#ThrowbackThursday. March 2016

Here are my #ThrowbackThursday reviews from March 2016.

Anonymous "Lazarillo de Tormes" (Spanish: La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades) - 1554

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book that was written almost 500 years ago, a great classic that you can read quite quickly because it is so short but there is a lot of action going on. This young, poor boy called Lazarillo, has to fend for himself, he has several masters and tells us his stories with them in this novel/novella.

Camus, Albert "The Stranger" (aka "The Outsider") (French: L'étranger) - 1942

"Un étranger" in French is "a foreigner", someone who is not a citizen of the country in question. Who is a stranger, really? Why do we exist? And this is really the question of this story, a philosophic one, even though you can read it as a novel, as well.

Ephron, Nora "I Remember Nothing. And other reflections" - 2010

Nora Ephron, may she rest in peace, always found the right words. Reflections about growing older, losing your health, losing friends, your whole world is changing.

When you are in that position, all that is left some days is your sense of humour. And Nora Ephron helps you with it.

Grass, Günter "My Century" (German: Mein Jahrhundert) - 1999

Günter Grass has grown on me and has shown why he really deserved the Nobel Prize with this work. One hundred years in one hundred stories, told from different perspectives, from the rich and the poor, the left and the right, those that left and those that stayed. Men, women, children, everyone got the chance to tell their story that is so particular for that part of the century. If you want to understand what Germans went through and achieved in that time, this is a good point to start.

Steinem, Gloria "My Life on the Road" - 2015

Gloria Steinem is a new hero for me. What she did at a time when most women could only dream of having a good husband and leading a quiet life, the things she fought for, brilliant.

Ulitzkaya, Lyudmila "Imago" or "The Big Green Tent" (Russian: Zelenyi shater/Зеленый шатер) - 2010

We learn about the lives of a group of friends, three boys who have a brilliant literature teacher and how he influences the rest of their lives, how they live or don't live with the inflictions put upon them by the regime of their country.

Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2026

I have taken part in this reading challenge since 2013. The moment I saw that post, I know this was the most interesting challenge for me. I signed up for the highest of the four levels "Mor-book-ly Obese" which meant eight or more chunksters (books over 450 pages) of which three must be 750 pages or more.

I have carried on with that challenge without setting goals, I love big books and I will always read some. And I am more than willing to tell my friends about them.

If you are interested in the challenge, check out this link. They discontinued their challenge in 2015.
You can still find suggestions by page number, in case you can't find any chunksters yourself. 😉

Or you can check out my lists from the previous years (below), maybe you are interested in a couple of them.

I read in
2013: 38 chunky books, 13 of them chunksters
2014: 37 chunky books, 15 of them chunksters
2015: 26 chunky books, 8 of which chunksters
2016: 28 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2017: 35 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2018: 29 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2019: 20 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2020: 18 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2021: 24 chunky books, 10 of which chunksters
2022: 11 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2023: 12 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2024: 16 chunky books, 4 of which chunksters
2025: 17 chunky books, 4 of which chunksters

I will be posting the books I have read here:
(I add the German title, if available, for my German friends)
[I add my own translation of a foreign book title if it's not available in English.]

Baldursdóttir, Kristín Marja "Die Eismalerin" (Karitas án titils/Karitas untitled) - 2004 - 463 pages

I read 1 chunky books in 2026 of which 0 are considered a chunkster.

If you want to do this challenge or just check at the end of the year what category you are, here is the list:

    The Chubby Chunkster - this option is for the readers who want to dabble in large tomes, but really doesn't want to commit to much more than that. FOUR Chunksters is all you need to finish this challenge.
    The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months.
    Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX Chunksters from the following categories: 2 books which are between 450 - 550 pages in length; 2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; 2 books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length (for ideas, please refer to the book suggestions page for some books which fit into these categories).
    Mor-book-ly Obese - This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to EIGHT or more Chunksters of which three tomes MUST be 750 pages or more. You know you want to.....go on and give in to your cravings. 

Looks like I've always been "more book-ly obese". 😂

Baldursdóttir, Kristín Marja "Karitas untitled"

Baldursdóttir, Kristín Marja "Karitas untitled" (Icelandic: Karitas án titils) - 2004

None of us had read many books from Iceland before, so we decided to choose this one for our book club.

Iceland 100 years ago. A widow with six children. That's certainly not easy even today, but a hundred years ago it was incredibly difficult everywhere. But Steinunn Olafsdóttir not only manages to raise her children during those hard times, she also provides them all with an education, even the girls, which was very unusual back then. Of course, everyone has to pitch in, otherwise it wouldn't be possible.

The youngest daughter, Karitas, even becomes a painter; she has great talent and is given the opportunity to study in Denmark. But even she can't escape the customs of the time.

A highly interesting novel about a life we ​​know very little about.

It was nice that there was a map of Iceland in the book. It wasn't so nice that the places mentioned in the book are hardly ever shown on the map.

We had a really nice discussion about this book, even though we all basically agreed. But everyone was able to take something different away from it or noticed something different, which greatly contributed to our understanding.

Personally, the scenes with elves and ghosts bothered me a little, but one member suggested that they were partly hallucinations of the protagonist. That's quite possible, and I'm glad someone saw it from a different perspective.

We also really liked that there was a matching drawing by the "ice painter" (German title) for each chapter.

We discussed this book in our local book club in February 2026.

Book Description:

"A portrait of an artist trapped by convention and expectations but longing for the chaos that can set her free. Growing up on a farm in early twentieth-century rural Iceland, Karitas Jónsdóttir, one of six siblings, yearns for a new life. An artist, Karitas has a powerful calling and is determined to never let go of her true being, one unsuited for the conventional. But she is powerless against the fateful turns of real life and all its expectations of women. Pulled back time and again by design and by chance to the Icelandic countryside―as dutiful daughter, loving mother, and fisherman’s wife―she struggles to thrive, to be what she was meant to be. Spanning decades and set against a breathtaking historical canvas, Karitas Untitled , an award-winning classic of Icelandic literature, is a complex and immersive portrait of an artist’s conflict with love, family, nature, and a country unaccustomed to an untraditional woman―but most of all, with herself and the creative instincts she has no choice but to follow."

Happy March!

  Happy March to all my Friends and Readers
New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch
"Besuch im Garten"
"Visit in the Garden"

Hanka and Frank say to this picture:

"Seit vielen Jahren beobachten wir die kleinen bunten Sänger in unseren Gärten. Egal ob Sommer oder Winter - irgendwie hat man doch ein kleines Lächeln im Gesicht, wenn man die kleinen Vögel sieht. Zeit, ihnen mal wieder ein kleines Aquarell zu widmen."

"For many years we've watched these little colorful songbirds in our gardens. Whether summer or winter, seeing them always brings a smile to our faces. Time to dedicate another little watercolor painting to them." 

Read more on their website here. *

This picture is not only beautiful but a wonderful reminder of my childhood. We always had lots of swallows and songbirds in our garden and they always make me smile. Even now, songbirds are always around us. Beautiful little companions.

* * *

An old weather lore is: "If February is dry and cold 🥶, heat will soon follow in spring". (Ist der Februar trocken und kalt, kommt im März die Hitze bald.) 

* * *
And a poem I found about March:
Never mind March, we know
You're not really mad
Or angry or bad.
You're only blowing the winter away
To get the world ready
For April and May.

* * *

My favourite books last month:
Lanschot, Reinier van "We are Europe" (Dutch: Wij zijn Europa: een nieuw Europees verhaal) - 2024
and
Chevalier, Tracy "The Glassmaker" - 2024

A non-fiction about Europe and the European Community, and a fictional account about living in Venice through the centuries.

* * *

My German word this month is:
Augenweide
this translates into:
A Feast for the Eyes
but word for word:
Eye Pasture

I think this is a good word to make us look forward to the next month, the beginning of spring. You might say Eye Candy but Augenweide means so much more.

* * *

I've checked my February pictures and I found that February seems to be a month where we play board games constantly. We play all year round but I guess it is due to the weather that we play more of them in February. So, here is a collage of some of the games we played during the last couple of weeks. Do you know any of these? Have you  played any of them?

The names of the games are: verkopft, krazyWords, Wie Arsch auf Eimer (it's a perfect match) and Hitster.

* * *

* You can also have a look under my labels Artist: Frank Koebsch and Artist: Hanka Koebsch where you can find all my posts about the two artists. 

💐 I wish you all a very Happy March! 💐

Jane Austen Year 2025

As I mentioned before, as part of the commemoration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday, the Classics Club started a #Reading Austen project. We are reading a book by her every other month, and I want to do read something Austen-related by her in between.

Austen, Jane (Jane Austen in German)

January: "Sense & Sensibility" - Verstand & Gefühl/Sinn & Sinnlichkeit - 1811 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 
February: Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017
March: "Pride & Prejudice" - Stolz & Vorurteil - 1813 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 
April: Bell, Catherine "Jane Austen and the Art of Words" (GE: Jane Austen und die Kunst der Worte) - 2021
May: "Mansfield Park" - Mansfield Park - 1814 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
June: Hornby, Gill "Miss Austen" - 2020
July: "Emma" - Emma - 1816 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
August: Sullivan, Margaret C. "The Jane Austen Handbook. A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World" - 2007
September: "Northanger Abbey" - Kloster Northanger - 1818 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 
October: Adkins, Roy & Lesley "Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England: How our ancestors lived two centuries ago" (aka "Jane Austen's England) - 2013
November: "Persuasion" - Überredung/Anne Elliot - 1817 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
December: Deresiewicz, William "A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter" - 2011

And there are, of course, hundreds of books about Jane Austen, her life, her novels, plus numerous "sequels" to the novels she wrote, written by contemporary authors. I am not a big fan of those kind of stories, so I'm not including any since I haven't read them.

Austen, Jane
"Lady Susan" - Lady Susan - 1795
"The Watsons" - Die Watsons - 1803/05
"Sanditon" - Sanditon - 1817
"Selected Letters. 1796-1817" - 1796-1817

Le Faye, Deirdre "Jane Austen. The World of Her Novels" - Jane Austen und ihre Zeit - 2002

Shields, Carol "Jane Austen. A Life" - 2001
Tomalin, Claire "Jane Austen - A Life" - 1997

Which Austen Heroine are You? 

Other books relating to her work:
Baker, Jo "Longbourn" - 2013

Birtwistle, Sue; Conklin, Susie "The Making of Pride and Prejudice" - 1995

Fowler, Karen Joy "The Jane Austen Book Club" - 2004
McCall Smith, Alexander "Emma. A Modern Retelling" - 2015

Pool, Daniel "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew" - 1993
Rowlatt, Bee & Witwit, May "Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad. The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship" - 2010
Austen, Jane "The History of England: By a Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian" - 1791

You will find more posts where she has been mentioned here.

And there are some recommendations by friends:
Harman, Claire "Jane’s Fame - How Jane Austen Conquered the World"
Mullan, John "What Matters in Jane Austen? - Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved"

And during the year, Captivated Reader found a YouTube link on PBS for a Jane Austen dance and general information about her life.

Chevalier, Tracy "The Glassmaker"

Chevalier, Tracy "The Glassmaker" - 2024

I have read quite a few novels by Tracy Chevalier and they were all highly interesting, always about different people in different areas at different times.

But this was special. From the descriptions, I first thought this was a little like the stories by Edward Rutherfurd who guides us through centuries by introducing several people from several families. Well, this was a little different. The story starts in 1494 Orsola Rossa, the protagonist, lives in Murano with her family of glassmakers. After 500 years, she is in her sixties and has lived through a plague, several wars, many changes in the lives of people, especially women.

While I was first a little dismayed by this way of telling the story, I really loved the people in Murano and Venice. Not all, but most of them. And the story of the family and how they got through all the upheavals, was also fantastic. 

You can tell, that Tracy Chevalier put a lot of time and effort into the research. I especially loved to learn about all the details of glassmaking. Well done.

I doubt I will ever get to see Venice but this is a good substitute.

From the back cover:

"Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives perfecting.

In secret, Orsola Rosso learns to craft glass. As a woman, she must flout convention to save her family from ruin. We follow her through hundreds of years of war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

Skipping like a stone across the centuries, The Glassmaker is a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as glass."

Lanschot, Reinier van "We are Europe"

Lanschot, Reinier van "We are Europe" (Dutch: Wij zijn Europa: een nieuw Europees verhaal) - 2024

A Christmas present from one of my sons. One of his bosses had written a book about Europe. History. Present. Problems. Future.

I grew up in the middle of Europe with the European Economic Community. We had the same age. I saw a lot of controversy. Many people who were against it. Especially the farmers in our area though a lot of them benefitted from the butter mountain and other agricultural grants. I also lived in England while they were members of the EU and heard a lot of negativity there, they take away our measurements etc. The same moaning in both countries, we pay more into the community than we get out.

But do we really? I never believed that story because I know how much our market grew, I could see how we all participated in the prosperity.

Reinier van Lanschot observes this very well. He is the next generation and he gives us hope. As long as there are people like him who work toward a better future, who understand the problems and try to find solutions, so long we can have hope. The right wingers shout louder but I grew up with the conviction "He who shouts the loudest is in the wrong". And that's always right.

The EU is our biggest hope against nationalism, racism and all the other -isms who think they are better than others because … usually no reason at all, they just made one up.

There are a lot of facts in this book that tell us what has led to some events like Brexit but many stories that have to convince us that Europe is the only hope for the future.

I can only recommend this book to anyone who has the slightest interest in Europe and needs good points to convince others.

P.S. In his acknowledgements, the author also mentions Geert Mak, one of my favourite Dutch authors who has written a lot of great non-fiction books about our century, his country and Europe. And quite a few of his books have been translated into English. Try them, he is great.

Some quotes:

"When death and decline are all around and there appears to be no light left, this is frequently when the most brilliant plans emerge. And it is also when the strength to carry them out becomes possible." Mathieu Segers
The author says: "This was exactly the context in which European cooperation was born. After the devastation of the Second World War, Europe found itself in a precarious position."

On the Peace of Augsburg in 1555:
"This treaty introduced the principle of cuius regio, euius religion ('whose realm, his religion') granting rulters the authority to determine the official faith of their territories."

In German, we have a saying "Wes Brot ich ess, des Lied ich sing". (He whose bread I eat, his song I sing.) The Dutch say the same "Wiens brood men eet, diens woord men spreekt". That's about the same as "He who pays the piper calls the tune."

To explore how the EU affects your daily life, region, or interests, it is well worth visiting the webiste called What Europe Does For Me.
This is a good site that especially anyone who is against the EU should read.

From the back cover:

"We are living in a time of profound change. In Brussels, decisions are made every day that affect the lives of 450 million Europeans and shape the wider world. European cooperation is unique, far-reaching, and remarkably successful. Yet that story is rarely told in our national media or in everyday conversations.

In 'We Are Europe', Reinier van Lanschot takes readerson a journey across the continent. With historical perspective and vivid anecdotes, he reveals the real story behind European cooperation, its bold achievements and its serious shortcomings.

Van Lanschot does not shy away from Europe’s flaws. By examining today’s greatest challenges, he exposes the weaknesses of the current system and argues for the fundamental changes needed to safeguard our future. What emerges is a clear and hopeful vision for a renewed European project.

This book is both a wake-up call and an invitation: to recognise that Europe is not something distant, but something we all shape. Because the truth is simple – we are Europe."