#ThrowbackThursday. December 2012

I've been doing ThrowbackThursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. So, I post more than one Throwback every week. These are my reviews from December 2012.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott "Tender Is the Night" - 1934
An American in Paris, well, no, several Americans in the South of France, to be exact. Some rich expatriates live the perfect life, only, one of them is schizophrenic and marries her psychiatrist.

Hamill, Pete "Snow in August" - 1998
Brooklyn, two years after World War II. An 11 year old Irish Catholic boy whose father died in battle and who lives alone with his mother befriends a Czech Rabbi and learns about Judaism and the Holocaust. Together they face racism and violence. 

Liao, Yiwu "Testimonials or: For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet's Journey Through a Chinese Prison" (Chinese: 證詞/Zheng-Ci) - 2000
It's terrifying to read what people in Chinese prisons have to go through. This is a good book to read but with horrible pictures of what they do to each other. It's hardly believable that human beings can be like that.

Oates, Joyce Carol "Mudwoman" - 2012
Meredith Ruth (M.R.) Neukirchen is an abandoned and then adopted child that grows into a very successful woman. When she is at the top, she starts struggling with her past.

Robinson, Barbara "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" (aka "The Worst Kids in the World") - 1972
You can learn in this play what Christmas is all about, what it really means.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" - 1852
This is one of the most tragic stories I have ever read. As with other classic stories, I had heard about the content, I knew what was going to happen to Uncle Tom, I knew what happened to slaves, how they were sold and tortured, how they would sell spouses and children away from their families. But it's tragic every time again, especially if you put a name to the people involved, if they are described in such a way that they come alive on the paper.

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

Alphabet Authors ~ M is for Mann

I found this idea on Simon's blog @ Stuck in a Book. He picks an author for each letter of the alphabet, sharing which of their books he's read, which I ones he owns, how he came across them etc. I might not do it exactly as he does but I will try to get to all the letters of the alphabet over time.

There are several great authors whose name start with M: Naguib Mahfouz, Pascal Mercier, or Toni Morrison spring to mind but in the end, it had to be one of my favourite German authors ever: Thomas Mann. And here are the books I read by him, there are still more to come which I will add whenever I have read it.

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

- "Tristan" (GE: Tristan) - 1901

- "Tonio Kröger" (GE: Tonio Kröger) - 1903

- "Death in Venice" (GE: Der Tod in Venedig) - 1912
- "A Man and His Dog" (GE: Herr und Hund. Ein Idyll) - 1918 
- "The Magic Mountain" (GE: Der Zauberberg) - 1924
- "Joseph and his Brothers" (GE: Josef und seine Brüder) - 1933/34
- "Doctor Faustus" (GE: Doktor Faustus) - 1943-47
- "Confessions of Felix Krull" (GE: Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull) - 1954

Buddenbrooks also happens to be one of my favourite books. Ever.

Facts about Thomas Mann:
Born    Paul Thomas Mann 6 June 1875 in Lübeck
Died    12 August 1955 (aged 80) in Zürich, Switzerland 
During the Nazi regime, the Mann family had to go into exile. Thomas first fled to Switzerland, than to the USA.

He received several honorary doctorates from all over the world.

There is a 30 Pfennig postages stamp which was issued in his memory on the first anniversay of this death.

There are also memorial plaques in Lübeck, Weimar and Nida (Lithuania) and many artists have made paintings or statues from him.

Also have a look at my report about our visit to the Buddenbrook house in Lübeck.

Thomas Mann received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 "principally for his great novel, 'Buddenbrooks', which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature".

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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This is part of an ongoing series where I will write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

Happy April!

Happy April to all my Friends and Readers

New Calendar picture with this

beautiful watercolour painting by Frank Koebsch

"Osterküken"

"Easter Chicks"

Frank says to this picture:

"Osterküken gehören wie die Hasen und die Lämmer zu den beliebtesten Symbolen für das Osterfest. Einmal sind sie seit vielen Jahrhunderten Symbole des Frühlings und Fruchtbarkeit."

"Like bunnies and lambs, Easter chicks are among the most popular symbols of Easter. They have been symbols of spring and fertility for many centuries."

Definitely a good picture for Easter. My parents used to raise chickens and I loved it when we had new chicks. They were so soft and fluffy. Good memories.

Read more on their website here. *

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Spring definitely has sprung in our part of the world. Far too early. But it gave us the chance to visit our youngest son in Brussels. The town was so beautiful at this time of year. 

We had the chance to visit the European Parliament. And here is a picture from the outside.

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My favourite book of the month was "The Figurine" by Victoria Hislop. I have only just finished it and will review it soon. Only so much, if you like Victoria Hislop, this is one of her greatest books, for sure. And if you don't know her, it's time you did.

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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 April ☔

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Books You'd be a Fool not to Read

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. 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's topic is Books You’d be a Fool Not to Read (Happy April Fool’s Day! In honor of this silly holiday, share the books you think people must read for whatever reason. They could be your favorites, books you deem classics, books that you learned something important from, books you wish you’d read sooner, etc. You could even narrow it down to a specific genre and share the must-reads for that genre. Get creative!)

This is such a nice topic. And even though we've had similar subjects before, I'm not going to bore you with the list I published before but mention some of my all-time favourites by some of the best authors ever and also some more recent reads.

Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book" - 2008

Chevalier, Tracy "Girl with a Pearl Earring" - 1999

Follett, Ken "The Pillars of the Earth" (Kingsbridge #1) - 1989

Haig, Matt "The Midnight Library" - 2020

Hislop, Victoria "The Island" - 2005

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Poisonwood Bible" - 1998

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

Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Shadow of the Wind" (E: La sombra del viento - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #1) - 2001 

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

Şafak, Elif "The Island of Missing Trees" - 2021

All of the authors that have a link to their name are some of my favourites. For some of them, I mentioned the first book I read by them, others the first one they wrote, even others the last one they wrote so far. And as you can see, some belong to a series. And I can recommend them all.

Weir, Alison "Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife"

Weir, Alison "Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife" (Six Tudor Queens #6) - 2021

The sixth wife of Henry VIII. And the sixth book in the Tudor Queens series by Alison Weir.

I think I knew far too little about Katharine Parr. She was Henry's last wife. She survived him. She had two husbands before him. She married again when he died only to die herself in childbed. That's about all I knew.

Of course, this is a novel based on the life of the queens. However, there is a lot in it that is history and where we can learn about that time in England.

We see through the eyes of Katharine Parr that women were just a commodity, and not worth a lot for that. At her first marriage, she doesn't even know the husband. Then she has to look for another one because otherwise a woman has no means to live. When she falls in love with Thomas Seymour, she has to marry the king who also wants her. What a life!

In any case, Alison Weir has brought the Tudor queens to life in a way no history book could ever have done. For that, I thank her profoundly.

From the back cover:

"Two husbands dead; a life marred by sadness. And now Katharine is in love for the first time in her life.

The eye of an ageing and dangerous king falls upon her. She cannot refuse him. She must stifle her feelings and never betray that she wanted another.

And now she is the sixth wife. Her queenship is a holy mission yet, fearfully, she dreams of the tragic parade of women who went before her. She cherishes the secret beliefs that could send her to the fire. And still the King loves and trusts her.

Now her enemies are closing in. She must fight for her very life.

KATHARINE PARR – the last of Henry’s queens.

Alison Weir recounts the extraordinary story of a woman forced into a perilous situation and rising heroically to the challenge. Katharine is a delightful woman, a warm and kindly heroine – and yet she will be betrayed by those she loves and trusts most.

Too late, the truth will dawn on her."

Book Quotes

"From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings." Helen Hayes

True. Even if your parents are the smartest and most educated in the world, nobody knows everything. But we can learn so much from books that it will almost make us fly.

"If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them." George Orwell

Even truer. As we can always see when there have been elections.

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." Plato

Another true statement. Worst are those who think they know everything but really know nothing. They will shout loudest. And those who shout loudest are usually in the wrong.

Find more book quotes here.

#ThrowbackThursday. November 2012

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. So, I post more than one Throwback every week. These are my reviews from November 2012.

Bach, Richard "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" - 1970

If you are interested in everything spiritual, anything that contributes to world and inner peace, this book is just the right one. The novel is very positive yet very thought-provoking. And it's still very meaningful today. It advises us not to put people in a box, to keep an open mind.

Brumbeau, Jeff/de Marcken, Gail "The Quiltmaker’s Gift" - 2001
Larsen Line, Joanne/Loving Tubesing, Nancy "Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift" - 2000

A beautiful book with great illustrations about the most beautiful quilts ever and a great sewing book accompanying it.

Buck, Pearl S. "Peony" - 1948

This book is the reason why I fell in love with Pearl S. Buck. She tries to incorporate the multi-cultural theme into this one, the trial of assimilation. How far does an immigrant want to become like the people in his host nation? A wonderful account of two worlds colliding.

Dickens, Charles "A Tale of Two Cities" - 1859
Two of the most famous quotes in one book, how often do you get that? And the rest of the book is as good as the beginning and the end.

Huxley, Aldous "Brave New World" - 1931
This dystopian novel is so up-to-date, it might as well have been written yesterday. That's how great it is, you can tell good writing.

McGarry Morris, Mary "Songs in Ordinary Time" - 1995

An American town in 1960, a time I remember a little. Almost anyone in this novel is poor but that's not all. My family was poor when I grew up but there is a huge difference, we had a family. 

The book is well written, it builds anticipation, you hold on, you hope for something good to happen to the characters, you feel for them. 

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