#ThrowbackThursday. November 2011 Part 3

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the third part of November 2011.

Denuzière, Maurice "Louisiana" (F: Louisiane. Trilogie) - 1977
A fabulous description of the life in Louisiana during the time of river steamboats and plantations.

Mağden, Perihan "Two Girls" (TR: İki Genç Kızın Romanı) - 2002
A story of two girls in Istanbul. They come from totally different backgrounds but form a unique bond.

McCourt, Frank "'Tis: A Memoir" (Frank McCourt #2) - 1999

What happens after "Angela's Ashes"? Frank McCourt leaves Ireland and goes back to the States. We all know that he became a teacher and then wrote his book but haven't heard anything from the time in between. This can be learned in his second book.

Powers, Charles T. "In the Memory of the Forest" - 1997
The novel talks about Poland after the Second World War, about the skeletons in the closet. A community tries to forget its past, its involvement in the Holocaust. It tells the story of ordinary people trying to survive in an ordinary world.

Truss, Lynne "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" - 2005
It's a hilarious book for those people who do know the use of the apostrophe (and other parts of the English grammar that seems to be so difficult to learn for some) and see a mistake right away. A book for us grammar nerds.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Rulfo, Juan "Pedro Páramo"

Rulfo, Juan "Pedro Páramo" (Spanish: Pedro Páramo) - 1955

This was our international online book club book for October 2024.

I really like South American and Central American authors, they are always interesting, they are different from our European or the North American ones,.

Juan Rulfo is not that different from the other authors of that genre. Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges had nothing but praise for him.

The book was interesting though quite confusing at times. You think you are at the beginning of November celebrating Dia de los Muertos (All Souls Day) because we accompany a young man into a village where his parents grew up but it is a ghost town.

It is an unusual kind of writing, so the story is hard to follow, you don't know whether you are in this world or the next, whether someone is dead or alive. The narrative is non-linear, so it jumps around all the time. But the novel is definitely worth reading.

Some comments from members at the meeting:

• The book was strongly magical realism, we did not get a good grasp of the plot, but found it poetic.
• It was quite eerily ghostly, at first it not being clear where the story is going, who is alive and who is dead and what is going on. Then the horrors started creeping up on what was going on in the town becoming just worse and worse. The lawlessness, the enabling of violence and murder and rich and powerful dominating the poorer people and women. It was a really interesting book to read, but not one I would pick up to read again.
• As we had read 2 other Latin-American authors, Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez , who had been said to have been deeply influenced by Rulfo, I could definitely see the connection, but found Rulfo to be more subtle in his approach to describing evil. At moments the writing was beautifully poetic giving a lot of feeling and nuance to the story.

Book Description:

"The highly influential masterpiece of Latin American literature, now published in a new, authoritative translation, and featuring a foreword by Gabriel García Márquez

A masterpiece of the surreal that influenced a generation of writers in Latin America, Pedro Páramo is the otherworldly tale of one man’s quest for his lost father. That man swears to his dying mother that he will find the father he has never met - Pedro Páramo - but when he reaches the town of Comala, he finds it haunted by memories and hallucinations. There emerges the tragic tale of Páramo himself, and the town whose every corner holds the taint of his rotten soul. Although initially published to a quiet reception, Pedro Páramo was soon recognized as a major novel that has served as a touchstone text for writers including Mario Vargas Llosa and José Donoso.

Now published in a new translation from the definitive Spanish edition by celebrated Rulfo scholar Douglas J. Weatherford, and featuring a foreword by Gabriel García Márquez, this new edition of the novel cements its place as one of the seminal literary texts of the twentieth century."

#ThrowbackThursday. November 2011 Part 2

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the second part of November 2011.

Haushofer, Marlen "The Wall" (GE: Die Wand) - 1962

This is a book I will never forget. It is about a woman who wakes up one morning only to find out there is an invisible wall around the house in the mountains where she has spent the night. 

Ondaatje, Michael "Anil's Ghost" - 2000

Civil war in Sri Lanka, human rights issues, a story of ordinary people, love, family, a lot of history in this country. 

I love books about history and/or novels from other parts of this world. Anil's Ghost combines history and a story from another part of this world. The language in this book is wonderful, I could read on like this for ages. 

Rosner, Elisabeth "The Speed of Light" - 2001

This is one of those stories that stay with you forever. All three characters are struggling with either their own or their parents' past, with a story they could not change, they were completely innocent in. 

Schmitt, Éric-Emmanuel "Oscar and the Lady in Pink" (F: Oscar et la dame rose) - 2002

The author introduces his readers to a religion through the eyes of a child. This time, he talks about Christianity.

Soueif, Ahdaf "Aisha" - 1983

A short story collection that positively surprised me. The author manages to describe the people so vividly and the stories are so interesting, she is just a great writer. However, this isn't really a collection of short stories but the description of Aisha's life and that of people in her life who turn up in the short stories. A journey between East and West, bringing Orient and Occident together. 

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Orange

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

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This week’s topic is Orange. Meeghan says: "Earlier this year we did yellow books and red books, but it’s now time for Halloween. What are your favourite orange covered books?"

Orange is not my colour but I found 27 books that were 99% orange, can you believe it?

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "We Should All Be Feminists" - 2006

Emcke, Carolin "Against Hate" (GE: Gegen den Hass) - 2016

Hanks, Tom "Uncommon Type. Some Stories" - 2017 (short stories)

Rutherfurd, Edward "Sarum: the Novel of England" - 1987

Sendker, Jan-Philipp "A Well-Tempered Heart" (Burma Trilogy # 2) (GE: Herzenstimmen) - 2012

All of those are great books. And even some of the covers are in German, they are all available in English.

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🏆 Happy Reading! 🏆

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Morrison, Toni "The Bluest Eye"

Morrison, Toni "The Bluest Eye" - 1970

I read this for the "1970s Club".

As always, Toni Morrison has written a fantastic story about the troubles of people who suffer from racism. This is not my favourite book by her (that would be "Beloved") but it is still a great story. We follow the family Breedlove and their friends backwards, to see what they have all been through.

The main character is the little girl that would love blue eyes. While I understand that wish, she wants to be accepted and thinks this is the way to get there, I thought the rest of the story was much more important.

From the back cover:

"Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns
for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife."

Toni Morrison "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Read more about other books by the author here.

#ThrowbackThursday. November 2011 Part 1

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the first part of November 2011.

Adams, Richard "Watership Down" - 1972

This sad story as a sign how careless we are with Mother Nature, how easily we destroy our home planet, how little we consider our fellow human and animal beings.

Dirie, Waris "Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad" - 1998
I remember hearing about female genital mutilation but I think this was the first time I read about it in detail. I think I was so shocked, couldn't believe that anyone would do such a thing ton an innocent young girl, the book has never left me. Not what you expect from the autobiography of a famous model.

Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan) "A Passage to India" - 1924

This novel takes us both to a different time and a different area, India in die 1920s. Of course, the protagonists are British who live in the time of the Indian independence movement but the main character is a young Indian who gets into trouble just through the carelessness of the English. The book talks about friendship, colonialism, the wish of all human beings to be independent.

Hamilton, Jane "A Map of the World" - 1994
"Happiness is an Illusion, Pain is Reality" - Alice Goodwin, the main character of this novel, receives this as her fortune cookie when visiting a Chinese restaurant with her husband. She doesn't think this sounds like a reality but is reminded of it shortly afterwards when her life changes so much, nothing will ever be the same again.

Smith, Zadie "On Beauty" - 2005
Again, I quite like the author's style, the way she portrays the different characters. Apparently, an homage to E. M. Forster's "Howards End". The fact that she manages to make this into a very modern story shows how timeless a writer she is.

Smith, Zadie "White Teeth" - 1999
A great book with interesting plots, good descriptions, good language.
Zadie Smith's first book takes place in Zadie Smith's a Jamaican hair salon in North London, an Indian restaurant in Leicester Square, an Irish poolroom turned immigrant café, a liberal public school, a sleek science institute.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Follett, Ken "The Armour of Light"

Follett, Ken "The Armour of Light" - 2023

"The grand master of gripping fiction is back. International No.1 bestseller Ken Follett returns to Kingsbridge with an epic tale of revolution and a cast of unforgettable characters."

Yes, he is a grand master indeed. After having written four books about Kingsbridge, their cathedral and the inhabitants, rich and poor from 997 until the 16th century, here is the follow-up for the Industrial Revolution.

With the story of  Kingsbridge, we also learn the story of England and the United Kingdom. Anytime we read about history and how people lived, we must be thankful to live today. Even though we also have political problems, we as "the little people" have a lot more rights than people ever had. And we owe this to people like those described here.

I hope the story of Kingsbridge will continue into modern times. Then we could just go on with the century trilogy.

In any case, this is THE series for lovers of historical fiction.

I missed a list of all the characters before and during the book. And, like I said before, I would have enjoyed a timeline of what happened at the time. Yes, I have the internet and plenty of other books where I can look this up but I find having it in the actual book I'm reading is actually very helpful.

From the back cover:

"Revolution is in the air

1792. A tyrannical government is determined to make England a mighty commercial empire. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his rise to power, and with dissent rife, France’s neighbours are on high alert.

Kingsbridge is on the edge

Unprecedented industrial change sweeps the land, making the lives of the workers in Kingbridge’s prosperous cloth mills a misery. Rampant modernization and dangerous new machinery are rendering jobs obsolete and tearing families apart.

Tyranny is on the horizon

Now, as international conflict nears, a story of a small group of Kingsbridge people - including spinner Sal Clitheroe, weaver David Shoveller and Kit, Sal’s inventive and headstrong son - will come to define the struggle of a generation as they seek enlightenment and fight for a future free from oppression. . .

Taking the reader straight into the heart of history with the fifth novel in the ground-breaking Kingsbridge series, The Armour of Light is master storyteller Ken Follett’s most ambitious novel to date."

The Classics Club: The Classics Spin #39

 

"Words and Peace" is a blog I've been following for a couple of years and I have always found some interesting new (or olde) books there, especially French ones.

On her page, I found the posts by "The Classics Club" asking us to create a post, this time before next Sunday 20^th October 2024, and list our choice of any twenty books that remain "to be read" on our Classics Club list. They'll then post a number from 1 through 20 and we have time until Sunday 18^th of December 2024 to read it.

This time, I read only the one book from my old list (Classics Spin #38) ("Cannery Row"). But there are always some new books that I can add to my challenge. The books are all in chronological order.

1. Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays" (Lysistrata) - 411BC
2. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Urfaust. Faust Fragment. Faust I" (Faust) - 1772-1808
3. Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" - 1838/39
4. Dumas, Alexandre fils "Camille: The Lady of the Camellias" (La Dame aux Camélias" - 1848
5. Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary" (Madame Bovary/ Madame Bovary) - 1857
6. Turgenjew, Iwan Sergejewitsch "Fathers and Sons" (Отцы и дети/Otzy i deti) - 1862
7. Conrad, Joseph "Victory: An Island Tale" - 1915
8. Hamilton, Cicely "William - an Englishman" - 1920
9. Hesse, Hermann "Wir nehmen die Welt nur zu ernst" [We just take the world too seriously] - 1928
10. Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury" - 1929
11. Hemingway, Ernest "A Farewell to Arms" - 1929
12. Meigs, Cornelia "Invincible Louisa" - 1933
13. Krleža, Miroslav "On the Edge of Reason" (Na rubu pameti) - 1938
14. Némirovsky, Irène "Les biens de ce monde" (All Our Wordly Goods) - 1941
15. Cela, Camilo José "The Family of Pascal Duarte" (La Familia Duarte) - 1942
16. Zweig, Stefan "Schachnovelle" (The Royal Game/Chess) - 1942
17. Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast" - 1946
18. Huxley, Aldous "Ape and Essence" - 1948
19. Hemingway, Ernest "Across the River and into the Trees" - 1950
20. Simenon, Georges "Maigret's Memoirs" (Les mémoires de Maigret) - 1951

#3 was picked this time, so for me it's:
Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" - 1838/39

This is a great idea for all of us who want to read more classics. Go ahead, get your own list. I can't wait to see what I get to read this time.

Here are all the books on my original Classics Club list.
And here is a list of all the books I read with the Classics Spin.

#ThrowbackThursday. October 2011 Part 4

  

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the fourth part of October 2011.

Ashworth, Andrea "Once in a House on Fire" - 1999

The author describes her youth in a penniless household full of violence and other problems. Her depressive mother sends the family through a series of stepfathers, none of whom can be describe as "normal" family members.

Balliett, Blue "Chasing Vermeer" - 2003
A nice book about art for children, a mixture between fiction and non-fiction. 

Clarke, Marcus "For the Term of His Natural Life" - 1870-72
This novel describes the life of a convict from when he first gets condemned through the voyage to the new continent and the rest of his life. 

Hegi, Ursula "Stones from the River" - 1994
Quite a different war story, Trudi is a dwarf and grows up in war-torn Germany, not a good time for anyone who is not what the Nazis expect a "normal" person to be.

Hornby, Nick "About a boy" - 1998
A funny yet thoughtful and touching novel. Will, the "teenager forever" meets Marcus, the strange child.

Stewart, Chris "Driving over Lemons. An Optimist in Spain" - 1999
The former Genesis drummer is now a farmer in Spain and has written a book about it. 

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Top 5 Tuesday ~ Awards

Top Five Tuesday was originally created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, but is now hosted by Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. To participate, link your post back to Meeghan’s blog or leave a comment on her weekly post. I found this on Davida's Page @ The Chocolate Lady.

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This week’s topic is Awards. Meeghan says: "Those You can pick a specific award (I’ll be doing the Aurealis Awards for Aussie-written fantasy) or just any book you’ve written that’s ever won an award. What are your faves?"

Awards is a great topics. I love awards, especially the Nobel Prize for Literature, so I have decided to go with my favourite book by my favourite Nobel Prize winning authors.

Mann, Thomas "Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family" (GE: Buddenbrooks) - 1901 

Camus, Albert "The Plague" (F: La Peste) - 1947

Buck, Pearl S. "Peony" - 1948

Morrison, Toni "Beloved" - 1987

Pamuk, Orhan "My Name is Red" (TR: Benim Adım Kırmızı) - 1998

As you can see, all the authors have their own links which means I have read at least three of their books.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

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🏆 Happy Reading! 🏆

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The 1970 Club

This book challenge takes place twice a year and concentrates on one year and one year only. I call it "Read the Year Club". This time, 1970 was picked. For more information, see Simon @ Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings (here is Karen's invite and here is Simon's).

If you are looking for inspiration, there are a few books from that year that I read already:

Bach, Richard "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" - 1970
Hanff, Helene "84 Charing Cross Road" + "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street" - 1970 + 1973
Scott, Mary "Haven't We Met Before?" - 1970
Segal, Erich "Love Story" - 1970
Wallraff, Günter "From the Guy Who Went Forth and Learned to Fear" (GE: Von einem, der auszog und das Fürchten lernte) - 1970

I also found some other ideas (Karen has more on her page):
Blume, Judy "Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret"
Brown, Dee "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" 
Herriot, James (James Alfred Wright) "If Only They Could Talk" 
Morrison, Toni "The Bluest Eye"

This challenge takes place from 24 to 30 October 2024.

I had this on my TBR pile, therefore I picked:
Morrison, Toni "The Bluest Eye" - 1970

Six Degrees of Separation ~ Long Island

Colm Tóibín

Tóibín, Colm "Long Island" - 2021

#6Degrees of Separation:

from Long Island (Goodreads) to Croatian War Nocturnal 

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here.

The starter book this month is Long Island by Colm Tóibín.

As so often, I have not read this one and I doubt I am going to because I really didn't like the author's first book, "Brooklyn". So here is the description:

"From the beloved, critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, twenty years later.

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis’ life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost."

The best way to deal with books that I haven't read is usually to go by words in the title. So it was this month. The starter word is Long.

Ingalls Wilder, Laura "The Long Winter" in Little House Books" - 1932-71

Stachniak, Eva "The Winter Palace. A Novel of Catherine the Great" - 2011

Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Midnight Palace" (El Palacio de la Medianoche) - 1994

Rushdie, Salman "Midnight's Children" - 1981

Stroyar, J.N. "The Children's War" - 2001

Štimec, Spomenka "Croatian War Nocturnal" (Esperanto: Kroata Milita Noktlibro) - 1993

Both the first and last book are written by a young girl/woman and based on their life in harsh circumstances, none of which we would ever wish on a child nowadays but, unfortunately, there are still too many who have to live like that.

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Spell the Month in Books ~ October

  

Reviews from the Stacks

I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Books are the New Black who found it at One Book More. It was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles

October: Favourite genre

I like to read all sorts of books but I think, historical novels belong to my favourites. So, here are my October books.

OCTOBER

O

Hislop, Victoria "One August Night" - 2020

C

Krall, Hanna "Chasing the King of Hearts" (Polish: Król kier znów na wylocie) - 2006

T

Achebe, Chinua "Things Fall Apart" (The African Trilogy #1) - 1958

O

Myers, Benjamin "The Offing" - 2019

B

Dickens, Charles "Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty" - 1841

E

Follett, Ken "The Evening and the Morning" - 2020

R

Ibrahimi, Anilda "Red Like a Bride" (Italian: Rosso come una sposa) - 2008

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Happy Reading!

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#ThrowbackThursday. October 2011 Part 3

 

I've been doing Throwback Thursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. One of my blogger friends always posts the reviews of one month but that would be too much. So, these are my reviews from the third part of October 2011.

Brontë, Anne "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" - 1848
I think of all the Brontë novels, this is my favourite. It reminds me of Jane Austen, though in a different direction.
The novel is exciting from the beginning. The description of the mysterious woman moving into Wildfell Hall, the suspicious neighbours, the generous landlord ... everything is quite interesting already. Then she disappears and the mystery gets even bigger.

Chevalier, Tracy "The Virgin Blue" - 1997
If you are interested in reading about people in former time, especially how women used to live, this is the book for you. 
An American woman moves to France with her husband and starts having strange dreams about the colour blue. 
Gripping.

Chevalier, Tracy "Remarkable Creatures" - 2009
A book about the girl who discovered dinosaurs. We would have liked it to be non-fiction but it was still very interesting.

Coetzee, J.M. "Disgrace" - 1999
A professor, after having lost his job, goes to live with his daughter, Lucy, in a remote area in South Africa. I really liked Lucy, the description of South Africa, both the landscape and the life/political situation.

Johnson, Dr. Spencer "Who moved my cheese?" - 1998
A parable about two mice and two men who live in a maze. They all want the cheese but they all tackle the task differently. We can learn from their mistakes, see that it is important to stay alert. And to be flexible, very important!

Skibsrud, Johanna "The Sentimentalists" - 2010
A story of a father who wants to forget the Vietnam war and is slowly losing all his memories to Alzheimer's. A story of a daughter who would like to learn more about her father and his life. A story of a father and a daughter trying to find a way together at a late stage of their lives.

Read my original reviews, for the links click on the titles.

Happy October!

Happy October to all my Friends and Readers
New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch

"Gimpel"

"Bullfinch"

Hanka says to this picture:

"We photographed these small, beautiful representatives of our garden birds in the Marlow Bird Park before he 'stood' as a model in this watercolor painting."

"Diesen kleinen schönen Vertreter unserer Gartenvögel haben wir im Vogelpark Marlow fotografiert, bevor er in diesem Aquarell Modell 'stand'."

Read more on their website here. *

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September was finally a month where I could breathe. Happy, happy, happy to see my favourite season: Autumn!

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This is the time of year where a lot of us are starting to read more and I have a great German word to tell you about:

📖 Schmökern 📖

If you look up the word on Google translate, they give you "browse" but it definitely is so much more than that. Originally, it comes from the Low German word "smöken" (to smoke, see where you got that one from). Students used an old book by tearing out a a strip of paper to light the pipe.

But, over the course of the centuries, as so often, it changed its meaning. Not it means: to leisurely browse through books, immersing oneself in the content for the sheer joy and pleasure of it and delve into them without a specific goal.

One of my favourite words.

 

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 My favourite book last month was "Remainders of the Day: More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown" by Shaun Bythell.

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September was also the month of our annual holiday where both our boy met us for a couple of days. We went to Oostende in Belgium, just by the sea. It was beautiful. The weather was fantastic, we had a lovely apartment, everything was close by, especially the ocean.

To give you an impression of the beauty of our holidays, here's a collage:

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The old German word for October is Gilbhart or Weinmond. 

The first word means "yellow" and "hard" and describes the yellow leaves in the autumn. Wein means winte and is self-explanatory, the month where the harvest in the vinyards started.

 

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* 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. 

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🍇 I wish you all a Happy October! 🍇