Monthly reads: October 2022

Lots of books again. I have to admit, looking at my huge reading pile at the end of the month feels really satisfying. But you know what's less satisfying? The fact that I've got almost no shelving space left and need to stack the books on the floor. Nooooo!

Doctor Who: Totenwinter (James Goss)

I haven't actually read that many Doctor Who books and/or short stories yet, but I've heard that they're usually something of a mixed bag. This one was pretty good: it had a proper intriguing mystery and the danger didn't come from some evil monster-of-the-day, but from something way more ambivalent. I also liked how the inner life of our protagonists way portrayed. I don't know, but Rory talking about how much he loves Amy even though she's sometimes more than ready to leave him behind for a new adventure (or for the Doctor) was quite heartbreaking. Consider becoming my boyfriend if you ever tire of your wife, man! Well, and the book also made me realise how much I want to rewatch DW, but I don't think I'll get to that anytime soon...

Doctor Who: Die Blutzelle (James Goss)

The 12^th Doctor is my personal favourite, and Clara is on of my least favourite companions. That often made watching Twelve's series of the show something of an exhausting affair, but thankfully Clara was a lot less annoying in this book. I'm still not entirely sure whether I liked the book in the end...the mystery was interesting and I liked the way the truth was slowly revealed over the progression of the story. But the end was...confusing and sort of weird. I have exactly no idea how the mysterious 'blood cell' looked because the author just ducked out by letting his characters say 'what we saw was too weird to describe'. Uh, sure, alright then. Don't expect me to be thrilled upon hearing this, though.

Jagd der Vampire (Barbara Hambly)

I initially dropped this book after reading like 30 pages last year. Before throwing it out I started a second attempt and well, it was actually pretty good. I like the way the vampires are portrayed: they are retaining some of their human characteristics, but they are also very, very different because some of the smaller or bigger things humans care so much about (keeping up appearances for example) just lose much of their importance once you're undead for hundreds of years. I'm not sure if I could entirely follow the main plot, but overall I really enjoyed it and I also liked the resolution. What I didn't like was the sequel: I dropped that one for good around halfway through because I was either bored or wondering if any of this made any sense. Plus, I absolutely didn't like how the protagonist's wife Lydia was being such a bitch to another woman just because she thought her to be stupid. Even more so when her own actions in this book could be called more than stupid. Still, at least the first book was a good read.

Sherlock Holmes: Der Wille des Toten (George Mann)

Note to self: don't buy any of those popular Holmes pastiches anymore. You won't enjoy them anyway and it's a waste of money. Ahem. Well...I didn't like that one. I'm generally very picky about pastiches and my pet peeve is when the main characters don't feel like Holmes and Watson. And here they clearly didn't. Also, I didn't like the case solution. Oh, and one more thing: Holmes novels just rarely ever work in general. Not even ACD's own full Holmes novels are even that good if you ask me. The short stories are what makes Holmes great, so maybe pastiche writer should rather stick to those anyway...

Die Chronik der Unsterblichen: Der Gejagte/Die Verfluchten/Blutkrieg/Das Dämonenschiff/Göttersterben/Glut und Asche/Der schwarze Tod (Wolfgang Hohlbein)

I think this series is still going strong, although by now some things are slowly getting repetitive or just not as good as during the first few books anymore. A lot of the enjoyment depends on whether I liked or didn't like the setting of the different books though. I guess that was why volume 7 about the Order of Saint John defending Malta against an armada of Ottoman ships. Volume 8 saw our heroes travel though the desert and visit the graves of the Pharaohs...yep, that was right up my alley again. The extra volume Blutkrieg plus volume 9 told a story about Norse gods and some Viking-esque tribes of people – not my favourite book setting, but then again, I love things set in cold climates, so that was also nice. Volume 10 was sort of a continuation of where 9 left off, but I didn't like that one as much again (it had a nice and surprising cameo of a real historical figure though!). Volume 11 and 12, well...I'm not sure I entirely understand that whole storyline about Andrej's dead son, but at least that story should be over by the end of volume 12. That was also when I meant to take a break from the series, but you know what, I just want to go on reading now. I'll probably finish the last four books in November, so let's see whether I'm finally fed up with it by then. I sincerely doubt it, because the whole series is just immensely fun reading.

Monthly reads: September 2022

 

I did read more books this month yet again. Which feels almost weird, but...I just slowly felt my book-reading mood coming back? Haven't felt like that for a while now, but I'm not sure how long this'll last.

Die Chronik der Unsterblichen: Der Vampyr / Der Todesstoß / Der Untergang / Die Wiederkehr / Die Blutgräfin (Wolfgang Hohlbein)

I usually really enjoy books and book series by Wolfgang Hohlbein. And this one is no exception. Sure, the stories and prose aren't especially deep, but his style is just really engaging and fun and easy to read. Perfect to huddle on the couch with a blanket and a hot cup of tea and escape reality for a while. That's exactly what I want and need in Autumn, so it wasn't hard for me to pick this book series from my huge unread list. And I'm glad there are still ~10 more volumes to read!

Dear Oxbridge (Nele Pollatschek)

I usually don't read books by Germans telling stories about their life and experiences in other countries anymore. In most cases I just can't bring myself to care about what the narrator wants to tell me, and often enough I even find the narrator/author pretty unlikable. Not in this case – judging from the writing style and the things she was writing about I often found myself agreeing with her. And there were quite a few things I found really interesting, even if I've already read countless books about life in the UK. (And we're not even talking about all those TV shows I've watched...) So well, I was pleasantly surprised here!

Lebensgeister (Banana Yoshimoto)

A few years ago I read a few books by Banana Yoshimoto and I mostly remember really liking „Kitchen“. The other books were pretty good, too. But...I just didn't like this one here at all. Sure, the descriptions of Kyoto were pretty good and atmospheric. Everything else was less good, though. I couldn't connect to the characters at all and the book felt way too...esoteric? spiritual? for my tastes. It wasn't even the thing about the mainchar being able to see ghosts, but rather the fact that she herself seemed like a ghost herself, with all this weird esoteric talk about inner healing and stuff. Nah, not my favourite by this author. Definitive not.

Frauen in Japan / Das verhasste Alter (various authors)

Two anthologies with short stories by Japanese authors. I already knew some of the authors, but I also discovered a lot of new ones. The stories were pretty good, too, but there wasn't one that made me want to read more from the same author ASAP. Still, decent anthologies, because there weren't any really bad stories and that's worth something, I think.

Angels in the Moonlight (Caimh McDonnell)

I was a bit sceptical about this prequel, because frankly...as much as I love Bunny (who doesn't?), I was sure that I would miss the other characters from the original trilogy. And well, I did miss them, but I still liked the prequel a lot. Even though I still prefer the trilogy, haha. But we still get a cast of quirky, interesting characters instead of the ones we already know and the crime part is also pretty good. So...while I still have the final book of the trilogy left, I'm not worried about whether I'd enjoy the prequels and other related books anymore. Which is pretty nice.

Monthly reads: August 2022

 

 I only really started reading and finishing books around August 20, so...this pile of books is pretty impressing, I think,

Riskante Begierden (Taeko Kono)

Well...judging from the blurb on the back the german publisher thought that this book was mostly about 'risque erotic'. And while the sadomasochistic relationship between the main characters is admittedly very important for the story...I don't think that's all or even most there is to the book. I liked how Taeko Kono portrayed life in war-time Japan with all its dangers and problems for everyday life. The contrast between that difficult public life and the private life of a unusual husband and wife was what made the book so good. Anyway, I loved it a lot. Will re-read at some point.

Knabenjagd (Taeko Kono)

This short-story collection was pretty good, too! Some of the stories have morally questionable protagonists, but I also really liked that. It's not always necessary to have a relatable character tell their story to the readers, I'd say. I know that many people nowadays might disagree, but...that's how fiction works, isn't it? Do we always want to read about people who are just like us, live lifes like ours and react to things in the same way we do? I don't think so. So, that's why this collection was also pretty interesting. I don't think there's much translated stuff by Taeko Kono save for these two books, but I would like to read more of her stories.

Das Jagdgewehr (Yasushi Inoue)

I do enjoy the works of many Japanese authors, but well...Inoue isn't one of my favourites, I guess. It's not that his books are bad, but I just can't find an emotional connection to his themes and protagonists. Of course the plot of this short little book was pretty interesting and I nevertheless liked reading about the connections between the protagonists lives. But the book failed to make me actually feel for them. Well, it just wasn't a book for me. I will try another Inoue book, but there's a lot of stuff with a higher priority on my reading list!

Zerbrochene Sterne (various authors)

As usual, some stories from an anthology are good, some are bad, but...overall I really liked this one. My favourite was the story about how the first emperor of China became a gamer. I would love to read an entire book about this idea because even just the premise sounds just great and the story was also very fun!

Quantenträume (various authors)

Same as above, but this one had more stories I didn't like as much. I'm very interested in the issue of artificial intelligence, but some stories just weren't my cup of tea. However, some of them were quite good, I have to admit that much. I liked the one about a woman falling in love with an AI, for example.

Komm, ich erzähl dir eine Geschichte (Jorge Bucay)

I got this book from someone, that's why I read through it pretty quickly. Some of the stories were nice, but I don't think the morale of most stories was surprising or very helpful. Most people say that this book opened their eyes for certain issues about their own life and psyche, but...I'm painfully aware of the things I need to change about myself, I don't need to be reminded of them by a book! Actually implementing those changes is the really hard part, but that's not something anything like a book could help me with.

Unter Beschuss (Michael Wolff)

I enjoyed reading Fire and Fury, Wolff's first book about Donald Trump. This one was...not as good, I think. Of course there was still a lot of interesting stuff, but this time the focus was less on Trump and more on all the weirdos he brought with him to the White House. And, well, I'm mainly here to read funny stories about the stupid orange man, haha. Mostly because there's always doubt about whether the author's sources really always told him the truth anyway, so I'd rather read his books for their entertainment value. And this one was just less entertaining than the first one. Maybe I will one day read an actual comprehensive account of Trump's presidency, but I'm not that much into US politics after all.

Monthly reads: July 2022

 

Well...I thought last month was bad, but this one is clearly worse. I can't even remember the last time I finished just one puny book in a month...

Romanze östlich des Sumidagawa (Nagai Kafu)

At least that one book was really good, though. I liked especially how it made me feel like I was actually there, seeing old Japan through the protagonist's eyes or exploring 1930s Tokyo together with him. I guess this won't be my last book by Nagai Kafu, although I need to check out whether there are more translations of his works. I don't think there's all that much available in German, so I might need to go for English, if possible.

Monthly reads: June 2022

 

I don't feel like I've actually read a single book this month, but at least I managed to finish these three. Not very impressive though.

U2532: Bis zum bitteren Ende (Erik Maasch)

I kind of enjoy reading this kind of German WWII submarine stories, even though I'm not especially into marine warfare. (I am interested in WWII though, but I know a lot more about tanks and planes than ships and subs.) This one was also pretty entertaining, as it showed the final days and hours of the war and how everything ended for them when it had in fact ended long ago. It's not especially deep or anything (no pun intended, although it would be a good one!), but it's a decent read. I'll read more of it if I'll occasionally get some of the books for cheap.

Die schlafenden Schönen (Yasunari Kawabata)

Haven't read japanese literature in ages (or that's how it feels, would need to look it up) and this one was a good place to start again. I'd say that Kawabata is one of my favourite Japanese authors of the 20^th century as there wasn't a single one I didn't like among the books of his I've read so far. This story about old men and sleeping young women was oddly mesmerising and entertaining, even though it also felt wrong to gaze at the 'sleeping beauties' through the eyes of Eguchi, one of those very men. Nevertheless, it made me feel all sorts of things and it's also thought-provoking and that's what I like most about Kawabata's stories.

Für die Freiheit sterben (James M. McPherson)

I have been reading on this huge book for literal ages and I'm so glad I'm done now. It was an interesting read, but sometimes I got confused by all those names of people and battles. Also, the blatant racism of the olden times was sometimes pretty hard to stomach. So, not an especially pleasant read, but still very good.