MissWatson roams the centuries, part 3

Hello, I'm Birgit, I live on the shore of the Baltic Sea and this is my eighth year in the CategoryChallenge. This year I'm taking things a little easier. I won't set numerical goals for my categories. Fiction reading will be categorised just by the century it was written in. There's a subgroup for historical fiction set in that period. Overlap between the CATs is allowed, even welcomed in the spirit of achieving CATtricks. Of course there's room for the Bingo and other reading challenges. By happy coincidence we're having a HistoryCAT this year, which fits in nicely with my plans.

21st century



Time flies
Faster and faster, and sometimes I can't believe this century is already two decades old!

1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
2. Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
3. Wie die Tiere by Wolf Haas
4. Papanini : Pinguin per Post by Ute Krause
5. Papanini : Pinguin in Gefahr by Ute Krause
6. The mortal word by Genevieve Cogman
7. Old Filth by Jane Gardam
8. To be taught if fortunate by Becky Chambers
9. Die Muskeltiere und die rattenscharfe Party by Ute Krause
10. Die Muskeltiere und das Weihnachtswunder by Ute Krause
11. Unter Katzenfreunden by Axel Scheffler and Frantz Wittkamp
12. Heimsuchung by Jenny Erpenbeck
13. Kurt – EinHorn, eine Mission by Chantal Schreiber
14. Die vielen Talente der Schwestern Gusmão by Martha Batalha
15. Der falsche Inder by Abbas Khider
16. Der Wald ruft by Moritz Matthies
17. Civilizations by Laurent Binet
18. Poulets grillés by Sophie Hénaff
19. Gray by Leonie Swann
20. Mary Celeste : Ein Schiff auf ewiger Reise by Eigel Wiese
21. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
22. Frère d'âme by David Diop
23. Die Muskeltiere und die große Käseverschwörung by Ute Krause
24. Kommissar Pascha by Su Turhan

20th century



While I breathe, I hope
Two great wars and innumerable conflicts make this century very bleak. Literature reflects this and I have mostly ignored it (genre fiction apart). Time to remedy this by means of lists, lists and more lists.

One of the lists I'm using for this project is Deutsche Welle's "A century of books" which presents 100 seminal titles by German authors whose books have been translated into English: https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/100-must-reads/s-43415865

1. Elkes Sommer im Sonnenhof by Emma Gündel-Knacke
2. Das fliegende Klassenzimmer by Erich Kästner
3. Verschlossen und verriegelt by Sjöwall/Wahlöö
4. Astérix et les normands by Goscinny/Uderzo
5. Mirjam by Luise Rinser
6. Skandinavische Märchen
7. Au rendezvous des Terre-Neuvas by Georges Simenon
8. Die tückische Straße by Walter Serner
9. Tage der Kindheit by Waldemar Bonsels
10. The doll's house and other stories by Katherine Mansfield
11. The return of the soldier by Rebecca West
12. Liebe kleine Ursula by Margarete Hahn
13. Drei Kameraden by Erich Maria Remarque
14. Uncommon danger by Eric Ambler
15. Von alten Menschen, den Dingen, die vorübergehen by Louis Couperus
16. La maison du juge by Georges Simenon
17. Die dritte Kugel by Leo Perutz
18. Der Flachsacker by Stijn Streuvels
19. Der letzte Sommer by Ricarda Huch
20. The borrowers by Mary Norton
21. The Z murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon
22. Heimweh nach Prag by Joseph Roth
23. Summer by Edith Wharton
24. The riddle of the sands by Erskine Childers. DNF
25. Tuf voyaging by George R.R. Martin
26. Phantom Banjo by Elizabeth Scarborough
27. Das Blockhaus am Minnewana by Käthe Recheis
28. Dammbau by Margarete Boie
29. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
30. Ja, damals ... by Else Hueck-Dehio
31. Der große Augenblick by Clarice Lispector
32. Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Historical fiction
1. Tod an der Wien by Beate Maly
2. Mord auf der Donau by Beate Maly
3. Sommer in Wien by Petra Hartlieb
4. Der tote Rittmeister by Elsa Dix
5. Die Tote in der Sommerfrische by Elsa Dix
6. A necessary evil by Abir Mukherjee
7. Ein königliches Theater by Marco Malvaldi

19th century



Faster, higher, stronger
My favourite literary period. So many great classics! Also a century that believed in progress and competition.

Unterm Birnbaum by Theodor Fontane
Clair de lune {et autres nouvelles} by Guy de Maupassant
Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
The beach of Falesá by RL Stevenson
The ebb-tide by RL Stevenson
Elizabeth and her German garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Alice's adventures in wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the looking-glass by Lewis Carroll
The struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson by Anthony Trollope
Die beiden Baroninnen by Hans Christian Andersen
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Humoristischer Hausschatz by Wilhelm Busch
The chronicles of Carlingford by Mrs Oliphant

Historical fiction
Die rote Stadt by Boris Meyn
The reluctant widow by Georgette Heyer
Death comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
Die sizilianische Oper by Andrea Camilleri
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Feuer in der Hafenstadt by Anja Marschall
Falschmünzer des Kaisers by Nora Urban
Mystère rue des Saints-Pères by Claude Izner

18th century



Dare to know.
The Age of Reason or Enlightenment. Novels written in this century tend to be dreary or moralising, but there's lots of historical fiction here.

Historical fiction
Maria Christina : Tagebuch einer Tochter by Rebecca Novak
Der Grenadier und der stille Tod by Petra Reategui
Die Dame mit der bemalten Hand by Christine Wunnicke
1794 by Niklas Natt och Dag

17th century



From the deep I call.
A time of religious disputes and wars in the middle of Europe. If I can finish five books written in this period, I shall be truly proud of myself.

Historical fiction
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
Das Fräulein von Scuderi by ETA Hoffmann
Die Schatten von La Rochelle by Tanja Kinkel
Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Before 1600



What we are you will be.
I don't see myself reading many books actually written in these centuries, but you never know until you try.

HistoryCAT



Since the foundation of the city.
History is a subject that fascinates me, some periods more than others. This is a strictly non-fiction section. The category title is taken from Livy's history of Rome.

hosting December

January: Middle Ages
Krieger und Bauern by Georges Duby
Die Ritter by Karl-Heinz Göttert
The Byzantine Economy by Angeliki Laiou
Einladung ins Mittelalter by Horst Fuhrmann

February: Modern 1800 to now
The War in the Peninsula by Robert Knowles
Rifles by Mark Urban
Die King's German Legion 1803-1816 by Jens Mastnak
L'économie de la Révolution Française by Florin Aftalion

March: early modern era 1500-1800
Piraten und Korsaren im Mittelmeer by Salvatore Bono
The Queen's agent by John Cooper
The world of Renaissance Florence
Der Astronom und die Hexe by Ulinka Rublack

April: ancient history
Rom : Aufstieg einer antiken Weltmacht
Entfernte Zeiten so nah : Pandemien und Krisen

May: Dynasties, civilisations, empires
The fate of Rome by Kyle Harper

June: War, Military, Revolutions
Bürger, Bauern, Söldner und Gesandte by Gunnar Teske
Les deux régentes by Simone Bertière

July: Social history
A la table des seigneurs, des moines et des paysans du Moyen Âge by Eric Birlouez
Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra by Harald Meller and Kai Michel

August: Your own country
La traversée de la nuit by Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz
Ostpreußen : Geschichte einer historischen Landschaft by Andreas Kossert
1813 : Die Völkerschlacht und das Ende der Alten Welt by Andreas Platthaus

September: Religion/Philosophy/Politics/Law
Götter und Mythen des Nordens by Klaus Böldl
Die Welt aus den Angeln by Philipp Blom

RandomCAT



The dice is cast.
The quintessence of randomness, and my favourite category.

January: LOL
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The reluctant widow by Georgette Heyer

February: Fruits & veggies
Unterm Birnbaum by Theodor Fontane

March: Surprise
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
Wie die Tiere by Wolf Haas
The ebb-tide by Robert L Stevenson

April: from the library of a fellow LTer
Mirjam by Luise Rinser
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
To be taught if fortunate by Becky Chambers

May: Let's play Monopoly
The Doll's House and others stories by Katherine Mansfield
Drei Kameraden by Erich Maria Remarque
La maison du juge by Georges Simenon

June: Everything old is new
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

July: Summer!
Elizabeth and her German garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Summer by Edith Wharton
Der tote Rittmeister by Elsa Dix
Die beiden Baroninnen by Hans Christian Andersen
Die Tote in der Sommerfrische by Elsa Dix

August: On the road again
Tuf voyaging by George R.R. Martin
Phantom Banjo by Elizabeth Scarborough

September: Winner, winner
Frère d'âme by David Diop

GenreCAT



Variation delights.
I am very much looking forward to buffet reading.

January: Non-fiction
Krieger und Bauern by Georges Duby
Die Ritter by Karl-Heinz Göttert
The Byzantine Economy by Angeliki Laiou
Einladung ins Mittelalter by Horst Fuhrmann

February: memoir/biography
Monteverdi by Wulf Konold

March: Action and Adventure
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

April: Literary Fiction
Mirjam by Luise Rinser
Old Filth by Jane Gardam

May: Short stories/essays
Die tückische Straße by Walter Serner
The doll's house and other stories by Katherine Mansfield

June: Historical fiction
Sommer in Wien by Petra Hartlieb
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Feuer in der Hafenstadt by Anja Marschall
Die Schatten von La Rochelle by Tanja Kinkel
Die Dame mit der bemalten Hand by Christine Wunnicke
Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

July: Romance
Summer by Edith Wharton
Der tote Rittmeister by Elsa Dix
Die Tote in der Sommerfrische by Elsa Dix

August: Poetry/Plays/Graphic Novel
Humoristischer Hausschatz by Wilhelm Busch

September: Children's / YA
Das Blockhaus am Minnewana by Käthe Recheis
Die Muskeltiere und die große Käseverschwörung by Ute Krause

hosting SFF in November

BingoDOG



Beware the dog.
There's no need to worry, the BingoDOG is a cute little puppy! Which is why I am going to do a second card in the second half of the year. The markers are placeholder for now.



1: Elizabeth and her German garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
3: Summer by Edith Wharton
4: L'économie de la Révolution Française by Florin Aftalion
5: Der falsche Inder by Abbas Khider
7: La traversée de la nuit by Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz
8: Frère d'âme by David Diop
9: Der tote Rittmeister by Elsa Dix
11: Die beiden Baroninnen by Hans Christian Andersen
13: A necessary evil by Abir Mukherjee
14: Civilizations by Laurent Binet
15: Ein königliches Theater by Marco Malvaldi
17: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
18: A la table des seigneurs, des moines et des paysans du Moyen Âge by Eric Birlouez
19: Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra by Harald Meller and Kai Michel
21: Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
22: Les deux régentes by Simone Bertière
23: Der Wald ruft by Moritz Matthies
24: Der große Augenblick by Clarice Lispector

January: 2,470 pages
February: 2,749 pages
March: 3,890 pages
April: 2,915 pages
May: 3,719 pages
June: 3,172 pages
July: 4,793 pages
August: 3,782 pages
September: 3,120 pages

The Popsugar reading challenge:

A book that's published in 2021 Sommer in Wien by Petra Hartlieb
An Afrofuturist book Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
A book that has a heart, diamond, club, or spade on the cover Alice's adventures in wonderland by Lewis Carroll
A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign Unterm Birnbaum by Theodor Fontane
A dark academia book Krieger und Bauern by Georges Duby
A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title
A book where the main character works at your current or dream job Tod an der Wien by Beate Maly
A book that has won the Women's Prize For Fiction
A book with a family tree Les deux régentes by Simone Bertière
A bestseller from the 1990s
A book about forgetting The return of the soldier by Rebecca West
A book you have seen on someone's bookshelf (in real life, on a Zoom call, in a TV show, etc.)
A locked-room mystery Verschlossen und verriegelt by Sjöwall/Wahlöö
A genre hybrid Die Tote in der Sommerfrische by Elsa Dix
A book set mostly or entirely outdoors Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
A book with something broken on the cover Die Schatten von La Rochelle by Tanja Kinkel
A book by a Muslim author Der falsche Inder by Abbas Khider
A book that was published anonymously
A book with an oxymoron in the title
A book about do-overs or fresh starts Die rote Stadt by Boris Meyn
A book set in multiple countries Die tückische Straße by Walter Serner
A book set somewhere you'd like to visit in 2021 Mord auf der Donau by Beate Maly
A book recommended by a blogger, vlogger, YouTube video creator, or other online personality Entfernte Zeiten so nah : Pandemien und Krisen
A book whose title starts with "Q," "X," or "Z"
A book featuring three generations (grandparent, parent, child) Von alten Menschen, den Dingen, die vorübergehen by Louis Couperus
A book about a social justice issue Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
A book set in a restaurant Au rendezvous des Terre-Neuvas by Georges Simenon
A book with a black-and-white cover
A book by an lndigenous author
A book that has the same title as a song A necessary evil by Abir Mukherjee
A book about a subject you are passionate about The fate of Rome by Kyle Harper
A book in a different format than what you normally read (audiobooks, ebooks, graphic novels) Astérix et les normands by Goscinny/Uderzo
A book that has fewer than 1,000 reviews on Amazon or Goodreads Maria Christina : Tagebuch einer Tochter by Rebecca Novak
A book you think your best friend would like
A book about art or an artist Monteverdi by Wulf Konold
A book that discusses body positivity
A book everyone seems to have read but you
A book found on a Black Lives Matter reading list
Your favorite prompt from a past Popsugar Reading Challenge

Advanced
The longest book (by pages) on your TBR list
The shortest book (by pages) on your TBR list The War in the Peninsula by Robert Knowles
The book on your TBR list with the prettiest cover
The book on your TBR list with the ugliest cover Falschmünzer des Kaisers by Nora Urban
The book that's been on your TBR list for the longest amount of time Skandinavische Märchen
A book from your TBR list you meant to read last year but didn't
A book from your TBR list you associate with a favorite person, place, or thing Die beiden Baroninnen by HC Andersen
A book from your TBR list chosen at random A la table des seigneurs, des moines et des paysans du Moyen Âge by Eric Birlouez
A DNF book from your TBR list The riddle of the sands by Erskine Childers
A free book from your TBR list (gifted, borrowed, library) Das Fräulein von Scuderi by ETA Hoffmann

This is for the GoodReads Around the Year Challenge, borrowed from Judy's thread.

1. Related to "In the Beginning": Feuer in der Hafenstadt by Anja Marschall
2. Author's Name Has No "A, T or Y": Monteverdi by Wulf Konold
3. Related to the lyrics of the song "Favorite Things": Elizabeth and her German garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
4. Monochromatic Cover: Krieger und Bauern by Georges Duby
5. Author is on USA Today's List of 100 Black Novelists You Should Read: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
6. A Love Story: Maria Christina : Tagebuch einer Tochter by Rebecca Novak
7. Fits a Suggestion that Didn't Make the Final List: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
8. Set somewhere you have never visited: Verschlossen und verriegelt by Sjöwall/Wahlöö
9. Associated with a specific season or time of year: Summer by Edith Wharton
10. A female villain or criminal: Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
11. Celebrates The Grand Egyptian Museum: Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra by Harald Meller and Kai Michel
12. Written by a woman and translated to English: Der letzte Sommer by Ricarda Huch
13. Written by an author of one of your best reads in 2020:
14. Set in a made up place: Tuf voyaging by George R.R. Martin
15. Siblings as main characters: Der Wald ruft by Moritz Matthies
16. A building in the title: The doll's house and other stories by Katherine Mansfield
17. Muslim character or author: Die Dame mit der bemalten Hand by Christine Wunnicke
18. Related to the past: Adeliges Leben im Baltikum by Agnese Bergholde-Wolf
19. Related to the present: Heimsuchung by Jenny Erpenbeck
20. Related to the future: To be fortunate if taught by Becky Chambers
21. Title and Author contain the letter U: Einladung ins Mittelalter by Horst Fuhrmann
22. Posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month Threads:
23. A Cross Genre Novel: Die Tote in der Sommerfrische by Elsa Dix
24. About Racism or Race Relations:
25. Set on an island: Die sizilianische Oper by Andrea Camilleri
26. A Short Book (less than 210 pages): Unterm Birnbaum by Theodor Fontane
27. Book has a character that could be found in a deck of cards: Through the looking-glass by Lewis Carroll
28. Connected to ice: Die Welt aus den Angeln by Philipp Blom
29. A Comfort Read: Liebe kleine Ursula by Margarete Hahn
30. A Long Book: Les deux régentes by Simone Bertière
31. Author's career spanned more than 21 years: The reluctant widow by Georgette Heyer
32. Cover shows more than 2 people: Tage der Kindheit by Waldemar Bonsels
33. A Collection of Short Stories, Essays or Poetry: Clair de lune {et autres nouvelles} by Guy de Maupassant
34. A book with a travel theme: Der falsche Inder by Abbas Khider
35. Set in a country on or below the Tropic of Cancer: Die vielen Talente der Schwestern Gusmão by Martha Batalha
36. Six or More Words in the Title: A la table des seigneurs, des moines et des paysans du Moyen Âge by Eric Birlouez
37. From the "Are You Well Read in Literature List": Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
38. Related to a word given to you by a random word generator:
39. Involves an immigrant: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
40. Flowers or Greenery on the cover:
41. A new-to-you BIPOC Author:
42. A Mystery or Thriller: Die rote Stadt by Boris Meyn
43. Contains elements of magic: Astérix et les normands by Goscinny/Uderzo
44. Title Contains a Negative:
45. Related to a codeword from the NATO phoenic alphabet:
46. Winner or nominee from the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards:
47. Non-Fiction book other than a Memoir or a Biography: Rifles : Six years with Wellington's legendary sharpshooters by Mark Urban
48. Might cause someone to say "You Read What!!":
49. Book with an ensemble cast: Von alten Menschen, den Dingen, die vorübergehen by Louis Couperus
50. Published in 2021: Sommer in Wien by Petra Hartlieb
51. Refers to a character without giving their name: Der Astronom und die Hexe by Ulinka Rublack
52. Related to "The End": Skandinavische Märchen

And here it is, the classics challenge discovered on Leslie's thread.

1. A 19th century classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899. Unterm Birnbaum by Theodor Fontane
2. A 20th century classic - any book published between 1900 and 1971. Drei Kameraden by Erich Maria Remarque
3. A classic by a woman author. The return of the soldier by Rebecca West
4. A classic in translation. Von alten Menschen, den Dingen, die vorübergehen by Louis Couperus
5. A children's classic. Alice's adventures in wonderland by Lewis Carroll
6. A classic crime story, fiction or non-fiction. Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
7. A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or non-fiction. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
8. A classic with a single-word title. Summer by Edith Wharton
9. A classic with a color in the title. The Woman in White; Anne of Green Gables; The Red and the Black, and so on. (Silver, gold, etc. are acceptable. Basically, if it's a color in a Crayola box of crayons, it's fine!)
10. A classic by an author that's new to you: Der Flachsacker by Stijn Streuvels
11. A classic that scares you. Is there a classic you've been putting off forever? A really long book which intimidates you because of its sheer length? Now's the time to read it, and hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised!
12. Re-read a favorite classic. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

And because I am utterly insane, here is also the #WomenReading21 Challenge (enabled by ELiz_M):
1) A Book Longlisted for the JCB Prize
2) An Author from Eastern Europe:
3) A Book About Incarceration La traversée de la nuit by Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz
4) A Cookbook by a Woman of Color: Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible
5) A Book with a Protagonist Older than 50: Tod an der Wien by Beate Maly
6) A Book by a South American Author in Translation: Die vielen Talente der Schwestern Gusmão by Martha Batalha
7) Reread a Favorite Book The reluctant widow by Georgette Heyer
8) A Memoir by an Indigenous, First Nations, Native, or Aboriginal Woman:
9) A Book by a Neurodivergent Author
10) A Crime Novel or Thriller in Translation:
11) A Book About the Natural World
12) A Young Adult Novel by a Latinx Author
13) A Poetry Collection by a Black Woman
14) A Book with a Biracial Protagonist:
15) A Muslim Middle Grade Novel
16) A Book Featuring a Queer Love Story
17) About a Woman in Politics Les deux régentes by Simone Bertière
18) A Book with a Rural Setting: Summer by Edith Wharton
19) A Book with a Cover Designed by a Woman To be taught if fortunate by Becky Chambers
20) A Book by an Arab Author in Translation
21) A Book by a Trans Author
22) A Fantasy Novel by an Asian Author
23) A Nonfiction Book Focused on Social Justice
24) A Short Story Collection by a Caribbean Author
BONUS
25) A Book by Alexis Wright
26) A Book by Tsitsi Dangarembga
27) A Book by Leila Aboulela
28) A Book by Yoko Ogawa

Welcome to the summer edition of my challenge!

Wow! I'd forgotten quite how many lists you had on the go! I love a list, but there's no way I could come close to finishing all of those.

Happy new thread and hope your summer reading is every bit as producitve as the year so far.

>17 Helenliz: Hello, Helen! Yes, I tend to take on too much, but I don't stress myself over actually finishing them. It's more a reminder to read a bit beyond my comfort zone.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread and have fun with your second BingoDOG card!

Happy new thread!

Happy New Thread! It does look like your challenges are going well.

Happy New Thread--you are reading up a storm!

>15 MissWatson: The Classics Challenge is a good one. I'm going to give it a try.

Have fun with your second Bingo card!

Happy new thread! It's fun to look over your reading challenges again.

>19 Tess_W: Hi Tess!
>20 rabbitprincess: Oh, I mean to!
>21 Jackie_K: Thanks, Jackie!
>22 NinieB: It's been a good year for reading so far.
>23 kac522: There hasn't been much to distract me.
>24 pamelad: I want to get back to it next month.
>25 hailelib: I think I will!
>26 RidgewayGirl: Lovely to see you here, Kay!

Hope the second half of 2021 brings lots of great reads your way!

>28 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy!

HistoryCAT / Bingo: about history / Popsugar: book with a family tree / GR: a long book / WomenReading: a woman in politics

Whew. 636 pages of dynastic troubles, court intrigue and war, civil war and recalcitrant nobles on top. That's Les deux régentes which looks at Marie de Médicis and Anne d'Autriche.
You really need to know something about those times before starting or you will be utterly lost among the aristocrats who are always marrying among themselves. Keeping track of who is related to whom is hard. The author doesn't set out to bring something new to the debate, and her focus is strictly on the queens. Reading this after Die Schatten von La Rochelle was a good choice, as many of the same people and events return here.
I am a little disappointed that the publisher didn't include the illustrations that were used in the large-format edition, but thanks to the internet you can track them down online, I guess.

XXVII / GenreCAT / GeoKIT / Bingo: one-word title

The rivalry between France and Spain is one of the main themes in Les deux régentes and it reminded me of some other books on my shelves. So I started looking and came across Alatriste and decided it fit right now. I am not entirely sure how this ended up with me, because I also own the Spanish originals. However, it promised to be a quicker read than the originals...

So, this edition contains the first three of the Alatriste novels where a young boy comes down from his native Basque country to seek employment in Madrid and finds it with an old comrade of his father who died in Flanders. Alatriste survives as a sword-for-hire and gets involved in a highly political affair in the first book. The second finds them trying to escape from the clutches of the Inquisition and in the third they are back with the army and take part in the siege of Breda.

I have read the first in Spanish some years ago and found it difficult because of the endlessly long sentences where it's hard to keep track of what is being said. Most of it is a first-person narrative from the boy, Íñigo Balboa, and these passages sit awkwardly with the ones in auctorial voice that relate Alatriste's actions and thoughts. There's also lots of repetition, explaining of people and events no longer common knowledge and much lamentation about the sorry state of the country. I can't make up my mind what the author wants to do here, but the afterword of the third book suggests that it is based on a memoir from the times. Which would put a lot of things in a different perspective. I guess I'll have to tackle the original some time soon, copious quotes from Lope, Quevedo, Calderón and Tirso de Molina included.

HistoryCAT / Bingo: less than 200 pages / Popsugar: chosen at random / GR: titlte with more than 6 words

I was running my eyes over the shelves thinking 'I really need to get these in order' and came across A la table des seigneurs, des moines et des paysans du Moyen Âge, a souvenir from our vacation in Normandy. Perfect, I thought, for the social history month. It was also short, lavishly illustrated with images from illuminated manuscripts, and very instructive about the social aspect of food and nutrition in the Middle Ages.

Of course I knew that the upper classes ate better than the peasants, but here I also learned why. Your estate decides what you may or should eat, and this is related to the hierarchy of the four classical elements as taught by theology: fire comes first, then air, water and earth. The first estate eat their meat roasted or fried, because this means it is in direct contact with fire. And so on. Fascinating stuff.

Saturday notes

Lots of stuff about Jim Morrison, of course, I spent last night watching some documentaries on TV. And some Proust, his 150th birthday has produced a lot of books about him. I don't feel tempted, however. But there has also been a new edition of Philippe Monnier's book about Venice which sent me scurrying for the original. It's in the public domain and I hope to start this soon...

XIX / RandomCAT / Bingo: about nature / GR: favourite things

One of the highlights of the summer calendar are the garden shows, often held in the parks of castles and manor houses. So I chose Elizabeth and her German garden for the Summer RandomCAT theme. I admit that I did not look up all the varieties of roses, but I did enjoy her descriptions of the seasons in her garden. Especially the trip to the frozen Baltic sea in winter, this doesn't happen very often in the western half.

XIX / Popsugar: heart on the cover / classics: children's classic

I have never read Alice's adventures in wonderland before and picked up an omnibus edition on impulse a few years ago. A fat Penguin which has an introduction nearly as long as the story itself (saving this for later) and footnotes detailing how a scene or poem relates to an event in the life of the real Alice, which is a bit distracting. But the original texts of the poems he satirises are helpful. It's hard to imagine what a modern child would make of this.

XIX / GR: characters from a deck of cards

So I thought I might as well continue with Through the looking-glass and all the other stuff in the book. It has queens and kings in it, with Alice ending up as Queen in a chess game which went completely over my head.
Well, I can say now that I have read this classic, but the art of nonsense is just not my cup of tea.

>36 MissWatson: I agree with your assessment. I also feel the same way with his Jabberwocky.

>36 MissWatson: When I read these as a child, some parts were over my head, some were nightmarish and I didn't understand the historical context e.g. the use of mercury in making hats, hence the Mad Hatter, but there was plenty to enjoy. It was one of those books that nearly everyone had read. I plan to re-read Alice in Wonderland for the Classics challenge. I also liked Edward Lear's nonsense rhymes and Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales and still enjoy nonsense, but it's not for everyone!

I know that I read the Alice books as a child but what I remember is the Disney animated film.

>37 Tess_W: Yes, Jabberwocky was one of the hardest bits. It was the age of philology and creating dictionaries like the OED and Grimms, but still, this obsession with etymology is tedious.

>38 pamelad: I think the English language is better suited to nonsense because of the easy way you can create absurd conversations and the like by playing with homonyms and similar sounds. I'm always surprised when people find ways to do this in German.

>39 hailelib: There was no Disney in my younger days...

XXI / Popsugar: Muslim author / GR: travel theme / Bingo: impulse read / GeoKIT

Der falsche Inder caught my eye in the special offers books at Karstadt and because it is short, I sat down immediately to read it. The author was born in Iraq and lives now in Germany, and here he tells the harrowing story of his long trek through Northern Africa, Turkey, Greece and Italy until he finally arrived here. He wrote this in German, a language he didn't know when he came here in 2000, and that is not the only amazing feat in this story.

ETA: I'm also using it for the GeoKIT, as the author's youth in Iraq looms large over everything.

XX

And I have finished Heimweh nach Prag, at last. The book is a collection of articles Joseph Roth had published in "Prager Tagblatt", and they are very heterogeneous in nature. The ones written from Berlin make for bleak reading, so you need to take breaks. The editor also provides some information about the paper and its editor Karl Tschuppik, who was a close friend of Roth. I've taken away quite a few names for further reading.

Saturday notes

So. I went to the bookstore to pick up one book I ordered. And came home with five. How did this happen?
The haul:
Frère d'âme
Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra
Militärgeschichte des Mittelalters
Taxi Curaçao
Die Aprilhexe

I'm especially excited about the Nebra Sky Disc book. We went to see an exhibition about it two years ago (before Covid) and I can't remember all the astronomical stuff, so it's good to have it on paper now.

I think that sounds quite restrained! Enjoy your haul.

>43 MissWatson: Sounds reasonable to me! ;)

>43 MissWatson: I have that same affliction!

>42 MissWatson: I have read two volumes of Joseph Roth's collected articles, translated into English by Michael Hofmann, Report from a Parisian Paradise and What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, both well worth reading. He was such a good observer of people, and what was below the surface. The Berlin articles were indeed bleak. They're good translations.

>44 Helenliz: Thanks! I'm a third into the first book and enjoying it immensely.
>45 rabbitprincess: LT friends always understand.
>46 Tess_W: At least it is an affliction that doesn't involve pain.
>47 pamelad: There was also an excerpt from a novel he published around the time, based on his Berlin experience, that I have never heard of before Rechts und links which is on my wishlist now. And should probably not be read when you're down...

XXI / Bingo: made you laugh / GR: siblings

Der Wald ruft arrived as an audiobook in a letter from my sister and I had fun on the weekend with it. It's a follow-up to the very funny series of mysteries where the meerkats of the Berlin Zoo assist a bumbling private detective to solve mysteries.
This one is not exactly a mystery. The meerkats escape from the zoo before they can be sold to an Oslo store and end up in a forest in Brandenburg where they are not welcome at all as illegal immigrants from Africa. Never mind that they have all been born in Berlin.
The author tries to address immigration and assimilation in a humorous way here, but it is often heavy-handed and cliché-laden. The boars represent the nativist position, rave in Saxon dialect, putsch against the established authority and try to drown the meerkat colony in their refuge on an abandoned military site. The final showdown involves a Russian tank and is so much over the top that it is truly hilarious, not to mention exciting as performed by the narrator Christoph M. Herbst.
But the real fun of the book is the relationship between the brothers Ray and Rufus.

XIX

The struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson takes us to the world of advertising as it developed in the second half of the 19th century, and Trollope does not approve of it. It still makes for an entertaining book.

HistoryCAT / Bingo: 2 author / GR: celebrates the GRand Egyptian Museum

I fairly raced through Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra which presents one of the most impressive archaelogical finds in Germany in the last decades. It starts like a thriller, as the museum director saves the disc for research in a sting operation. There follows a legal action which borders on the farcical, and all the time researchers are busy as bees to analyse the disc and prove that it is not a fake.
This allows the authors to tell us about the advances enabled by modern technologies and especially genetics and which have practically changed everything we thought we knew about the Bronze Age in Germany. In the wake of this find, new digs have been made and older discoveries re-analysed, and the result is that they now think that, for a certain time at least, society was much more complex than previously thought.
This is written for a lay audience, so no footnotes, but decent citations at the back for every chapter. Technical terms are explained, and I was most impressed by the logical structure of the book, how one discovery leads to a question, the search for an answer, and a new question.

ETA: I forgot completely that this also counts for the GR prompt, as it is about archaeology.

>51 MissWatson:

That sounded quite interesting so I read the wikipedia article to find out more.

>52 hailelib: I'm looking forward to reading their most recent collaboration where you go into more detail about the connections to Mesopotamia and Egypt. If the library bothers to buy it.

XX / GenreCAT / RandomCAT / GeoKIT / Bingo: love story / GR: related to a specific season / classic: single word title / WomenReading: rural setting

Summer fills quite a few slots in my challenges and also features on the 1001 BYMRBYD list. Not only does this give me a sense of achievement, it was also a marvellous read. I was reminded often of Fontane's Irrungen, Wirrungen and how differently he treats a similar subject. Of course, his heroine was a bit older.
The descriptions of the New England landscape are gorgeous.

Saturday notes

It's a very hot day today and I'm glad I got up early for the grocery shopping. I'll spend the rest of the day in a darkened room with a book and stay away from the TV; watching the footage of the floodings in the west feels too much like rubbernecking. Housework will be done in the evening.

>54 MissWatson: Isn't Edith Wharton wonderful? I felt much the same way about Ethan Frome when I reread it last year. Your review is a reminder I should read Summer again.

>54 MissWatson: Summer was an ok read for me. I much preferred her Ethan Fromme. Glad you enjoyed it!

>56 NinieB: She is. I loved how she captured Charity's sense of wonder at the delights of the small town after the stifling village. I'm looking forward to reading more of her books.
>57 Tess_W: I found Ethan Frome very, very bleak.

>58 MissWatson: It certainly was bleak! However, I also found it evocative.

>58 MissWatson: >59 Tess_W: Ethan Frome is one of those books that makes me think I like bleak books. But it may be that I like bleak books only when written by masters like Wharton.

>59 Tess_W: It will be interesting to see what I make of it when I re-read it at some point.
>60 NinieB: Usually they're books that make you think about the world and people.

XX / GenreCAT / RandomCAT / Bingo: 20 LT members or less / MysteryKIT

Der tote Rittmeister is something completely different, but I couldn't resist the pretty cover. And I'm a sucker for books set on the North Sea coast. This is a historical mystery, set on Norderney in 1913, one of the most fashionable seaside resorts at the time. We have a teacher taking her holiday there, paid for by her father who has reluctantly come to terms with her wish to follow a profession, but insists on paying her an allowance to supplement her pay. Soon after she arrives, the body of a cavalry officer is found in the dunes and she runs across an acquaintance and romantic interest with whom she successfully solved a crime the previous year. He has been drafted into the investigation because no police can be spared during the celebrations of Wilhelm's silver throne jubilee.
I didn't realise this was the second in a series, but there's enough reference to Viktoria's and Christian's romance to understand the present estrangement. The book was a pleasant surprise, because it's decently written and takes you in some unexpected directions. I have also learned something I didn't know before, about the trade in illegitimate and unwanted children via newspaper ads. What more can you want from a book? I'll get the first book, too, and I'm looking forward to the next.

A bit late to the party but wishing you a happy new thread. I love going over all your lists again. Congratulations on reading Lewis Carroll. I've tried many times but never made it all the way.

>62 MissWatson: I hope these books are translated into English - they sound like just my kind of mystery.

>63 VivienneR: Thanks. I felt completely out of my depth sometimes with Alice.
>64 JayneCM: I'm afraid unless she sells really well in Germany they won't attract foreign publishers.

>65 MissWatson: I haven't read German in a LOOONG time - maybe I could give it a try!

>66 JayneCM: I have always found mysteries an easy way to start reading in a foreign language. The advantage here is that there is no modern slang of the kind not found in dictionaries. She also uses short sentences, so you don't have to crawl across half a page to find the verb. :-)

>67 MissWatson: Short sentences would definitely be my friend!

>68 JayneCM: Yes, even native speakers have their moments of despair over Thomas Mann.

>69 MissWatson: oh, they would! I struggled enough with Inkheart!

XIX / RandomCAT / GeoKIT: Europe / Bingo: place you'd like to visit / Popsugar: asoociated with a favourite place

Der tote Rittmeister has taken my reading in an unplanned direction, I have picked up Die beiden Baroninnen at last. Part of it is set on the hallig of Oland, off the North Frisian coast, and Andersen found much of his material in the summer when he was invited by the king to spend some time on Föhr, recently established as a summer resort. We also spend our holidays there and that's where I picked this up.

It is basically the life story of Elisabeth, born in an abandoned manor house and her mother dies in the birth. The new owner arrives just on this day with a few friends and they decide to take care of the infant by leaving it with a neighbour to be brought up. The baroness is a very eccentric character, and suddenly takes against the little girl. She finds refuge with a pastor whose parish is on Oland, a very lonely place. But it builds character, and there are always music and books, especially a great love for Walter Scott. And when a childhood friend is in trouble, Elisabeth decides to petition the king for mercy and sets out for Copenhagen, where she meets old and new friends and finishes her education.
The descriptions of the different landscapes are wonderful, and many quirky characters people the pages.

>71 MissWatson: It was not on my radar that Andersen wrote novels. However, The Two Baronesses sounds marvelous and I have purchased it very cheaply as an ebook. I hope to get to it soon.

>62 MissWatson: Another one hoping that these novels find a translator. This one sounds great!

>72 Tess_W: It shares some of the writing style of his fairy tales, and also tells a lot about ordinary life in Denmark at the time. I was also surprised to learn that the English translation was published first, to preempt bootleg editions. No copyright in those days.

>73 charl08: I was very pleasantly surprised by it.

XX / Popsugar TBR: DNF

At one point in Der tote Rittmeister I thought we were going to have English spies. That was a red herring, but it turned me towards The riddle of the sands. It must have been my fourth or fifth attempt to read it, and I finally decided we don't suit each other. The sailing bits were boring, the rest meh.

Saturday notes

My best friend is coming to stay for the weekend, so I'll be offline until Monday. I hope you're all having a nice time, too!

>76 MissWatson: Have a lovely time!

>76 MissWatson: Such fun!

>62 MissWatson:

This sounds interesting but I would need a translation as my German is completely forgotten!

>79 hailelib: I cannot believe that I used to be able to read and converse fluently in German. Definitely a case of use it or lose it!

>77 JayneCM: Thank you, we did!
>78 Tess_W: It is so great to have face-to-face time again!
>79 hailelib: Yes, foreign languages get lost quite easily.
>80 JayneCM: So true. But it does come back if you persevere.

XXI / Bingo: new author / SFF KIT: history

Holiday traffic caused huge traffic jams on the Autobahn, so my friend arrived later than planned and I was able to finish Civilizations which offers an interesting alternate history.

A Viking ship travels down the Eastern coast of America, spreading their genes, ironworking, horses and cattle. As a result, Columbus fails to establish the Spanish in the Caribbean, and instead it is an Incan army who conquers Spain...
Alternate histories are like a buffet, the author can pick and choose which events he wants to change without regard to the consequences and usually not looking beyond his own homeground. Still, it's an interesting concept to play around with and to see familiar historical figures having a completely different fate. There's also a little satisafction to see Charles V treates exactly like Atahualpa. But I think this sort of intellectual game would work even more rewarding if it were played by a descendant of the Andean tribes.
The fun of cause is to see so many familiar names ending up in quite different places or jobs.

I was also very much surprised how easy it was to read. The book won the "Grand Prix du roman" award of the Académie Française and I thought it would be dense and intellectual, but instead it was a ripping yarn with few linguistic difficulties.

ETC

XX / RandomCAT / GenreCAT / MysteryKIT / Popsugar: genre hybrid / GR: cross genre

Well, I picked up the first book written by Elsa Dix: Die Tote in der Sommerfrische and finished it in one go. Again, this is well researched and competently written. I react a little allergically to modern terms used in an historical setting, and an author who sets her story among aristocrats should know how to use proper titles. But these are minor quibbles and do not detract from a tale that is as much social history as it is a romance and a mystery. If there is a third book, I'll be happy to read it.

Saturday notes

Two long articles to mark the 70th birthday of Martin Mosebach and the 80th of Jordi Savall. I think I'll put on some music later this evening...
Also a very favourable review for The Abstainer which maks it look very, very exciting.

And here we are in August already. Three more weeks til we go to the seaside, yay. Looking back on my reading in July, I'll have to say that the non-fiction Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra was the best, but Edith Wharton's Summer comes a close second.

Oh! Jordanian Savall! There was a time in my life when I listened to a lot of Early Modern Music ergo Savall. It’s early on a Sunday morning here… but plenty of time to comb through the CD collection for some brunch and lazy afternoon listening! 🙂

>85 Tanya-dogearedcopy: We once spent two weeks touring Brittany with his double CD of French court music in repeat mode. Still fondly remembered as "on the road with the Kings". It never got boring which is an amazing feat.

XVIII / GeoKIT

I have finished 1794 and feel exhausted. You need a really strong stomach for this, it is 560 pages of almost unmitigated misery, cruelty, sadism, madness, and rich people getting away with anything. Cecil Winge from the previous book is replaced with his younger brother Emil who is mentally unstable. The villain makes his escape and we'll have to wait for the next book to find out if fate or vengeance will catch up with him. It won't be justice, not in Sweden as painted by the author.

>84 MissWatson: Never even heard of Savall until I joined Pandora. Whilst I was searching for some classical music, I came across a few of his works, namely Terpischore, The Dance Baroque, and Beethoven Symphonies 1-5. Needless to say, although his usual style is earlier than most music I prefer, those became permanent works in my "collection."

>87 MissWatson: Hope that this one is available here soon, I hadn't realised it was a trilogy.

I liked how authentic the grimness and dirt felt (but not sure if I will appreciate higher levels of it, so will ask for a library copy rather than buying my own!)

>88 Tess_W: I especially enjoy the "Celtic Viol" albums, they are so full of sprightly dance tunes.

>89 charl08: I didn't expect a continuation either, as the first book ends with the death of Cecil. The authenticity is what struck me most about the first book, too, although the details of the crime were stomach-turning. Here we get an interlude about living wild in the forest which seems so much healthier than the hovels in Stockholm, and how that ends is unbearably cruel.

>90 MissWatson: I will look for that one!

XXI / MysteryKIT

I'm a little late with finishing Poulets grillés because I needed to look up so many words. It reminded me of my younger days when I first tried to read Fuzz and the colloquialisms baffled me. However, in these days of online dictionaries you can find nearly everything, and if you persevere, you get better at guessing the meaning from context. Adamsberg doesn't talk like the cops in this amusing story.
We have a misfit brigade headed by a woman, suspended for a shooting wich was ruled as legitimate defense, but put her career on the rocks. She is eager to rescue her and her crew's reputation by opening up a cold case. This was fun and I'll be looking for more.

XIX / Bingo: building / GR / classics: re-read

I needed something truly enjoyable after 1794 and chose Northanger Abbey which I hadn't read since I replaced my tattered paperbacks with the nice Everyman hardcovers. It is a pity they provide no information where they got the printing plates, I found a few typos and one or two cases where half a sentence seems to be missing...
The story, however, is a delight. Having read a few gothic romances definitely enhances the enjoyment. I was also struck by the choice of "Isabella" as a first name, as it is untypical of her usual staid, plain Janes, Annes, Marys and Elizabeths. A nod to the Spanish and Italian settings of her favourite stories, possibly? And I loved Jane's spirited defence of writing and reading novels.

Note to self

On Wednesday, Tilmann Spreckelsen had a full page in the FAZ writing about the genesis of Krabat from newly available material in Preußler's legacy. I never read this when it was first published which seems strange in hindsight, I read and loved everything else. It seems I missed out on a great book, and it would be very interesting to compare it with the other versions of the legend written only a few years before. Off on a quest...

>93 MissWatson: Very interesting point about the name Isabella...had not occurred to me at all, but you are most probably correct.

One of my best investments back in 2016 was to buy the full Naxos audiobook set of Jane Austen. Juliet Stevenson reads all of the major novels, except P&P. She does an amazing job on NA--she totally gets the fun and irony of it. She does the melancholy of Persuasion so well, and all her quirky voices for the minor characters of Emma are memorable. You might be able to purchase some of them individually.

It was a major investment for me at the time, but I have listened to these CDs over and over and over again. They are my dearest friends during the pandemic. When there's nothing to do and no one to visit, I jump in the car, slip in a CD from this set, and drive aimlessly for a couple of hours. I come home all calm and happy. And I don't feel like it's time wasted, because I've made progress on a book!

>95 kac522: They sound wonderful! It wouldn't work here though, as we are in lockdown and only allowed to travel up to 5km from our home unless you have a good reason. It would be a pretty boring trip!

>95 kac522: Thanks, they sound wonderful!

HistoryCAT / Bingo: time word / WomenReading: Incarceration

In La traversée de la nuit the niece of Charles de Gaulle wrote about the time she was held at Ravensbrück. Short and impressive.

>98 MissWatson: Oh, sounds like a good one. Running off to see if it can be found in English!

>98 MissWatson: >99 Tess_W: Not sure if this is the same book or a condensed version as it is only 83 pages?

https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Hope-Memoir-Ravensbr%C3%BCck/dp/1559704985/ref=sr_1_...

>100 JayneCM: Yes, it it so short.

Saturday notes

Somehow, Saturdays always get away from me, there's the grocery shopping, the newspaper, and an expedition to the used bookstore...
A minor literary sensation in France: Célines lost papers have turned up. Among them the manuscript for Casse-pipe, and different versions of Voyage au bout de la nuit. He's on most "Must read" lists, and I guess this can wait until the new editions are available.
Several promising book reviews: Wo der Wolf lauert, Solneman der Unsichtbare and Une enfance dans la gueule du loup has been translated.
And since the weather is cold and rainy I'll be reading...

ETA: There's also half a page about Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy by its translator who makes it sound like one of the most amazing books ever. Oh dear.

>100 JayneCM: Yes, it is. It really is so short.

>103 MissWatson: My library has it then, so I will put a hold on it. Thanks!

I really need to read the Austin books that I somehow never got around to and Northanger Abbey sounds like a good place to start.

XX / RandomCAT / June SFFKIT / GR: made-up place

I was thinking about thinning out the shelves (again) and my eye fell on Martin's Ice and Fire series, which started out promisingly and became less attractive with each volume and now it seems it will never be finished ... so I pulled out Tuf voyaging with an eye to reading and discarding it. It reminded me why I liked the first books in the series so much, the language is wonderful and the stories are brimming with fascinating ideas. There's also the common thread running through the (originally) independent stories of humanity messing with ecology and getting their just deserts, written forty years ago. Also, there are cats. All in all, a great read. But I will be firm and part with it.

I will be firm and part with it.

>106 MissWatson: I admire your bravery!

>107 clue: I have to start somewhere. Retirement is creeping up, which means a smaller apartment, hence downsizing.

>107 clue: I was thinking the same! I am terrible - once a book enters my house, it is pretty certain it is never leaving!

>109 JayneCM: Well, no book leaves the house unread, and as there are more than a few hundred left, downsizing will be a very slow process.

In other news: 500 years ago today Tenochtitlan fell to the Spaniards and their allies. I tried to read the book to mark the occasion, but find it hard to concentrate on the difficult names. My mind is busy with holiday preparations...must wait till September.

>110 MissWatson: Good luck! It is a hard job to do.

>112 JayneCM: Thanks!

We're picky about what books we acquire so once we have them they rarely leave the house. The exception this year has been the books for young children that have been passed on to our grandchildren.

XXI / MysteryKIT

Gray is a very strange mystery. It is set in Cambridge, where a student falls from the roof of King's college chapel. Accident, suicide or murder? His tutor gets drawn into the young man's life when he has to take charge of his grey parrot who was the subject of his PhD thesis. Slowly Augustus Huff realises that the bird doesn't talk randomly and together they solve the case.
We only see things from Huff's perspective, the police do not appear. Huff suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder and feels like a complete outsider in the college, but since the bird never leaves him he has to leave his comfort zone. I found this part of the story very well done. She also writes beautifully.

edited for touchstone

>115 MissWatson: Who is the author? Sounds interesting! Your touchstone is to the wrong book.

>116 NinieB: Thanks, I have corrected it. The author is Leonie Swann and her first book has been translated, but not this one, according to the German National Library.

>117 MissWatson: Thanks! I will turn to Three Bags Full, which is waiting on my shelf, and I will hope for Gray to be translated!

>118 NinieB: I also learned from the DNB today that a new book will come out in November, featuring a senior citizen. I'm quite curious...

XIX / GenreCat

I don't usually read plays or poetry or graphic novels, so I was a bit stumped. In the end I settled for Humoristischer Hausschatz by Wilhelm Busch who drew and wrote early forerunners of comic strips: drawings with rhymed verses. This collection has Max und Moritz, Die fromme Helene, Hans Huckebein and several more stories in it and it is always surprising to see how many quotes have survived into the present.

Saturday notes

Bought rather more books than I planned, but I couldn't resist that beautiful Indian cookbook, and there was a copy of Herodot's Historien in very good condition, and...I didn't buy that gorgeous hardcover of The tenant of Wildfell Hall. Now I'm thinking I made a mistake. It lay on display at TK MAXX who sell overstock at low prices and it looked immaculate...I mean: Penguin. Clothbound. With notes.

ETA: Just checking the shelf. Whatever happened to my copy of Wuthering heights???

HistoryCAT

One of the new acquisitions was Ostpreußen : Geschichte und Mythos because the author was on the shortlist for the non-fiction award with his latest book, only to have LT tell me on entering the book in my catalogue that I already own this. Not so, just sloppy cataloguing. This should teach me to enter subtitles as well.

And for good measure I finally read the other book: Ostpreußen : Geschichte einer historischen Landschaft. It belongs to the Beck Wissen series, and it packs a lot of information into 125 pages. It also gives quite a few reading tips for fiction reading...

Oh yes, and Wuthering heights has turned up again.

>132 MissWatson: Wuthering Heights, my favorite book of all time. It's time for a reread!

>121 MissWatson: Go back - you will have to go back and get it! I must admit to having multiple copies of some classics if I find a lovely edition. Why not?!

>123 Tess_W: One of my all-time favourites too. I have had it on the reread list for a while now as I haven't read it since beginning the 1001 books list.

>124 JayneCM: Yes, I did go back and was happy to see that it still on the shelf. And I am now the proud owner. As for several copies – if only I had room for them!

>125 MissWatson: Hooray!
Hmmm, I wish I actually had room for them! I design my ideal library in my head a lot - it is a 'one day' dream. Let's just say that for now I indulge in a bit of bookshelf jockeying - some books have to spend some of their time in crates, poor things.

>126 JayneCM: I know, it is all planned against the day I win the lottery.

>127 MissWatson: We are all going to win, definitely!!

HistoryCAT / Bingo: heartily recommended

I cannot now recall why I borrowed L'économie de la Révolution Française from the library, maybe I was looking for background information about a forger of banknotes in the 18th century mentioned in another book, and this looked interesting.

Anyway, this is a piece of economic history explaining the causes of the French Revolution and its degeneration into the Terror as economical: the Monarchy was living beyond its means by not taxing all its subjects, the elite adamantly refused any reforms. The Revolutionaries promised to respect property and to honour the debt, but resorted to the issue of paper money to cover the debts which resulted in inflation and hyperinflation, which raised bread prices. The Paris crowds demanded and got price controls, and in conjunction with a bad harvest this resulted in famine and even more political turmoil.

The author puts his case convincingly and without too much economic jargon, and I was pleasantly surprised how eminently readable this was. He quotes many of the writers of the time, and his particular hero here is Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours who steadfastly argued against paper money, which earned him a prison sentence, of course. He also spent some time in the States and died there, helping to put out a fire in his son's gunpowder factory, at which point I pricked up my ears – and lo and behold, he was the father of E.I. Dupont, the founder of the chemical company. It is a small world.

Anyone interested in the topic can't go wrong with this, I can heartily recommend it, and the first edition is available in English translation.

>30 MissWatson: Birgit, you are the culprit for many of my French Revolution books!;) Off to go in search of this one, also!

>130 Tess_W: Sorry. Or mabye not. It is a fascinating subject.

XIX / GeoKIT: Europe / Popsugar: ugliest cover

Falschmünzer des Kaisers is the book I mentioned in >129 MissWatson:. This was donated to my sister's library and looked at first like it could go straight to the bin. But after the first pages I was hooked, because this is based on a real person who had a truly amazing career that reflects the turmoil of the French Revolution and everything that followed. Peter von Borg was arrested in 1845 for forgery and looks back on his life in the long conversations with the police officer investigating the case (who also left a small book about it). He studied painting in Revolutionary Paris, met everyone who was anbody in Paris at the time, got drafted in the levée en masse, deserted and walked across Europe to Austria where he tried his hand at many things, especially making a fortune in the wake of the Napoleonic wars with currency speculation. He also initiated the first savings bank in Austria and the Danube steamboat company. Because he was convicted, his name was struck from the records.
The author provides a fascinating picture of the times, and for that alone it was worth reading. More books about Austrian history next, I think.

HistoryCAT / Popsugar: online personality

I do not follow any online personalities, so "a book by" looked like a challenge I couldn't meet. However, I decided to turn this into "recommended by", and there is a German archaelogist whose blog I dip into occasionally. She mentioned Entfernte Zeiten so nah : Pandemien und Krisen, and as it is short and free for download, I went ahead. Scientists at Kiel University's Excellence Cluster (a transdisciplinary research project) write about pandemics and crises in pre-historic times and how they relate to Covid-19 and how people deal with crises in general. Necessarily brief, it relates recent discoveries from digs and genome analysis. It hopes to address lay audiences, but probably won't because of the dense academic style. Interesting, but marred by very sloppy editing.

XX / RandomCAT / SFF KIT

I don't remember when, where or why I bought Phantom Banjo. Quite an unusual story, as the devils decide they need to wipe music, especially folk music, from the earth to make humans truly miserable. The world of travelling musicians surviving on live gigs is well depicted, I think. But the story jumps between protagonists, the change from regular to italic fonts baffled me, and I found that I really couldn't summon the enthusiasm to finish it, so that's one less on the shelf.

Saturday notes

The bags are packed, and tomorrow we're off to our North Sea island. See you all in two weeks again!

Have a great trip!

>135 MissWatson: Have a restful and restorative time!

>134 MissWatson: I would have bought that book for the title!

>134 MissWatson: What a shame, I love the title too!
>135 MissWatson: Have a great trip, hope it's very relaxing!

Enjoy your time away, Birgit.

>136 Tess_W: Thanks, Tess. Watching the sea is always restful.
>137 rabbitprincess: Yes, the title was definitely the best bit.
>138 Jackie_K: Thanks, Jackie. We were very lazy!
>139 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy, I did. Very much!

August HistoryCAT

I didn't bring many books for my vacation, because I never get around to reading much. But I did finish 1813 : Die Völkerschlacht und das Ende der Alten Welt. The author describes the four days of the battle in four chapters and uses many more pages to describe the political world in which it took place, from the monarchs who nominally led the armies, to Goethe and his ambiguous relation with Napoleon, and the most surprising bit was a chapter about the brigade of Rocketeers which the British contributed to the allied effort.

XXI

I didn't read much, but quite a few books found their way into my suitcase for the way home, among them Mary Celeste : Ein Schiff auf ewiger Reise. It was displayed prominently in the bookshops because two crew members of the lost ship were born on Föhr. However, this was a disappopintment. The author badly arranges his material, his style is crude and littered with typos and there's not much he can say about the two local men because there wasn't much to find in the way of letters or documents.

XX / GenreCAT

Another find during the holidays was Das Blockhaus am Minnewana by Käthe Recheis. She is best known for her children's books about North American Indians and from the title I expected something similar. But this is the tale of a twelve year old girl, told in first person narrative, who has come to Canada with her father from Austria. She has a deformed leg and feels lonely and isolated among other children, so she summons imaginary friends: a rabbit and Fionn of the Fianna, whose tales she has heard from an Irish priest. In the summer, her father rents a blockhouse in the woods and she writes down her thoughts, the tales, and gradually learns to accept herself.
This is hard to place in time, there are cars, but no other indications of modernity. The descriptions of the lake and the woods are gorgeous, and the way Laura tries to understand why she thinks how she thinks are remarkable.

XX

I'm still dreaming of the North Sea, so I picked up Dammbau which tells the story of how the railway dam to the island of Sylt was built. The author lived on the island at the time and must have observed the work closely, she also recounts the financial problems caused by hyper inflation and reparation payments. Her two main characters are only loosely based on real people, but everything else is spot on: the resistance from the farmers in Morsum, the social changes that more tourism will bring, the disruption caused by so many workers moving in. A remarkable tale well told.

Saturday notes

A long article to mark the centenary of Stanislaw Lem's birthday which also mentions that the translations of Irmtraud Zimmermann are the ones to go for.
And a scathing review of Alan Mikhail's book about Selim I which is apparently scholarly unsound (no notice taken of recent research, instead too much unqualified acceptance of a hagiography written by a court poet, and factually wrong far too often) and written in excruciatingly purple prose.

HistoryCAT

I picked Götter und Mythen des Nordens from my shelves. The author is a professor at Kiel University and looks at Norse mythology as it appears in the literary sources, with the occasional archaeological find thrown for illustration. It seems that we actually know very little for sure and most of what we learn from the sagas etc is controversial among the experts. As in: how much of this is distorted by being written down after Iceland converted to Christianity, how much relies on stories prevalent in other regions of the world, etc.
Useful as a handbok, though, as indicated by the author in the subtitle.

XXI / Popsugar: social issue / GR: immigrant / SFF KIT: near future

I bought Exit West because of an enthusiastic review in The Economist, and it certainly lived up to it. This was wonderfully written, and I loved the characters. He doesn't say which country Saeed and Nadia have left, and it doesn't really matter. The strange doors leading into other countries are never explained, and it doesn't matter either. The important thing here are the people and how they make a life in generally awful conditions. The book would have deserved the prizes for which it was shortlisted.

XX / Popsugar: afrofuturist / GR: prompt 5

There's not much I can say about Kindred that hasn't been said before. I am glad I read it, but I'm not sure I can do it again.

Saturday notes

Where did this weekend go?

>149 MissWatson: Ha! I say that every Monday morning. :)

>149 MissWatson: >150 DeltaQueen50: I definitely felt it this morning!

>150 DeltaQueen50: >151 Jackie_K: And here's Monday gone as well, just like whoosh.

HistoryCAT / GR: connected to ice

At least the days were spent profitably, I finished a book! I found Die Welt aus den Angeln in the remainders bin and sat down immediately with it. It looks at the Little Ice Age in the long 17th century, when rivers froze over for weeks and months. The author is interested mostly in how societies in Western Europe reacted to this: at first there's firm belief that it is God's wrath and all kinds of religious hysterias and wars rage across the continent. But as people start observing the phenomena in order to understand them, modern science slowly emerges. We meet quite a few famous and unknown names (I had never heard of Clusius before, who cultivated the first tulips in the bontanical garden at Leiden). There's also much about theology and philosophy in this book, as we meet Montaigne, Descartes, Spinoza and others.
In his epilogue he sums up how much our modern world depends on the concepts created then and whether this enables us to cope with the transformations already well under way now.

>148 MissWatson: I loved Kindred

XIX

And I have finished Salem Chapel, last of several stories in The Chronicles of Carlingford, as part of a tutored read with Liz (lyzard). It was a foray into sensation fiction for the author, thus the characters a bit over the top, but she always writes so well about her times. I'll definitely be there for the next instalments.

>155 MissWatson: I have that on my ereader. I hope to read it in 2022.

>156 Tess_W: I hope you enjoy it. Her books tell you so much about ordinary life in those days.

XXI / RandomCAT / Bingo: marginalised group

Frère d'âme has won the International Man Booker and the Goncourt des lycéens, and I can't help wondering why. It is very short, hardly a novel, and reads like an experiment in a certain writing technique. The first person narrator tells how he lost his "soul brother" (that's the literal translation) in No Man's Land between the French and German trenches who takes hours to die from a belly wound and begs his friend in vain to kill him. But after this, he starts killing enemy soldiers and bringing home their right hands...
The narrator, Alfa, is Senegalese and doesn't speak French. Most of the soldiers communicate with their officers through interpreters. It is unclear where and when Alfa remembers trench life. He repeats certain phrases over and over again, as if his mind is going in circles wondering why he did what he did. It has a certain hypnotic pull. But the ending baffled me completely, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. All in all, disappointing.

Saturday notes

So, the German translation of Colm Tóibin's The Magician has been published, and the review in the FAZ is lukewarm at best. This may have something to dowith the fact that books about Thomas Mann are thirteen to the dozen in Germany.
Full marks for Adam Nicolson's The Seabird's Cry, that sounds absolutely fascinating.

XX / MysteryKIT / GeoKIT Asia / Bingo: read a CAT/KIT / Popsugar: song title

A necessary evil takes Wyndham and Bannerjee to the princely state of Sambalpore whose crown prince has been assassinated in their presence. Lots of local colour and a very surprising end, which felt a bit rushed. I confess I could do with less of Wyndham's pining for Annie Grant, I am always impatient with men making fools of themselves over a woman. But the rest is fabulous.

XX / GeoKIT:Europe

I found Ja, damals ... on a book-swaping site, it's a cute little book containing two novellas, both set in Dorpat, Livonia (now Tartu, Estonia) at the turn of the century. "Taft zum Kragen" shows a slight misunderstanding between a Protestant pastor and his young wife, and in "Tante Tüttchen" a spinster aunt learns to accept the very modern young love interest of her adored nephew. They give a glimpse into a world long gone, when the upper classes in this province of Imperial Russia were mostly Germans. An agreeable way to while away an hour, but nothing remarkable.

XX / GeoKIT: South America / Bingo: Southern Hemisphere

Clarice Lispector's Der große Augenblick was hard work, I needed three attempts to get beyond the first ten pages. It's mostly a reflection on writing, I suppose, why do you do it, how do you do it, but I can't be sure. I found this obscure, to be honest.

>159 MissWatson: I've got the Nicholson - and not got to it yet... It looked good on the shelf as well, which must have bene why I bought it - only to have it languish on my shelf instead.

>163 Helenliz: I know, I always buy books on the spur of the moment, because they look lovely or interesting, and then they sit there...

XX / Bingo: arts and recreation

Ein königliches Theater is a historical mystery written very much in a 21st century style, the author frequently addresses the reader apologising for or explaining attitudes prevalent at the time. It is 1901 and Pisa puts on Tosca at the local theatre, in the presence of the king. Because his father has been assassinated by anarchists, his guards are on the lookout for suspicious characters, especially the tenor who is known to be an anarchist sympathiser. The lieutenant takes over when Cavaradossi is shot – for real, on stage.
This was light-hearted fun, lots of anecdotes about Italian opera, Puccini and Rossini included. And one of the main characters, journalist Ragazzoni, is a real person.

>165 MissWatson: Sounds delightful. Alas, not in English!

>166 Tess_W: That's a pity, it's delightful froth. I also like his contemporary Bar Lume series.

September Roundup

I'm spending the weekend at my sister's, offline, so it's time to look at the challenge. It's been a mixed bag this month, and vacationing ate into reading time. I think my favourites this month have been the historical mysteries, A necessary evil and Ein königliches Theater. And the non-fiction book, that was truly rewarding: Die Welt aus den Angeln.
The unfilled prompts in the other challenges are mostly geared towards US issues and may be hard to fill from my own shelves, I need to think about this.
Ah well, see you all on Tuesday.

XXI /GenreCAT

My sister had a new children's book for me to read which fits the September GenreCAT: Die Muskeltiere und die große Käseverschwörung where Bertram and his mousketeer friends go to Paris to save a small cheesemaker from being put out of business by a nasty multinational. He also gets to meet a descendant of his hero D'Artagnan, and all ends well. Fun for grown-ups, too.

XX / classics: travel

I got Kim as a public domain ebook and spent too long reading this in instalments, by the end I had almost forgotten what happened in the beginning. I was surprised to find Lispeth, recently met in Plain tales from the hills, make an appearance here. I think at some point I'll re-read this with more focus.

So, today is the birthday of the Chevalier d'Éon, and by some strange coincidence, Irene Dische has a new book out about him/her, with a great review in the FAZ. But I can't find the English title for this. The publisher doesn't mention it on their homepage. DNB doesn't know the original title, either. Need to check this again later in the month...

XXI / MysteryKIT

I had high hopes for Kommissar Pascha which is set in Munich (cue fond memories of visiting beer gardens) and features a Turkish-born police officer. Alas, I like neither him nor his team, so I bailed after 70 pages. Life is too short.

XIX / GeoKIT: Europe

I had a vague memory that a Japanese is involved in the sleuthing done in Mystère rue des Saints-Pères, but I was wrong. So it doesn't fit the MysteryKIT. The case was less than stellar and I can see why I didn't pick up the next in the series immediately: Victor Legris got on my nerves with his narcissist attitude.
This was a re-read after seven years and a lot easier the second time around. Reading frequently helps keep the language active. I really need to read more Spanish...

Saturday notes

We're having wonderful weather this week, it feels almost like summer and I should spend time on the balcony reading.
Also I picked up the book I ordered for my sister's birthday and what did I see among the English books? There's a new Sharpe out! I shall have to rein in my impatience until the paperback arrives, otherwise it will look odd among the others...

It's time to start a new thread, so come on over and enjoy a golden October with me!