Southern Reading Challenge 2009 Completed!

I have finished Maggie's Southern Reading Challenge very much in advance, as it runs until August 15th. But I am quite glad to have one little reading success on this blog; I am doing so many challenges and my TBR-list is so huge that I need to get something done-done-done from time to time.
Here again are the three southern books I have read:

• William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury. Maybe the most difficult read from my list and I will definitely have to re-read it again to fully grasp it.
• Robert Tallant, The Voodoo Queen. A great fictional attempt to make a biography of one of the most fascinating women of Louisiana in the 19th century. (Longer review here)
  
• Kate Chopin, The Awakening. I finished it this night and am really surprised about the modern approach of Edna's struggle. Also a great depiction of the south.

Thanks for this challenge that made me search for great southern books, read and love them.

Everything Austen Challenge

Stephanie from The Written Word is hosting this perfect challenge for any Jane Austen fan. Running through six months from July 1st 2009 to January 1st 2010, six "Austen-themed" works have to be read or watched and I am terribly looking forward to do a very mixed list of Jane Austen herself, sequels and/or spinoffs by authors fans of Austen and some of the many movies/series that have been made over the years and that I have not all watched yet.

Here is my list - changes might happen:

Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
Have to read it for two other challenges, so I put it on this list too to help me read and finish it (I tried it once and did not get far).
Sean Grahame-Smith, Pride & Prejudice and Zombies
Hearing so many good things about this book, I have planned to read it for quite awhile now.
BBC Pride & Prejudice | TV mini-series (1995)
A classic adaptation of my favourite Austen novel I love to watch and re-watch.
Amanda Grange, Mr. Darcy' Diary
Another sequel/adaptation of Pride & Prejudice I would like to read, esp. since it is Mr Darcy's POV.
Lost in Austen | TV mini-serie (2008)
I can get it from someone, so that quite different approach to Austen will complement the list.
Pride & Prejudice | Movie (2005)
A little jewel of a movie. Again a re-watch.

Friday Fill-In #130

1. She had a great smile.

2. Even is not physically present because of the distance, my family is by my side, always.

3. I know this: sleeping with socks feels weird.

4. "Silent" in German is still.

5. These words apply to me: "I'd rather be a climbing ape than a falling angel." (Terry Pratchett).

6. Until quite late in the evening, the sun was shining.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to relax after my Berlin trip and sort out my pictures, tomorrow my plans include doing a hell lot of laundry and Sunday, I want to call my "third grandmother"!

Dangerous Berlin

Huge chain bookstores, small but surprisingly well furnished used-books stores and flea markets - Berlin is extremely dangerous for booklovers who are not completely broke. After almost one week in Berlin, I leave this overall amazing city with these treasures:

*from the Berliner Trödelmarkt (famous flea market on sat/sun)*
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men - Cannery Row
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
E.M. Foster, A Passage to India

*from Another Country (used books | link)*
Marie Phillips, Gods Behaving Badly
Susan Hill, Mrs de Winter

*from Fair Exchange (used books | link)*
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Kate Chopin, The Awakening and selected stories

*from Hugendubel (chain store | link*
Dorothy Parker, Marion Meade (ed.), The portable Dorothy Parker

What I have read 2009

I am filling my list in the Goodreads "50 Books a Year" group, but I thought I could make it a post here too, slowly growing until December.

1. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells [Jan 5]
2. Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell [Jan 3]
3. Gods behaving badly, Marie Philipps [Jan 13]
4. Hectors Reise oder die Suche nach dem Glück, Francois Lelord [Jan 10]
5. The Nanny Diaries, Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus [Jan 15]
6. Lipstick Jungle, Candace Bushnell [Jan 24]
7: The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood [Jan 29]
8: 44, Scotland Street, Alexander McCall Smith [Feb 2]
9: The Fabulous Girl's Guide to Grace Under Pressure, Kim Izzo [Feb 4]
10: Princess Academy, Shannon Hale [Feb 3]
11: Pride and Promiscuity The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen Parody by Arielle Eckstut [Feb 11]
12: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer [Feb 12]
13: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend [Feb 14]
14: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald [Feb 20]
15: The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan [Feb 25]
16: A Piece of Cake A Memoir by Cupcake Brown [Feb 22]
17: Silence of the Grave A Thriller by Arnaldur Indridason [Feb 24]
18: Roses Are Red by James Patterson [Feb 25]
19: Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire [March 9]
20: Lonely Planet New Orleans by Tom Downs [March 8]
21: Disappearing Moon Cafe A Novel by Sky Lee [March 15]
22: The Queen and I by Sue Townsend [March 19]
23: The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling [March 20]
24: Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King [Apr 3]
25: The Diviners by Margaret Laurence [Apr 6]
26: The Jane Austen Book Club A Novel by Karen Joy Fowler [Apr 5]
27: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields [Apr 16]
28: A brief history of Finland by Matti Klinge [Feb]
29: Facts About Finland by P. Elovainio [Feb]
30: Cane River by Lalita Tademy [Apr 27]
31: The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier [Apr 30]
32: Obasan by Joy Kogawa [May 8] (Review)
33: Voodoo in New Orleans by Robert Tallant [May 9]
34: Le Cheval Soleil by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir [May 12] (Review)
35: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner [May 22]
36: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini [May 25]
37: Q & A by Vikas Swarup [May 26]
38: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier [May 31]
39: The Voodoo Queen A Novel by Robert Tallant [June 2] (Review)
40: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen [June 7]
41: Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott [June 10] (Review)
42: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini [June 12]
43: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf [June 19]
44: Settlers of the Marsh by Frederick Philip Grove [Jan 20]
45: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
46: The Awakening by Kate Chopin
47: Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (Review)

48: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Review)
49: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
50: Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
51: Le Sabotage amoureux by Amelie Nothomb
52: Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie [Sept 7]
53: Kafka am Strand by Haruki Murakami [Oct 5]
54: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough [Oct 20]
55: The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall [Oct 27]

Last update: September 8th, 2009

Double Friday Fill-In #128 and #129

As I was away on a trip without my laptop last WE, I missed one Friday Fill-In and make it a double Friday this time. Obviously no WE plans for the first one. :)

#128

1. I grew up thinking that I would always live near the same best friends, in the same towns around.
2. Goodreads of course was the last website I was at before coming here.
3. Why don't you put some lemon juice into your water?
4. A rainy day with no plans helps me relax.
5. Thanks for the flowers, goes the German title song for Tom&Jerry.
6. Underage Twilight fans who can't even spell are very off-putting.
7. -


#129

1. All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting that this time it won't go well.
2. Show me a good loser and I will show you a bad winner.
3. Getting too many very good news in one day is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one time.
4. Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy collecting futures votes and talking about things that go well.
5. I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine work and organizing his childrens' extracurricular activities.
6. It is impossible to think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without vegetables or a mix of herbs in it.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to make a schedule of sights for next week, tomorrow my plans include packing my suitcase and Sunday, I want to enjoy Berlin!

Some new old books

I just came back from a weekend in Düsseldorf to visit family with several used and not so used books I found when strolling through the amazing bookshop Sternverlag there.
So that's what's in my suitcase:

- a 1962 Rowohlt edition of Hunger by Knut Hamsun
- Oblomow by Iwan A. Gontscharow
- Doctor Schiwago by Boris Pasternak
- Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton (the only new one)
and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf for my mum.

But as I fell behind with my reading of Mansfield Park, because I was too busy with my marvelous cousins (being the photographer of one kid's birthday party), all of these books will be put on my TBR-pile...