I love the winter...

Now that I've been here on DW a few days ago, I realized it was time to update my Reading Bingo cards. I didn't have time to read a lot during the last months, but a few of the books do fit some of the squares.

I also have decided to rename the "2015/16 Reading Bingo" into "timeless Reading Bingo" because I think it would be sad to end it, but it will also take ages to fill my squares.

I'm only adding books that fill a square, which means that I have read some (a few) more than the following:

"The Girl On The Train" by Paula Hawkins. I bought the book when it was on every shelf in every London bookstore, but only read it this year. Read it during one afternoon and found it entertaining. In the end I didn't like it too much. Haven't seen the movie yet, so I cannot compare those.
The book fills the square "rec from friend or media" on my serious-card because I bought it for the advertising it being a bestseller.

"Two Boys Kissing" by David Leviathan was a lovely book which made me very emotional at times, maybe not always for the same reasons the author intended. Oh well.
It fits the square "book with a queer author / protagonist" on my mix-and-match card.
It also fits into "book with more than two protagonists" on my random card - I guess one line filled is BINGO! Of course I'll only stop when every square is full.
And at last it fits a square of my serious card: "book with a trans* protagonist"

Next up some comics/graphic novels: A re-read of the first three "The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys" volumes and after that, the first reading of the other ones. I also read "The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: the Apocalypse Suite" - all written by Gerard Way. Next comic I read was "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina".
Bingo card mix-and-match: "Graphic Novel"
Bingo card random: "Graphic Novel"
Bingo card serious: "Graphic Novel"

"How Not To Be A Boy" by Robert Webb. I must admit I don't know Robert Webb at all and only read the book because everyone I know online read it and loved it. I liked it, it moved me and I laughed, but it would have helped to love it more if I knew the guy and his work.
It does fit into a square of my mix-and-match card: "book written by someone famous other than writing" and I crossed our the square "rec from friend or media" on my random card.

"Maria Sibylla Merian. Reise nach Surinam" by Kathrin Schubert was given my as a Christmas present by my parents. It's a documentary about a German woman who was a copper-engraver, publisher and painter/artist and who, after her divorce, followed her passion for nature, especially caterpillars and butterflies, by travelling to Surinam to search for and document insect lives in the exotic country. She did this in 1699, on her own, accompanied by her daughter. When she returned, she published a book about her findings featuring beautiful illustrations and descriptions.
Her life and work is very interesting. Here's the Wikipedia-article with some of her pictures: Maria Sibylla Merian
This book fits into the following Bingo-squares:
Bingo card mix-and-match: "book given to you as a gift"
Bingo card random: "book set on a continent you've never been to"
Bingo card serious: "non-fiction book"

[Link to my cards and main Bingo post]

Last weekend and this one I tried to read books again instead of online-fic. (I did read fic as well.)

First I chose the most recent book of German TV presenter Sarah Kuttner, called "180° Meer" (There's no English translation (yet?)).

It fits in the following Bingo Squares:

Card 1 - Mix and Match: "Book by an author who's first language isn't English"
[As mentioned above, the author is German and that's the language the book is in. Does that count? Should the book be written in English to fit that square? I don't care.]

Card 2 - Random: "Book written by someone famous for things other than writing" 
[Sarah Kuttner was a presenter on German's first music television station. Since then she had done her own talkshows and created as well as moderated other TV shows.]

Card 3 - Serious: "Book not in English"
[Yes, I know, it's almost the same as the square in card 1, but who cares?]

I translated this from goodreads:
"After her father left the family, Jule grew up with her brother and suicidal mother. As an adult now she has created a life where she just endures everything: her job as singer, the countless phonecalls of her mother, the whole hate in herself which almost makes her disappear. When her relationship starts to crumble she flees to England to stay with her brother, searching for quiet and anonymity.
Here she meets her dying father. Jule starts a last attempt of approach the man who she felt has let her down her whole life.
A tragic-comic road-novel about the complicated relationship with one's own parents and the wish to take a break from oneself."

I don't think this is a road-novel. She lives in Berlin and takes a plane to London, then goes by train to Eastbourne. While she writes about her thoughts on train-journeys, everything that happens, happens at her destinations. That said, there's not a lot of plot anyway.

I didn't like the main character at all, but that might be intended as she doesn't like herself much. And even if she decides to go home in the end, I don't feel much change in her.

Two questions at the end:
1) Who stays more than two days in London and buys Tube-tickets? Wouldn't she have an Oyster card? Especially when it's not the first time she has visited her brother?
2) Where at Oxford Street are street musicians trying to drown out each other's acoustic guitars? Not sure if I ever saw one there. Maybe way down near Bond Street? Hmm.

I gave it three stars on Goodreads, but feel closer to two and a half.



Yesterday and today I read "Glück ist eine Gleichung mit 7" ("Counting with 7s") by Holly Goldberg Sloan.

It fits in the following Bingo Squares:

Card 1 - Mix and Match: "Book by an author or protagonist of colour"
[The main character, Willow is a poc. She describes her skin and hair multiple times. In the story though I don't think her skin colour is of matter. She never experiences blatant racism, except maybe when she notes that being adopted would be more difficult for her. But she still blames mostly her age for that.]

Card 2 - Random: "Book heavily featuring kids" 
[The main character is 12 years old and most parts of the book are told from her point of view.]

Card 3 - Serious: "Book with protagonist with a mental/social disability"
[That may be debatable. Her soical worker rates her as "genius", but her way of thinking and how she behaves clearly shows that she doesn't fit into the "normal" behaviour pattern of the kids at her school. She knows she's different and doesn't even try to fit in most of the time.]

I liked Willow Chance way better than the main character from the other book above. Even though I have read multiple stories about high intelligent and therefore strange kids and how they change everyone's life to the better, this one did it charmingly and made me chuckle more than once. I also liked that some of the chapters were looks into the minds of the other characters, told in 3rd person.

I agree with some of the critique on goodreads that the end turned out a bit too good and seemed a bit rushed, but I enjoyed reading the book nevertheless.

P.S. Where's the Bingo-square for "Bought the book mainly for the pretty cover"? That would have been fitting here.


[Link to my cards and main Bingo post]

Today I finished the second book that fits in any of the squares. It's not the second book I read this year, but I must admit, I read more fic on AO3 than books recently.

"How To Build A Girl" by Caitlin Moran

It fits in the following Bingo Squares:

Card 1 - Mix and Match: "Book where main male and main female characters don't fall in love"
[One can argue about that probably. First of all who actually is the main male character, but anyway, it's not the typical girl meets boy and they fall in love story.]

Card 2 - Random: "Book by author who shares first letter of your last name"  [It's actually the first two letters of our last name we are sharing.]

Card 3 - Serious: "Book with a female protagonist"


I'm not sure how to feel about this book. At first I was confused that the autor states that the story wasn't autobiographical. I had read her book "How To Be A Woman" where she tells us about herself being a 17 year old girl from Wolverhampton getting a job as music journalist in London, amongst other things.

Now she wrote a book about a 17 year old girl from Wolverhampton getting a job as music journalist in London. Not autobiographical. Hmm.

The book did move me, especially when she (Moran or the female protagonist who is not Moran) writes about how she loves music. The book is set in the early 90s, when I started to love about the same music as she does, and when she writes "..my love - all my actual, firece love - is for the third kind of music of 1992 - the stuff that's noisy and itchy. The music where I do find myself in the songs, all written by sexy, clever, angry freaks..." that is when I love the book. There are several sentences that made me say "YES, me too".

The rest is interesting. The book is said to be funny, but it's probably not my kind of humour because I haven't laughed much while reading. This girl is so not me. I read about her in a way like I look at a foreign species. And you don't laugh about things you don't know, only wonder.

[Link to my cards and main Bingo post]