the list is: Denver, Colorado; Ghent, Belgium; Antioch, California; Padua, Italy; Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Fresno, California; Istanbul, Türkiye.
I'm 54, and my husband Morgan is 45. We live here in Germany with our 3 cats (2 American, 1 Turkish). I honestly don't know what I read anymore - generally I've always gravitated towards darker literary fiction but for the last couple of years I've had a hard time getting the same kind of enjoyment out of my reading that I used to. And yet, I have a hard time reading light books. It's a quandary! But that's why I titled my thread "relaxed" reading - I'm intending to follow my whims more. We'll see how that turns out.
In addition to reading, I do a lot of urban sketching (drawing what I see, on location), an example of which you can see above, and I listen to a lot of music. I like to listen from various lists in addition to whatever I choose for myself - I've done the Rolling Stone 500 and the 1001 Albums You Must Listen to Before You Die*, I listen to year-end best-of lists, and whatever else grabs me.
*I got tired of what that list was choosing for 2006 so I crowd-sourced recommendations instead and I'm working through a ton of albums from that year at the moment
2ursula
Completed Books
The Expat by Hansen Shi
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal Al Saadawi
The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
22 Bahnen by Caroline Wahl
Atavists by Lydia Millet
Piglet by Lottie Hazell
Every Arc Bends Its Radian by Sergio de la Pava
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
London Rules by Mick Herron
The Laughter by Sonora Jha
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Expat by Hansen Shi
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal Al Saadawi
The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
22 Bahnen by Caroline Wahl
Atavists by Lydia Millet
Piglet by Lottie Hazell
Every Arc Bends Its Radian by Sergio de la Pava
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
London Rules by Mick Herron
The Laughter by Sonora Jha
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3ursula
I'm also going to copy and paste my message from the last thread with my monthly playlist.
Well it's the beginning of the month, so it's time for my playlist of songs I found notable in March. This time there are kind of a lot of new releases, but also a mix of other things that I was listening to over the course of the month.
Apple Music playlist
Track listing:
Lime Garden - 23
Citizen - Needs
Hiding Places - Waiting
Courtney Barnett - Sugar Plum
Ulrika Spacek - Showroom Poetry
Gladie - Car Alarm
Rosali - Rewind
Craig Finn - Messing with the Settings
Buck Meek - Soul Feeling
The Hotelier - Among the Wildflowers
Owen - Use Your Words
Mandy, Indiana - Magazine
Sam Cohen - Spinning Love
Ora Cogan - Division
Snail Mail - Tractor Beam
Soccer Mommy - Changes
Brown Horse - Everlasting
Claire Ozmun - Always Living Somewhere
Big Brave - Not Speaking of the Ways
Well it's the beginning of the month, so it's time for my playlist of songs I found notable in March. This time there are kind of a lot of new releases, but also a mix of other things that I was listening to over the course of the month.
Apple Music playlist
Track listing:
Lime Garden - 23
Citizen - Needs
Hiding Places - Waiting
Courtney Barnett - Sugar Plum
Ulrika Spacek - Showroom Poetry
Gladie - Car Alarm
Rosali - Rewind
Craig Finn - Messing with the Settings
Buck Meek - Soul Feeling
The Hotelier - Among the Wildflowers
Owen - Use Your Words
Mandy, Indiana - Magazine
Sam Cohen - Spinning Love
Ora Cogan - Division
Snail Mail - Tractor Beam
Soccer Mommy - Changes
Brown Horse - Everlasting
Claire Ozmun - Always Living Somewhere
Big Brave - Not Speaking of the Ways
4dchaikin
>1 ursula: love your picture and its little date stamp
5FlorenceArt
Yay for cherry blossoms and spring! Love the drawing.
6ursula
>4 dchaikin: thanks! I started date stamping my drawings back in 2020. I have two German stamps and one Turkish one.
7ursula
>5 FlorenceArt: Definitely, it was during a bit of a false spring so the weather was amazing for them. I will admit to being a little daunted by the pink cloud-like trees but I was happy in the end with how I decided to deal with them.
8ursula
Currently reading
The Fourth Wife by Linda Hamilton
Also currently toying with DNFing. It's taking place in the late 1800s in Utah and the narrator becomes the titular fourth wife to a man who lives in a weird and off-putting manor house. It's okay. I'm not sure I buy the setting, I don't know that it's a case where the narrator is a thinly disguised Modern Woman, but she certainly doesn't seem to have any interior life beyond "the scriptures say".
It better start getting haunted real quick.
The Fourth Wife by Linda Hamilton
Also currently toying with DNFing. It's taking place in the late 1800s in Utah and the narrator becomes the titular fourth wife to a man who lives in a weird and off-putting manor house. It's okay. I'm not sure I buy the setting, I don't know that it's a case where the narrator is a thinly disguised Modern Woman, but she certainly doesn't seem to have any interior life beyond "the scriptures say".
It better start getting haunted real quick.
9ursula
It did not, in fact, get haunted real quick.
Or at least I didn't stick around to wait on it. So another DNF. Moved on to The Laughter by Sonora Jha
Or at least I didn't stick around to wait on it. So another DNF. Moved on to The Laughter by Sonora Jha
10BLBera
I love the art at the top, Ursula.
Sorry you are having a hard time finding a book that appeals. is your daughter visiting?
Sorry you are having a hard time finding a book that appeals. is your daughter visiting?
11ursula
HELLO!
I'm back. I think. I have another trip coming up in a couple of weeks, so we'll see how that goes.
>10 BLBera: Yes, my daughter came to visit in the last half of April. It was a great time, although we did manage to pack a lot of traveling into the time. It's both amazing what you can do in 9 days, and amazing how much can't be fit in.
I'm back. I think. I have another trip coming up in a couple of weeks, so we'll see how that goes.
>10 BLBera: Yes, my daughter came to visit in the last half of April. It was a great time, although we did manage to pack a lot of traveling into the time. It's both amazing what you can do in 9 days, and amazing how much can't be fit in.
12ursula
In the intervening time, I finished two books:
The Laughter was a book that I didn't exactly enjoy, but it will stick with me. It's almost impossible to talk about without the kinds of spoilers I don't like to read in a description. I'll just say it takes place at a university in the US, and involves 3 main characters - an older, white male professor, a female Muslim professor who he is interested in, and her teenage nephew who has been sent from Toulouse to live with her for a little while.
We Used to Live Here was a recommendation by someone on social media and a good reminder why I don't normally take recommendations from social media! It's a horror novel a bit in the style of House of Leaves (meaning there is house-related weirdness and there are some supposed "documents" involved) but shorter. Anyway, it was fine but not the most well-written or spellbinding thing I've read. Once I was finished I looked it up and found out that it started out as some posts on Reddit and well, if I'd read that first, I probably wouldn't have bothered with it!
The Laughter was a book that I didn't exactly enjoy, but it will stick with me. It's almost impossible to talk about without the kinds of spoilers I don't like to read in a description. I'll just say it takes place at a university in the US, and involves 3 main characters - an older, white male professor, a female Muslim professor who he is interested in, and her teenage nephew who has been sent from Toulouse to live with her for a little while.
We Used to Live Here was a recommendation by someone on social media and a good reminder why I don't normally take recommendations from social media! It's a horror novel a bit in the style of House of Leaves (meaning there is house-related weirdness and there are some supposed "documents" involved) but shorter. Anyway, it was fine but not the most well-written or spellbinding thing I've read. Once I was finished I looked it up and found out that it started out as some posts on Reddit and well, if I'd read that first, I probably wouldn't have bothered with it!
13ursula
My hard drive crashed yesterday so I unfortunately don't have access to most of my photos, but here is a picture of the Moselle from the castle in Cochem, which we visited with my daughter.
14FlorenceArt
>13 ursula: Great photo! I hope you can recover your hard drive.
15ursula
>14 FlorenceArt: Oh! Yes, I should have mentioned that it seems it's not that tragic, Morgan is in the process of recovering the files and putting them on a new drive. It's just annoying for a few days while that's being done.
16dchaikin
>13 ursula: oh no! Glad it's recoverable. Gorgeous photo!
17AlisonY
>13 ursula: A photo very much taken with an artist's eye ;)
18ursula
>16 dchaikin: Thank you! All seems to be (mostly) good. There are a few ghost files, but I think they're all caught in some weird limbo of things that were deleted but my computer insists they should still be there.
>17 AlisonY: Well ... ☺️
>17 AlisonY: Well ... ☺️
19ursula
I'm having such difficulty just coming back for real. Not sure precisely why. I'm up to 16 books read so far this year (what a tiny little total!), and I've just finished the historical fiction book I was reading in German.
I've been editing photos from the trip with Em to send to her, and then Morgan and I went to Naples, and now we're back and it's currently 38 days until the Urban Sketchers symposium in Toulouse. I want to take a nap for a week or so.
I've been editing photos from the trip with Em to send to her, and then Morgan and I went to Naples, and now we're back and it's currently 38 days until the Urban Sketchers symposium in Toulouse. I want to take a nap for a week or so.
