MissWatson observes the centenaries

This is my first attempt at a category challenge. The fact that joining a challenge (2013 ROOT) actually helped me to make more time for reading encouraged me to be a little more ambitious with my next. On a less ambitious note, books read here will also count in the next ROOT challenge.
I much admired other people’s ideas for their challenges, but couldn’t think of an overarching theme for myself. Then the first notices for the commemoration of the First World War and the death of Augustus rolled in. I remembered some other events (such as the end of the British-American War) and thought this could be a great way of making some dents in my non-fiction piles. Looking up events and picking themes has been much fun and I’m looking forward to an interesting year of reading. There isn’t much that can be reliably dated in the early ages, but since I needed fourteen years only, I picked ones where the events fit best with my reading preferences.
I’m aiming to read at least two in each categories, since a lot of it will be non-fiction and very thick. And I won’t make a definite list beforehand, but I will pick something from my shelves that fits, including re-reads, or choose something that comes along in the course of the year.

And here's a little space for my CAT challenges and group reads, if I spontaneously decide to join.
Emil und die Detektive, Emil und die drei Zwillinge, Das fliegende Klassenzimmer February Random CAT
Carry on, Jeeves February group read, P.G.Wodhouse month
The Cuckoo's Calling March Random CAT
Montmorency March Mystery Cat
Die Grossmutter May Random CAT
Some must watch May Mystery Cat
Hamburg und England im Zeitalter der Königin Elisabeth June Random CAT
Calypso June Mystery CAT
Ghosts June Mystery CAT
Der Favorit der Königin June Random CAT
Geschichte der Buchkunst July Random CAT
Armadale
Perfectly pure and good August Mystery CAT
A question of guilt August Mystery CAT
Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß August Random CAT
Madame Bovary September Random CAT
Der Knochenmann October Mystery CAT
Tolkien and the Great War October Random CAT
Mystère rue des Saints-Pères November mystery CAT
Das Erdbeben in Chili November Random CAT

AD 14: Imperator est mortuus. Vivat Imperator!
Augustus dies and Tiberius succeeds him.
The theme of this category is Rome, Romans and in particular Romans in Germany.
Books: Die Varusschlacht done
re-read I, Claudius and Claudius the God (maybe)
Römische Amphitheater und Stadien done
The battle that stopped Rome done
August 410 done

AD 214: Der Kaiser flennt / The emperor blubs
Liu Bei conquers Shu.
The theme is China, maybe some history or modern Chinese authors.
The title probably needs some explanation: In July 2012, we went to see a performance of an ancient Chinese shadow play telling a tale from the 7th century, about a general in disguise and cowardly armies and great battles. They gave subtitles to explain the action, and the recurring phrase was “Der Kaiser flennt” (he was a bit of a wimp).
Books: I’m thinking I should finally read Mo Yan
The great divergence done
Die Juwelenpagode done
Die schwarze Reiterin done
The emperor's pearl done

AD 814: Kaiser des Heiligen Römischen Reiches deutscher Nation
Carolus Magnus – Karl der Große – Charlemagne dies.
The theme is German history, preferably about the Middle Ages or the Carolingian Renaissance.
Books: Die Franken done
Preußen: Geschichte eines Königreichs done

AD 914: Heading for new shores!
The Vikings conquer Brittany.
The theme is conquerors, empires, traders, adventurers, explorers.
The Vikings were considered a scourge in the countries they raided, but they were also traders, mercenaries and discovered Greenland.
Books: Das Britische Empire done
Kundschafter am St.-Lorenz-Strom done
Im Alleingang zum Mississippi done

AD 1014: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Sweyn Forkbeard dies.
The theme is Denmark.
The country lies almost next door to Kiel where I live, but I know hardly anything about it. High time to change that!
Books: Schneckenhaus
Das Zimthaus
Mein skandinavisches Buch done
Hamlet does not qualify.
Prinzessin Christine done
Der Favorit der Königin done
Sharpe's prey done

AD 1114: Els segadors
Ramon Berenguer III conquers Mallorca.
The theme is Catalonia, Catalan history and Catalan authors (the Catalan version of Wikipedia spells the name Ramon without an accent).
By curious coincidence, the national day of Catalonia commemorates an event from 1714, so the national anthem, Els Segadors, provides the title for this category.
Books: Tirant Lo Blanc
Auf der Plaça del Diamant done
Dos días de mayo done

AD 1214: Puddingabitur
Bielefeld receives a municipal charter from the Earl Hermann of Ravensberg.
The theme is Y/A fiction.
We moved to Bielefeld when I was 13 and thus spent my teenage years there. The title also requires explanation: Abitur is the school-leaving exam which gives access to university and for which one usually attends a gymnasium. Way back in my day, a gymnasium for girls which taught modern languages (instead of Greek and Latin) and – God forbid – cooking was considered vastly inferior and the certificate derided as Puddingabitur. Since I took this in Bielefeld, the name is doubly appropriate, because Bielefeld is also the company seat of Dr August Oetker which started out selling baking powder and a powder for making the kind of pudding that is known as blancmange or flan in England. Our cooking class teacher called it a monumental ripoff: “Just look at the list of ingredients, it’s just corn starch! You can do this yourselves and much more cheaply!” The success of fast food and convenience food in a nutshell.
Books: re-read S. E. Hinton (maybe)
The Golden Goblet done
Eragon done
The secret of Platform 13 done
Red Shift done
The tale of Despereaux done
Die Muskeltiere done
The Prospering

AD 1314: Milites Christi
Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.
The theme is knights, chivalry, orders of knights
Books: Lionheart
Le roi de fer done
Blood song done

AD 1414: Your money or your life!
The fortresses of the Quitzows are taken.
The theme is banditry, uprisings, revolts, gangs, thus crime and thrillers. Cattle-rustling and gun-slinging also qualifies, so it may include Westerns.
This was a difficult year, because nothing remarkable appears to have happened in world history. In Brandenburg, a family of knights, the Quitzows, terrorised the land like “Raubritter”, robber barons, until their liege lord took matters in hand and laid siege to their castles and fortresses.
Books: Der beiden Quitzows letzte Fahrten done
Der Gangsterboss done
Das Ende vor den Augen done
Calypso done
Ghosts done
Blitz done
Perfectly pure and good done
A question of guilt done
Bretonisches Gold done
Der Knochenmann done
The outlaw Josey Wales done

AD 1514: Debit and credit
In Augsburg, the construction of the Fuggerei begins.
The theme is economics and economic history.
The Fuggers were one of the first great merchant houses in Germany, lending money to emperors and kings.
Books: Mit barer Münze
Die Macht der einen Zahl done
100 Jahre Institut für Weltwirtschaft done
Lending to the borrower from hell done
Hamburg und England im Zeitalter der Königin Elisabeth done
Quantifying the Roman economy done
Money, Prices and Civilization in the Mediterranean World done

AD 1614: Quod erat demonstrandum.
John Napier publishes the first logarithm table.
The theme is science and history of science.
Books: to be decided.
The Martian done
The sweetness at the bottom of the pie done
Die Geburt der modernen Wissenschaft in Europa done

AD 1714: Bienvenido en España, Monsieur Bourbon!
The War of the Spanish succession ends.
The theme is the Royal family of Bourbons in both France and Spain.
A great excuse to read a lot of Alexandre Dumas.
Books: Nie war es herrlicher zu leben done
Der Spanische Erbfolgekrieg done
Le comte de Moret done
Le bossu done

AD 1814: N’interrompez jamais un ennemi qui est en train de faire une erreur.
Napoléon abdicates for the first time.
The theme is the French (revolutionary and Napoleonic) wars.
For some obscure reason, I know about these wars from an almost exclusively English perspective: C.S. Forester, C. Northcote Parkinson, Patrick O’Brian, Georgette Heyer, Bernard Cornwell et.al. This must change in 2014, so the task is to read fiction and non-fiction about this time mainly from the French side. Some German, Russian, Spanish or other non-English input allowed.
Books: OMG, where do I start?
Die Eisfestung done
Le colonel Chabert done
Der Marques de Bolibar done
Der Wiener Kongress done
Erzählungen by Puschkin https://www.librarything.com/work/638057 done

AD 1914: On Flanders fields / Flandern in Not – Durch Flandern reitet der Tod.
The First World War begins.
The theme is the Great War, obviously.
The German quote is from a folk song, more specifically from a soldiers’ song. It was apparently much in vogue in German trenches, but it dates back centuries ago – Flanders has always been a landscape to be marched through and fought over. Slipping in books about Flanders is allowed.
Books: The guns of August done
La petite auto done
Spy's honour done
Weltkrieg und Revolution 1914-1918/19 done

Interesting categories!

Welcome to the challenge. I see this will be the place to brush up on my history!

Wow, nice setup. Good luck on those ambitious categories!

Well done! I love your categories. May I recommend The Long Ships for your Viking category. I really enjoyed it this year.

MissWatson you will do just great. Remember it's supposed to be fun...no pressure...just enjoy!

That's a fabulous set of categories and I love the way you've connected them all to a 14. I will be watching with interest.

Any challenge that has you reading the Claudius books is a good challenge.

Wow, love the setup! Will be following your history of science, French and Great War categories in particular. :) Welcome to the challenge!

Terrific theme! I look forward to seeing your choices and opinions. So far you are giving me lots of ideas.

Thank you all for the welcome, and yes, The long ships is one of those under consideration.

Welcome! Those are some interesting categories you've come up with - looking forward to following along!

I love how you have connected your categories to interesting events in history! Looking forward to following your reading.

Wow...amazing categories...thoughtful and creative...sends me back to the drawing board, as it makes my categories look like elementary school stuff.

Another idea for the Chinese book (214): Monkey (or Journey to the West) by Wu Ch'eng-en, which I read this year and enjoyed. And how about the obvious War and Peace for 1814 (unless you've read it and not in the mood for a re-read)?

>28 kac522:, Thanks for the recommendation! Yes, War and Peace would be a re-read, so it will depend on how far I get with all the other stuff.

I've been down to the bookstore and treated myself to one I have been eyeing for months. I caved in because it fits the challenge: Nie war es herrlicher zu leben are excerpts from the memoirs of the Duc de Croÿ, a courtier at Versailles.

And although chivalry was in scarce supply during the Crusades (one might argue that they were in contradiction of all that knights should stand for), I will include Lionheart in my AD 1314 category.

Love the categories! I also have Mo Yan on my list for next year.

Great categories and a great theme!

Welcome to the challenge! I'm looking forward to seeing your choices for history of science.

For that category, may I suggest The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester. There were so many inventions attributed to this country and this books is about Joseph Needham who traveled around China and wrote the 24-volume Science and Civilization in China.

mamzel: Thanks, that looks very interesting!

When I first embarked on this challenge, the only Danish authors I could have named off the top of my head – Andersen apart – were Tania Blixen and Herman Bang.
Several catalogue searches later I am surprised how many children's and Y/A books in German libraries and bookstores were originally written in Danish. I even found a series from my own childhood, but in those days they mostly "adapted" the translations for German readers, so I wasn't really aware that it was Danish. I also found some interesting books for grown-ups. This looks very promising.

As a suggestion for your Danish category: have you ever read anything by Peter Hoeg? He's a Danish author I personally like very much; I've just finished Smilla's Sense of Snow and enjoyed it very much...

Oh, thanks for reminding me of him!

Really enjoyed reading your categories. Best of luck.

Also -- absolutely loved the 'Der Kaiser flennt' story. Ha!

Thanks, ReshiBec, it was a memorable experience and that catchphrase had us giggling for weeks!

Nice categories! And greetings from the other end of Germany -- I'm in Munich. I look forward to following your reading, especially anything in German. My own German reading will likely be limited to Krimis, but I'll be reading some German history, although much, much later than what you're planning. Your history of science category is also intriguing.

That it is indeed a long way south. I hope you're enjoying Munich, I've been there only once, but I will be back some day. Have you got your eye on a particular Krimi author yet?

No, I like many of the Scandinavian authors, whose novels translate better into German than English, but there is such a huge selection at the local Hugendubel that my plan is just to go pick one at a time. There were several interesting-looking German Krimis, including a few set in Munich.

At Hugendubel they probably have a whole section devoted to Regionalkrimis, which usually means some provincial backwater. Not always of great literary merit, but they're full of local colour and peculiarities.

So, the German cozy, then. I may skip those.

Not necessarily. There's a series by Jacques Berndorf located in the Eifel area that is anything but cozy, featuring a journalist and lots of political wheeling and dealing.

History! Awesome theme! Looking forward to seeing what you read this year.

Back from the Christmas break and I seriously need to reconsider the "no internet" rule: catching up with all the threads is hard work. But now I can throw myself into reading, I'm almost done with Le roi de fer...

Finished Le roi de fer.
It's not strictly speaking about chivalry, but the entire action takes place in 1314. Jacques de Molnay spends his last days in prison before being burned at the stake and with his last breath he curses the men he thinks are responsible for his fate: Pope Clement, Guillaume de Nogaret and the king, Philippe le Bel. At the end of the year they're all dead. The book also mentions that "14" is considered an unlucky number and enumerates a number of catastrophes: a Muslim invasion in 714, the death of Charlemagne in 814, the loss of Brittany in 1114 etc.
The reading was tough because of the very specific vocabulary not found in your normal (online) dictionary. I had to check things up on the French Wikipedia. Still, I will definitely continue with the series some day. Right now I went to read up on Philippe le Bel in Die französischen Könige des Mittelalters which made me realize once again that you always run into the same characters: Philippe's daughter Isabelle is the one we met in Ken Follett's recent doorstopper.

>49 MissWatson: Ah Les Rois Maudits The Accursed Kings is a classic in France. It is dense but I've been said a wonderful way to learn about french history. I've the whole series at home and I'm planning to read it in the near future.

> 50 I saw the series mentioned elsewhere several times and picked up the first volume in Brittany a couple of years back for a trial. Compared to much current historical fiction I found it amazingly brief at barely 300 pages, but boy, are they packed with information!

>51 MissWatson: Yes it's the major drawback, lots of people don't read it for this reason but the one who did are unanime, it's worth it. Between us, it's why I haven't started it so far, when I do, I'll want to do it in a year because there's so much information, to keep it straight I will have to do it in one sitting: the whole serie in a year at most ...

AD 1914
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung started a series publishing unknown or lesser known writings, poems, letters etc about the Great War. First one up was La petite auto, a calligramme by Guillaume Apollinaire. They provided some background about the origins of the poem, thankfully it can be found on the net in a legible version, the picture in the paper was too small. Intriguing, to say the least. I must make a detour by the library sometime this week to see if they've got a decent edition of his works.

ETC

No joy with Apollinaire, the city library doesn't stock him (what are public libraries coming to?) and the university library only in the reference section. Put on hold for the moment while I tackle The guns of August.

I read all of the Rois maudits in my pre-LT days and enjoyed them all very much. They really made history come alive.

> 55 Yes, I'm looking forward to the next instalments, but I'm still hoping to acquire them through a bookswapping site.

ETC

AD 1514

Just finished Die Macht der einen Zahl, a history of BIP, how it was invented and how it rose to prominence. I read a review in today's Handelsblatt, my library had it available and off I went.
I can't remember when I last finished a book this quickly, even if it's only 180 pages. He actually managed to make the subject fascinating and accessible to non-economists: no mathematics, no theoretical constructs, just the practical problems which inspired the ideas behind the concept and the caveats associated with it. And I've got a list of other stuff to read from it. *sigh*
This is the second time in four weeks that I've run into William Petty, the Economist ran an article on him a while back, too. Clearly a case of what Willie Garvin called the flux.

I just thought I would pop in and see what your reading. The Accursed Kings sounds very interesting. I need to look for them.

Thanks for stopping by. I'm currently ploughing through The guns of August.

And it is finally done.
Took me much longer to finish it than I thought, and it's not been an entirely happy experience. By page 50 I was gnashing my teeth, by page 100 I was seriously tempted to chuck it in because of the truly infuriating way the notes are organized: just a surname mentioned, and then you have to go look it up in seven separate lists in the bibliography...
It is also not exactly an ideal book with which to start on the subject, because the focus is strictly on military events, and the view is always from the very top. She assumes that her readers are familiar with the whole buildup of the political situation, which can no longer be assumed today (hands up who could explain the Agadir crisis without looking it up on Wikipedia first?). It required parallel readings to check up on the various crises mentioned, and to find out which of the Russian grand dukes led the Russian campaign, because Tuchman fails to mention his name.

The perils of non-fiction.

>60 MissWatson: hmmm...thanks for your feedback on The Guns of August, which I also was planning to read this year. I wonder if reading The Proud Tower, which covers 1890-1914, would be a better place to start? Or I wonder if her references in that book would also require a lot of background.

>62 kac522: I haven't read that, so I don't know. It probably depends on what interests you most. Looking at the table of contents, I notice that Austria-Hungary is not considered to be worth its own chapter, she's back with Britain, France, Germany and Russia (and adding the United States which do not play a part in August 1914). To my mind that is a little too narrow. If I found a copy on the shelves somewhere I'd take a close look at her bibliography and might consider her for back-up reading.

AD 1414

And I have finished Der beiden Quitzows letzte Fahrten which weighs in at 674 pages. I picked it because it actually deals with the hedge knights for which the category is named. Turns out the liege lord in question was Friedrich von Zollern, who became first Elector of Brandenburg, so a little additional reading on him was required.
It was one of May's early works and an attempt at historical novels, not very successful. Too many anachronisms, too much mock-medieval dialogue, not enough knowledge about the time. Still, it's done. I think that I'll tackle Fontane's take on the subject in Fünf Schlösser next.

Wow, I had never even heard about that book. It's amazing what a prolific output Karl May had, not just restricted to his Westerns and, ahem, Middle Easterns. (Did I just invent a new genre?)

>65 IrishHolger: There's loads of stuff from his earlier writings that I didn't know about until the critical editions by Haffman came out. They printed them with the original spellings, pre-Duden reform, which I found very disorienting, because the perpetrators of the last reform (I am not a fan of that!) actually went back to those spellings and I kept thinking "why on earth did they have to bring this back?". All that's missing is Thür and Thor and roth...
The famous ones all come under "Reiseerzählungen", but Middle Easterns is a nice way to subdivide.

>66 MissWatson: The spelling reform(s) were an absolute disaster. When I went to school spelling may been difficult but at least you were either right or wrong. Now no-one knows what's proper anymore.

The funny thing is that I occasionally come across German learners who insist on writing "Komputer". When I ask why, it generally comes out that they purchased a German language learning book from the late 90s where for a brief period of a few years that spelling was indeed the official correct one.... one that no-one in their right mind had ever adopted.

>67 IrishHolger: I agree, disastrous. Soon we'll be back in the days of Grimmelshausen and Gryphius where everyone spelled pretty much as he or she liked. I'm seeing that already in the mails we receive from university students requesting help with their literature search. No respect for whoever is on the receiving end of the message.

What a relief then to return to Erich Kästner writing for children! At least in my ancient editions. No doubt they've messed up the reprints, too. Sigh.

I proofread students' papers when asked and I recently had an ELL student who used "unto" instead of "to". Obviously a big Bible reader!

No mean feat for a non-native speaker, if it was the King James version.

I occasionally proofread German students' English language papers. It can be interesting. My main takeaway is that you should not use a thesaurus in a language you are not well versed in.

Oh, even German-English/English-German dictionaries are full of pitfalls.

This is true. I'm glad I don't have to write papers in German as they would be terrible, but being familiar with the language does help me in figuring out what they are trying to say.

As with so many other things in life, it is a question of perseverance and practice.

71. Often I think you should not use a thesaurus even if you're a native speaker. So many people just don't understand that when a word can have several meanings, the synonyms in the thesaurus also have different meanings.

AD 1814

I finished Die Eisfestung, a chronological, non-fiction account of the siege of Hamburg in the winter of 1813/14 which ended long after Napoleon had abdicated. I didn't know about this, accounts of the Napoleonic wars in Germany tend to concentrate on the movements of the Prussian armies. Here we have Russian general Bennigsen besieging Marshal Davout in Hamburg during an uncommonly long and cold winter. They had frost for more than 70 days, and Davout fortified the city by building ramparts from reeds and pouring water over them to make solid ice walls. Rather reminded me of Game of Thrones. There's also the strange sensation of knowing all the places that are mentioned, this took place on my doorstep, so to speak, and when Hamburg's people fled or were evicted, they landed in places like Kiel and Ratzeburg, they found refuge with friends in manor houses like Altenhof where we go for concerts in summer, and so on.
The other amazing thing was what a globalised world these merchants lived in: the names in the diaries the author studied are German, French and English, they have family and trading partners all over Northern Europe.
And there's a biblioghraphy of almost thirty pages for further reading.

>75 PawsforThought: I've found that with French, which I learned in grade school, in a program in which the teachers simply spoke French until you understood it, I have a hard time translating, because words don't mean precisely the same thing. I get stuck on the nuances. With German, having learned as an adult and having used a German-English dictionary, I'm much more comfortable with approximate matches. Does that make sense?

It does to me. I hate guesswork, I like to have rules explained to me, as in why some verbs need this preposition or that case etc. And dictionaries usually offer some phrases to demonstrate the use of a word and that makes deduction much easier.

I let myself be side-tracked again and read Carry on, Jeeves. Lovely, like meeting up with an old friend.

AD 1914

I took a short break from reading to watch the third season of Game of Thrones (finally available on DVD from the UK). Very impressive, and the casting is amazing.

But now I'm back to books and finished Spy's honour. I'm counting it for the Great War category because this takes place in the feverish years of paranoia and plotting that ended so disastrously. Likeable characters, the hero is one of Lyall's typically unassuming Brits who reminded me of his Major Maxim, and there's a feisty American millionaire's daughter who provides the funds required on occasion.
The middle section takes place in Kiel and, as usual with English authors writing about Germany, I wonder where Lyall picked up his info about Kiel and Kiel Week. Kapitänleutnant is spelled without Umlaut all the time, so that's not a printer's error, he writes about Kaiser Yacht Club (instead of Kaiserlicher Yacht Club) but uses the correct "Imperial" for the translation, and I can't even begin to guess what he means by "Schutz des Königs" for Wilhelm's bodyguards. Serious fact-checking required.

So, I did some checking and can report that Lyall certainly gets all his facts about Kiel and Kiel Week right. It's only his use of German words and phrases that's a little dubious. This has been a very interesting sidetrip into the history of Kiel.

ETA

AD 1814

And I just noticed that I completely forget to mention Le colonel Chabert, a tale that tells of the consequences of Napoleon's wars.

>81 MissWatson: Did you like it ?

Thanks, electrice, I did. There's quite a lot of unfamiliar slang which, my dictionary tells me, is specific to lawyers and the legal profession. Once past that, it was a delightful read. It was my first encounter with Balzac and I will certainly read more.

>83 MissWatson: Great ! I've never read Balzac, my sister did read Le Colonel Chabert in junior high and she loved it at the time, I'll keep in mind to give it a try :)

It was a lovely weekend, much sun, so I could sit on the balcony and finished The cuckoo's calling. A bit long at 550 pages, but I rather like the way the detective actually goes off and does actual sleuthing: interviewing people, searching for information and facts, looking at the crime scene. And a rather unusual family background for the hero.

Balcony weather! Lovely! :) Can't wait until it's warm enough here to read outside. It was just about warm enough to read while standing at the bus stop, but a lot of the benches are still covered in snow so there's no place to sit.

>86 rabbitprincess: I've been following your misfortunes with that extremely cold winter with acute compassion. Ours has been extremely mild in comparison, and now it's unusually warm for March already. I bought a small pot of daffodils on Saturday, and all the blooms have opened!

And I have finished Montmorency for the March Mystery Cat.
The American spelling in a tale about Victorian England was a little disconcerting at first, and I also wondered why she wrote Scientific Society when she meant the Royal Society? I'm not sure about the intended readership, would teenagers care about the finer points of malt whisky connoisseurship? Not to mention that malt whisky didn't have the snob appeal back then it enjoys now. Another quibble is the Mauramanian ambassador's forefather who would have been stationed in St. Petersburg if he had been appointed to Catherine's court.

These minor quibbles apart, is was a nice read and a clever setup for the next stories where, I assume, Montmorency goes spying for king and country.

AD 1514
100 Jahre Institut für Weltwirtschaft was a bit of a duty read, since that is where I had my first job. Still, it proved a quick and informative read, I learned a few things I didn't know and ran across several people I met in real life. Better than I expected.

I know they often release British and American editions of books, and an author told me the change much more than simply spelling. Sounds like you got hold of the American edition??? But Americans know about the Royal Society. Sounds like they dumbed it down a bit, but still interesting.

Your categories look good! You should swing by Di's thread if you're interested in economics. She has recently gone back to school to get a degree in economics. Therefore I'm learning a lot about it too. She goes by her husband's name on lt bruce_krafft.

>90 cammykitty: Thanks for dropping by. My copy of Montmorency is published by Amazon, I suppose it's some kind of Print-on-demand deal and they ran some autocorrect programme set to American spelling over it. But the used copies were a little too expensive.
It would seem some publishers are very ready to underestimate their readers. Poor Jeffrey Archer once had a large part of his book excised because apparently the American public would be too confused by a political system with three parties. How arrogant these people are!
Thanks for the tip on Di's thread, I've been there. There are so many interesting books and people around here!

AD 1814
Der Marques de Bolibar takes place in 1812 in Spain and tells of two German regiments in Napoleon's army which were wiped out by the Spanish guerrilla. Strictly speaking not a historical novel, rather a phantastic tale in the manner of ETA Hoffmann.

AD 814
Just finished Die Franken in record time (for me, anyway). I picked it up on a whim and I am so glad I did. The author recaps recent research on the subject which pretty much puts everything I knew or remembered from my school days into an entirely new perspective. I only wish the bibliography had been more comprehensive, I'd like to know where to go for further reading...

ETC

Not understand three parties? We usually only have two parties in power here, but yes, sometimes there are three. I'm from Minnesota, where one election year the voters were so disgusted or uninspired by the major party candidates that Jesse Ventura, a wrestler known for sporting a pink boa when he was going into the ring, got elected as governor.

& yes, there are so many interesting people here. I'm sad that I can't keep up with everyone!

Did you like Der Marques de Bolibar? I looked at the other reviews of it and it looks as though it's a love or hate sort of book.

>94 cammykitty: Yes, keeping up with other people's threads and reading is certainly time-consuming, but also very rewarding.

I liked the Marques de Bolibar, but I also noticed that all the reviews are written for translated versions, so it's partly a question of the quality of the translation, partly a question of how it was marketed. It is not straightforward historical fiction, more a reflection on fate. The Marques loses a family member in the fighting and wants revenge, he plots it with the help of the Spanish guerrilla and is killed before the plan can be carried out. And then the victims themselves put things in motion, bringing about their own death...
One thing that struck me was the language. It is told in first person by a young officer, and the way people speak sounds authentic, Perutz must have read a lot of contemporary books and memoirs to do this.

AD 1014
I have finished Mein skandinavisches Buch which contains articles and letters Fontane wrote while travelling in Denmark. They were written shortly after the wars for Schleswig-Holstein and are very much a product of this time. Still, I came away with some interesting information and now I'm off to check if the Danes really were the first to speak of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages.

AD 1914
Weltkrieg und Revolution 1914-1918/19 is done. It's a very condensed history of the Great War and as such unsatisfactorily short. It is part of a series on modern German history and therefore focuses on matters regarding Germany. Still, it supplies the basic facts and has a long list of notes and further reading.

Sometimes the "further reading" section is the best part! :)

So it is!

I had a friend staying for the weekend, so no internet and little reading, but I did finish The golden goblet which was one of my favourite reads as a kid. I'm glad to say it has lost none of its charm.

I've cut myself some slack with a cozy re-read from the YA section with Eragon. Back to the serious stuff now with a biography of Charlemagne.

I can feel the need for a reread coming on. The trouble is choosing which book to reread, and rereading in the face of baleful stares from all the books I own and haven't read yet.

I know, I know, some of the TBRs look SO downcast when I pick the favourite standing next to them!

Are you familiar with Charlemagne and Mohammed? I realize it's dated, but I'm thinking about taking a look.

>104 March-Hare: No, so far I haven't read anything by Pirenne. One of the first things that struck me in Fried's biography of Charlemagne is that he spells the Arabic names in a consistent, presumably internationally agreed manner and uses Arabic sources. Would Pirenne have done that? Were the sources even easily available?

Don't know, I'm curious because the "Pirenne thesis" has come up in some of my current reading.

I spent the Easter hols at my sister's, little reading done, but I found something for my AD 1014 category on her shelves: Prinzessin Christine. Almost done with it, a nice, quick read.

(edited in vain attempt to add a touchstone)

AD 1014
And I have finished Prinzessin Christine. It is a fictionalised biography of Christine of Denmark, daughter of Christian II who was deposed by a revolt of the nobility. Since she lived in exile nearly all her life, there's little about Denmark in the book, and more about the dynastic shenanigans of the Habsburgs (her mother was a sister of Charles V).
As a look at one of the minor Royals in XVIth Century Europe it was very interesting and sometimes even illuminating. The writing was less so, and I'm not quite sure if it's the translator's fault or the original style. Names are often misspelled, characters appear and disappear without obvious reason. Still, it's an enjoyable read.

Edit to add touchstone, which finally worked.

The writing was less so, and I'm not quite sure if it's the translator's fault or the original style.

I had the same problem when I read One Moldavian Summer which is considered as one of the greatest Romanian novels ever written. But there were so many mistakes in it! But since I read a translation, I cannot be sure if the mistakes were the translators or the authors. That makes it hard to really judge a book.

>109 Samantha_kathy: Yeah, it always leaves me with a little doubt. But one cannot learn all the languages in the world...

AD 1414
I pulled two short crime stories from the shelf. They've been sitting there for decades and time hasn't been kind to them. One of them, Der Gangsterboss, reads like a prose version of the film script still waiting to be fleshed out into a proper novel. Das Ende vor den Augen has a little more substance and style, but still left me wondering about the point of it all. Both are written entirely from the pov of the gangsters who have absolutely no impulse control and little or no brains. And this time I know that the translation is dodgy: sometimes I can tell what the French text must have looked like because the translation is so literal as to be non-idiomatic German.
These might have been enjoyable reads back when they were first published, but now they just look dated.

110 > If only we could learn all the languages in the world! Or have Allspeak :D

AD 1814
I finished Der Wiener Kongress, a short introduction to the Congress of Vienna where they discussed the re-structuring of Europe and dismantling Napoleon's work. Necessarily sketchy, given the limitations of 128 pages, and unnecessarily chockful of highbrow words. This is meant to be an introduction to the subject for a general audience, not specialists in 19th century diplomacy. Still, one of the interesting tidbits was that one of Metternich's mistresses inspired a character in Bozena Nemcova's Grossmutter, so up the TBR list it goes.

AD 914
Im Alleingang zum Mississippi tells about the trips of Pierre Radisson (yes, the hotels are named after him) into the wild of Canada in the second half of the 17th century. I last read this as a girl of ten or eleven, and I was a little surprised to find that not much has been added in the way of books or articles since then.
Barely ten pages into the book I found a serious mistake (St Malo is NOT in Normandy) and checked him out. Interestingly, the entry in the German Wikipedia is by far the most detailed, and neither the German, English or French sites agree on his place of birth (that's where St Malo came in). But it seems that apart from the faux pas about St Malo, the author sticks pretty close to Radisson's own version of his adventures, which are amazing. The only distraction is the blithe assumption that all things (or men) white and/or European are automatically superior. Apart from that, it is still an amazing tale of daring exploits and travels among the Five Nations and other tribes. This is before the Sioux had horses!

ETC

Pierre Radisson sounds interesting! I don't recall learning about him in Canadian history, but we certainly covered that period, so it's possible he was mentioned at least in passing. Will have to check out his adventures sometime.

Yes, the book actually made me search union catalogues for other books about him. I found a recent article on Radisson in a German magazine (I need to go to a specialist library for a copy, so I haven't laid my hands on it yet) and there's a Canadian scholar who's written about him, Martin Fournier, with only a handful of copies in Germany. I do hope my local library does ILL.

May is off to a good start, I have finished Die Grossmutter for the May Random CAT. A classic of Czech literature, and according to the translator it inspired Kafka's Das Schloss. I've steered clear of Kafka ever since we had to read him in school, In der Strafkolonie gave me nightmares. Maybe I should reconsider, because I really can't see what ties him to a tale of life in a village in the early 19th century...

Oh that begs to be unpacked. Please come up with something.

AD1714
I have finished Der Spanische Erbfolgekrieg a short introduction to the War of the Spanish succession which established the Bourbons on the Spanish throne. Perfect if you want to (re)acquaint yourself with the causes, main events, major players and most important outcomes. I had quite forgotten that Prinz Eugen had a hand in this.

Thank you for putting both Radisson and Martin Fournier on my radar! Looks like my local library has two books by Radisson and the Fournier's biography.

Back from my break (sightseeing in Munich and completely offline for a fortnight), and I can report at least one mystery CAT: Some must watch by Ethel Lina White. Now off to catch up with the threads.

I wish I'd known; I would have bought you a cup of coffee. Hope you had a good time in my temporary home.

Thanks Kay, there were three of us and we had a wonderful time. Especially the part where we rested our feet after traipsing around museums all day!

Sounds like a great trip. Museums are wonderful but so tough on the feet. I'd love to visit Munich some day; glad to hear you had a good time.

>124 PawsforThought: Thanks for dropping by. Next time we plan to go to a concert in the Residenz!

>125 MissWatson: Ooh! Sounds lovely!

AD 914

And one more book about discovering and exploring new continents is done: Kundschafter am St.-Lorenz-Strom, about the life, times and exploits of Samuel Champlain.

Edit: Hm, something in my formatting is not working as intended. Never mind.

AD 1514

I finished Lending to the borrower from hell and it was an amazing read, considering the topic. Poor Philip II of Spain has been blamed for many things, including being the first serial defaulter on sovereign debt. According to Braudel, he ruined countless bankers, and the tale has been repeated over and over again. Well, Drelichman and Voth went to the archives and actually analysed the documents, from which a very different picture emerges. There were no state bankruptcies, merely debt restructurings between consenting partners, and the same bankers who missed a few repayments on old loans happily lent more money after the haircuts, because overall they made fat profits. Never believe a whining banker!

As usual, there are a number of promising titles in the bibliography, but I don't know when I'll get around to them.

AD 1514

One of the books quoted very often in my last read was Ehrenberg's treatise on the Fuggers, so I looked him up and found another promising book by him: Hamburg und England im Zeitalter der Königin Elisabeth. It is about the attempts of the Merchant Adventurers to establish a branch office in Hamburg. Quite interesting in fact, I always associated the name with Francis Drake and his lot, but it would seem that they were mostly about cloth trading. The book is 118 years old and again I was surprised to find so little else about them written by economic historians. There's a dissertation I will look up some time soon, to check if the author was granted access to the records of the Merchant Adventurers themselves. Ehrenberg wasn't.

ETC

AD 1414

It was a very sunny, hot day on the balcony, so I needed something light and quick after my foray into the Elizabethan age. I chose Ed McBain whom I have not read for ages. Calypso has a rather grisly murder, but the usual welcome teamwork by Carella and Meyer, they are my favourite detectives. And while still in the groove, I finished Ghosts as well.

ETC

AD 1014

Der Favorit der Königin is a novel about the affair of Friedrich Struensee with Queen Mathilde of Denmark. The author writes in a very quirky, individual style, playing with descriptive adjectives he invents. He also mentions in his wrap-up of historical facts the captain of the Royal Navy ship which took Mathilde back to England. Apparently he rose to be an admiral and commanded the fleet that bombarded Copenhagen in 1807, which means I pulled Sharpe's prey off the shelf. If I keep this up, I'll never get around to my other categories...

AD 1014

Sharpe's prey. There are some nuggets about the political situation which I considered checking up (a British expeditionary force in Stralsund??) but I think I'll put that off until later. I have decided to tackle the categories I have ignored until now.

AD 14

My first foray into my first category is a book about Roman amphitheatres and stadiums: Römische Amphitheater und Stadien. It contains two sections, written by two authors, one about amphitheatres and gladiators, the other covers racing and circuses. The first looks a little dated, the second suffers from sloppy editing and rather grandiloquent speechifying about architecture. The photos and illustrations are very useful.

ETC

We need more

AD 14

I finished Die Varusschlacht which completes the minimum number of books for this category, although I will certainly return to it. It's about the Roman campaigns in Germania after Varus lost three legions there and incorporates much recent archaeological research. It's incredible how much the Romans invested in the building of a province east of the Rhine and then just left it behind.
This was a fascinating book with lots of new information and a huge bibliography at the end. How did this slip so far down the TBR pile?

ETC

I am not the number crunching kind, but half-time of the challenge looks like a good time to take stock.

AD 14 2/2
AD 214 0/2
AD 814 1/2
AD 914 2/2
AD 1014 4/2
AD 1114 0/2
AD 1214 2/2
AD 1314 1/2
AD 1414 5/2
AD 1514 4/2
AD 1614 0/2
AD 1714 1/2
AD 1815 4/2
AD 1914 3/2
and some unplanned CATs 10

Which means I've read more than I expected. This is absurdly pleasant. I am going to treat myself to Armadale.

Nice work! Enjoy your reading treat :)

Excellent head-way!

AD 14

I squeezed in another book about the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest: The battle that stopped Rome. Quite instructive companion reading to Die Varusschlacht. It covers much the same area, but Wells' target audience are people who know little or nothing about the battle in question, he keeps things plain and simple by deciding on the scenario that seems most likely to him, and doesn't burden them with footnotes. Whereas Märtin discusses alternative theories and discrepancies in the written records at length. Wells also gives some very graphic descriptions of what actually happens to soldiers in battles fought with spears, swords and lances.

>137 rabbitprincess:, 138 Thanks!

I took some time out to finish Can you forgive her? and to rest my eyes from the extremely small print in Armadale. I didn't have such problems with the print last time around, so I think I'll download it from Project Gutenberg and finish it on my Kobo. The Trollope doesn't really fit my challenge categories, but since I'm on a good track with those, I don't care. It's the bicentenary of his birth next year, so I definitely need a category for him then. I like his style, so un-Victorian somehow.

I'm more than half-way through He Knew He Was Right which has been a wonderful break from some of the WWI reading I've done lately. Yes, I should also build Trollope into next year's goals...need to finish the Pallisers.

>142 kac522: What do you think of it? I've seen the BBC version of that and I just don't understand the pigheadedness of Louis.

I just saw an obituary for Isabel de Madariaga in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/15/isabel-de-madariaga. I think I found some stuff to read next year.

>142 kac522: I applaud your perseverance! I might have got a third of the way through but had to stop because Louis was giving me one of those forehead-vein-throbbing sort of headaches and I kept making excuses to avoid reading. But it hasn't turned me off Trollope at all; I'd love to read more.

>143 MissWatson: & >145 rabbitprincess: I guess I'm so interested in the women--Dorothy & Nora & Priscilla--that I've been able to whiz through the Louis parts. I'm not big on Emily, but she matches her husband in stubbornness (although she has every reason to be stubborn). I hope I can finish it up this weekend.

>146 kac522: Thanks, that looks promising at least!

I finished Geschichte der Buchkunst as a breather from Armadale. An introduction to bookmaking with individual books presented as an example, such as the Book of Kells to explain illuminated manuscripts and so on. A collection of students' papers for a uni seminar, so it's not very thorough, but nicely illustrated.

I am a little underwhelmed by Blitz. Not much character development, rushed ending.

And I finished Armadale. Interestingly, after ten years the ending strikes me as rather abrupt. I didn't notice that last time around.

I finished Red Shift, a book that has languished on my shelves since the the early 80ies. Probably, I don't remember when and where I bought it. Why is easier, it popped up again and again as a must-read in juvenile fiction. I'm glad I finally picked it up, it is a most intriguing story with lots of cryptic dialogue. I meant to part with it after reading it, but that's on hold. It's up for a re-read once I have deciphered the coded letter at the back.

I finished The secret of platform 13. This book was a nice breather between adult books, but since the identity of the real prince was pretty obvious it held no real suspense. I vaguely remember some people accusing JK Rowling of plagiarising the idea of using King's Cross for the starting point into the magical realm, but I can't really see that. If anything, she improved on the themes and characters presented here.

I re-read Pushkin's Erzählungen (for some reason there's no touchstone, probably there are too many titles like this).
I was amazed to find that the French invasion of 1812 forms such a constant background noise in the stories. Another constant is literature, and this time I've taken note of the authors he mentions or quotes.
This is a deceptively easy read, but again and again I stumbled across a remarkable phrase that sums up Russian reality in ways that still hold true: "Find out who the culprit is, Prokhorov or Ustinya, then punish them both." Russian justice in a nutshell.
I really want to read him in the original.

AD 1614

I have decided to amend my 1614 category a little to include science in general, so I can count The Martian in this category. What a ride!

#154 by MissWatson> such a fun book! I'll remember that one for a long time. :)

>155 majkia: So say we all (everyone who's read it, apparently)!

>154 MissWatson: Now that my boyfriend has finally finished reading it, I'll have to read it too!

>152 MissWatson: I discovered Ibbotson just last year and now adore her books.

>158 mstrust: My sister keeps recommending The morning gift to me. One fine day...

I squeezed in Perfectly pure and good for the Mystery CAT. I know that I have read this book twenty years ago but had absolutely no memory of the plot or the characters. It's just as easily forgettable the second time around, I'm afraid.

AD 1514

I also finished Quantifying the Roman economy, a collection of papers presenting a research project established at Oxford University. The papers lay out the research question they want to address in their project, naming their sources, availability of data and methods to be used. This was a bit of a slog, as it is highly technical and not written for a lay audience. But it is a salutary reminder of how little we really know, and how new research techniques occasionally overthrow previous assumptions. Well worth the time.

AD 1414

Another mystery by Frances Fyfield is off the shelves: A question of guilt. The first in the Helen West/Geoffrey Bailey series and it's much more a conventional mystery than the previous one, but I can't see myself continuing with these. Not quite my cup of tea.

AD 1414

My mystery category is filling up nicely. Bretonisches Gold was an impromptu loan from my sister, third in a series set in Brittany. This time something odd is going on in the salt marshes of Guérande. The investigation is not very convincing, there's far too much driving around and phoning going on. But this is the kind of mystery you read more for the location than the case, and there's lots about the salt works, the Morbihan and seafood.

I finished a short but difficult book for the August Random CAT: Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß. Set in a boarding school somewhere on the eastern border of the Habsburg empire, a very close, stuffy atmosphere and lots of teenage angst and navel gazing.

Edited for touchstone

AD 1714

I finished Le comte de Moret, an almost forgotten novel by Dumas père. The eponymous hero is an illegitimate son of Henri IV who comes to court and gets involved in the intrigues of the queens and courtiers against Richelieu, falls in love and goes to war in Italy with Richelieu. It ends abruptly, leaving all the affairs unresolved.

The thing that suprised me most was the vivid reminder that while these adventures are under way, the Thirty Years' War is raging across the German territories. I can't remember any mention of that in Les trois mousquetaires, where rivalry with England is the dominant theme. But here it is the struggle against Habsburg and the Holy Roman Empire which is at the centre of Richelieu's politics, and Wallenstein is the bête noire. I am eyeing Golo Mann's biography...

ETC

All this number-crunching and keeping of stats is proving infectious. So I am taking stock at the beginning of the last third of the year:

AD 14 3/2
AD 214 0/2
AD 814 1/2
AD 914 2/2
AD 1014 4/2
AD 1114 0/2
AD 1214 4/2
AD 1314 1/2
AD 1414 9/2
AD 1514 5/2
AD 1614 1/2
AD 1714 2/2
AD 1815 5/2
AD 1914 4/2

and 15 books in the CATs.

Which means I've still got to do 2 books about China, 2 about Catalonia (or by authors from these places), one more German history, one more about the Middle Ages and one more about science. Eminently doable.

AD 1714

Nie war es herrlicher zu leben is none of those stated above. But it was a fascinating read, excerpts from the diaries of the Duke of Croy who lived in interesting times, as they say. They give a glimpse of the cursus honoris of French aristocracy in those days: military service, provincial administration, court appearances.
He witnessed more than most people: the coronation of the German emperor in Frankfurt 1742, the death of Louis XV, the coronation of Louis XVI, balloon ascents organised by the Montgolfiers, visits by foreign kings and politicians, encounters with renowned thinkers and scientists, and a gruesome execution (Robert Damiens, who tried to assassinate Louis XV).
And then there's all the detail about the French court, the endless jockeying for position, the gossip, the intrigues, and above all else the paper work: memorandums, petitions, appointments, recommendations, submissions.
Sometimes I could have wished for a more continuous inclusion of family matters, we jump from one grandson to six without explanation.
The notes and explanations about the people who turn up in these pages are very helpful, since not all are household names anymore.

AD 1214

I stopped at the second-hand bookstore on my way home from work and came away with four books. Bad girl.
But I finished one of them already: the tale of Despereaux and it's not staying. I'll pass it on to a friend who also appreciates this kind of book. I saw the movie first and liked it, but the book was a little disappointing, although I can't quite put my finger on the reason why.

AD 1714

I finished Le bossu, a wonderful adventure yarn set during the regency of the Duke of Orléans.
I never heard about the author, Paul Féval, before I saw the movie version with Daniel Auteuil (who is totally miscast as Lagardère, but nobody could hope to match the descriptions in the book). He was a contemporary of the elder Dumas and wrote similar books, and it would seem that he is still widely known (and read?) in France. Impossibly beautiful hero and heroine, hissable bad guys, funny sidekicks. Some of the scenes dragged a little, and he abandoned the thread about John Law and his financial system rather abruptly, but the swordfights more than make up for this. A good dictionary would come in useful, I had no idea the French had so many words for swordfighters.
Certainly worth checking out his other books.

>168 MissWatson: Too bad, but there's still three to go :)

>169 MissWatson: I didn't know about him, seems like he was pretty popular in his time though. You had me at Lagardère: if you don't come to Lagardère, Lagardère will come to you.

>170 electrice: Yeah, that's a pretty cool phrase!

ETA: And here it is in the original:
...voici la fille de Nevers!... Viens donc la chercher derrière mon épée, assassin! toi qui as commandé le meurtre, toi qui l'as achevé lâchement par derrière!... Qui que tu sois, ta main gardera ma marque. Je te reconnaîtrai. Et, quand il sera temps, si tu ne viens pas à Lagardère, Lagardère ira à toi!

AD 914

I finished Das Britische Empire last night. Very satisfying read, the author writes a clear, concise style and knows his stuff. The bibliography is very, very seductive...

I love books like that, where the bibliography makes you want to go read more! Same with spy novels published in the 50s; some of the blurbs in the back of the book sound so great!

173 > Ditto. I love historical novels with a large author's note at the back describing what was real and what was imagination and where they got their info from. Bibliographies are also awesome. A good bibliography in a book I enjoyed often times ends up increasing my TBR list with quite a few books!

What I liked most about this bibliography were the comments Peter Wende added, whether it's for specialists or arguing a particular viewpoint. It gives a glimpse of the diversity of opinions.

AD 1314

I thought I had gone way off course with Blood song, since it is fantasy. But the ethics and the training and the politics reminded me so much of the Crusades and the knightly orders that I'm going to count it for that category. There was one phrase in particular that reminded me of the Deutschritterorden (Teutonic Knights?): The Order fights for the Faith before it fights for the Realm. That's the conflict of objectives in a nutshell.

ETC

AD 214

The great divergence tries to answer the question why the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe (i.e. Britain) and not in some region of the world which at that point in time was more developed, such as China or Japan. Since Pomeranz is a noted scholar in China studies, and most of his material is drawn from these, which lands the book in my China category. It contains lots of interesting stuff I didn't know. It is also chockfull of numbers, estimates and guesstimates, which often distracts from the core arguments, as he sets up a current theory and knocks it down. According to him, the decisive factors were coal and the settlement of the New World, but things could have gone quite another, unpredictable way.

Coal and the New World makes sense. Or at least the New World does. Doesn't China have a lot of coal? I've heard that one of the reasons they've got a pollution issue now is that they are using a lot of coal. Common story in Middle Grade social studies is that the Great Wall isolated China, but geographically it was isolated, with or without the wall. Plenty of European cities and even countries were walled too and that didn't stifle their development. Interesting book. And btw, I'm adding The Marquis of Bolibar to the WL.

>178 cammykitty: They do have coal, but it was in the wrong place to be useful during the early 19th century, the transport costs would have been prohibitive. Most trade and transport was by sea or rivers, so the Great Wall as an impediment makes no sense at all. Apparently, the Chinese did quite a lot of trade with South East Asia. Those were the most interesting facts by far in the book, all the stuff I never knew about China.

And I am done with Madame Bovary which proved a very pleasant surprise. Real people living real lives in a village in Normandy. I was surprised to find the Bovarys on the lower end of the social scale, since Charles is always described as a doctor. I'm not entirely sure what the profession should be called, but from the description of his training, I would say some sort of licensed medically-trained doctor's assistant. Emma's father may have been comparatively well-to-do if he sent his daughter to convent school, but he's still a farmer. I didn't expect this, and it puts the whole story in a different light.

AD 1414

Der Knochenmann was my first encounter with Simon Brenner, ex- police officer and now PI. It's first person narrative, but never a hint who the narrator is. I could hear the Austrian accent in my head while reading it. Weird, in a good and Austrian way.

AD 214

Die Juwelenpagode is a classical novel from ancient China, by an unknown author. According to the afterword it can't be dated exactly, either.
It's comparatively short and has a rather small cast of characters, so no problem telling people apart. It is a fascinating glimpse into a very strange world where women are weak and submissive, men always respect their elders, and success in the imperial exam means instant success and important postings. Still, the feuding husband and wife team of the Tschen (Chen) family was a surprise, they always come to blows and have to be separated by the servants. There's also the matter of foot-binding, if I hadn't learned about the lotus feet from Pearl S. Buck I would have missed this entirely. No wonder they barely left the house.

ETC

I liked Madame Bovary a lot too. She was a social climber. ;) Flaubert's descriptions of people are flawless.

180 That makes sense. I'm thinking about putting that one on the WL too.

Die Juwelenpagode sounds very interesting. I'm not sure I'll be able to find it in English, unfortunately. Madame Bovary is one that I ought to read one day, too!

My choice for the October Random CAT fell on Tolkien and the Great War. I had a little difficulty telling his chums apart, but the glimpses at the early stages of his mythology are always rewarding.

>184 mathgirl40: I have found it in the Columbia History of Chinese Literature as Chen-chu t'a, that is The Pearl Pagoda in English. But it seems as if it's never been published in English translation.

And for the November mystery CAT I read Mystère rue des Saints-Pères. A bit light on the mystery side, but the setting and the characters compensate for it.

AD 1114

I finished Auf der Plaça del Diamant and am still not quite sure what to make of it. I was tempted to abandon it early because naive young women who fall for, and let themselves be exploited by, good-for-nothing men is just not my kind of book. And yet slowly it drags you into her life as you realise what is happening beyond her narrow world. She never names the belligerent parties or the major players, she just shows you the havoc war wreaks on ordinary lives. Haunting.

Edited for typo

And this means I'm three books short of finishing my challenge: one on German history, one on science, one about Catalonia. The most difficult thing now is to choose which comes next. Decisions, decisions.

Just three books!

>190 RidgewayGirl: Yeah, I never thought I would get this far. I can think about staking out my 2015 claim. :-)

Yay, so close to the finish line! Excellent work! :D

Ah, serendipity! I finish one book set in Catalonia and the very next day I run into another at the bookstore: Dos días de mayo, a historical mystery set in 1949. And I am pleasantly surprised to find that it is an easy read, too. I suppose it's all the dialogue that makes it easier to get back into the language.

I packed for a business trip yesterday and decided not to take Sierra i Fabre along, because that would have meant taking the dictionary too. He'll have to wait until I get back on Saturday. So I read Das Erdbeben in Chili, my first nibble at Heinrich von Kleist. I need to more know about him before I tackle him again. Maybe Das Erlkönig-Manöver which comes highly recommended from my sister?

AD 814

Sitting around in a hotel room is very conducive to reading, I finished Preußen: Geschichte eines Königreichs. I expected a little more substance, but it serves well enough as a recap.

AD 1114

Dos días de mayo is pretty standard fare, as mysteries go. But it takes place in Barcelona, so it fits my Catalan category, and the plain writing made it easy to read: short sentences, brief descriptions, lots of dialogue. There were times when I thought he was trying to imitate police procedurals such as Ed McBain's. But since Mascarell is no longer with the police, the circumstances are very different. And I don't think I've ever read a mystery with a hero who's old enough to be an old age pensioner.

And now off to my last book. I'm on the home stretch for the challenge.

Yay for last book!

Hope it's a great one to finish off the year on a high note!

Actually, it's shaping up to be a major disappointment. I'm tempted to count The sweetness at the bottom of the pie as a science book instead, Flavia's passion for chemistry would surely qualify?

>199 MissWatson: Heck yes!

>200 rabbitprincess: Thanks for the encouragement!

I've decided to grit my teeth and continue with Die Geburt der modernen Wissenschaft in Europa just so I can scratch it off my list. The first chapters are difficult, badly organised and presuppose far too much knowledge in the reader. Not to mention that the translation is unsatisfactory.

However, I AM going to include the first Flavia in this category, which means that I have reached my minimum number of books in each category. Challenge completed, haha. So now I can stake out my claim in the 2015 Challenge. I'll be adding a few more books to this year's categories, though.

Challenge completed. The score as of today is:

AD 14: 3/2
AD 214: 2/2
AD 814: 2/2
AD 914: 3/2
AD 1014: 4/2
AD 1114: 2/2
AD 1214: 5/2
AD 1314: 2/2
AD 1414: 10/2
AD 1514: 5/2
AD 1614: 2/2
AD 1714: 4/2
AD 1814: 5/2
AD 1914: 4/2

Plus a few unplanned reads for the CATs, which means that 55-60 books is a comfortable number for a year's read. But most important of all: this has been fun. Thank you all!

Fun is the thing!

Congratulations on the finish.

Congratulations!

Congratulations on finishing and I'm glad you'll be around next year, too.

Congrats on completing your challenge!

Woo hoo! Congratulations! Looking forward to your 2015 thread :)

Congrats!!! All steam ahead to 2015!

Thanks everyone! If you would like to visit, my 2015 thread is up: http://www.librarything.com/topic/183475#4933159

Congrats on finishing the challenge!!

AD 1214

Die Muskeltiere is a lovely story for children about four rodents having adventures in Hamburg. One of them, a pampered hamster, loves the Three Musketeers (Musketiere in German), but since he has no idea what a musketeer is he mispronounces the word as "muskeltier", which is literally a muscle-animal. A very common mistake nowadays, and a little funny, too, since the word for muscle is derived from the Latin musculus for little mouse...

AD 214

One more for the China category: Die schwarze Reiterin, a novel from the 19th century set in the 18th. It would make a lovely martial arts movie: the son goes on a journey to take ransom money to his father, who has been imprisoned in another province, and meets with some ruffians on the way and a sword-fighting girl. All ends well, of course, with the family reunited, reputation and fortune restored, and two marriages.

ETC

Congratulations!

AD 1614

It has been a real slog, but I managed to finish Die Geburt der modernen Wissenschaft in Europa. This is supposed to be a history of modern science, from the days of Kopernikus to Newton, but it is apparently written for people who already know all about this stuff and actually don't need a book like this. There's an abundance of unexplained -isms, untranslated Latin and bad translation into German. Totally misses the intended readership.

I also finished an article in an economic history journal: China and the Spanish Empire by Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giráldez. It discusses the impact of Spanish silver imports on China (and vice versa) and states first of all that applying the latest economic theory to events three hundred years in the past often produces misleading results. Bless them. I found their version much more convincing: basically they say that China attracted all that silver because the emperors needed a substitute for worthless paper money. Instead of the usual argument that the silver financed the European trade deficit in Chinese luxury items. Now I'm off to one of the books quoted repeatedly.

AD 1514

Money, Prices and Civilization in the Mediterranean World was enthusiastically recommended in my current read, and since it has only 75 pages, I squeezed it in. It collects five lectures held as a guest professor in the States and is like a step back in time: no quantitative analysis with the latest economic models, just reading the evidence and putting forth an argument. Not to mention that it is a beautiful book, slim, cloth-bound, high-quality paper, decent proof-reading. A pleasure.

ETC

AD 1414

The outlaw Josey Wales adds a Western to my banditry category. This has been sitting on my shelves for ages and caught my eye in passing. Nice to have done with it finally.

AD 214

One more for the China category: The emperor's pearl is a Judge Dee mystery. The modern dialogue was a bit of a surprise, but all in all a very entertaining tale.

I love the Judge Dee books--they're such fun!

I agree and I'm certainly going to find more of them.

AD 14

I'm probably suffering from some sort of last-minute panic because I actually finished another one: August 410 which looks at how contemporaries and later historians perceived and interpreted the fall of Rome in 410. As always, I picked up some TBRs in the process. Well, there's always next year!

I'm still reading two books that could count for the challenge, but since I won't finish them before the holidays, I'm officially closing the 2014 Challenge. Here's the final tally:

AD 14: 4/2
AD 214: 4/2
AD 814: 2/2
AD 914: 3/2
AD 1014: 4/2
AD 1114: 2/2
AD 1214: 6/2
AD 1314: 2/2
AD 1414: 11/2
AD 1514 6/2
AD 1614: 3/2
AD 1714: 4/2
AD 1814: 5/2
AD 1914: 4/2

Plus a few CATs, which means I end up with 68 books read for the challenge. There's no clear favourite, however. Most of the books have been fun, but nothing that made me want to go out and tell everyone about it.

I'm off to my mum's for the holidays now and will be offline until the New Year. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Thank you all for a great time and the pleasant company. See you next year!

Have a great holiday and I'll see you in the 2015 thread!

Have a Merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful Christmas and we'll see you over in the 2015 threads.

Have a wonderful Merry Christmas and I look forward to following your reading in 2015!

Merry Christmas! See you in 2015!

Have a fantastic Christmas! Looking forward to seeing you during the 2015 challenge.

See you on your 2015 thread! Happy Holidays!

See you next year, over in the 2015 Challenge.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year and see you over in 2015!