A Thanksgiving quote

I am currently watching the 8th episode of The Middle and obviously it is about all the trouble a family can have on the glorious day of Thanksgiving.
The ultra relaxed Axl goes with his brother Brick (yes..) to a corn maze, loses him there and completely freaks out: "He's got like a green jacket, a yellow hat and ... OMG, HE'S DRESSED LIKE CORN! We are never going to find him in here!" Turns around and there is Brick.

I will try my best tomorrow to find someone about whom I can say that he's dressed like corn. It's simply amazing.

Terry Pratchett 2010 Challenge

It is maybe not the best thing to sign up for another challenge (even when it goes for a whole year) just when you admitted to have technically failed one.

But it was just one book out of 5 for the Classics challenge! and almost every Austenite hates it! shouldn't have taken damn Mansfield Park, Fanny Price was unbearable once summer was over, in fall you need real women like Thursday Next in my current book The Eyre Affair, that I recommend highly by the way if you're not troubled by weird alternate universes and Crimean hundred year wars.

BUT this Terry Pratchett challenge at Marg's Reading Adventures is a must-do, I love having this cool death button on my blog (how I love Pratchett's Death! it must be one of the best written fantasy characters) and I already planned to read more of the Discworld so naturally I am signing up. But I'm playing it cool, I already restrained myself from joining the 100+ challenge. Of course I am secretly watching out for a 50+ one.. I had read 50 books this year by the end of June and afterwards slowed down with the end of the exchange year as "serious" college started again. For next year I will have to keep in mind that I will NOT have the time to read as much as last one. I'm not in Iceland anymore where long dark nights force you to either drown your brain cells with beer or read through the English section of the local library. And I am not an exchange student anymore who basically can do what the heck she wants.

Back to business, I am aiming at the 4-5 books to be a Guard of the City Watch (reading over 10 books would make me Death's apprentice, can you imagine? but I would never make it..).
Thinking about reading:
- Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
- Mort
- Making Money
- Small Gods
- Night Watch

Yay, looking forward to December 1rst!

Classics Challenge 2009 ended

Yes, ended (October 31st actually), but unfortunately not completed as I missed out on one: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen did just not flow with me and I couldn't finish it in time. I am not even reading it at the moment, I don't feel for it at this time of the year.

So in the end, I have read
- Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca [x May 31st 2009]
- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
[x June 2009]
- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina [x August 2009]
For the "Will-be-classics"-round:
- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner [x 25th May 2009]

I liked this challenge alot because it made me read for good one books I have wanted to read for a while: Anna Karenina. I am very glad about this read and especially loved the idea that I partly read it during my stay in Moscow and St Petersburg, two important locations in the story.

Less reading, no posting, lazy me...

Since September, I have been really busy in every single aspect of my life. Classes at university started again and it was quite weird to go back to work, studying, reading regularly. I did not go back to my soccer team but started rugby where I am surprisingly not too bad at, actually not bad at all and am maybe even going to be one of the regulars as the right hand prop. Yay!
Partying is irregular but heavy this semester, our housewarming party was a huge mess and also a huge success - we set the standards quite high for the others ;-) We decorated the flat around the theme of the seven deadly sins, each of our rooms representing one sin. I was dressed as the Bride in Kill Bill and my room full of dark and red paintings, a make-your-own-voodoo-doll-activity and nasty ideas on how to kill someone on the walls. Actually, because of my blonde wig that far too many guys started fantasizing about, I ended up as yet another symbol of luxury in my male flatmates' room. My other female flatmate was representing envy (as a sort of Blair Waldorf) and of course it was easy for her to turn it into luxury too, obviously the favourite sin for everyone. One of my best friends came with a huge tshirt full of bills and coins (greed) and therefore basically won the award for the best costume as she had put so much effort and thought into it and dared to take the one sin no one usually ever wants. Another great costume was my other friend: she came as glass of jam (gluttony)!
Reading has been quite a tough one lately, as I had to go through most of Bernard Lewis' books on Islam for a course and got less time left for "personal" reads. Nonetheless, I finished "The Thord Birds" successfully among others and am now watching the series. At the moment, I am reading "The Eyre Affair" by Fforde and really enjoy it despite some difficulties to get into it during the first pages.

So long, this was a quick update to revive this blog. Hope that I will find some time after monday (big presentation I still have to work on) to write about some challenges I want to do 2010 and about the books I absolutely have to read soonish!

Constantly changing places is inherent to my life. Books have always been steady friends which I could bump into wherever I was all over the world.
Stumbling upon Kaminer's German stories of "Die Reise nach Trulala" in Reykjavík's city library is as moving as meeting the Icelandic sagas in Boston's Borders.
To see a book again, that I've read thousands of kilometers away makes me smile "Hey I know you.." and shake hands by thumbing through it for a while.