What am I doing here?

So, I finally found a use for this toy, after I came to LJ more or less just to see what it is: Rather than devise my own scheme of updating a list of "Recent Reading" on my website without having to edit the HTML page by hand, I will use LJ for that, with the idea of one entry for each book I read and find interesting enough to mention. So let's see how this works out...

Of course, first I'll have to catch up on those books I have already read a while ago and want to mention. Fun!

And why am I doing this?

Dunno, perhaps because I wanted to do this all the time?

Johan Fabricius: Kapitän Bontekoes Schiffsjungen (De scheepsjongen van Bontekoe)

My brother got this book as a child, when a local library got rid of some old books. I cannot really remember why it ended up in my bookshelf, only that I probably wanted to keep it and he didn't (I hope).

Fabricius tells the -- at least in the Netherlands probably well-known -- story of 17th(?) century Captain Bontekoe and his troublesome journey to what is now Indonesia from the view of the ship's boys. Very nice and interesting historical adventure, and Fabricius tries to give us some impression of the 17th-century mindset.

First published 1923; I read it December last year, I think.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon: Der Schatten des Windes (La sombra del viento)

"Shadow of the Wind" would be the title translated to English, although I don't know if this is the also the title of the english edition.

Susanne and I were given this book by both a friend of hers and my parents, so we ended up with two copies of it. Only we didn't know that until I told my mother what a fine book I had read, and she said "I know, we gave it to you", and I said "I thought this was from Alex?..."

We both read this book on last year's vacation in April on Isla Coche (Venezuela), and liked it a lot. A complex story, a puzzle, romantic and tragic, funny and entertaining, with a lot of suspense. Highly recommended.

Baugh & Cable: History of the English Language

Another re-reading: I read this first when a colleague recommended it nearly ten years ago. He lent me this book, only I gave it back just two days later and said "I don't want to borrow this book, I want to own it myself" and bought it. That was a good idea.

In January I claimed that some time after 1066, English had already been on the verge of becoming extinct, because I remembered it that way from reading Baugh & Cable. Thankfully someone challenged me to re-read it, and I did, and saw that I had been very wrong. English had never been out of vogue with the lower classes, although it took centuries after 1066 until the upper classes turned to English, too.

Very interesting stuff if someone is interested in language in general and English in particular as I am. According to the beforementioned colleague, who had studied linguistics and English in a former life, it is a standard textbook for students of English.

J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

Well, what is to say about this one? Everybody knows what it is, and probably everybody knows if (s)he likes the Harry Potter books or not.

There was a time when I knew that I did not like them, or at least wasn't interested. On the contrary, I was annoyed by all the fuzz that was made about these books. But finally I gave in when a friend said, "come on, read it already, you'll like it, because it is good." He was right.

I know there are lots of people who don't like the Potter books, and there are even some who read every single new volume to make sure they still don't like it.

It may not be the summit of High Art in literature, but there are (I think) likeable and interesting characters, and Rowling manages to combine traditional european perceptions of magic with new and original ideas in a way that I enjoy a lot.

Bought, as the others.

Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionär und Realist.

My parents gave it to me for my birthday last year or even Christmas 2004, I think. I finally picked it up fall last year.

Willy Brandt was one of the most influential german politicians after the second world war and makes for a very interesting biography. I could not that much relate to the first parts, though, Brandt's youth in Lübeck and the fights between different socialist splinter groups in the scandinavian exile. But I knew the history after the war well enough to put everything I read in this book about 1945 - 1992 into context, and that was fun. Together with the "Baader-Meinhof-Komplex" I learned a lot of new things about recent german history from this book.

Stefan Aust: Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex

Robert Waldner recommended this, when we discussed the London bombings in The Other Place, so I bought it. It is an account of the german Baader-Meinhof terrorist group that had originated from the APO after 1968 and existed into the 80s. Extremely interesting, especially as it corresponds to my early political memories, which begin in 1972.

Kosmos Hundeführer

A book about dogs that consists mostly of descriptions of the different breeds, with pictures. To my surprise and amusement, this book captured my attention for days when I found it in the appartment during our February vacation on La Palma.

Rebecca Ore: Becoming Alien

After reading Rebecca's articles in The Other Place for years I thought I should finally read at least one of her books. I remembered that she mentioned this one as a book that she likes to be seen as characteristic for her work (or at least I understood it that way).

I am not much of a science fiction reader, so I don't know how this books relates to the genre in general. In some places I had the vague impression that it does relate to some background that the reader is supposed to be familiar with, only I wasn't. That didn't diminish my pleasure reading this book, though. I liked mostly the very believable main character and the development of his relationships to other, err, well, beings.

Bought it used, as it is out of stock.

Her "Alien Bootlegger" is already in the queue (and on the bookshelf), and I am looking forward to reading it.

Simon Schama: A History of Britain, Vol. 1

Some time ago I noticed that my knowledge of English history, or rather of the history of Britain, was lacking severely. Asking around for a recommendation of a good book about it resulted not in one recommendation, but in three -- the Simon Schama series "A History of Britain" after his TV series. On the recent vacation I nearly reached the end of the first volume, the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I, and finished the book at home.

Very good recommendation indeed! Apart from the subject being interesting -- which I knew before --, the writing is very good, very readable, and I like the way he comments the facts. Apparently he knows where to skip pieces (like in the wars fought about the succession to the throne in the late middle ages, which seem endlessly repetitive to an outsider) and where to go into more detail, which he does often.

Sometimes I feel that he takes more knowledge for granted than I have; the book is written for Britons, after all. This is the case where he only drops a name or a term as a hint and apparently assumes that the reader knows what he is talking about. But at least these places are recognizable, and I can go and read about it elsewhere. (Only on that vacation I couldn't.)

Bought it, together with the other two volumes, which I still want to read.

Dan Brown: Sakrileg (The Da Vinci Code)

Someone wrote about this book along the lines of "the worst book ever that I found so pleasurable to read." Well, that about summarizes it. Thankfully, the german translation fixes the worst bugs I found listed somewhere that appear in the first few paragraphs alone, but it doesn't fix the book as a whole. For some reason it is immensely captivating, but I was glad when I was done with it.

Borrowed from Jacob, one of the neighbors on the second floor.

Bernt Engelmann: Hotel Bilderberg

Bernt Engelmann was (he died 1994) a german author and journalist whose point of view, especially in history, was always that of the ruled, not that of the rulers.

In "Hotel Bilderberg" he uses a ficticious background story to communicate lots of facts -- how the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers got rich, how Lockheed sold their military planes to foreign countries through a system of bribery, and how influential people from international finance and politics gather in meetings for which they seek little publicity.

While I found all this quite interesting when I read it first some 25 years ago, I was now rather displeased by the clumsy and naive storytelling. Perhaps I would have found a simple factual account of all this less annoying.

I had this book for 25 years or more, but after re-reading it now I put it on the windowsill.

(In the house where I live, it is common to put books you want to give away on a windowsill in the staircase. Whoever wants it can pick it up and either keep it or put it back on the windowsill after reading. This is a kind of local bookcrossing, only you don't know who put a book there and who took it.)

P. L. Travers: Mary Poppins

A few weeks ago I read my old "Mary Poppins" book again, which I have since I was a child and which I hadn't read for decades. It is, as I noticed now, a narration of the Disney film translated to German, and that shows. So I got and read the original book by P. L. Travers, which was -- small surprise -- much better.

Bought recently, intend to keep it.