And now, yet another post about books

Some people were wondering what I thought of this, that or the other book that I read last year so I thought I would do a quick summary of that.  I'll post in greater detail about some of the other books at another time.

These are the books that I read new last year, enjoyed and will read again:

1. Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck
2. The Long Emergency - James Howard Kunstler
3. Dies the Fire - S. M. Stirling 
4. The Little Princess - Francis Hodgson Burnett
5. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
6. Dime Store Magic - Kelley Armstrong
7. A Feast for Crows - George R.R.Martin
8. Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde
9. The Gathering Stom - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (RR)
10. Towers of Midnight - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
11. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
12. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
13. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
14. The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
15. Broken - Kelley Armstrong
16. The End Of Food: The coming crisis in the world food industry - Paul Roberts

These are some of the books I will probably or definitely reread again.  But possibly only once more.  Perhaps I wasn't entirely sure I enjoyed them, didn't quite "get" them but think they're worth another try or possibly feel obliged to give them another try.  For whatever reason, I haven't gotten rid of them yet:

1. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
3. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
4. Lucky Man - Michael J. Fox
5. The Pearl Diver - Jeff Talarigo
6. One Day - David Nicholls
7. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
8. A Fine Balance - Robinton Mistry
9. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
10. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
11. The Book of Dave - Will Self
12. Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes 
13. The Witch of Hebron - James Howard Kunstler
14. The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel

And here are some that I thought were mostly just rubbish with apologies in advance since I know that at least one of these has some fans among my small reader base:

1. Bear Island - Alastair MacLean  - a freebie from the box in the canteen near work.  Thriller set in early cold-war period, it hasn't aged well.
2. A Woman of Our Times - Rosie Thomas  - I can't remember much about this except that I found it intensely irritating. 
3. Nemesis - Philip Roth - bored me.
4. A Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde  - one of those books that you feel you could probably have written better yourself.  I do know that I'd be a terrible novelist but you still do get that feeling sometimes.  Bought purely on impulse because the author is a big fan of Georgette Heyer (one of the blurbs on lots of the new reprints is from her)
5. Goldfinger - Ian Fleming - have you heard people claim before that James Bond is a misogynistic, sexist pig and not a terribly nice guy.  Well that's from people who've read the books.  A certain amount of comic value but overall just annoying.  And boring.  Unless you're a fan of golf (which I'm not) and wouldn't mind reading a long description of a game.  And of, Pussy Galore isn't really a rabid feminist and lesbian, she's just "never met a real man before, James". 
   
6. The Cry from Street to Street - Hilary Bailey - I had given this to my sister years ago, still had my name on it.  I didn't remember it at all, the writing was terrible, plot implausible and I can't believe I ever thought it was good enough to pass on to someone else.
7. Into the Woods - Jean Hegland - a post-fall type book.  An annoyingly dysfunctional family pre-fall get more annoying post-fall. 
8. My Last Duchess - Daisy Goodwin - just not very good. Romance novels need to make you like at least one of the protagonists because otherwise who cares if they make it through to their 'happily ever after'.
9. Rabbit Run - John Updike - bored me silly.

A list before yet another post about books

I'm completely out of the habit of writing - I may need to start just writing in a notebook every day because for the last couple of weeks I have even logged on here and just completely drawn a blank about what I might possibly have to say for myself.  I do miss it though and could definintely do with letting things out so will have to try actual writing with a pen for a few minutes every day at least.

I am generally feeling much better.  Better enough to realise that the last time I thought I was feeling better (less depressed etc.) I wasn't really.  I'm very nervous of falling back into the hole though.  I can feel myself beginning to find enthusiasm for things again when even just a few weeks ago the thoughts of doing things was still enough to stress me out quite a lot.  Of course, the danger then is taking on too much and just ending up overwhelmed again.  So I want to move forward and I do want to do some things but am trying to bear in mind that I can't do everything I want to and that it's better to move slowly.

In order to at least get most of what I keep thinking is a good idea to start doing now out of my head, I decided it would be a good idea to put together a list.  Perhaps then I will be able to let go of some of it and just retain enough to tackle one or two things first.  Some of these things also cost money so it's also a case of reining myself in in that respect and remembering that I still have a good few months of paying of my credit card left. 

1. Do a French course - I do have to do some French correspondence now and although I can speak French enough to get by if I really need to, I don't speak it very well and not at all fluently.  More importantly, I have never learned any business French.  While my French is sufficient for my purposes at the moment as most of what I have to do involves just using the same letter or email that was sent last month, it would be nice to feel confident enough to be able to put a couple of sentences together on my own without reference to any templates.  So first I think a refresher course is a good idea to catch up on the basics (which I was pretty good at in school - but I left school 20 years ago this year so it has been a while) and once I have done that, a business course.  Also have to sort out what I can get work to pay for and soon since they seem to be heading into another round of cost-saving.
2. Do a German course - obviously, I do speak fluent German.  But again, it has been a long time since I actually did a course of any kind and it would be nice to at least know how I test now.  I have tried to leave work early to make it to the local community college on time to do a test several times in the last couple of weeks but it hasn't worked out yet.  Will try again next week.  I would like to know where I land on the international scale of A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 (A1 is absolute beginner, C2 is bilingual/native speaker) but also to know how I fare in doing a test.  Because speaking and writing in a language every day is far removed from a school-like environment.  And, to be perfectly honest, I was very lazy about learning the grammar basics in German when I was in school (hated it, loved French, funny how I ended up here), which is the kind of thing that is bound to show up in a test.
3. Decorate the apartment - got the phonenumber of the friend of a friend who I spoke to last summer about possibly coming in and painting the place.  Of course, that will involved moving furniture and things around and I do still keep shying away from it.  However, I know I would feel much better if the place were done up.  The other thing I'm thinking about now though is to ask him if he also does wallpapering.  It's possible some of the paper will need to be replaced anyway - Germans are very fond of what's called Raufaser, a kind of textured wallpaper that you paint over.  However, apparently after three or more coats of paint, it can start to peel away from the walls and there have been court ruling (honestly) that tenants at that stage need to replace the paper (tenants are responsible for that in Germany, rather than the landlords - the only time you have a chance to argue the toss about this is just before you move in).  But the Raufaser in my not very big hallway is painted a horrible orange colour.  In a big bright room, it would be delightful but in the only room with no outside light and barely wide enought for two people to stand side by side in, it is dark and oppressive.  I am thinking about something like this - the paper on the left with the leafy pattern, possible in combination with the stripey one as shown in the photo of the room with a pram below, except the pink rather than the green colours.  But for the most part I'm fairly sure I will end up painting everywhere white because choosing colours, never mind choosing wallpaper is head wreckingly difficult.
4. In addition to redecorating I have been contemplating what is quite a simple moveabout of furniture but would undoubtedly actually involve a couple of days work.  I have two couches in the sitting room.  One I bought (it's a double-bed as well) and one I was given by a friend.  While I find mine far more comfy to sit on, I do have a comfy armchair as well and although it's nice to have seating for six people, I rarely have even one extra person in my house so I don't actually need it.  In the meantime I am still sleeping on a single bed and stressing about when I might be able to afford to buy a decent double.  So I want to move the sofabed into the bedrrom and use as a bed but this time, instead of moving the singlebed/daybed (one of these from ikea) that I currently have in my bedroom out to the sitting room and ending up with even less space, I am going to take it apart, put the metal bits down in the cellar and keep the mattress under the sofabed, available for anyone who might come to visit to sleep on.  But that will involve moving wardrobes around in the bedroom and I sort of feel like it would be better to get the place painted before starting all of that.
5. Save enough to go to Australia on holidays at the end of the year, find a great flight option, read lots about Australia and generally plan a holiday properly for once.
6. Research PCs vs. macs vs. ipads vs. whatever else there is to come up with a defnite good option to replace my defunct laptop, fill my requirements and last for a long time.  Save money for same.
7. Join carsharing programme.
8. Try to invite someone to dinner (or breakfast or lunch on weekends) at least once a month.
9. Try to go to a lecture, play, concert or any kind of event at least once a month.
10. Keep on top of keeping the house clean and relatively tidy.  Sort of getting there again but not qutie there yet.
11. Start going for long walks at the weekend again.
12. Start cooking properly again.
13. Start getting things in place to be able to have a full summer of preserving without being too disorganised.
14. Start going to the bio-garten again on a regular basis.  I think it's a good idea to not go every week at first - I really think I'm going to have to build up to that, not least because it involves getting up on Saturday, not terribly early but earlier than I would get up if left to my own devices and without an alarm clock waking me up.
15. Go to the library at least once every two months.
16. Get back to using twitter.
17. I knew there was something else.  The other side of the reason why I want to get my German tested (see 2 above) and one of the potential courses I am thinking about doing is a translators course.  Someone suggested this to me before christmas and I said that I wouldn't be able to do it here because as a native English speaker I'd have an unfair advantage and wouldn't be eligible.  Coincidentally a few weeks ago a discussion started elsewhere and it seems that actually you do tests in both your native and your second language.  Although I'm not interested in a full-time job translating, I do quite a lot of it in work and, importantly to me, it's one job I could potentially do part-time from home and it would be useful to have something like that.  You don't have to have a qualification to work as a translator here but you do have to have a qualification to become "staatlich anerkannt" (state registered) and that's what you need to have in order to do things like translate birth certificates, marriage certificates etc. for bureaucratic purposes.  So it's definitely something to look into and consider seriously.
18. More to be added later as they occur to me.

More about books

And while we're talking about books, I noticed in someone else's list that they had done a summary as well, so here's mine for 2011:

• Books by male authors: 43
• Books by female authors: 23
• Fictional books: 57
• Factual books: 9 - I'm kind of impressed with myself for that.  I could do with reading far more factual stuff but reading is my escape from the world and mostly I don't want to have to think too much.  But nine books is very close to one a month, which is a number I'd be very happy with.  One of the things I want to do now though is re-read most of them and this time make notes and perhaps occasional posts while I'm doing it.  Will have to figure out how to do that and yet still have time to read 'new' ones too.
• English books: 64
• German books: 2 - and that was the two audio books I had.  Definitely need to work on this in 2012 but have started off by getting the book club book for this month in the original German.

The Year in Books

Clickclackgorilla has made The Year in Books into a carnival.  I'm late to the party as usual but if anyone else wants to post a list of books they read during the year, you still have until the 9th of January to get in on the action.  Just post, visit clickclackgorilla to do the linky thing and leave a comment there.  Best of all, you get to check out who else has posted their lists and who doesn't love to know what other people have been up to!

2011 - the year in books

As I did last year, this year I am posting no big list of what the year brought me or what I plan for 2012.  Instead, you get just the year in books.  Although this year I think the list is more exact because I tried to remember to write it down on a list whenever I finished a book, or at least every three or four.  I haven't added the numerous gardening books, cook books, preserving books, simple living and general craft books that I dip into regularly throughout the year.  Someday I'll write a separate post about all of them.  Maybe it will help convince me to get rid of those cookbooks that I never actually use.

Happy new year everyone!

(BC) = Book club books
(RR) = something I've re-read - there are some books, such as by Georgette Heyer, that I invariably read every year when the escapism of new fiction isn't enough and I want to escape into familiar stories that always make me laugh or cry.

1. Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck (BC - my choice)
2. The Long Emergency - James Howard Kunstler
3. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (BC)
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
5. My Roots - Monty Don
6. Bear Island - Alastair MacLean 
7. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (BC)
8. Lucky Man - Michael J. Fox
9. A Woman of Our Times - Rosie Thomas 
10. Dies the Fire - S. M. Stirling 
11. Nemesis - Philip Roth (BC)
12. Northern Lights - Philip Pullman (RR)
13. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman (RR)
14. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman (RR)
15. A Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde
16. Smith - Leon Garfield
17. Haunted - Kelley Armstrong (RR)
18. Goldfinger - Ian Fleming
19. Domes of Fire - David Eddings (RR)
20. The Shining Ones - David Eddings (RR)
21. The Pearl Diver - Jeff Talarigo (BC)
22. The Hidden City - David Eddings (RR)
23. One Day - David Nicholls
24. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (BC)
25. Seek the Fair Land - Walter Macken (RR)
26. The Little Princess - Francis Hodgson Burnett
27. The Cry from Street to Street - Hilary Bailey (RR)
28. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
29. Into the Woods - Jean Hegland
30. Dime Store Magic - Kelley Armstrong
31. A Feast for Crows - George R.R.Martin
32. A Fine Balance - Robinton Mistry (BC)
33. My Last Duchess - Daisy Goodwin
34. Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde (my first Flipback)
35. Friday's Child - Georgette Heyer (RR)
36. An Infamous Army - Georgette Heyer
37. Pistols for Two - Georgette Heyer
38. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
39. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell (BC)
40. Faro's Daughter - Georgettet Heyer (RR)
41. The Unknow Ajax - Georgette Heyer (RR)
42. The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer (RR)
43. A Civil Contract - Georgette Heyer (RR)
44. The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer (RR)
45. The Gathering Stom - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (RR)
46. Towers of Midnight - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
47. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin (BC)
48. The Book of Dave - Will Self (BC - my choice)
49. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
50. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
51. Jauche und Levkojen - Christine Brückner (audio book, read by Eva Mattes)
52. Der Malteser Falken - Dashiell Hammett (audio play)
53. Dinosaur Planet - Anne McCaffrey (RR)
54. Sassinak - Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon (RR)
55. Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes 
56. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
57. World Made by Hand - James Howard Kunstler (RR)
58. Rabbit Run - John Updike
59. The Witch of Hebron - James Howard Kunstler
60. The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
61. The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel
62. Broken - Kelley Armstrong
63. Hitchens vs. Blair: Be It Resolved Religion Is a Force for Good in the World - The Munk Debates
64. Dies the Fire - S.M. Stirling (RR)
65. What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained - Robert L. Wolke
66. The End Of Food: The coming crisis in the world food industry - Paul Roberts (not quite finished but will today probably)

P.S. Just because a book is on this list doesn't mean it's a good one.  I've read some great books this year and some truly, truly awful ones.  No responsibility accepted if you pick a name off this list and are disappointed!