Book Quotes of the Week

"All of us possess a reading vocabulary as big as a lake but draw from a writing vocabulary as small as a pond. The good news is that the acts of searching and gathering always expand the number of usable words." Roy Peter Clark

"Men must read for amusement as well as for knowledge." Henry Ward Beecher

"She gathered books like clouds and words poured down like rain." Markus Zusak

"Books are hindrances to persisting stupidity." Spanish Proverb

Find more book quotes here.

Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2020

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

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.]

Fatland, Erika "Die Grenze. Eine Reise um Russland" (Grensen: En reise rundt Russland gjennom Nord-Korea, Kina, Mongolia, Kasakhstan, Aserbajdsjan, Georgia, Ukraina, Hviterussland, Litauen, Polen, Latvia, Estland, Finland og Norge samt Nordøstpassasjen) [The Border. A trip around Russia] - 2017 - 642 pages
Staël, Anne-Louise-Germaine de "Corinne ou l'Italie" (Corinne: Or Italy/Corinna oder Italien) - 1807 - 632 pages
Bryson, Bill "The Body. A Guide for Occupants" - 2019 - 464 pages
Undset, Sigrid "Kristin Lavransdatter" (Kristin Lavransdatter) - 1920-22 - 1,168 pages
Rand, Ayn "We the Living" (Vom Leben unbesiegt) - 1936 - 464 pages
H., A. "My Struggle" (Notes by some megalomaniac who thought he could rule the world) (M.K.) - 1925/26 - 782 pages
Stendhal "Le Rouge et le Noir" (The Red and the Black/Rot und Schwarz) - 1830 - 825 pages
Tolstoy, Aleksey Konstantinovich "Prince Serebrenni" (aka The Silver Knight/The Silver Prince) (Князь Серебряный/Knjaz' Sserebrjanyi/Fürst Serebrenny/Zar Iwan der Schreckliche) - 1882 - 610 pages
Weir, Alison "Six Tudor Queens. Anna of Kleve. Queen of Secrets" (US title: The Princess in the Portrait) - 2019 - 512 pages
Falcones, Ildefonso "Die Erben der Erde" (Los herederos de la tierra/La catedral del mar #2/The heirs of the earth) - 2016 - 928 pages
Stephenson, Neal "Anathem" (Anathem) - 2008 - 1,024 pages
Hislop, Victoria "Those Who Are Loved" - 2019 - 489 pages

Crafts, Hannah "The Bondwoman’s Narrative" - 1855-69 - 464 pages

Dumas, Alexandre "Le comte de Monte-Cristo" (The Count of Monte Cristo/Der Graf von Monte Cristo) - 1844-46 - 531 pages
Rutherfurd, Edward "Sarum: the Novel of England" (Sarum) - 1987 - 1,376 pages
Metalious, Grace "Peyton Place" (Die Leute von Peyton Place) - 1957 - 512 pages

Fatland, Erika "Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan" (Sovjetistan. En reise gjennom Turkmenistan, Kasakhstan, Tadsjikistan, Kirgisistan og Usbekistan) - 2014 - 512 pages
Marx, Karl "Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie" (Capital. Critique of Political Economy) - 1867 - 768 pages

I read 18 chunky books in 2020 of which 7 are considered a chunkster.

Giordano, Paolo "The Solitude of Prime Numbers"

Giordano, Paolo "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" (Italian: La solitudine dei numeri primi) - 2008

When I saw the title of this book, I thought it might be a book about mathematics or at least a novel about mathematics. Well, it's a novel about a mathematician. Not exactly the same but it was a very interesting story and I can see why the author received the highly renowned Premio Strega and the Premio Campiello for this first novel. They even turned it into a film and I can see that it gets a wide audience.

It's difficult to describe this book, and that's probably what makes it so interesting. There are twins in this story and people who are almost like twins. It's not really a love story but there is love involved. It's not a story about (mental) illness and/or death but that's involved, as well. The story jumps back and forth in time by telling us the stories of Mattia and Alice.

The title alludes to the fact that prime numbers are natural numbers that are divided only with number 1 and itself. They never stand together, are always divided by at least one (even) number, so they are always alone.

A brilliant first novel, makes you want to read his next ones.

From the back cover:

"A prime number can only be divided by itself or by one - it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia, both 'primes', are misfits who seem destined to be alone. Haunted by childhood tragedies that mark their lives, they cannot reach out to anyone else. When Alice and Mattia meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit. 

But the mathematically gifted Mattia accepts a research position that takes him thousands of miles away, and the two are forced to separate. Then a chance occurrence reunites them and forces a lifetime of concealed emotion to the surface. 

Like Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, this is a stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and the weight of childhood experience that is set to become a universal classic."

Bryson, Bill "The Body. A Guide for Occupants"

Bryson, Bill "The Body. A Guide for Occupants" - 2019

Bill Bryson should have been my biology teacher. Or any science teacher. I might have learned something in that direction in school. Alas, he would have been too young when I visited school and also, he's not a teacher. Or is he?

I've already learned a lot about science in his book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and this is another example about how you can make a dull subject more interesting for others. Nobody has to convince me to read any of his travel books (see the list in "Bill Bryson - Funniest author ever") or any book by him at all but I was a tad apprehensive about this one since biology was never my "thing".

Bill Bryson said: "We spend our whole lives in one body and yet most of us have practically no idea how it works and what goes on inside it …"

And he is so right. Whilst I knew the basics, there is so much more to learn and to know and with this book, I have learned a lot more than in many years at school. And it was not boring, not a minute of it.

One thing I have to say, whilst I always knew how much could go wrong in your body and that it's more astonishing how little actually does go wrong, this book is more reassuring than troubling. We all die at one point, some sooner, some later. And while it is terrifying to lose a loved one, we do live a lot longer than any people in history did which also causes us to die of illnesses our ancestors wouldn't get because they'd been dead for decades.

I did miss the author's usual humour, but you can't have it all, I guess.

Still, please, carry on writing these kind of informative books as well as your funny ones, Bill Bryson. No matter what subject you choose for your next book, I will definitely read it.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"In his brilliant, bestselling A Short History of Neary Everything, Bill Bryson set off to explore the universe and the science of everything in it. In The Body, he turns his gaze inwards, to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us. As he guides us around the human body to discover how it functions, what can go wrong and its remarkable ability to heal itself, what emerges is that we are infinitely more complex, wondrous and mysterious than any of us might have suspected.

From our genes to our linguistic skills, our big brains to our dextrous fingertips, we are an astonishing story of success. And the history of how we have tried to master our biology and stave off disease is full of forgotten heroes, astounding anecdotes and extraordinary facts. (Your body make a million red blood cells since you started reading this.)

Endlessly fascinating, and as compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. A must-read owner's manual for everybody, this is Bryson at this best."

Book Quotes of the Week

"Honestly, I hate when in books, the guy changes the girl's life. Like, no. The girl needs to change her own life." Sasha Alsberg

"This book taught me, once and for all, how easily you can escape this world with the help of words! You can find friends between the pages of a book, wonderful friends." Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

"Everything comes to him who waits, except a loaned book." Kin Hubbard

"I like the feeling when I completely forget who I am while reading." N.N.
[If anyone can tell me the originator of this quote, I'd be very thankful and would happily include the name.]

Find more book quotes here.

Wodehouse, P.G. "Right Ho, Jeeves"

Wodehouse, P. G. "Right Ho, Jeeves" - 1934

I'll be forever grateful to all those people who recommended Jeeves and Wooster to me, but I'm really indebted to the friend who recommended I should read this one first. So, I finally did. And it's a great book. The stories are quite funny but that's not it. The language is just wonderful, there's humour in every sentence, every expression. The wittiness of the author is being transferred into the character of Jeeves, the "gentleman's gentleman". I think that description says it all. He's the snobby butler of a young guy, Bertie Wooster, who doesn't care much about the world or what anybody thinks of him but who is convinced that he is the greatest guy on earth. So, it's good he has his trusted friend Jeeves who guides him from one problem into the next catastrophe.

A truly delightful book. Whenever you feel gloomy, read a bit of Jeeves and Wooster!

From the back cover:

"Follow the adventures of Bertie Wooster and his gentleman’s gentleman, Jeeves, in this stunning new edition of one of the greatest comic novels in the English language. Bertie must deal with the Market Snodsbury Grammar School prize giving, the broken engagement of his cousin Angela, the wooing of Madeline Bassett by Gussie Fink-Nottle, and the resignation of Anatole, the genius chef. Will he prevail? Only with the aid of Jeeves!"

Happy March!

Happy March to all my friends and readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Frank Koebsch

"Traditionsecke"
"Traditional Corner"

In March we celebrate the official beginning of spring. At least in our half of the globe. And only on the calendar, mind, the weather does what it wants anyway.

The boat and fishing gear in this month's picture remind us of that.

And it also links us to this year's Green Capital of Europe, Lisbon. When I think of Lisbon (and I've never been there), I definitely think of the sea, fishermen, boats. Of course, I have lots of beautiful buildings in mind, as well, and the famous yellow tram, THE famous landmark in my eyes. 

This year, Lisbon received the European Green Capital Award. They started the year with planting more than 20 thousand trees to help the capital breathe better! Their aim is to become climate neutral until 2050. Great ambitions with a great start.

We had a happy and eventful month. Three music events, a visit to the theatre, lots of meetings with friends and family, visitors from the Netherlands, Australia and Germany. I'm sure March will be just as great.

Have a happy March with this beautiful watercolour painting by Frank Koebsch.

You can find many more wonderful pictures on their website here.