The year in books. September

Another month has passed (how can it be October already???) and as I always I'm a little late with my list of books to link up with Laura. I've gotten through a lot of books again. I'm currently reading the 47th book this year, so I'm definitely going to make my goodreads reading challenge of 50 books in 2015. I'm pretty certain that I will top it and read more than 50 books. I really need more money and more shelf space for my ever growing reading habit, it's getting slightly out of hand.
Anyway: Here are my books.

Dolores Schmidinger - Im Bett mit dem Teufel
An Austrian comedian who wrote her first crime novel. I'm always falling for crime fiction as it's perfect reading material for train journeys to and from work. I was positively surprised. The book has two timelines: one in the 80s and one in the present. It tells the love story of a woman who falls in love with a man who is a member of a catholic cult group and the second timeline tells the story of her daughter who, after 20 years, gets in contact with said man. It was funny and thrilling and although you knew, who the murderer was, right from the beginning, it was interesting to read until the last page.

picture from google

T.C. Boyle - Wassermusik (Water Music)
I bought this book on a flea market when I was still back at university. I totally fell for it (as I fall for all books of T.C. Boyle) and then I forgot it on the train went I went to visit my parents. On the next flea market, I bought it again and this time I finished it. Boyle tells the story of an 18th century explorer who travels to Africa to explore the Niger. He fails on the first exploration but it never lets him go and so he travels again. I love the style of T.C. Boyle. As I read the first half of the book now three times but the end just twice, I forgot some things that happened at the second half of the book so it was still fresh and interesting. If you love looong books and perfectly detailed drawn characters - Boyle is the perfect author for you.

picture from google

Davig Lagercrantz - Verschwörung (The girl in the spiders web)
Did you read the Millenium trilogy from Stieg Larsson? I absolutely adored it. Even my husband, who barely ever reads, didn't stop reading those books until he finished them in absolutely short time. Unfortunately, Stieg Larsson died after the third book and wasn't able to finish the fourth. After a long struggle with Larssons wife and his family, David Lagercrantz published the girl in the spiders web, which is kind of a continuation of the Millenium trilogy. Of course I was very curios and couldn't wait for that book to come out. I made the mistake to read a lot of article and reviews before I read the book myself. Not a good idea, as my mind was heavy with a lot of different opinions which of course, affected my own. Let's just say this: If you loved Stieg Larsson, you will like David Lagercrantz. Just try to ignore the fact that someone else is writing the book and you won't really notice a difference.

T.C. Boyle - San Miguel
I think I made it clear, how much I love T.C. Boyle. I already read San Miguel, but as I forbade myself to buy new books until the Christmas Holidays, I have to read books again. San Miguel tells the life of two different families who try to live on San Miguel Island, a little Island off the West Coast of North America. When the book first came out, critics said, that nothing happened, that the book is boring, that it only tells of the ordinary, everyday life that people lived on the island. Duh. Of course it only tells that. There are four people, living on an island, away from the main land, in the 19th century. What did they think will happen there? But things happen. And as always, Boyle describes the protagonists so well, that you feel, that you really know the people in the books. You know about their past, you get inside their head to know what they think, feel, smell, talk, you know, what they dream of and if they're disappointed or happy or sad. And that's what I love about Boyles books - his characters.

Robert Schneider - Schlafes Bruder (Brother of sleep)
An Austrian classic. Again a book that I've read before, though it's been some years since I first had a go at it. It's about a boy, who grows up in a little village in the Austrian alps. He's a little strange, doesn't look normal and has an enormous musical talent! He falls in love with his neighbour and thinks, that no one can really love, when he's sleeping. True love never sleeps because when you sleep, you don't think about the woman you love, you can't spend time with her, you can't make her happy. Thus, he stops sleeping.
Rather creepy and disturbing story but it left me thinking about it for some days after finishing it and that's what a good book should do to you - stay in your mind, even if it's back on the shelf!

picture from google

Jo Nesbo - Kakerlaken (Cockroaches)
I've written about my love for Jo Nesbo and his Harry Hole series a few times now. Again a gripping thriller, the definition of a pageturner. The Swedish embassador is found dead in a Motel Room in Bangkok and Harry Hole is send to Thailand to investigate in the case. I won't tell more, Nesbos thrillers are awesome and everyone should read them.

picture from google

Now that Autumn has definitely arrived, I tend to read even more as I love to curl up under a warm blanket, with a cup of hot chocolate in one and a good book in the other hand. We'll see what October has to offer, book-wise.

Happy reading, everyone!

The Year in Books - July and August

I missed last months year in books. As I said in my holiday post - Austria has suffered (and I mean this word here literally!) from an incredible heatwave. Though I did some reading I really didn't get in the mood to type up a post about it. So here follows an extra long reading post - I try to keep my babbling about the books a little shorter this time. As always I'm linking up with Laura from Circle of Pine Trees.

Nick Hornby - High Fidelity
An all-time-favourite. A book that I've read a few times by now and I absolutely adore it, as it really speaks from my heart. Although I'm married I always had commitment problems and ran away from serious relationships - until I met my man. Similar to Rob and Laura. And oh, all that goooood music...

Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling
A re-read. I forbid myself to buy new books. Well, at least not as many as I used to buy. I only have space for two bookshelves and they are FULL. Besides, I want to spend less money. In general.
Well, back to the book...Robert Galbraith isn't a man. As some of you might now it's an alias for J.K. Rowling. She wanted to write crime fiction without it being sold just because of her name. It was soon discovered that it was really her. Whether intentional or not - we'll never know.
The book is about a young supermodel who falls to death from her balcony. Her brother hires the investigator Cormoran Strike to solve the crime as he is sure, that his sister wasn't suicidal. Cormoran Strike is the main person and an interesting non-hero.
I love every J.K. Rowling book that she has written so far and I really liked this one too, though it tends to be a liiiiittle long in between.

Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm
I re-read the second Galbraith novel straight afterwords. Again a Cormoran Strike novel. Nothing much to say here. Interesting, compelling and I didn't know who the killer was until the very end. That's how I like my crime fiction. Though I must say that I would probably be the world's worst investigator as I NEVER know who the killer is. Have you seen The Sixth Sense or Fight Club? I really need to watch movies like this until everything is uncovered because I never understand it myself.

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
I've written about this book here. Again a re-read. I read it because I bought the new Harper Lee book and wanted to freshen up my Mockingbird-Knowledge.

Giulia Enders - Darm mit Charme
A rather unusual read for me. It's a book about intestines, bowel, guts. I don't know which one of these words is the right english medical expression. It explains how the intestines work, what they have to do with depression and why this is such an important organ in our body. Sounds rather dull but this book is number 1 on the Austrian bestseller charts for more than one year now. So I really needed to know what all the fuss was about. Very interesting and it's written in a very funny and easy way. Took me just one day to finish it.

Harper Lee - Go Set a Watchman
Here we go. The new Harper Lee book. There was a loooot of talking about this book before it was published. The way the manuscript was discovered was a scandal and the content of the book was apparently rather shocking itfself. As I really liked To Kill a Mockingbird I was of course very curious - and in the end veery dissapointed. The book is really dull. Nothing happens! And when finally something happens the situation is so easily resolved that it really made me angry to read it. It reminded me of an unfinished story. So many loose ends that weren't properly tied together.

Stephen King - Finders Keepers
I read the first part of this trilogy on my honeymoon in Mallorca, in April. When I bought Go Set A watchman, the blue umbrella on the cover caught my eye and I knew, that this must be the second book in the series. Of course I had to buy it too! (Do you see now, why I have to forbid myself to buy more books? This is getting out of control!)
I loved it as much as I loved the first one. It was a whole other story and the main protagonist from the first book didn't arrive until the second half of the book. But Stephen King sure doesn know how to write a compelling thriller. Nothing more to add here. I won't tell you anything about the story as I don't want to spoil anyone the reading. Let's just say that there's a lot of blood.

Klaus Oppitz - Auswandertag
I took this home from work where I found it lying around. It's about a dystopian Austrian future, where people flee to Turkey, because there is no future in Austria. A quick read, but I'll probably never read it again.

Judith Hermann - Aller Liebe Anfang
Again a book I took home from work - and brought it back today, because I won't read that again either. It's about a young mother who get's stalked by a young man in her neighborhood. He never talks to her or gets near her, but he rings the bell at her house everyday and puts seemingly random stuff in her mailbox. Sounds interesting, and the beginning was very good - but that book doesn't have an ending. It just stops and let's the story hang loose in midair. I hate that. The ending is the best part about the book and the author really blew that. 

Isabel Allende - Das Geisterhaus (The House of the Spirits)
Oh how I love this book. I chose "Das Geisterhaus" as my book for our tour through the West and I finished it when we got back home. I've read this book a lot of times and I'm still fascinated by the story. I really love family stories, that tell the live of the participants through decades and generations. To be honest - I've never read anything else by Isabel Allende. I probably should give it a try...

I've you've made it all the way to the end - thanks for reading all of this! Next time I'll be up to date with my reading list, I promise! 

The Year in Books: June

FINALLY I find time to contribute my June reading list. Time hasn't been really stressed or hectic in the last few days, but it was HOT and when I came home from work all I did was jump into the shower and go straight to bed. Way too warm for anything else. Austria has survived a heatwave and the next one is about to begin. I don't mint 38 degrees, as long as I'm not supposed to work. Thank got the next hot day is a Saturday. Hello lake.

I did a lot of reading in June (pagewise) as my man was away a lot, spending time to tune his Harley. He dreamed of owning a Harley Davidson ever since he started riding motorcycles and so I can understand, that he wants to make it perfect now. I'm happy for him and to be honest - I enjoyed to have a few evenings for myself! ;)

So here's my list of what I've read these past weeks: (linkin up with Laura from Circle of Pine Trees

Ken Follet - Kinder der Freiheit (Edge of Eternity)

is there anything better than reading in bed?

The third and last book of the Century Trilogy. I wrote about Ken Follet books here. In this book he wrote about the racist problems in 1960's USA and the Berlin Wall. Again you met the families, whose lives you accompanied since the first book. It was great to read, lots of historical facts and lots of learning without noticing it.

Jo Nesbo - Der Fledermausmann (The Bat)
I read the 10th case of Harry Hole first and ever since I wanted to start from the beginning. So I bough the first case of Harry Hole. Like the two Jo Nesbo thrillers that I've read before,it was a very good thriller, the plot interesting, the killings disgusting and shocking and the end surprising. I want to buy them all over the next weeks, months or years.

T.C. Boyle - The Women

my much used and battered Paris second hand book find. You can still see the price tag. Just 4 euros.

I wrote about it here and my opinion about it hasn't changed. I bought it on holiday in Paris, 4 years ago and I've read it at least once a year ever since. Still fascinates me.

Paula Hawkins - Girl on the Train

After seeing and hearing about it everywhere (and getting it recommended) I gave in and bought it myself. I am commuting by train every day to work so I thought it would be interesting, to read a book about a commuting girl. I really liked the beginng. The story was fascinating and I wanted to know what happens next. In the end I just finished it because I wanted to know who the killer was. I had a clue about halfway in and that turned out to be true. Very good beginning - very weak end. I didn't like the ending at all and for me this destroys the whole book. The ending was very flat and predictable and really, really unrealistic. Sad, because it started really good. 

The Year in Books: May

Oh boy, another month has passed? How did that happen? Where did May go? What did I do in the past 30 days? 
I read a lot, that's for sure. Though this time I have "only" three books to show you. "Only" because two of these three books are more about thousand pages thick. Each. So page-wise I read a lot. Book wise...well let's get started:

(As always, linking up with Laure from Circle of Pine Trees and her wonderful idea of The Year in Books)

Ken Follet - Sturz der Titanen (Fall of the Titans)

I read this book once before I went on my big journey around the world. I always had a big interest in history. As some of you might know I studied German literature some years ago. And literature is always deeply connected with history. So whenever I learned about an epoche, a time, a genre, I also learned about the historical circumstances regarding that certain period. 
Ken Follet manages to combine fiction with historical facts. I love that kind of writing! You have these stories about people that are fictional - but you know that stories like these might have happened in the past. And while you read this page turning story about a small number of people, Follet provides you with the historical facts about the first World War. 

If you haven't heard about Ken Follet and his century trilogy here are some words about it:
Fall of the Titans tells the reader about the circumstances and the historical and political events that eventually lead to the outbreak of World War 1. The story is told via several positions: Families and protagonists in England, Germany and Russia have to deal with the oncoming crisis that eventually draaws in the whole world in one cruel and bloody war. The protagnoists always cross each other during the 1000 pages that seem to fly by rather quickly. While the people in the book are fictional, the historical circumstances are real and so you learn about history while reading an interesting novel full of love and hate and life and death.

Vea Kaiser - Makarionissi oder Die Insel der Seligen

Vea Kaiser is an Austrian author. She's my age and she also studied German in Vienna. I don't personally know her but I'm sure that we had to come across each other at the University. Anyway, Makarionissi is Vea's second book. I talked about her first one, Blasmusikpop here. I loved her first novel and so of course I was really curios about her second one!
Makarionissi tells the tale of a Greek family throughout several generations. Kaiser writes beautifully and funny about the mistake a grandmother made and how here grandchildren had to live with the consequences. I won't tell you more about it as it's a complex story which starts in Greece, switches over to Austria only to come back to Greece in the end.
It wasn't quite as good as her first one but then it's said that the second book for an author is the hardest. Blasmusikpop was such a huge success here in Austria, that Makarionissi is a really, really, really good book as it has to live up such high expectations. If I know about translations, I let you know!

Ken Follet - Winter der Welt (Winter of the World)

This is the second book of the Trilogy and it deals now with the Second World War. The main protagonists from the first book now make place for their children. Still, the maintaining connections between the countries remain and so a lot of familiar people appear here.


Now you can guess which book I'm reading right now! ;)

What did you read in the last month? Do you have any good summer book recommendations? I really need a vacation novel! :)

The year in books - April

Long time no blog... hello to all of you. I'm so happy to be back in blogland, it's been some crazy few weeks. First things first - I AM MARRIED! He said yes, I'm so reliefed! ;) More on that topic in another post which I'm already preparing. Don't miss it because I'm not only going to show you my dress (which is what you all want to see - let's be honest!) but also MY FACE! Yes, I will finally reveal myself to all of you. So watch out for the wedding post. It will appear here in the next few days, I promise!

I did a surprisingly high amount of reading in April! So let's start with my list!

Emily Bronte - Stürmische Höhen (Wuthering Heights)

I can't for the life of me remember where on earth I gotten this book from. It's a very nice edition, and if my research is correct it was published sometime in the 1960's. But it's NOT second hand, that book was unread and brand new. I probably bought it in some antique book store but as I said - I don't remember buying this book which is very weird as I usually remember the purchase of EVERY SINGLE BOOK in my collection.
About the book: It was my first time reading Emily Bronte. As usual with older books, it takes some pages to get used to the style and the writing. But I managed that rather quickly and then really enjoyed this classic. The description of various scene was sometimes a liiiiittle too long and elaborate for my taste but that was the writing of that time. It took me rather a while to finish it, but it was worth every minute. A really nice and thrilling story and a fantastic read.

Victor Hugo - Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

A classic. And I have to confess that I've NEVER seen the Disney Movie so I really had no idea, what that book actually was about. I bought it in an antique book store that I stumbled across accidentially in Hamburg. A beautiful edition and in a very good condition as well.
Anyway, even if I had watched the Disney movie before it wouldn't be the same as reading the book. I couldn't believe how cruel and disgusting it was. And thrilling. I couldn't stop reading it although it's a little exhausting to read that old writing. Such a tiny little font...but again an amazing story!

Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower

When we travelled around the world 2 years ago we had to live through many many 10+ hour flights. And on one of those flights I watched the movie. To be honest - I never heard about it, I only watched the movie because Emma Watson played a role in it and as I am a huge Harry Potter fan I was curios how it would be to see Emma in another role other than Hermione. I didn't like the movie very much and as it was an overnight flight I feel asleep during the movie and didn't really understand the end because I missed a chunk of the middle. Nevertheless - when I was looking for a new book (and bought three because I couldn't decide which one I should leave behind) I stumbled about this one. I have seen it in some posts around the internet and most of the times it got positive reviews. So I tried and I liked it! It's the story about a teenage boy. He's writing letters to an unknown receiver and tells this "friend" about his live. He's making new friedns who introduce him to other people, to cigarettes, drugs and parties. It's a great coming-of-age story with a very, very unexpected ending and I will definitely read it again in the near future because I'm sure you read the whole thing differently if you have the ending in mind! Though it's a book for teenager and young adults I would recommend it to readers of any age. Great book!

Emma Healy - Elizabeth is Missing

Probably the best book that I've read this year so far. In this book the protagonist, an older lady named Maud is telling the story. Maud has Alzheimer and the reader gets an inside of her head and her thoughts and the difficulties she has to face due to her illness. It's amazing how this story is build. Maud remembers from time to time that it's been a while since she last heard from her friend Elizabeth. And so she tells her daughter, who takes care of her, that Elizabeth is missing. But no matter how often she tells people that her friend hasn't called in a while, nobody seems to care. Meanwhile, there are always snippets in Maud's present life that trigger a memory to an incident, that happened 70 years earlier to Maud's sister.
The author jumps between the past and the present and both times mingle more and more in the head of Maud until she can't differentiate anymore between what's happening now and what happened all that time ago.
I don't want to reveal too much but the book has a very, very good ending and is one of the most interesting and unusual crime stories that I've ever read!

Ransom Riggs - Miss Peregrins Home of Peculiar Children

Good start - dissapointing end. This book is the last of the three books that I bought spontaniously in the book store when I had to wait for my train. It starts really good, with a kind of horror story but very soon it get's tooo fictional and fantasy-like for my taste. Also the end was a little weak. But I really liked the concept of the author who links the story with old photographs, which are real and which he discovered over the years on various flea markets and second hand shops.

John Grisham - The Client

I love John Grisham. Although his books are often alike he always manages to write gripping stories that are real pageturners. A colleague of mine gave me the book once so it's a rather old version in rather bad condition. But like every John Grisham I read through that one pretty fast and couldn't put it down until I finished it.

Stephen King - Mr. Mercedes

I forgot the books that I prepared for our honeymoon in the hotel so I had to buy a new one at the airport. I didn't really know what Mr. MErcedes was about. The only thing I knew about it was that a man drove a Mercedes into a crowd of people, thus killing some of them.
What I found out while reading it was, that "Mr. Mercedes", as the killer was called by the police who investigated the case, contacted the retired Detective who couldn't solve the crime before he retired. The officer started to investigate again and a very thrilling cat and mouse game began. The end is rather open and I thought, that Stephen King might have left the opportunity to write a sequel when I found out, that it's the first part of a trilogy. A very promising start and I will definitely buy the second book as soon as it's published.

Jo Nesbo - The Son

As I finished Mr. Mercedes before we flew back home, I had to buy another book at the airport in Mallorca. I chose The Son because it appeared in the Austrian bestseller lists for a while and because I really liked "The police", another Jo Nesbo thriller that I read as first book in this year.
The Son is about a prisoner, who escapes to revenge his father, who allegedly commited suicide but (as the son finds out before he breaks out of prison) was actually killed. But who was the killer?
600 pages of thrill and suspension. Definitely not my last Jo Nesbo book, I want to read all 10 books that have the police officer Harry Hole as protagonist. Ambitious, isn't it?

So apart from "Miss Peregrines home of Peculiar children" every single one of the books that I read in April was truly amazing, unique and totally interesting. I would recommend you EVERY SINGLE ONE of it! Go and read them and tell me what you think about it. And please read "Elizabeth is Missing" as it is the best of all my April reads. What an amazing book! I lend it to a friend of mine and as soon as I get it back I will probably read it again.

Linking up with Laura at Circle of Pine Trees and her wonderful and fantastic the year in books. I love Love LOVE telling you about my reads every month! It's such a great idea. Thank you Laura for organizing this! :)

The year in books: March

It seems like the "year in books" posts and the "taking stocks" posts are the only semi-regular things that I am able to blog about lately. The wedding is only two weeks away and I'm in the middle of the last preparations. There hasn't been a lot else going on. I finished the shawl for my dress (just need to darn in the ends) and I made progress on the baby blanket. But this is for another post. Here are the books that I read in March, linking up with Laura from circle of pine trees:

Joseph O' Connor - Die wilde Ballade vom lauten Leben (The Thrill of it All)

picture from google

I found this book at the office. We sometimes get free books from different publishers and we put them all in the kitchen and if someone likes them, he/she can take them home and  read it. The story sounded really good. It's a bout two friends who start a band which gets really successful until something very bad happens and it all falls apart. That was the text on the cover. So of course I was curious. Let me just say that much: I've read the whole book and I have still no idea what that very bad thing was that happened. 
I was really bored with that book and only finished it, because I hate to stop reading a book, even if I don't like it. The dialogues were just chit-chat, sometimes the single scenes were waaaay too long and too detailed and all in all - I didn't like it. So it won't be wandering into my bookshelf but I brought it back to put it in the kitchen for someone else to read.

John Williams - Stoner

picture from google

I heard so much about that book. I make bestseller lists every week and I found "Stoner" in those lists over and over again. So I bought it. It's the story of a man named Stoner. He grows up on a farm with his parents. They decide to let him go to college so he can study agriculture. He decides to study English instead and becomes a professor. It's the story of his life, his marriage, his carreer, his ups and downs. It was nice to read and an interesting story. I liked it and will probably read it again.


T.C. Boyle - The Harder They Come

picture from google

What can I say - I simply love T.C. Boyle. In this new book he's writing about two outlaws, two people, who are different, who won't adapt to the rules of our society, they meet each other and a strange and scary love story begins.
It only took me a few days to finish this book. Like every other book of Boyle, it's beautifully written, and it grabs the reader and drags him so deep into his story, that it always takes me a moment to find back to reality when I stop reading. Love it.

Martin Suter - Montecristo

picture from google

Again a book that I got from work. A nice crime fiction story. Nothing special. Was number 1 of the bestseller list a few weeks ago. A typical beach-book in my opinion. 

Emily Bronte - Stürmische Höhen (Wuthering Heights)

There's no picture of this book as I forgot to take one when I read it and now I've lent it to my mother in law. I will post one another time. Sorry.

When I cleaned out my bookcase some days ago, I found this book. It's an old edition, I guess from the 1960's, a German translation and still unused. To be honest - I really can't remember when or where I bought this. And this is strange, because I normally remember every book that I ever bought. Must have been in some second hand shop. I guess.
Nevertheless - it was the first time reading it! The story seemed sometimes a little long - but that's the style of books of that era. But it was a nice book (and beautiful! Must have been the reason why I bought it in the first place. This is going to bug me forever!) and I will definitely read it again sometime! 

Happy reading, everyone!

the year in books - January

A month is over and it's time for the year in books again. As I explained in this post, I'm doing a slight variation of the year in books. Instead of stating at the beginning of the month, which book I'm going to read, I'm writing a little review about the books that I've read the previous month.
So here we go.

In December I knew that I had a rather long train ride ahead of me but I forgot my book. So I went to the book store at the train station and grabbed the first thing that sounded interesting which was
Jo Nesbo - Police

I never read anything of Jo Nesbo before. Part of my job is it to update the weekly bestseller lists and Jo Nesbo was featured in that list for quite some time now. So I thought I'd give it a try. And it proved to be a very good decision! Police is a quite fascinating thriller, dealing with a murderer, who killed police officers who weren't able to solve previous cases. It was thrilling and gruesome, sometimes rather disgusting and shocking, but it was quite a page turner and on the first days of the new year I finished it. The only negative thing I can say about it is that it was the tenth book that had a certain detective as main character and so I didn't understand some things as they happened in previous books and weren't really explained. But that's my own fault for buying the tenth book of a series instead of the first. I didn't realise this until I read about a hundred pages, though. But I'll probably buy the first one. It's a nice train or beach book, simple yet interesting.

Then I started on reading the Harry Potter book series again. As some of you might know, I've been on holiday in London in October. There I saw a beautiful edition of the Harry Potter books. Now I've read all of them several times, but I always borrowed them from my cousin, and never possesed them. As I am a book collector rather than a person who borrows, I was looking for a nice edition for quite some time now. I don't even remember the book shop, I just know that it was a book store located in the Waterloo train station, which was right next to our hotel.
I was looking for a souvenir to take home with me when my man pointed the books out to me! On the last day of our stay I bought them and I'm so happy that I did!
Instead of telling you something about the books (I assume you are all familiar with the Harry Potter story and if you're not - step away from the computer immediately and start reading those books!!!) I'll show you some picture of the books so you can have a look at how beautiful they are. There are so many details in these books, for example, all of the letters appear to be handwritten and each character is given his own handwriting, which make them even more precious to me!

What have you been reading this month?

my year in books - 2014

Hello to my first end-of-the-year-review which is published at the beginning of the new year because I didn't have time earlier to sit at the computer and write this nice long post. 
The play is over. Today was my first day back at work and oh my, what a change. I'm totally out of my normal rhythm and it will probably take some days to find back into my old schedule. But it was all totally worth it! The play was sooo much fun again this year. I already miss all my wonderful acting peeps. It was a great success, we were sold out most of the shows and people really loved it. They laughed until they cried and we got told repeatedly, how great it was and how much they enjoyed watching us. And after all, that's exactly the reason why we're doing all of the work, isn't it?

Anyhow, I have this blog post in my head for a while now. I joined the year in books in October, so I didn't really have the chance to show you all of the books that I read in this year.

At some point during the year I set myself the goodreads reading challenge goal of finishing 40 books this year. And I'm really proud that I was not only able to achieve this goal but also to read MORE. 47 books in total, to be exact. Of course, the fact that I commute to work by train since August and have therefore a solid 1,5 hours to read everyday really helped.

And because I am a person who just LOVES lists and statistics I'll give you now all the useless and helpful information regarding to my reading! 
Quick add: I won't review books in this post, I'll be doing this in my monthly year in books posts and may write some reviews for all the books that I've read before October. But enough of the talking, here we go, in chronological (the order in which I read them) order, I present to you: 

MY BOOKS OF 2014:

1) T.C. Boyle - San Miguel
2) Daniel Kehlmann - F
3) Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (reread)
4) Jonas Jonasson - Die Analphabetin, die rechnen konnte (The Girl who Saved the King of Sweden)
5) Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down (reread)
6) Haruki Murakami - Naokos Lächeln
7) N.H. Kleinbaum - Der Club der toten Dichter (the dead poets society)
8) John Updike - Terrorist
9) Herman Melville - Moby Dick
10) Stephen King - Christine
11) James Kirkwood - P.S. Your Cat is Dead
12) Nick Flynn - Another Bullshit Night In Suck City (bought just because of the title. I loved it!)
13) Anna Gavalda - Zusammen ist man weniger allein (reread, Hunting and Gathering)
14) Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Of Love and other Demons
15) Stephen King - Four Past Midnight
16) John Grisham - The Firm
17) Verena Roßbacher - Schwätzen und Schlachten
18) E.L. James - 50 Shades of Grey (review here)
19) Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch (review here)
20) Cheryl Strayed - Wild (review here)
21) Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling
22) Romain Puertolas - Die unglaubliche Reise des Fakirs, der in einem Ikea-Schrank feststeckte 
23) Daniel Glattauer - Die Wunderübung
24) Marian Keyes - Sushi for Beginners
25) Lawrence Sanders - McNally's Puzzle
26) Sarah Kuttner - Wachtsumsschmerz
27) John Lutz - Single White Female
28) Anna Gavalda - Nur wer fällt lernt fliegen
29) Robert Ludlum - The Scorpion Illusion
30) Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm
31) Stephen King - Die Arena (Under the dome)
32) Heinrich Steinfest - Der Allesforscher
33) Stefan Slupetzky - Polivka hat einen Traum (review here)
34) Wolf Haas - Brennerova (review here)
35) Noah Gordon - The Medicus (review here)
36) Stephen King - Brennen muss Salem (Salem's lot, review here) 
37) Sebastian Fitzek - Der Augensammler (review here)
38) Vea Kaiser - Blasmusikpop, oder wie die Wissenschaft in die Berge kam (reread, review here)
39) Nick Hornby - Funny Girl (review here)
40) Chuck Klosterman - Downtown Owl (reread, review here)
41) Donal Ryan - The Thing About December (review here)
42) J.K. Rowling - The Casual Vacany (reread, review here)
43) Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex (reread, review here)
44) Theodora Bauer - Das Fell der Tante Meri
45) Lauren Graham - Someday, Someday Maybe
46) Boris Hillen - Agfa Leverkusen
47) Thomas Raab - Still, Chronik eines Mörders

I read nearly 19.000 pages in this year. Quite impressive, isn't it?

I really liked putting this list together, going over the books that I read. There are surprisingly many books which I've read for the first time. I thought that I had more "rereads" (I hope you understood, what I meant by that, basically, these are books which I've read at least once previously).

I've already finished my first book in 2015, you will read about it in my next "year in book post" which I'm already looking forward to! And this morning I started to reread the Harry Potter Series, which I bought on my holiday in London. 
January will be a no-spend-month, which means that I won't buy anything except food. I'm trying to do this every other month now, but that's the topic of another post. So I can't buy any new books this month and I therefore switched to my old ones. And believe me, I have enough of those!

My new reading goal for 2015 is at least 50 books. Like I said, I already finished the first one. It's part of my new years resolution, which also will be told in another post.

Anyway, I'm babbling. I just want to add that I love writing my year in book post, although I've done them slightly different. Rather than picking out a book that I WANT to read in that month, I always talked about the books which I've read in the previous months. So I'm actually always a month behind. That's because I'm never able to tell which book I'll read next. And I don't want to decided that in advance. I always surprise myself with my choices.

So, tell me, do you have any reading goals for this new year? Did you read some of the books in my list? If so - how did you like them? I'm really curious!

Happy Reading! :)

P.S.: If anybody knows if it's possible to add a goodreads-button (and Instagram for that matter) to my blog I would really appreciate your help. I'm somehow not able to get these to things in my sidebar! :(