Logophile in Execution

Katrin: Lover of books, words, travel, the mid-20th century and education

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Book review #22: This Is Where I Leave You

Jonathan Tropper: "This Is Where I Leave You" - finished in August 2013

I borrowed this from a friend ages ago and just have gotten around to read it in my summer break. Which is pretty much the right time to read such a book.

The Plot: Judd Foxman, part of a really dysfunctional more-or-less Jewish family, has to go back to his childhood home in order to grieve properly about his father's death as required by the now deceased which means one week of grieving with his family. Interestingly, this just happens shortly after he left his wife for cheating on him with his boss. And then she turns up and is pregnant. Judd struggles not to lose himself in the storm of events and fails miserably, but at least he has a lot of humour and not-helping relatives.

This was a book like an Indie Pop album or a romantic comedy: well-done, experienced work which is a quick occupation when there's nothing better to do and leaves a warm feeling in your tummy but is forgotten after two weeks. Not great literature, but reader and author know that alike. All in all, this was fun to read!

5.5/10, because quality entertainment and witty sarcasm. (And bonus points for a Paul McCartney reference.)

Have a nice day!

Katie

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Book review #21: Looking for Alaska

John Green: "Looking For Alaska" - finished in June 2013

I have been looking out for this for a while actually and when I found it by accident in an English bookshop near me, I bought it that very instant.

Looking for Alaska, by best-selling young adult author John Green (who rose to worldwide fame and was applauded for The Fault in Our Stars, at the moment being made into a film), tells the story of Miles Halter who meets a girl named Alaska at boarding school and falls in love with her. The rest of the story consists of helpless teenage life and a traumatizing incident which changes everything.

Now, while I loved The Fault in Our Stars and John Green is in my opinion one of the most gifted young adult novel writers I have ever encountered – his play with language is bafflingly extraordinary –, Looking for Alaska was, as I felt, not at his peak. Yes, the characters are beautiful and the whole book is in fact very quotable; and yes, it is a sad book while still wonderfully capturing the beauty of adolescent life; and yes, it managed to generate the feeling of being on that road from childhood to adultery and realizing the world is not as black-and-white as it used to be.

But still this seemed very let's-build-a-young-adult-novel to me. We had everything: The young boy who is slightly nerdy and extraordinary but still lovable and doesn't know he is as special as he is (cf. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower”) – the anarchic and fascinating girl he falls in love with (cf. various young adult fantasy novels, all of which are best-selling and regularly flood the blogs of teenage girls) – the unexpected and tragic accident which changes the lives of everyone around the two main characters (cf. “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” and “The Catcher in the Rye”) – the main character understanding what life is about and ultimately becoming more adult and mature in this process (cf. every single young adult novel ever). Yes, this is a good book and it is easy to read and easy to understand and it has a great symbolism. But it doesn't do more than any other halfway decent YA novel. It doesn't present us with characters that have flaws and are hard to like, instead uses up old clichés which are supposed to make us love the protagonist and his friends. Instead it made me feel betrayed. Not every teenager is as exceptional and unique as this book's agentes. Furthermore the plot was unsurprising and did never break out of the usual teenage girl's bedside book story which disappointed me very much because I felt John Green could have worked so much better at times. Seems I had too great expectations. This is a good young adult novel, but not more (admittedly, also not less. Mr. Green did his job, and he did it well).

6/10 stars.

Have a nice day!

Katie

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Book review #20: To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee: "To Kill A Mockingbird" - finished in May 2013

Featured regularly on “50 book to read in your life” lists, I could not resist when stumbling over this book in my parent's library (I just say that to seem cooler, we don't actually have an extra room for our books although we need it by now) and thus, I read it.

The book, told from a child's perspective whose father defends a black man charged with rape in the thirties' Alabama, offers a quite interesting perspective on a controversial topic: what is justice?

Frankly, I had very high expectations (see above) but they were not quite met. The author Harper Lee sticks consequently to the child's perspective which on one hand shows her talent as it's not easy describing the world through a ten-year-old's eyes – but on the other hand it does not offer a valid, objective description of the situation. Instead, Scout – the protagonist – regards the world and her father's job – defending the coloured person – with her very childish eyes and is unable to reflect upon the circumstances. This makes the book, although focusing on relevant social problems, sound like a children's book. It is not one, of course – but the permanent tone of a young girl telling a story of her everyday life sometimes is very much diary-like and seems almost trivial.

I liked, however, the way the reader is slowly brought to realize how truly deep this particular, very rural society is pervaded by racism and prejudice and how it is only pictured indirectly by actions and words from the children. This is, in many ways, a book that requires the reader to pay attention and be able to interpret and understand. But still I am not entirely convinced by the tone and language of To Kill A Mockingbird, the only part breaking out of the permanent child language being the actual trial, which was quite interesting and fascinating to read.

I rate this with 6.5 out of 10 stars because while appreciating the topic and the underlying symbolism I do not (yet?) understand why this is regarded as one of the “big American classics” and is on one level with “On The Road” or “The Grapes of Wrath”.

Have a nice day,

Katie

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Book review #19: Effi Briest

Theodor Fontane: „Effi Briest“ – finished in May 2013

I read this as a school lecture, otherwise I wouldn't even have touched it. My fear of this book had grown enormously when I had heard the gruesome stories about it – as quite a lot of suffering students mentioned it's not only boring as hell but as well has a horrible story, terrible character execution and don't get me even started on the length.

Fortunately, my phobia has been wiped and ceased to be for this book is one of the most marvelous ones I have read thus far this year. Originally published in the year of 1895, it is one of the highliest regarded of Fontane's works.

First of all the plot: Protagonist Effi von Briest, daughter of Northern German aristocrats is thrown into a marriage at the age of seventeen with over-thirty-year-old Baron von Innstetten. The novel tells the story of her life, beginning with her engagement and wedding. It then proceeds to depict her married life, which quickly becomes a torture for Effi as her husband never fails to bore her incredibly much. The child she bears nine months after her wedding does not change their life a lot and, ever searching for some excitement or at least a distraction, Effi soon starts to intensify her contact with Major Crampas, a friend of the family who, being the womanizer he is, doesn't hesitate for long.

Years later though, Innstetten finds out about the by now terminated affair and throws Effi out without even talking to her. The last part of the novel describes her life as a lone woman who in the end moves back to her parents.

The story all the way through deals with the life a woman of the very upper class around the year 1900 had to endure and in all this, it reminded me very much of a book I had read not too far ago which dealt with, in the end, the same subject; that book was The Great Gatsby.

The parallels are in my opinion obvious: a rich girl gets married to a guy she never actually loved but falls in love with another guy and starts an affair – although her love for the latter is mostly what she wants it to be and not realizing, she destroys the life of everyone around her for the sake of her wishes.

But while Fitzgerald's Daisy is a deeply selfish girl and, as the narrator, her cousin, rightfully remarks, “careless” and lets “other people clean up the mess [she] had made“, Fontane's Effi is much more miserable in all she does. What is remarkable about the way she is treated throughout the novel is that nobody ever listens to her even though she tries her best to make people listen. And in this, the utter tragedy of her life lies for every mistake she makes is made only because of her desperation to make someone care and, above all, to make herself care for anything.

She is accused of being not everything she is expected to be while she tries all the time to be that, a faithful daughter, then wife and mother.

I want to recommend this to everyone – if only for the fact that I want people to think about social expectations and their fulfilling (which is still an issue, to me at least).

9/10 points; at least four of these for the brilliant character execution that leaves you not loving any character.

Regards and have a lovely day,

Katie

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Book review #18: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Oliver Sacks: “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” – finished in May 2013

I finished this well over a month ago and I cannot tell you how sorry I am for not having written any reviews. My biggest apologies!

Maybe the best-known work of Anglo-American neurologist Oliver Sacks (born in London, studied at Oxford, lives in New York City), The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (firstly published in 1985) describes several truly extraordinary cases of patients who suffer from a neurological disorder. What seems impossible at first – the guy who doesn't remember anything having happened after 1945 or the woman who can't feel her body anymore – is, after a thorough explanation of the symptoms and behaviour of each patient, expounded neurologically and medically in a detailed and clear way.

Although I had to fight my way a little through this work – English being my second language and all, en plus it's a medical book so that wasn't too easy either – it actually was fun! The seemingly unrealistic strangeness of the patients is striking yet Dr. Sacks never fails to keep their dignity high and does never make fun of them or their disorders.

Recommendation to everyone who's interested in neurological science, science on the whole or medicine – even if you have no previous knowledge (or rather especially if you have no previous knowledge). Rating 8/10, bonus points for explaining technical terms wittily and understandably.

Have a marvelous day,

Regards,

Katie

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Oh yay! Another essay on why society sucks!

This is an almost word-to-word quote of what my friend and I encountered a few days ago when sitting in the train on our way home from a cinema evening. We had spent a good part of the almost 30-minute-way talking about movies we had seen and liked, had talked about certain actors and of course the movie we had gone to – The Place Beyond The Pines, if anyone cares. During this time, the woman aged about 20 sitting next to me had stared at us all the time in a quite uncomfortable way, yet we tried to ignore her silent judging. Shortly before she got off the train she turned around to us and asked us the question above. She then proceeded to give us, as she called it, a “good piece of advice: To get friends, watch a little less TV.”

I actually do not know whether she was talking about boyfriends or casual friends and in my argumentation below I will talk about both sides of the spectrum.

While I was too shocked to act in the very moment, my friend replied to her question sarcastically by telling her we were losers and had no friends, an assumption the stranger had clearly made. My first impulse when I had processed what I had just witnessed was to give the girl a good slap in the face and my second impulse – about half an hour later when I had arrived at home – was to think about whether she had been right: whether I – I will not talk about my friend because I do not know her well enough to judge in any way about her – had actually made the wrong decision retreating into books and movies instead of going out on weekends, spending a lot of my time either reading respectively watching movies or talking about them and throwing out my money for books, DVDs and CDs instead of club nights.

Having had some time to think about the incident I am a little less angry at her and a little calmer and believe I have found the answer to her respectively my question. No, she was not right. She was, in fact, very wrong, and to calm myself and others who might be in the same situation over and over again, I made a list of her wrong assumptions – misinterpretations a lot of people make, always and everywhere, and which people have to fight every day. I split it up into five chapters, each of them a separate topic.

The misinterpretation of today's globalized and networked world

The misinterpretation of friendship

The misinterpretation of empathy

The misinterpretation of pop culture

The misinterpretation of relationships

1) The misinterpretation of today's globalized and networked world

The stranger's suggestion we should get ourselves some friends was obviously based on the assumption that we do not have “real” friends; an assumption which was wrong on a few levels. The following is one of them.

I do understand that from the outside it might often seem that some people have no or few friends. I can count my actual friends in my school on one hand. They are very caring and I like them a lot, but there is not a bunch of them excitedly awaiting my arrival every morning.

That being said, I have a bunch of friends. This is not meant as a desperate justification, it is just a fact: I have friends from my former school, I have friends I met through music or other hobbies and I have friends I met on Tumblr. This part regards my friends from Tumblr. My best friend lives in the US, others live in Austria, the UK, Australia, Sweden or elsewhere. Funnily, I found all of them by sharing interests such as – guess what – certain movies, TV series, books, bands, writing and so on and so forth. I regularly speak to these people and I would never have found them hadn't I spent my time on my passions: which are books, movies and music in the end. This is not supposed to be a pathetic over-emotional thank you to everyone I met on Tumblr, but I actually do know a lot of people who found friends on the internet by sharing their passions and hobbies.

The advantages of having friends in another country are obvious: not only I know where to sleep should I ever get to the US, it also provides a wonderful basis for getting to know other cultures, for being updated on global issues, for improving language knowledge, in the end: for being part of a globalized world. Which has disadvantages, but even those are now clearer for me, being on Tumblr and getting confronted with social issues on an everyday basis. The stranger was so very wrong in assuming movies (and books, but she did not address that fact) were a lonely hobby.

2) The misinterpretation of friendship

Friends from Tumblr aside – more generalized, the stranger's assumption I do not have real friends at all was wrong as well, given the fact that I personally define friends in the following way.

As mentioned above, I do have a few friends, many of them on Tumblr, some of them “in real life”. When I left my former school over three years ago due to personal reasons, I quickly lost contact with many of my friends there. I have often lain awake and wondered about the reason for this, and by now I have figured it out. I do not share anything with these people except back then we went to school together. All my friendships that I claim to be of a sincere and trustworthy kind are those based on sharing interests. My best friends are those I can talk with about stuff I'm interested in. I am not to judge anyone else's friendships, but I do know that mine are real: calling to talk about the newest Doctor Who episode, lending books, quoting favorite characters, interpreting works of literature and comparing one's reception of a certain character: I define friendship by doing things together that are fun, by trusting each other and by being honest.

Mostly by the first point, to be honest. And doing things together that are fun – well, that's what we are doing. The stranger obviously does not share my definition of friendship, but I fail to see what about my friends should be not real. The absurdity of the situation was increased by the fact that my friend and I were two: talking to each other. Neither of us were imagined or nonexistent, therefore we were – to each other – living proof that both of us have friends. We did a thing together that was fun (going to the cinema), we talked about the thing (which was also fun) and we even disagreed about the movie (therefore being honest with each other), but all of that just was proof to me that sharing a passion is the best possible basis for a friendship. That passion can of course also be going out together, but I fail spectacularly to see how the latter form of friendship could be in any kind superior to what my friends and I do.

I can only assume she was talking about boyfriends, then, a point which I will comment on in 5).

3) The misinterpretation of empathy

I use empathy in the wrong way here, actually. As you might know, empathy is the ability to feel what other people feel – in contrast to sympathy which is only understanding how others feel or think. (For a better and more detailed explanation, go and watch Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire.) Now what I want to talk about here is how the stranger apparently felt it was okay to intrude in our lives and insult us in one of the worst ways possible: by questioning our life choices.

You know my name, not my story.

A quote which is often found on, well, hipster blogs up here yet holds a certain truth. However well we think we know someone, we will never know everything about them. Your friend could self harm and you would never know, your brother could want to become a doctor yet is forced to study law, a girl from your class could secretly wish for you to talk to her etc.

What the stranger did and what is the unacceptable aspect about her question was not only that she was rude by indirectly calling us lonely outsiders, no, she also made the huge mistake by putting her priorities above ours: thinking she could tell us what we had to do in order to become happy. While I do not know her at all and do not wish to elaborate on what she might have thought since I simply do not know, I assume her “advice” was not really based on teaching us how to become happy, but rather showing her superiority to ours. The superiority clearly being that she did not spend all her time watching movies and instead socializing. It is true, I do not go out much, clubs annoy me and I have resigned for – hopefully – forever from drinking alcohol a few weeks ago and a good part of that is the fact that I am not the kind of girl that either picks all the guys up in a bar or club or gets picked up by a lot of guys. I am not beautiful by any standards, I am shy, I am not funny or flirtatious and I do simply not have any ability that would provide me with endless phone numbers collected in one evening or thousands of guys wanting to go out with me. And to be honest, that does make me feel unsure and unhappy lots of times. But that is my business and my business alone, and I could not care less about a stranger thinking she could know how I feel about not having a boyfriend or not being picked up all the time. Worse than that, she apparently thought she could tell me how to erase these “problems”. Had I asked for her advice, it would have been justified. But I didn't. And if I see a girl talking to a friend in a public train, then this does not in any way justify me telling them about how to handle their life. That is not empathy, that is rudeness.

4) The misinterpretation of pop culture

Let me get to my penultimate point: The argumentation why occupying oneself with popular culture as a hobby is not inferior to whatever the stranger meant by “getting friends”.

I will start off with a personal story and then try to neutralize my point of view a bit.

At the age of twelve, I read the “Catcher in the Rye”, a book which is usually well-known to people around my age. I fell in love with the book the very instant, not only with the protagonist Holden but as well with the entire setting and language. At this time, it was merely a good book I happened to read, but as I grew older, I reread it a few times and started to understand the symbolism, the actual reason why this book is regarded as one of the best in the world. I started to read other works of literature and found out two things:

Firstly, books can help overcoming stressful experiences or low self-esteem days. I have often felt as a loner or outsider (I suppose every teenager sometimes does) and books (movies as well) can help understanding that you are not alone in your feelings. It may or may not be my fault that I have not had a boyfriend yet (or maybe will never have) but reading books, watching movies (good ones, that is) helps you understand the world, helps you find another point of view, in general: can help you manage your life.

And secondly, occupying oneself with books and movies is a quite intellectual form of a hobby (at least when we are talking about halfway intelligent and/or intellectual movies; Nicholas Cage movies don't count). They are a form of art, and while there is still subjectively “good” and “bad” art, one cannot deny that occupying oneself with sociocritical art is not a totally pointless way of spending one's time. All in all, no one has to watch and analyze movies as a hobby: but people who do are not inferior to those who spend their time – “getting friends” (although I still fail to see why I am not getting “real friends” by doing what I do since reality proves the contrary).

5) The misinterpretation of relationships

Or, not so much relationships as rather the importance of relationships. Being a girl in her mid-teenage years, I get asked quite frequently “how it's going with the boys”. Usually these questions come from my (female) friends who in return tell me about their boy stories (I do not intend to bash or ignore other sexual orientations, I just don't happen to have any LGBTA+ friends). I am, if not excluded, at least seen as the exception, being almost of full age and never having had a relationship of any sort. While I sometimes wonder if anything has gone wrong with me or if I have just failed spectacularly at reaching what seems to be the only counting goal a teenager has to have nowadays.

The stranger I encountered, weirdly, convinced me of the contrary despite her effort to make me seem and feel inferior to her: by laying open her standards of what one has to do in order to become happy and applying them to me without even wasting a thought about the possibility that I might have other standards or priorities, I understood (maybe for the first time) that our society has created absurd standards one feels obligated to fulfill. Teenagers are humans in their most unsure phase of life, many of them searching for the “meaning”, trying to distance themselves from parents and adults and desperately looking for a way to be part of “the group”. The peer group, that is. And while I feel very happy being with a group of friends and obviously during my personal development which still lasts (and will last for quite a while) have accepted and developed other standards than my parents', it is just as wrong to accept “society's standards” without questioning as it is with my parents' standards.

I realize I am getting off-topic quite far but what I want to express is this: Even if the stranger would have wanted to tell us some serious piece of advice (i.e. helpful) she would have been wrong all along. Because what makes me a girl, a happy girl nonetheless, is not a boyfriend. Or the striving for a boyfriend. Or an ex-boyfriend.

I wouldn't mind having a boyfriend, I don't mind not having a boyfriend.

Dear strangers on the train, dear parents, dear friends, dear teachers, dear people we encounter in our daily life: Stop centralizing the story with the boys in our daily life. There is nothing wrong with a 18-year-old having no boyfriend or with a 13-year-old having a boyfriend or with a 15-year-old having a girlfriend or with a 29-year-old virgin. It's so not your business. Your advice on how to get a boyfriend, how to attract the guys, how to change yourself in order to attract as many boys as possible will not automatically lead to our happiness. What leads there is us having our own priorities and our own life goals. Which can be a relationship. Or not.

In short: Stop reducing us to girlfriends and wives.

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Book review #17: Woyzeck

Georg Büchner: "Woyzeck" - finished in April 2013

Another book I had to read for school (and fortunately had read before). Georg Büchner, having died at the age of 24 in 1837, could not finish his last work, a social drama which is now commonly known under the name Woyzeck after its protagonist. It is an open drama, less so because Bücher was not able to finish it: it is highly likely that he intended Woyzeck to have such an open form. However, we also know that the scenes editions nowadays consist of are not the entire number of scenes Büchner wanted to write. Another problem is that the order of the scenes has not been passed on, meaning different editions we can buy are in different orders.

Trivia aside, this is one of my favourite dramas of all time and here's why: the protagonist Franz Woyzeck is torn all the way through. Belonging to the lowest class of society he has to take two jobs, one being the test object of a doctor, the other one working for people of military position in order to supply his girlfriend Marie and their baby son.

However, his situation gets worse and worse as Marie starts an affair with the captain he works for and the experiments the doctor conducts on him get more brutal until he is forced to eat nothing but peas for weeks. Above all, Woyzeck seems to be – if not schizophrenic at least – quite confused and mad. In the end he kills Marie, acting in the heat of the moment; or does he, since his escapism occupies a big role throughout the entire play?

This is outstanding in many ways; it does not really question society, and even less gives an answer to society's faults and defects. It just shows society the way it was back then – and maybe still is today. The doctor, representing science, progress, education, abuses Woyzeck in order to conduct his degrading experiments. The captain, representing military strength and discipline, abuses him just as well, making fun of his lack of education.

And so, over all, Woyzeck gives a great chance to reflect upon important social issues: is someone's future determined at the moment of his birth? Do we have a chance to take influence on our own lives; and how far can we do so? How far is our society defined by class affiliation?

Have a nice day,

Regards

Katrin

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Book review #16: Delete This At Your Peril

Neil Forsyth: "Delete This At Your Peril" - finished in April 2013

You know that feeling when you have got mail and you open the folder and it is spam again? Most of us delete these e-mails right away, I suppose – well, not so Neil Forsyth. In the role of Bob Servant, a – to express it kindly – weird man, he not only read the spam e-mails but wrote back as well. The result is an extremely funny (and I mean fall-on-the-floor-from-laughing funny) book, called Delete This At Your Peril.

In eleven chapters we can follow the sometimes bewildering, sometimes romantic, sometimes business-making and always totally extraordinary communication between Bob and varying people of dubious origin: Olga from Russia, searching for her big love, Jean Kitson looking for representatives of her textile company, Benjamin Suma, wanting to transfer 20 million dollars from Sierra Leone to the US and many more (in short, people who fill our spam folders).

This is a really funny book and I honestly recommend it to anyone who has humour and/or is annoyed by the recurring amount of spam e-mails in his folder.

Rate: 8/10

Have a marvelous day!

Regards,

Katrin

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Book review #15: The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The Great Gatsby" - finished in April 2013

With the great fuss about the new film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's well-known and hugely appreciated novel The Great Gatsby I surely could not miss my chance, so I bought it (for about 4$, Penguin editions for the win!) and read it in one go – here's the review!

The Great Gatsby, one of the big classics of American literature, plays in the beginning (“Roaring”) Twenties and is narrated by Nick Carraway's point of view: WW I veteran and Yale graduate who rents a little house on Long Island amongst the big mansions of the upper 10,000. Enter Jay Gatsby, multi-millionaire and party-thrower extraordinaire, yet rarely making an appearance on his own parties – that is, until Nick brings in his cousin Daisy Buchanan (and her husband Tom) and it becomes clear that she is a former love interest of Gatsby himself.

Then events go haywire and in the end we have a car crash, corpses and confusion.

I have read a few reviews and comments on The Great Gatsby, most of them regarding the new film and all of them started with “the love story between Jay Gatsby and his former love Daisy Buchanan”. Which made me angry, because this book is not about the love story between these two, this book is about high society in the 20s: it is a depiction of the opposite of love. Daisy does not love Gatsby – she might even believe it herself but amongst the people who act in this part of society nothing counts but money. And Gatsby has money, lots of money.

This is in certain ways a horrible book because it makes you realize how people can set priorities: how people can make money the only thing that counts and it works because society works that way.

I will not start a critic of capitalism here because that is not what this is about. What it is about, though, is people. And in depicting, describing, detailing these people the book is grand and outstandingly brilliant. It shatters the American dream in a shockingly unique and honest way (cf. also my review of Big Sur).

F. Scott Fitzgerald proves his literary genius here and we as the readers can delight in the way he leaves up interpretation and understanding of his work to us.

Rate: 10/10, recommendations for everyone who is even slightly interested in literature and/or the 20s and/or high society.

Have a lovely day!

Regards,

Katrin

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Book review #14: Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman: "Neverwhere" - finished in April 2013

When the BBC announced the dates for the radio series of “Neverwhere” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy and many actors and actresses more I admire and love, I got curious: A series written by Neil Gaiman, based on a book written by Neil Gaiman, based on a TV series written by Neil Gaiman – that sounded like something I would love.

I was not disappointed.

Neverwhere describes the adventures of Richard Mayhew (“Richard. Richard Mayhew. Dick.”) in London Below, a wholly new experience for him (and the readers) taking place in the sewers of London where he meets oddly familiar, yet totally new, strange people (or are they) such as the Angel Islington, the Black Friars or the Marquis de Carabas.

As you might know, I consider myself a huge fan and admirer of Douglas Adams, and I occasionally realized before how much Neil Gaiman sometimes reminded me of Adams (in the best way possible). However, it has never been as strong as with this book. It made me laugh out loud more than a few times, the sometimes distanced (and by that, mostly sarcastic) tone was just amazing to read.

I can not possibly start to explain all of the things I loved about Neverwhere to you (I don't want to spoil you, too) – but be informed that I recommend this book to everyone who fulfills one or more of the following conditions:

a) You liked the Hitchhiker's Guide. Or other books by Douglas Adams. Or Neil Gaiman. Or British books.

b) You like London.

c) You don't like London because you think it is a disgusting dirty city (then this book will assure your opinion).

d) You plan on going to London.

e) You like doors. f) You can read. g) You sometimes read voluntarily. h) You want a book with a rat on its cover. You want a book that deals with rats. You want a rat yourself. You really like rats, don't you?

Also the edition I bought (Author's Preferred Text) featured reading-group discussion questions, and seriously who would want to miss that?

9/10 points!

Have a nice day,

as always best regards,

Katrin

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Book review #13: Much Ado About Nothing

William Shakespeare: "Much Ado About Nothing" - finished in March 2013

At some point one, if interested in any kind of literature and especially English literature, has to take a Shakespeare out of the shelf. I chose Much Ado About Nothing because I was told it is one of the easiest ways to start Shakespeare and also because I am a sucker for romances (IF they are good).

Reviewing classics, as mentioned before, is hard for me because I never know where to start with reviewing. I can hardly judge how well this is written since over the centuries that have passed since Mr. Shakespeare himself has passed away there have been innumerable self-proclaimed or appointed Shakespeare experts and every one of them knows this play a thousand times better than I do.

So the only thing I can do (and will do) is describing my personal Shakespeare experience as a teenager from 21st-century Europe.

First things first, Much Ado About Nothing is in fact a good way to start on your Shakespeare because it is half a traditional “who's gotta marry whom” story (or so I perceived it) and half a witty, funny play, full of puns (not all of them easy to get for non-native English speakers, but the one I understood were really fun) and a great tale of a couple who are made for each other as everyone but themselves sees immediately (Beatrice x Benedick, I ship it!). So, that being said, the Shakespearean English might not be easy, but it surely helps when the story is light-hearted and resembles modern-age rom-coms (well, more the other way around). I found it delighting how confused the plot gets (yet not confusing) and I loved the ending.

I will not rate this book for obvious reasons – I leave that up to Shakespeare specialists. However, I enjoyed reading the play very much and would love to see it live on stage some time in the (near?) future.

Recommendations for – everyone who likes literature; everyone who (like me) wants to start reading Shakespeare and has not found the right access yet; everyone who likes romantic comedies. Actually – everyone. Seriously, read this thing.

(On a side note, the performance featuring David Tennant as Benedick and Catherine Tate as Beatrice is even more delighting than reading the book, so I can recommend that, too.)

(On another side note, my favourite quote now is: “When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.”)

Have a nice day!

Regards,

Katrin

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Book review #12: About A Boy

Nick Hornby: "About A Boy" - finished in March 2013

I have wanted to read this book for quite a while now having seen the film ages ago.

About A Boy deals with 12-year-old Marcus, son of a single mother who suffers from depression and 36-year-old Will who has never done anything productive in his entire life. It also deals with the deaths of Kurt Cobain and a duck.

I liked the book because it depicts a life aside from the glitter and glamour in London quite well (never having been to London I cannot quite judge that, but I suppose the lower class life is about the same in every big city). Yes, Marcus' mother suffers from depression and no, there is no shine-bright-like-a-diamond character who mysteriously appears and saves the family from their situation. Their life is fucked up like everyone else's is. And that realistic way is also how the novel is written: things happen. Things happen, not necessarily contributing to a bigger plot or in order for other things to happen; accidents just coincidentally collide and form bigger events. One has to like this way of storytelling in order to like the book, but if one does – well, here is the chance for a new favourite book.

All in all, About A Boy was not exactly my cup of tea, but a good book nevertheless and the characters were beautifully executed, even the side ones never appeared to be flat or stereotypical.

6.5/10 points.

As ever, my apologies for bad spelling, grammar mistakes, a horribly subjective point of view and everything else that might not have pleased you.

Have a nice day!

Regards,

Katrin

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Book review #11: The Fault in Our Stars

John Green: "The Fault in Our Stars" - finished in March 2013

From time to time I buy the currently hippest and most-discussed books just to test if they’re really worth the talk and most times, they are not (say what you want, I was deeply disappointed by the Perks of Being a Wallflower). Not the case here. Here it comes, the tear-soaked review of The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.

As most of you probably know, The Fault In Our Stars is the story of Hazel, late-stage lung cancer patient and Augustus, one-legged lover of words (and Hazel) and nonsmoker and besides, it is the story of words and stories.

To make this clear, I do not cry because of books. I never do. I wept a few tears when reading Harry Potter VII and that is it, I have never cried because of any other book. Along came The Fault In Our Stars and for the first time in my life I literally (no misuse) sobbed because of a book. That alone is enough to make this book one of my all-time favourites, but that is not the only thing.

The Fault In Our Stars deals with the worst subject in the best way. Terminal illnesses are often portrayed with very much focus on tears and often reduce everyone in the book to his/her encounter and handling with the illness. Not this one. John Green manages in a beautiful way to make everyone in this story people.

The other perfect thing about this book is its symbolism. Almost everything Hazel or Augustus say or do or recognize is a symbol for something, sometimes explained, sometimes not and of course their dialogues are somewhat unrealistic but you do not mind while reading because this does not matter.

In a certain way, The Fault In Our Stars is a book about words and considering myself an amant des mots, I obviously liked this part very much.

There is so much that makes me want to reread this book right now, and give it to all my friends, and read it again when I’m older. This was beautiful and I can recommend it 100%. To everyone.

9.5/10 points.

As so often, apologies for grammar, spelling, horrible writing, a way too general review and thanks to John Green for providing this beautiful piece of literature.

Regards,

Katrin

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Book review #10: The Sandman/The Deserted House

E. T. A. Hoffmann: "Der Sandmann/Das öde Haus" ("The Sandman/The Deserted House") - finished in March 2013

Probably no one is going to know these anyways since they are E. T. A. Hoffmann’s work and were published at the beginning 19th century in Germany. But maybe someone is interested in them.

Hoffmann was never one of my favourite authors and I didn’t think I’d voluntarily read his work again, but here I am and The Sandman and The Deserted House were amazing reading experiences.

They are both short stories, the first one is the story of Nathanael who is raised being told about the horrifying Sandman who steals people’s eyes by throwing hands of sand at them. Nathanael has a few encounters during which he imagines seeing the Sandman and also falls in love with a robot - and to be honest, it is quite a strange story but it somehow caught me because for a great part of the story, horror is built up just by Nathanael’s thoughts and as a reader you can see how helpless he is towards what his own mind produces. Actually, it would make a pretty good horror movie and I was very surprised a 200-year-old book could give me the shivers. Don’t read this alone in the night, but read it. Because it’s the best horror story I’ve read for a long time.

In The Deserted House a man tells his friends about a house he used to walk past that seemed to be deserted but as he soon found out wasn’t. Later on he falls in love with a girl he can see through the window of this house (19th century, Germany, yes that works) but that is apparently only a painting - or is it?

The latter is a bit more optimistic, the man gets to see a psychiatrist and mostly recovers from his hallucinations which obviously takes away a bit of the atmosphere built up in the Sandman but still it is a nice story.

8/10. I did frankly never think I could like Hoffmann, but this is perfect horror/thriller setting.

Read it if you want some shivers.

As ever apologies for spelling, grammar, writing etc etc

Have a nice day!

Regards,

Katrin

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Book review #9: The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman: "The Graveyard Book" - finished in March 2013

I have had this dusting on my bookshelf for about a year and finally I’ve read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, and well it was amazing.

Nobody Owens, called Bod, grows up on a graveyard, raised by ghosts and his ward Silas. During his childhood he encounters various threats such as ghouls, witches and worst of all the Man Jack, the killer of his parents. Oh, and have I mentioned it’s a children’s book?

But seriously, this book has such a weird setting that you have to love it from the beginning, especially since it is illustrated by Chris Riddell (whose artwork I admire). Every chapter is one episode of Bod’s childhood up to the age of fifteen.

I wish I had read this at a younger age because I know to a child this must be an even more exciting reading experience, but I’m happy I read it anyways because Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors - he describes the weirdest events in a very realistic way - how children at this age would see the world. It was delighting, lovely, tragic, fascinating, creepy and funny to read and I will probably give this to my little brother…

Rating 7/10, but if I were younger it would get 10.

As ever apologies for spelling, grammar, horrid writing and the shortness of this post.

Have a nice day!

Regards,

Katie

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Book review #8: The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde: "The Importance of Being Earnest" - finished in March 2013

This post might be a little more personal than the other reviews, but after the rambling I’ll try to write an objective, usual review of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

We read this in English class and unfortunately, our teacher tends to overdiscuss everything which means that while reading this in class we’d stop every five lines to discuss what has just been said how that’s a picture of society why some things are funny etc etc etc. I’m sure everyone can understand how much fun this takes away so I would not touch this book outside of English lessons until last week I said to myself I could not leave it like this and read the whole thing in one go and well, it was awesome.

Reviewing classics I find sort of hard because it is not really about is this book good or bad, is the author talented or not - and with comedies you always have the problem that some things are just not funny anymore.

Luckily, this problem did not occur once here because The Importance of Being Earnest is a romantic comedy at its very best. Basically, it is just a whole lot of confusion between two guys and two girls (and a fictional brother who turns out not so fictional after all and a few aunts who might cause problems) and it’s really fun to read. There are a lot of unexpected plot twists and very many unexpected witty replies - you certainly get a lot of sass here. All in all, this is so British.

I am not sure whether I should rate this like I usually do, but if I had to I would give it 7.5/10 points - also I’m fairly sure this is a lot funnier to watch on stage (and the 20 minutes or so I saw of the film with Colin Firth were also really amazing).

It was worth the read although I might have liked it better hadn’t we discussed so much in English class (explaining the joke destroys the joke, remember?).

Should I stumble across another of Wilde’s works in the next time I will be sure to pick it up!

As ever sorry for spelling, grammar, horrible writing, wrong facts and subjectivity.

Have a nice day!

Regards,

Katie

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Book review #7: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Marisha Pessl: "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" - finished in February 2013

This is the third time I have read this novel and Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl is among my five favourite books I’ve read so far.

Basically, STICP is the story of Blue Van Meer, very smart, very educated, who has spent most of her life traveling across the US with her father, a guest professor on various universities. When they move to Stockton, North Carolina in her senior year, a few things happen that are to change the situation radically - a suicide (which might have been murder), growing up (or, realizing your Dad isn’t the god you always thought he was) and the Nightwatchmen (if they are real).

While this sounds like a rather average coming-of-age story (I should stop using that term so frequently), I can assure you it is not. Actually, it is farthest from any other coming-of-age story I’ve read so far. The reason for this is the truly extraordinary style of writing - because, to be honest, STICP is a pile of pop culture references - and to be entirely honest, culture references. Blue quotes everything, from Shakespeare and Machiavelli to Jack Kerouac and Grease and lets this slip in simply and naturally, it is just her normal point of view.

I am not good at writing, and so this review will probably not convince you to read this book - but if there’s one thing I love it is pop culture references and this book is a collection of my favourites.

It is a book for writers and for readers and for bibliophiles and it will catch you from the first page and not let you go until the last. Personally, I found the story in the second half not too convincing, but that is okay because you still get so many references you can hardly keep up.

My favourite thing about this book is probably that - reading it at estimately the ages of 12 and 14 for the first times - I understood more of these references every time - and it’s unbelievably funny when you fully get them.

I am really not good at writing reviews, but I can just encourage every single one of you to buy this…because I know especially here we’re all big fans of pop culture.

Rating 9/10 and one of my look-at-my-bookshelf books.

As ever, apologies for grammar, spelling (and miserable writing),

Have a nice day!

Regards,

Katrin