Penguin

Day 18 + 19 Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge (Massive tome + travelling home reading this)

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1q84

OK – confession time! I have commitment issues. There are so many beautiful books out there and so little time, so committing myself to one big book for a period of time is a tough one for me 😉

Mr Murakami also has the habit to bring out these massive tomes but somehow picking them up comes totally naturally for me. One of my favourite massive tomes that I can highly recommend to pretty much anybody on this planet is the wonderfully weird „1Q84“.

Getting out of a taxi prompted by the driver’s enigmatic suggestion sets Aomame on a puzzling trip where she quickly starts to see discrepancies in the world around her. She seems to have entered, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 — Q for question mark.?  A world that is full of questions.

A love story, a thriller, a fantasy, and of course a dystopia that plays with George Orwell’s 1984—1Q84 is a fest for the imagination, a novel that immediately sucks you into its orbit and (depending on the speed of your reading) keeps you for a while until you reluctantly leave this new reality apparelled with an additional moon and an eerie group called „the little people“.

So enjoy your trip and fasten your seat-belt 😉

For day 19 „Travelling home reading this) I have to keep it blank I think. I simply don’t know yet. Not sure if I will be finishing my current book until Sunday when we take off, so no idea – no picture.

See you tomorrow.

Day 17 – Penguin Book-a-Day (Funny Read)

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Toole2

Had to pick Ignatius J. Reilly – because it is a really really funny book and it is a wonderful sunny beach picture. Makes a nice change in this grim wet weather. If you haven’t read „The Confederacy of Dunces“ it is a Pulitzer prize winning comedy about Ignatius a 30 years-old, „genius“, an expert on Boetius with a problematic stomach and inclination to gluttony and flatulence. He spends most of his time in bed, masturbating, eating and writing in his notebooks.

His first job is at a clothing factory in decline, Levy Pants, where my favourite character beside Ignatius makes her unforgettable appearance. Beloved Miss Trixie the old senile bookkeeper „Am I retired yet?“ she constantly asks – no one in particular.

You can find the full review here (in German). Prepare yourself for a hilarious trip through the hotspots of New Orleans.

Walter Percy has a wonderful description of Ignatius:  “ Here at any rate is Ignatius Reilly, without progenitor in any literature I know of — slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one – who is in violent revolt against the entire modern age…“

Day 14+15 Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge (Read at School + Favourite colour cover)

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Matilda

I know – I know. Another combined day, it looks as if I’m getting lazy. But! But! I really had a reason for combining it. It really is both. We did read it at school (ok in German but still) and it is one of my absolute favourite colour cover books. Promise.

If you don’t know Matilda or any of the other wonderful children books by Roald Dahl – you have to read them. If you are a grown-up or not. They are fantastic. No true book worm could resist Matilda, I promise you will love her.

“Matilda said, „Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable…”

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”

“So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”

OK – I stop now. I could go on quoting and quoting and quoting. I have not read Matilda in a while but just promised her that 2015 is her year again – can’t wait 🙂

Day 12 + 13 Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge (Book of Poems and Stocking Filler)

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emily

My delayed flight home from Hamburg hindered me to send yesterday’s posting on time there two days in one today. The book of poems I chose is the one by Emily Dickinson who’s poetry I adore. She was an American Poet from Massachusetts who lived a very introverted and isolated life. She was born in 1830 to a well placed family and went to study at Amherst for a couple of years before returning home to live with her family

People saw her as quite eccentric and later in life rarely left her room. Only a handful of her nearly 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. Her younger sister Lavinia discovered the poems after her death and had the first volume published four years later.

Emily Dickinson is considered today one of the most important American poets.

Here is one of my favourites:

Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging.
I may remember him!

And here the picture for Day 13 the Stocking Fillers I bought mostly for myself and for the kids of a good friend of mine:

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I doubt that I will ever master the art of entering a bookshop without going out with a less than 5kg package. I really am hopeless and will join the Bookaholics anonymus as soon as I can find one.

Day 11 – Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge: Christmas Classic

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What a nice surprise I had when I left the train in Hamburg.  Found this book with a nice little note of the former owner saying she is leaving the book for another reader and wishes a merry x-mas.

And it came just in time for Day 11 of the Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge as I did not have a Christmas Classic at hand that I could have take a photo, not well prepared but thanks to Stephanie I not only have a picture for the challenge but also a book filled with some great Christmas stories from Paul Auster to Erich Kästner, Siegfried Lenz to Marie Luise Kaschnitz and more.

Thanks again Stephanie – you certainly put me in the Christmas spirit 🙂

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Day 10 – Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge: Latest Purchase

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Found this book in my favourite bookshop a few days ago, the story sounded great and only when I was going to pay for it I realised that I had finally picked up the book by this years nobel prize winner Patrick Mondiano („Ein Stammbaum“). Really happy because I meant to read a book by him and glad I stumbled upon it. Check back soon for a the upcoming review.

Day 9 – Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge ( I judged this by its cover)

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 swimtwobirds

OK – this is a bit of an embarrassing story. Got this book by a good friend and for some reason I had the book down as a freaky Sci-Fi classic. An inkling that the cover only increased. So I was reading away hoping and waiting for the  Spaceships, Time travel bits, Laser weapons but uhmmm…

SPOILER ALERT: definitely freaky but absolutely no Sci-Fi Spaceships, Aliens or anything similar in the book 😉

I have no idea why I had this idea about the book but they do look like Aliens on the cover, right ?

The book is about a young, constantly drunk Irish Literature student who lives with his uncle in Dublin who works as a bookkeeper with Guinness and whom he strongly dislikes. He spends most of his time in bed reading or writing a novel. He does not believe a book should have a start and a finish, so he invents three storylines.

It is not an easy read, there is a lot of humour in the book which I didn’t completely get but still a great read. An even better read I guess when you are Irish yourself, have enjoyed a little intoxication of your preferred substances and as mentioned before – you are not waiting for spaceships.

It is a book that I guess should ideally be read in English but it is not easy. Would be interested to know if anybody read it in translation and how that worked out.

Day 8 – Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge (It’s a mystery!)

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This had to be a Philip Marlowe „hardboiled“ mystery. I love this tough minded, hard-drinking, philosophical private eye with a – of course – purely professional interest in recurring femme fatales 😉

I was especially happy to find this especially pretty edition in a book exchange in Cambodia. Nothing like cuddling up on the sofa with a Raymond Chandler thriller and a glass of Malt Whisky (sorry no Bourbon for me). Should Star Treks Holodeck ever be invented during my lifetime – I will be Marlowe in Los Angeles in 1936.

„Nothing says goodbye like a bullet…“

Day 7 – Penguin Book-a-Day-Challenge (Childhood Favourite)

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This was a difficult choice between this one and Pippi Longstocking. I love all of Erich Kästners books but Emil always had a special place.

It is especially fun reading it in Berlin and I will pack it for my next trip there. In case you belong to the few people who never read it: It is the story of Emil who travels to Berlin visiting his grandmother and his aunt. On his train journey all the money gets stolen that his mother had saved for Grandma. Emil knows how hard his mother worked for the money and he tries to catch the thief in Berlin. He gets help from Gustav and his friends who support him and in the end more than 90 kids are on a mission.

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Kästner mainly wrote books for kids but for grown-ups I can highly recommend „Fabian“ – a really really good read.

Day 6 – Penguin Book-a-Day Challenge (Everyone should read)

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So sorry – had to cheat a bit. Just couldn’t make up my mind which book „everyone should read“ so I picked the wonderful „Novel Cure“ by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin which offers a wide selection of phantastic books for about any situation or predicament you might find yourself in. From A like abandonment to Z like zestlesness there is a book-idea on how to cure it in it for you.

I had the pleasure of having a Bibliotherapy session during the two Reading Weekends in England a couple of years ago with Ella and it was absolutely inspiring. Ella is the bibliotherapist of the School of Life in London and I can highly recommend booking a session with her or if you can’t do that buy the book which is not only filled with lots of great book recommendations but it is also very beautiful.

It has been translated into German and is called „Die Romantherapie“ published in Insel Verlag- it would even be worth getting both editions as the book recommendations are varying.