Twelve Years of Blogging

12^th "Blogiversary"

It's a special day today. At least for me. Twelve years ago, I started this blog.

Twelve is a good number. We have twelve months in the year and two times twelve hours in a day. We also have twelve signs in the zodiac, in the Western as well as in the Chinese one. In mathematics, it's a so-called composite number, the smallest number with exactly six divisors, its divisors being 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. In the British imperial and monetary system, everything was either divisible by twelve or by twenty (e.g. 12 inches in a foot). We even have an extra word for twelve in most languages: a dozen. In most religions, it has a very symbolical value (see 12 apostles, 12 sons of Abraham, 12 days of Christmas).

Last year, I presented you with the number of entries I had in certain genres and here is an update:
Classics (369 as opposed to 329 last year), Nobel Prize Winners (128), Lists (192), Book Club (225). And I have found many other things to blog about over the years, Book Quotes (353 quotes), Top Ten Tuesday once a week (141 weeks by now) and new challenges all the time, the Classics Club, Spell the Month in Books, Six Degrees of Separation, Read the Year, Travel the World Through Books etc. I haven't started any other new reading challenges this year because I really need to "work on" my TBR pile. However, I started to add books to my German blog here.

See last year's blogiversary post.

Ivey, Eowyn "The Snow Child"

 

Ivey, Eowyn "The Snow Child" - 2012

I'm not a fantasy fan but I like magic realism and I like fairy tales. Some people will claim that is the same but I know real fantasy fans will agree. Now, this was a mixture between magic realism and fairy tale, it is based on an old Russian fairy tale but takes place in Alaska in the 1920s.

It is difficult to explain without giving too much away but the book description already says a lot. I liked the old couple and I loved the young girl. I liked the interaction between them and I also enjoyed the descriptions of the nature and the hard work people had to endure in order to make a living.

A great story about what could have been.

Book Description:

"Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart - he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone - but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees."

Eowyn Ivey was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for "The Snow Child" in 2013.

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Bookshop Books

   

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". This feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists at "The Broke and the Bookish". It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

This week, our topic is Favorite Bookstores OR Bookstores I’d Love to Visit (The UK celebrated National Bookshop Day on October 1)

I don't have the luxury of many bookstores in the area and when I get to visit a town, I usually visit at least three of their bookshops. So, I thought I'd present some books that take place in a bookshop - or a library. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Bivald, Katarina "The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend" (SWE: Läsarna i Broken Wheel rekommenderar) - 2013
Bythell, Shaun "Confessions of a Bookseller" - 2019
- "The Diary of a Bookseller" - 2017
Campbell, Jen "The Bookshop Book" - 2014
Fitzgerald, Penelope "The Bookshop" - 1978
Funke, Cornelia "Inkheart" (GE: Tintenherz) - 2003
Hanff, Helene "84 Charing Cross Road" + "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street" - 1970 + 1973
Rice, Ronald (ed.) "My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop" - 2012
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Shadow of the Wind" (E: La sombra del viento - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #1) - 2001
Seierstad, Åsne "The Bookseller of Kabul" (NO: Bokhandleren i Kabul) - 2003

I hope I will see many blogs that present interesting bookshops or books about bookshops.

📚 Happy Reading! 📚

DeLillo, Don "The Silence"

DeLillo, Don "The Silence" - 2020

We read this in our international online book club in September 2022.

I like dystopian novels and when our book club chose this one by an author I haven't read, I was looking forward to it. I'm not a huge fan of short stories but sometimes they turn out well.

This one didn't. There wasn't enough information about what was going on and certainly none about what happened after. Granted, we don't know, yet, what might happen if this ever was the case.

The world is losing its technology including all the internet. It would have been nice to see what happens to the world rather than listening to some weird, unexplainable eruptions by some of the characters.

The best part of the book is the quote in the prequel by Albert Einstein (which I knew already and totally agree with):
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

After that introduction, I would have wished that this would be shown at least a little.

Comments from another member:" I have been holding off on writing something, because I found it all so confusing. So I will say just that I found the book confusing and not at all what I was expecting. It was more like a piece of art or theatre-manuscript for some monologue than a novel. But if you look away from my expectations the story did highlight what a catastrophic event would be like from the perspective of very few people. There were the people who weirdly survived the planecrash and went on as if nothing had happened, then there was the guy who kept staring at the TV, a conspiracy theorist, the hostess. But not much about what happened in the outside world except for a few words on it not being good. Again something new to widen my reading experiences, but very confusing."

And another one: "I completely agree. It reads like a confused stream of consciousness exercise that no one was meant to really understand. Maybe it was meant to evoke some sort of feeling similar to Sartre's 'La Nausée' only this novel only evoked a sense of absurdity."

And I totally could relate to this one: "If I ever experience a catastrophic event I sincerely hope the folks I am with have more wits than the very dull characters in this book. A short but tedious book."

Book Description:

"From one of the most dazzling and essential voices in American fiction, a timely and compelling novel set in the near future about five people gathered together in a Manhattan apartment, in the midst of a catastrophic event.

Don DeLillo completed this novel just weeks before the advent of Covid-19. The Silence is the story of a different catastrophic event. Its resonances offer a mysterious solace.

It is Super Bowl Sunday in the year 2022. Five people, dinner, an apartment on the east side of Manhattan. The retired physics professor and her husband and her former student waiting for the couple who will join them from what becomes a dramatic flight from Paris. The conversation ranges from a survey telescope in North-central Chile to a favorite brand of bourbon to Einstein’s 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity.

Then something happens and the digital connections that have transformed our lives are severed.

What follows is a dazzling and profoundly moving conversation about what makes us human. Never has the art of fiction been such an immediate guide to our navigation of a bewildering world. Never have DeLillo’s prescience, imagination, and language been more illuminating and essential."

Spell the Month in Books ~ October 2022

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

O
Smith, Zadie "On Beauty" - 2005
C
Moyle, Franny "Constance" - 2011
T
McCourt, Frank "'Tis"  - 1999
O
Dinesen, Isak/Blixen, Karen "Out of Africa" - 1937
B
Stroyar, J.N. "Becoming Them" - 2017
E
Emcke, Carolin "Echoes of Violence" (GE: Von den Kriegen) - 2004
R
Lawson, Mary "Road Ends" - 2013

📚 📚 📚

I hope I could mention a few books that interests other readers. Have a happy month!

Six Degrees of Separation ~ Notes on a Scandal

Zoë Heller

Heller, Zoë "Notes on a Scandal" - 2003

#6Degrees of Separation:
from Notes on a Scandal to Anne of Green Gables

#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.

This month's prompt starts with Notes on a Scandal aka "What Was She Thinking?" (Goodreads) by Zoë Heller

I have never read this book but I noticed that it contained a word that I found in other titles, so I tried to go back to the good old work chain this mongh. And it worked.

Notes
Bryson, Bill "Notes from a Small Island" - 1995

My first book by one of my favourite writers about one of my favourite places in the world (even though they have left the EU in the meantime, but I hope they will find out that was a mistake and come back).

Island
Allende, Isabel "Island Beneath the Sea" (E: La isla bajo el mar) - 2010

Life on a plantation, first in the Caribbean, later in Louisiana, the life of the slaves and the free, lots of history.

Sea
Benali, Abdelkader "Wedding by the Sea" (NL: Bruiloft aan zee) - 1996

The story about someone growing up in the Netherlands seeing life in Morocco from the outside.

Wedding
McCall Smith, Alexander "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" - "The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party" - 2011

This one was a lot harder to find but there is a book in a series that I like that had the word wedding in the title because - well, there was a wedding in that one.

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

A new, modern Russian author. She describes life in the Soviet Union and begins with the death of Stalin and what it meant for the people and how their lives went on after that. I don't think it's a big spoiler if I tell you that it's not getting any better.

Green
Montgomery, L. M. "Anne of Green Gables" - 1908

Green is an easy book to find. Who doesn't know Anne Shirley?

I really enjoy any kind of separation chain we do, they all have their charm. I hope, everyone else does, too.

Look for further monthly separation posts here. 

Happy October!

  Happy October to all my friends and readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch

"Noch Fragen?"
"Any more Questions?"

I guess if someone asks like that, the answer will probably be NO!

This beautiful picture reminds me of grumpy cat, only prettier. Hanka captured the animal beautifully.

* * *

My German word for the month is

Mumpitz

We could give that as an answer because it means more or less "nonsense".

However, it used to be the description for a bogeyman for fools. The word is a combination of the old words "vermummen" (disguise) and Booz or Butzemann (a figure to frighten children, something like a troll). Originally it was "Mummelputz" but it changed over the years, of course.

In between, it was also used for frightening rumours. We could use that today for the politics in almost any country. Bad news from Italy, but mainly Ukraine or Russia.

* * *

My picture of the month was taken during a medieval market in our area. After a couple of years of Corona pause, they finally did it again and it was a nice success.

It was lovely to enjoy the day without the big heat we had to endure during the summer.

* * *

☮️ ☮️ ☮️

* * *

Have a happy October with this beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch.


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

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