2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion
ARCHIVE 2013
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Gecko's 150 Books in 2013
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Goals for August:Types of Nonfiction Challenge:
Geraldine Brooks - Auf freiem Feld
Albert Camus - Fragen Der Zeit
Mark Carwardine - Last Chance to See: In the Footsteps of Douglas Adams
August Spell Out Challenge:
Lynn Flewelling - Shadows Return
Irvin D. Yalom - Und Nietzsche weinte
Lynn Flewelling - The White Road
Read:
01.) 04.08.2013 - Robin Hobb - Mad Ship - 906p
02.) 04.08.2013 - Elke Heidenreich - Macbeth: Schlafes Mörder - 192p
03.) 05.08.2013 - Gyles Brandreth - Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol - 326p
04.) 07.08.2013 - Margriet de Moor - Sturmflut - 349p
05.) 10.08.2013 - Christopher Hitchens - Hitch-22: A Memoir - 434p
06.) 12.08.2013 - Sofi Oksanen - Fegefeuer - 395p
07.) 13.08.2013 - Andrew Miller - Pure - 342p
08.) 15.08.2013 - Lada Luzina - Die Hexen von Kiew - 527p
09.) 16.08.2013 - Daniel Defoe - A Journal of the Plague Year - 336p
10.) 17.08.2013 - Gesammelte Werke 1930 - Kurt Tucholsky - 346p
Book 1: Samuel-Pepys Companion - Heiko Arntz, Gerd Haffmans
Read: 01/02/2013
Rating: ★★★✩✩
This is just the introduction to the diary's of Samuel Pepys. It is a small book with a nice foreword by Robert Louis Stevenson combined with useful information about the time, his life and some of the people I will encounter throughout the books.
It was a little boring to read, but it was the right thing to do the companion first because it contains a lot of stuff that should be known up-front... and it gives not much away which I didn't already know about the diary itself.
Book 2:On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King
Read: 01/04/2013
Rating: ★★★★✩
Challenges: Every Year, TV & Movie Spellout, January's "New Beginning"
This was one of the best books about 'How-to-write" I read. The autobiographic parts are interesting enough even if one doesn't want to become an author, and Stephen Kings advices are easy to understand and mostly not the kind "You have to do it that way!" I've encountered before in other books.
And then there was this wonderful little short-story „Jumper“ by Garret Addams... and a reading-list, I love reading lists :)
Book-Gossip & Notes:
Why this one?:
I needed another English book for this month, and it fits in the January-Challenge because I was married May 5, 2000.
How & why this Book came into my possession:
I didn't know it existed before stumbling upon it here on GR... some month later I found a used copy at a book-fair called "Büchermeile" on the "Rhein-Ufer-Promenade" here in Düsseldorf.
Books lead to books?
I mentioned the "reading-list" already and of cause, in time, I may read another King book or one of the old favorite one's
Book 3: Tagebücher 1660 - Samuel Pepys
Read: 01/06/2013
Rating: ★★★✩✩
Challenges: The Favorites, TV & Movie Spellout, January's "New Beginning"
Review: in German
Samuel Pepys runs around a lot, when he is not running from A to B or C, he drinks something with chaps, eats lots of meat and seafood and worries about money. First because he has none, after beginning the Restauration of Charles II, because he has some.
He moves upwards on the job and social-status scale and reads a lot of books... and runs around a little bit more.
I'd known beforehand that a diary contains a lot of stuff that's mostly boring, but knowing that, it became an interesting read never the less.
We don't learn a lot about English history in Germany, but this diary fills in a huge gap for me... and it has a lot of small details which are fun for a history nerd.
Book 4: Mortality - Christopher Hitchens
Read: 01/07/2013
Rating: ★★★★★
Challenges: Every Year, All about the Oscars & Hollywood, January's "New Beginning"
Review: in German
What should I criticize a book half written by a deadly ill man? I can't and I won't. It's in some ways an angry book, and in other it let's you deep in the mind of Christopher Hitchens.
Best of all, it felt honest. He never covert his mouth, he didn't do it while dying...
It's a personal book and because I liked the guy and because I can't think straight when it comes to cancer it is a real personal thing. One between him and his writing and between me and the pages.
Book 5: Die Geschichte Englands - Jane Austen
Read: 01/07/2013
Rating: ★★★★✩
Challenges: All about the Oscars & Hollywood,
Review: in German
A real little book, that a fast speaker could maybe put into an Oscar speech... but also a funny little thing by a teenage Jane Austen. Nice to read, with glimpses of a great author in progress.
Book 6: A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Read: 01/10/2013
Rating: ★★★★★
Challenges: Goodreads 100, Movie & TV Spellout
Review: in German
What a wonderful written story, full of emotions and beautiful language, something to love and something to hate inside and asking big human questions. It's a light, moving thing at the same time gets sometimes so heavy, hard and disgusting. It's a great novel with eternal motives...
I simply loved it.
Thanks to the buddy read and this group, witch encouraged me to pick it up now, and not to wait a day longer, I now have another favorite.
Book 7: In der Bibliothek - Antal Szerb
Read: 01/12/2013
Rating: ★★★✩✩
Challenges: Members Challenge, Movie & TV Spellout, Monthly Challenge
Review: in German
Short stories, some very good, some I couldn't relate to, from realistic to mystical and some fairy tales. A huge mix, and most of it with sad, and dark and gloomy. It confirms the cliche about Hungarians, who stand all near the edge, one step away from committing suicide.
Book 8: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
Read: 01/13/2013
Rating: ★★★★✩
Challenges: Members Challenge, Movie & TV Spellout, Monthly Challenge
Review: in German
A nice little book of an ordinary guy, who does something unexpected. I loved nearly everything about it. The writing style, the themes, even the sad parts were in their own way quite beautiful.
Harold, socially awkward, as he is was a fascinating and complex character.
Book 9: Pünktchen und Anton - Erich Kästner
Read: 01/14/2013
Rating: ★★★★✩
Challenges: Movie & TV Spellout, Monthly Challenge
Review: in German
A German Childrens-Classic from 1929. Two friends, the little rich girl called Pünktchen and Anton, a boy with an ill mother and poor, fight against not so nice older people and protect Pünktchen's family from being robbed.
I prefer Erich Kästners adult books and his poetry, but there is a reason why he is mostly remembered for is children's books. They are funny, but they also take children seriously.
Book 10: Robin Hobb - Assassin's Quest
Read: 01/19/2013
Rating: ★★★★★
Challenges: Favoites Challenge,It's All About the Oscars & Movies,
Review: later
I've read it multiple times but never in English, this is now done, and it never get's old. I love the story, the characters, the writing style. There are a lot of Tolkienians out there, I'm a Hobbian ;)
(but not a Hobbit)
Book 11: Escape To Life: Deutsche Kultur im Exil - Erika Mann & Klaus Mann
Read: 01/19/2013
Rating: ★★★★✩
Challenges: History Challenge, TV & Movie Spellout, Monthly Challenge
Review: in German
A really interesting read, about all the artists, writers, actors... who left Nazi-Germany. First published in the US 1939, it was translated as late as 1991 into German. Years after Klaus and Erika Mann, the children of Thomas Mann died.
Book 12: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Read: 01/22/2013
Rating: ★★★★✩
Challenges: The Favorites, The Oscars & Hollywood
Review: coming soon...
Love me some Homes and Watson, especially the little nit bits about there relationship keeps me reading... also remarkable for me, are the appearances of Mycroft and Moriarty... but I try to forget the Reichenstein-Falls.
Book 13: Die illustrierte Kurze Geschichte der Zeit - Stephen Hawking
Read: 01/24/2013
Rating: ★★★★✩
Challenges: History Challenge, TV & Movie Spell-out, January's "New Beginnings"
Review: coming soon...
This book was the right choice for the task "A genre outside of what you normally read". It was a tough nut for me, I've tried to read it two times before... and never got through it. I learned something from it, but I could not and would not say I have one bit of knowledge about the theory of relativity, quarks or string-theory. I just can't wrap my head around all of it... even if Hawking did his best to make me understand. I'm no physicist, not even a layman when it comes to matters of time, space and the speed of light.
Book 13: Darth Vader und Sohn - Jeffrey Brown
Read: 01/25/2013
Rating: ★★★✩✩
Challenges: TV & Movie Spell-out, Where do you read
Review: coming soon...
A small book, ideal as a gift for nerdy dads: The Adventures of Darth Vader and 4 year old Luke... My Husband and I bought it, read through it in the entrance hall of the cinema and finished it in 20 Minutes. Not every page is a really good joke but it's good enough...
2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Macbeth: Schlafes Mörder (other topics)Fegefeuer (other topics)
The Mad Ship (other topics)
The White Road (other topics)
Shadows Return (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Kurt Tucholsky (other topics)Andrew Miller (other topics)
Lynn Flewelling (other topics)
Irvin D. Yalom (other topics)
Sofi Oksanen (other topics)
More...
I also challenge myself to write reviews for every book I read, witch will be in German, but you will get a smaller opinion here for every book in English as well.
I also have planned to finish 2 boxed complete works witch I will list here as single books... but GR counts them as just one book.
So when ever you encounter Samuel Pepys or Kurt Tucholsky, don't wonder that there isn't a proper link to the book.
Goal: 150
72(69)/150
Readinglist 2013:
January: 20 Books & January's Monthly Challenge finished.
01.) 02.01.2013 - Samuel-Pepys Companion - Heiko Arntz, Gerd Haffmans - 148p - Commentary
02.) 04.01.2013 - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King - 376p - Commentary
03.) 06.01.2013 - Tagebücher 1660 - Samuel Pepys - 392p - Commentary
04.) 07.01.2013 - Mortality - Christopher Hitchens - 106p - Commentary
05.) 07.01.2013 - Die Geschichte Englands - Jane Austen - 51p - Commentary
06.) 10.01.2013 - A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - 519p - Commentary
07.) 12.01.2013 - In der Bibliothek - Antal Szerb - 275p - Commentary
08.) 13.01.2013 - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce - 296p - Commentary
09.) 14.01.2013 - Pünktchen und Anton - Erich Kästner - 158p - Commentary
10.) 19.01.2013 - Assassin's Quest - Robin Hobb - 838p - Commentary
11.) 21.01.2013 - Escape To Life: Deutsche Kultur im Exil - Erika Mann - 421p - Commentary
12.) 22.01.2013 - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle - 310p - Commentary
13.) 24.01.2013 - Die illustrierte Kurze Geschichte der Zeit - Stephen Hawking - 247p - Commentary
14.) 25.01.2013 - Darth Vader und Sohn - Jeffrey Brown - 64p - Commentary
15.) 26.01.2013 - Soulless - Gail Carriger - 365p -
16.) 26.01.2013 - Die Nachtbibliothek - Audrey Niffenegger - 48p
17.) 29.01.2013 - A Passage to India - E.M. Forster - 404p
18.) 30.01.2013 - Wo warst du Adam? - Heinrich Böll - 199p
19.) 31.01.2013 - In deinen Träumen reist dein Herz - Pablo Neruda - 216p
20.) 31.01.2013 - Schweinsgalopp - Terry Pratchett - Audio
February: 15 Books & February's Monthly & Minichallenge finished
01.) 05.02.2013 - Max Frisch - Mein Name sei Gantenbein - 319p
02.) 08.02.2013 - Gail Carriger - Changeless - 388p
03.) 09.02.2013 - Chuck Klosterman - Eine zu 85% wahre Geschichte - 284p
04.) 10.02.2013 - Gail Carriger - Blameless - 374p
05.) 11.02.2013 - Naguib Mahfouz - Karnak-Café - 126p
06.) 13.02.2013 - Clare Allan - Poppy Shakespeare - 345p
07.) 15.02.2013 - Arthur Conan Doyle - The Return of Sherlock Holmes / His Last Bow
08.) 21.02.2013 - Gail Carriger - Heartless - 384p
09.) 22.02.2013 - Sumner Locke Elliott - Der Apfel rötet sich In Eden - 320p
10.) 24.02.2013 - Gail Carriger - Timeless - 386p
11.) 25.02.2013 - Albert Camus - Hochzeit des Lichts - Mittelmeer-Essays - 111p
12.) 27.02.2013 - F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Beautiful And Damned - 495p
13.) 27.02.2013 - Katz und Maus - Günter Grass - 178p
14.) 27.02.2013 - Tam Ames - Caged - 19p
15.) 28.02.2013 - Terry Pratchett - Mort - 94p
March:3 Books & both Challenges unfinished
01.) 01.03.2013 - Der infrarote Korsar - Wiglaf Droste - 169p
02.) 02.03.2013 - The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear - Arthur Conan Doyle - 424p
03.) 04.03.2013 - Eine Pfarrerstochter - George Orwell - 325p
April: none
May: none
June: 12 books & no challenge participation
01.) 14.06.2013 - Watchmen - Alan Moore - 436p.
02.) 16.06.2013 - Der Fall Jane Eyre - Jasper Fforde - 376p.
03.) 17.06.2013 - The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle - 303p
04.) 19.06.2013 - In einem anderen Buch - Jasper Fforde - 432p.
05.) 20.06.2013 - Jane Austen's Guide to Romance: The Regency Rules - Lauren Henderson - 320p.
06.) 21.06.2013 - Im Brunnen der Manuskripte - Jasper Fforde - 416p
07.) 23.06.2013 - Quiet - Susan Cain - 352p.
08.) 25.06.2013 - Es ist was faul - Jasper Fforde - 448p.
09.) 25.06.2013 - Keeping Up with the Germans - Philip Oltermann - 268p.
10.) 27.06.2013 - Irgendwo ganz anders - Jasper Fforde - 416p.
11.) 28.06.2013 - Room - Emma Donoghue- 401p.
12.) 30.06.2013 - Jasper Fforde - Wo ist Thursday Next? - 400p
July: 22 Books & February's Monthly & Minichallenge finished
01.) 02.07.2013 - Julian Barnes - Arthur & George - 503p
02.) 04.07.2013 - Anthony Horowitz - Das Geheimnis des weißen Bandes - 350p
03.) 06.07.2013 - Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray - 288p
04.) 08.07.2013 - Irène Némirovsky - Suite Française - 736p
05.) 11.07.2013 - Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic- 880p
06.) 13.07.2013 - Terry Pratchett - Die dunkle Seite der Sonne - Strata - 475p
07.) 15.07.2013 - Mary Shelley - Frankenstein - 280p
08.) 16.07.2013 - Wolf Lepenies - Warum war Henry James so schlechter Laune? - 207p
09.) 17.07.2013 - Margaret Atwood - Oryx And Crake - 436p
10.) 19.07.2013 - Sylvia Plath - Die Glasglocke - 262p
11.) 19.07.2013 - William Shakespeare - Macbeth - 273p
12.) 20.07.2013 - Christopher Moore - Fool - 352p
13.) 22.07.2013 - Joseph Heller - Catch-22 - 519p
14.) 23.07.2013 - Kurt Tucholsky - Gesammelte Werke 1929 - 314p
15.) 23.07.2013 - Sy Montgomery - Kakapo Rescue - 74p
16.) 25.07.2013 - Haruki Murakami - Kafka am Strand - 841p
17.) 26.07.2013 - Louis Sachar - Holes - 236p
18.) 28.07.2013 - Ray Bradbury - Das Böse kommt auf leisen Sohlen - 272p
19.) 28.07.2013 - Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men - 252p
20.) 29.07.2013 - Paul Gallico - Kleine Mouche - 125p
21.) 31.07.2013 - Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood - 518p
22.) 31.07.2013 - Franz Kafka - Brief an den Vater - 139p