14) A book from your childhood

I already talked about quite some books from my childhood and there are some books from my childhood left that I want to write about so badly, but which are better fit for other days, so instead of talking about them, I will talk about Sailor Moon. I don't know if Mangas qualify as books, but I will just assume that they do. I started to get into Mangas when I was about 12, but I was already crazy about Sailor Moon before that. I tend to get obsessed with things sometimes and Sailor Moon was definitely an obsession.

While I think the TV series is absolutely stupid and ridiculous today, I kind of still like the Mangas. The story isn't the most original one, but it's not stupid either. Also, there are females warriors, which is always a good thing (even though they are wearing stupid outfits and don't have guns) and there are gay and lesbian characters as well as people dressing up in drag – something I haven't seen in a lot of western children's books.

13) A book that makes you laugh a lot

This entry is going to be in German, because it will make no sense in English. Sorry.
Also, jeder, der mich näher kennt, hat sicher schon einmal miterlebt, wie ich mich über einen Verhörer längere Zeit zu Tränen kaputtgelacht habe. Ich weiß nicht, was genau es ist, was ich daran so unglaublich amüsant finde, aber es passiert mir immer wieder. Für eines meiner Lieblingsbeispiele muss mal wieder meine Schwester herhalten. Eben jene befand sich nämlich einst in einer Unterhaltung mit einem Verwandten, mit dem sie sich über ihren damaligen Freund unterhielt. Besagter Verwandter fragte daraufhin "Ist der älter als du?" - eine naheliegende Frage. Meine Schwester schaute verwirrt und fragte "was?", woraufhin der gute Mann seine Frage wiederholte. Die Verwirrung im Blick meiner Schwester stieg daraufhin ins Unermässliche und sie fragte: "Zelt???". Sie hatte nämlich beide Male verstanden: "Ein Zelt hast du?". "Zelt?" ist seit dem bei uns ein Ausdruck unglaublicher Verwirrung. Wenn man irgendetwas absolut nicht nachvollziehen oder verstehen kann, bringt man das mit "Zelt?" sehr wortsparend zum Ausdruck. Nunja, jedenfalls ist "Der Weiße Neger Wumbaba" ein Buch, das sich nur mit Verhörern beschäftigt. Ein ganzes Buch! Dementsprechend musste ich mich beim Durchlesen mehrfach ziemlich wegschmeißen. Geschenkt bekam ich das übrigens, nachdem ich in einem Blogpost meine Erkenntnis kundtat, dass ich nun endlich verstanden hatte, dass es in einem Lied, das meine Eltern während meiner Kindheit gelegentlich zu singen pflegten "und im Herzen alle Tage lang Amor" hieß und nicht etwa, wie ich etwa 20 Jahre lang glaubte "und im Herzen alle Tage lang am Moor".

Als kleine Leseprobe hier der Ausschnitt, der den Titel des Buches erklärt:

Fest steht aber: Wir, die wir immer alle Texte falsch verstehen, sobald wir sie nicht lesen, sondern hören, sobald sie gesungen, gebetet oder sonstwie vorgetragen werden, wir leben in einer rätselhaften, doch auch reichen, poetischen Welt, bevölkert von Wesen, die niemand außer uns auch nur zu kennen imstande ist.
Nehmen wir jenen Herrn, der mich nach einer Lesung ansprach, um mir seine Version von Matthias Claudius' "Der Mond ist aufgegangen" mitzuteilen. Da heißt es:
"Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
und aus den Wiesen steiget
der weiße Nebel wunderbar."
Dieser Mann erzählte mir, was in seinen Ohren klang:
"Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
und aus den Wiesen steiget,
der weiße Neger Wumbaba."
Das hat nun etwas, das weit über Claudius hinausweist: Von weißen Nebeln singen kann, mit Verlaub, jeder. Aber einen weißen Neger namens Wumbaba ersinnen - das ist sehr groß.
Sehr viel später meldete sich bei mir noch Leser L. aus München, der eine münchnerisch-bayerische Version vortrug, die auf seine Enkel zurückgeht, und in der es heißt:
"Und aus der Isar steiget
der weiße Neger Wumbaba."
Das ist natürlich auch nicht zu verachten, wenngleich ich es doch schöner finde, diese sagenhaft fremd-schöne Wumbaba-Gestalt aus nebelüberhangenen Wiesen aufsteigen zu sehen, die sich vor einem schwarzen Walde erstrecken. Da kann die Isar nicht leicht mithalten.

12) A book that was recommended to you

„Tipping the Velvet“ by Sarah Waters was recommended to me with the words „There are a lot of women dressed in drag in it. I think you will love it“. Based solely on these words I ordered the book and read it. It's basically the life story of a lesbian in England during the Victorian Age. Nan, the main character, growns up in a small village. She falls in love with a male impersonator (Kitty) and they become lovers. They go to London, where Nan starts working as a male impersonator, too. When Kitty cheats on her with a guy, they break up. Nan works as a male prostitute giving hand- and blowjobs to gay men for a while, before she gets picked up by a rich lady, whose lover/servant she becomes. She's kicked out after sleeping with one of the servants. Eventually she ends up in the house of a feminist-marxist activist.

When I first started reading it, the book seemed incredibly dull and predictable to me. The first part is pretty much just the love story of Nan and Kitty and the first 100 or so pages are only Nan talking about how pretty and great Kitty is, blabla. My thoughts were „Great, another one of those dramatic lesbian love stories. That's new …. not!“, but I kept reading anyway. I'm very glad I did. It's a great journey through the society of the Victorian age and also a great character development. Also, the lesbian scenes (sex scenes as well as just general love scenes) clearly show that the author knows what she is writing about. Even the boring love story in the beginning is well written. I can very much relate to it. Judging from people I know, myself and books/movies/TV most lesbians tend to get quite obsessed with their first love. More so then straight girls. I wonder why that is. My intuitive answer is that guys are just not sexy enough to get obsessed over, but I guess that is not the true answer ;)

11) A book that you used to love, but that you hate now

Love and hate, that's pretty strong words. I don't think I have feelings that strong about things very often, especially hate. Why would I hate a book? So let's go with „a book that you used to like a lot and that you don't like any more“. Enid Blyton's „The Mountain of Adventure“ (Der Berg der Abenteuer). I loved pretty much everything by Enid Blyton as a kid. My sister and I would always get her books in the local library and then she would read them to me. I don't remember reading many of them myself. My favourite series by her was the „adventure series“. They were about four kids: Jack, a bird lover with a talking parrot, his shy and always scared sister Lucy, Philip, who can talk to animals, and Dina, his bitchy sister. Together they solve different crimes. As a kid I perceived the books as thrilling and funny. A couple of years back my sister and I decided to read one of the books to each other during our vacation in Wales, which we did, and we were both kind of disappointed: the story made no sense, it wasn't thrilling at all and, worst of all, the book was so full of gender stereotypes! I think we have to cut the author some slack as the book was first published in 1949, but if you then look at „Das Doppelte Lottchen“ by Erich Kästner, which was published in exactly the same year and in which the female characters are portrayed in a much better way, in my eyes, you can see, that the year is not the only excuse. You might say now that the only reason we thought it was boring was, because it's a childrens book and we are grown up, but I have to disagree. I re-read a lot of childrens books and still enjoyed them.

However, Blyton's response to bad reviews is said to have been „I'm not interested in the views of critics over the age of 12“. Any maybe she was right about that. The books were written for kids and even though now I think it's full of wrong stereotypes, it obviously didn't make me become a dependent, shy and passive woman.

10) A book by your favourite author

It's hard to pick a favourite author. Why are all these categories so hard? I'm really looking forward to „take a random book from your shelf“. As a kid, I loves Astrid Lindgren and someone called Tamora Pierce, as a teenager my favorite author was Stephen King, now I don't really have one. As I don't really like King anymore, and I'll talk about Tamora Pierce on a different day, I'll go with Lindgren. One of her best books, in my eyes, is „Ronja Rövardotter“. If you have never read it, please do (except if you're Nec, because I already know you won't enjoy it)! I re-read it when I was in Sweden and it was still very touching and awesome.

The book is about friendship, nature, death, and intergenerational conflict; at times light and funny, at times sad and touching – and very true to human nature in my eyes. I like that in books. When I think „yes, that could really happen that may. This is how people could react in real life.“

9) The first book you ever read

How would I know? That's been ages ago. I'm old! Yes, I definitely am, which you can tell by the fact that I can't find a picture of the book I'm going to write about online, because apparently it's old enough to have gotten out of print and not important enough that anybody cares.

Anyway, the book is called „Mein Bruder Joscha“ and it contains a couple of stories about a girl, whose older brother has turned pretty mean since he's going to school. He plays tricks on his little sister all the time, some of them quite mean. I loved this book as a kid and read it over and over again, probably because I had a big sister myself, who was at times quite mean. In fact, I was the youngest kid in the neighbourhood and so of course the older kids liked to play tricks on me, e.g. my sister would tell me about a monster in one of the gardens that the neighbour's boys had told her about and that she had seen with her own eyes, and when I didn't believe her, she brought me there and one of them would be dressed up and I would get scared as hell and run home to mommy. I was pretty easy to scare, I guess, and pretty naive, too. I also remember how my sister told me that it was so much fun to do somersaults down the stairs (yes, Lena, I have to tell this story to everyone) and me, being naive and trusting my big sister, tried it, of course. … it wasn't fun.

I feel like I have to mentione, that my sister wasn't always mean, though. She was nice, most of the time. For example she read a lot of books to me, even after I could read myself, which is a very nice thing to do. E.g. each saturday and sunday morning I would get up, go to my sisters room, wake her up by saying „Ich bin dein kleiner Wecker, darf ich mit dir kuscheln?“ („I'm your little alarm clock, may I cuddle up with you?“) and then I would get into her bed and she would read to me until my parents would wake up and make breakfast.

Now this entry has turned into something completely different than a book review, but I doubt that any of the first books I read are complex or interesting enough to write about... I hope you enjoyed it anyway.

8) A book that reminds you of a place

Today's book is „Svenne“ by Per Nilsson. It reminds me of Sweden, more specifically one of the rooms I was staying in while I was living there and even more specifically of the couch I I read it on during the dark Swedish winter of 2006/2007 after I got it for Christmas. It was the first Swedish novel I read that wasn't by Astrid Lindgren. I remember enjoying it. I don't really remember much of it, though. As far as I know it's about this teenager who becomes part of a Swedish nationalist/racist movement after being attacked by some immigrants. It's kind of one of these „be careful, kids, Nazis don't always look bad at first sight“ kind of books, which I wouldn't really recommend to adult readers, but at least this one is well written, catching and not too lecture-ish, which is a problem with those kinds of books sometimes.

7) A book that reminds you of someone

I don't really know what this is supposed to mean. A lot of books remind me of people because they were given to me by them, because they were recommended to me by them or because I discussed them with these people. Or is this about the content of the book?

A book for which both things are true is Janosch's „Oh, wie schön ist Panama“. It's a childrens' book about the Little Bear and the Little Tiger. The Little Tiger one day finds a box, that smells like bananas and that has the word „Panama“ written on it. He takes it home and the Little Bear explains to him, that in Panama everything smells like Bananas and that Panama is the best place on earth and that everything is much bigger and much more beautiful in Panama. They decide to go to Panama. They travel for a while and meet a lot of people but walk a circle and get back to their house eventually. Because they had been gone for a while, the trees and bushes have grown, so everything looks bigger and much more beautiful. The last page of the book says something like: „Du meinst, dann hätten sie gleich zu Hause bleiben können? Du meinst, dann hätten sie sich den weiten Weg gespart? Oh nein, denn sie hätten den Fuchs nicht getroffen und die Krähe nicht und sie hätten den Hasen und Igel nicht getroffen und sie hätten nie erfahren, wie gemütlich so ein schönes, weiches Sofa aus Plüsch ist.“ (You think they could have stayed home then? You think, they would have had to go the long way? Oh no, because they would never have met the fox and the crow neither and they wouldn't have met the rabbit and the hedgehog and they would never have found out how comfortable such a nice, soft sofa made of plush, is.)

My parents read this book to me a lot when I was a kid and then I read it a lot to my (host)sister Annemarie when she was living with us. She was (and still is) very close to my family and this book reminds me of her a lot. For once, because I read it to her (I gave it to her as a present, too and she asked me to read it to her in the car, when we were taking her to Frankfurt because she had to fly back) and also because she was kind of in the same situation: she was going back to America, to where she had come from, but had had new experiences to take back with her.

6) A book you can only read once

... is there a book like that? This is definitely the hardest one so far. There are a lot of books that I probably won't read again, but none that was so terrifying that I couldn't. The one that gets closest to that is "Der Minus-Mann" by Heinz Sobota. It's the autobiohraphy of a criminal, born in 1944, written in prison. He describes his entire life up to that point in a very matter-of-fact kind of way, not whitewashing anything. Even when he writes about love, there is no emotion in his words. In this way he writes about violence, about drinking, about fucking, about abusing girls, forcing them to work as prostitutes, about marriage and his kid, about his time in prison.
I was told before that it was hard to read this book and was then shocked that it wasn't hard for me at all. It didn't touch me at all, almost till the end of the book. I don't know what was different about this one scene that suddenly made me sick - I don't know if you know this feeling when you hear about something horrible and you just feel shocked and sick in your stomach. The scene was about a guy in prison, who was raped by the author's cellmates after losing the author's protection and who then commited suicide.
To sum things up: a very interesting book. Probably the most direct view into a world, that you will hopefully never be part of, that you can get. Definitely worth reading, if you're not too sensitive. I will now give you a scene from the book (the scene I wrote about) to give you a better picture of what I'm talking about. If you are a sensitive person, please don't read any further. Also apologies to my English speaking readers - the book is in German and so this excerpt is in German, too.

"Eine Flasche Rum zu Silvester, und ihr könnt ihn haben", sage ich. Er kneift die Augen zusammen, dann geht er zu Anton. Sie flüstern. Über den Hausarbeiter besorgen sie mir zwei tage später den Rum. Der letzte Tag des Jahres. Peitschende Rhythmen aus dem Lautsprecher. Ich liege im Bett, trinke. Gleichgültige Nebel decken das Geschehen vor mir. Anton packt die Trickkiste aus, sie spielen Stockschlagen. Einer sitzt auf der Bank in der Mitte der Zelle, ein zweiter hat den Kopf in seinen Händen, die anderen schlagen mit der Handfläche auf den gespannten Hintern des Gebeugten, wen er errät, der tauscht mit ihm Platz. Dann zeigt Beppo eine Übung. Alle johlen, sind ausgelassen. Er nimmt sich den Jungen zum Vorzeigen.
Der Junge sitzt am Boden, seine Beine in den Knien angezogen, die Hände um die Waden gelest, dort mit einem Hosenriemen verschnürt. Über die Arme, unter den Kniekehlen durch, schiebt ihm Beppo eine Schrubberstange. Der Junge kann sich nun nicht mehr aufrichten oder selbst befreien. Anton und Beppo heben links und rechts die Stange mit dem Jungen hoch.
"Zieh ihm die Hose runter", sagt Anton zu Karl.
"Na freulich, jetzt homan", schreit der.
Er zieht ihm unter allgemeinem Gelächter die Hose und die Unterhose herunter. Anton nickt zu mir her. Ich zucke die Schultern. Wolfgang und Karl stopfen dem Jungen ein Handtuch in den Mund, binden es mit einem zweiten fest. Anton und Beppo tragen ihn auf der Stange zum Bett neben der Heizung. Vom Spion sieht man dort nicht hin. Der Junge spannt seine Muskeln, doch das Leder des Gürtels hält. Sie legen ihn nieder. Anton greift in die Spalte, fingert am Arschloch. Sie brüllen und lachen. "Schau da des aun, du muaßt eahm ois easta schuastan", mit blutunterlaufenen Augen packt mich Beppo am Arm. "geh scheißen", sage ich. Die Nebel sind stark und warm und dicht, ich trinke. Wolfgang bringt eine Niveadose. Anton massiert sein entblößtes Glied. Karl schmiert dem Jungen einen Batzen Creme auf den Anus. Anton bohrt mit zwei Fingern in das Loch. Der Körper des Jungen bäumt sich auf. Hals und Rücken sind brennend rot. Anton setzt sein Glied an und dringt mit einem Stoß bis zur Wurzel hin. Er greift dem Körper um die Hüften und fickt mit offenem Mund keuchend in den Enddarm des gebundenen.
"Festerm fick eahm festa", schreit Wolfgang hysterisch. Er hat drei Finger in den Mund geschoben und kaut daran fieberhaft. Antons Stöße werden schneller, sein Gesicht rötet sich, dann reckt er sich steif zur Höhe, und grunzend wirft er sich über den Rücken. Schwer liegt er einige Augenblicke, dann richtet er sich auf und zieht sein Glied aus dem Loch. Scheiße klebt am Eichelkranz. In plötzlicher Wut schlägt er mit der Faust in die freiliegende Nierenpartie des Gekrümmten. Der Junge zuckt zusammen, wimmert dumpf unter dem Knebel, dann erschlafft er in den Fäusten, die ihn niederhalten.
Beppo hat inzwischen seinen Schwanz eingefettet. Sein Schwanz ist um vieles dicker als der von Anton. Seine Mundwinkel hängen, seine Hände sind zu Fäusten gekrampft. Er schiebt den Schwanz in den Schließmuskel. Ein dünner Blutfaden rinnt über den Hodensack und die Schenkel des Jungen. Beppo wirft einen kurzen Blick nach unten, dann schwingt er seine Hüften im Rhythmus der Stöße. Die Blutung wird stärler. Der Muskel ist eingerissen. Der Körper windet sich, doch die anderen halten ihn nieder. Beppo steigert sich in Raserei, dann, ein zerrissener Schrei, er krallt die Finger in den Rücken des Liegenden, der Kopf fliegt zurücl, aus tiefeingeführtem Glied spritzt er. Blut und Scheiße kleben an seinem Schwanz, als er keuchend zurücktritt.
"A Traum, dea Oarsch von dem Buam", sagt er zu mir, dann geht er zur Wasserleitung.
"De Drecksau", schreit Wolfgang.
Der Schließmuskel des Jungen hat seinen Dienst versagt, in einem Schub dringt Scheiße aus dem After, vermischt sich mit Blut und rinnt über die Oberschenkel auf das Bett und den Zellenboden. Die Umstehenden sind perplex.
"Nimm die Mistschaufel und räume den Dreckhaufen weg", sage ich zu dem Blonden mit unreiner Haut. Er geht.
"Mach das Fenster auf", sage ich zu Karl.
Sie drehen den Jungen zur Seite und lösen den Lederriemen. Ein Roboter bewegt sich mti steifen, marionettenhaften Bewegungen, leerem, starrem Gesicht, erloschenen Augen.
Er geht zur Wasserleitung, wäscht sich, die Decke, kleidet sich an, hockt dann gekrümmt auf seinem Bett, das Gesicht zur Wand gekehrt. "Manst, dass er aunläut", sagt Beppo leise. Die Geräusche sind verstummt. Sie sitzen schweigend bei den Tischen. Anton gibt sich sorglos. Er pfeift leise.
"Glaub i net und waun, stich i no o", sagt er und zieht sein Messer aus der Tasche.
Ist es eingedrungen in mich? Hat der Schnaps es möglich gemacht, oder wäre es in jedem Fall passiert? Der Junge erhängt sich um drei Uhr morgens. Kurze Zeit später entdeckt ihn der Beamte bei der Kontrolle. An einem dünnen Lederriemen hängt er am Fenster, niemand hat etwas gehört, niemand etwas gesehen. Hausarbeiter holen den Körper, nachdem wir ihn hteruntergenommen haben. Sie legen eine graue Decke über sein Gesicht, über die stummen Schreie in seinen aus den Höhlen gequollenen Augen.

5) (a) book/s that you can read over and over again

I have to go with Harry Potter here. As a kid I used to read a lot of books over and over again, but I think the Harry Potter books are the only ones that I read more then twice after I turned 15 or something. I started reading Harry Potter pretty late, because at first everybody seemed to like it, which at that time automatically made me hate it and not read it. I got over this phase when I was 17, on vacation and ran out of books to read. Someone else had the 3rd and 4th book with them, so I read those and then slowly became obsessed with Harry Potter. I read all of them over and over again. When a new one came out I read all the books before it came out, then read the new book the day it came out and then all the books again to find little details which point to the events of the new books that I now knew. I think this is one of the reasons why I like the books so much: there are so many details, some meaningful and some meaningless and things are therefor less predictable than in a lot of books. The characters are very detailed, too. Sometimes, when you read a book, you get the feeling that the author only put thoughts into the main characters and the rest of them are just stereotypical people who fulfill a certain role. It's not like that at all with Harry Potter. All the characters, even the unimportant ones, have their little quirks. Another thing I really like about Harry Potter is, that it's a fantasy book in which there is no good and evil. Well, there is, Voldemort is the Villain and Harry is the hero, but he is far from being flawless and Voldemort is more complex than just pure evil, too. This goes for the other characters as well. Sometimes it's hard to decide if they belong to the good or the evil side and even über-heroes like Dumbledore have their weaknesses and their dark secrets.
The lack of this is something that bothers me a lot with most fantasy books. There is no good and evil people or creatures in this world (okay, we could argue about slugs. Slugs might be pure evil.) and I just don't like if books pretend that it is so. And before anyone starts talking about Nazis now: of course I think Hitler was a bad person and that the Nazi regime did really, really horrible things. But there was a background story for all of this - historical events, that lead to it. Germans weren't born evil Nazis. Hitler wasn't born an anti-Semitic asshole, hungry for power and fucked up in his mind. Germans even at that time weren't orcs, full of hatred and ready to kill about anyone.
And - to get back to Harry Potter - here the events and characters have background stories, too. Things (other then just magic) happened, to make people the way they are. I like that.

4) The book you hate the most

This is a hard one. I don't remember really hating a book. There are quite some books I don't like or that I didn't even finish, but there isn't one particular book that I hated so much I burned it or something. So I'll just talk about 4 different books that I don't like for different reasons.

Let's start with the most obvious one: Twilight. Yes, I actually read it. It's badly written. Take any random fanfiction story written by a 14 year old girl on the internet and you probably got about the same quality (I'm not saying that there is only bad fanfiction out there. But most of it is bad). The characters are stereotypical, the main character is boring and it gives a weird, creepy and unrealistic picture of love and relationships. How come noone finds it repulsive that a 100-year-old-guy (or whatever his age was) is romanticly involved with a 17 year old girl? I mean, yes, he looks young, but I don't think the reason why old people shouldn't hook up with underage people is just because they look old. Anyway. I think the vampires in this book are stupid sparkling super heroes that can do about everything, which is annoying. For me, the fascinating thing about vampires has always been that on the one hand they are immortal and have certain powers but on the other hand they are also very weak, e.g. die when exposed to sunlight. Anyway, this book wouldn't bother me as much, if it was just a stupid book that about 10 people read. Whatever. But a LOT of people read it, especially young girls, and I don't want them to have Bella as a role model. Seriously, if there is an old guy creeping into your bedroom every night and watching you sleep, that is NOT romantic. Call the fucking police. Thanks.

Book number 2. This is probably a little more controversial than Twilight... the bible. I personally don't believe in god, but that's not what this is about. If people want to believe in God and in Jesus etc. that's fine with me. What I don't like about the bible is that it makes no sense. It is full of contradictions and "love thy neighbour" can be seen as the central message just as much as "god hates fags". And yes, of course, people could make up these messages without the bible as well, but they would be taken less seriously. Most people haven't read the bible themselves, so if someone says "ok, here it says guys shouldn't sleep with guys, look, it's in the bible" they can't say "yes, but here it says something completely different". There are a lot of christians who don't read the bible but rather listen to what priests etc. say about it - which makes sense, as they are the experts on the field. I do the same thing when I go to the doctor. I'm usually not questioning his expertise. However, the difference is that my doctor's opinion might be wrong but is at least based on science, while the priests opinion is based on his personal beliefs and the little part of the bible backing up these beliefs, written by people ages ago, in completely different times! So yes, I don't hate the bible itself, I just don't like how it's used and that it still has such a big impact on society.

Book number 3. Something completely different. Stephen King's "Insomnia". I used to be a huge Stephen King fan and still own shelves of Stephen King novels. This was the last book I read by him. I don't know if it's just because I have gotten older and my taste changed or because this book is particularly bad, but I didn't finish it, because I didn't like it at all. I don't remember much of the story, just that it made no sense at all. It was about this old guy, who couldn't sleep and then he got younger and then he fucked someone and other people were killed and then he and his also-now-young-again-girlfriend went into some kind of cave, I think? I don't know. It was boring. And I don't understand why people have to fuck all the time. Yes, of course, if it makes sense it's alright if it's in the book but in this book it wasn't necessary at all! Even worse it is in "it", where, if I remember correctly, a bunch of 12-year-olds (6 boys and 1 girl) have to get some gang bang action going to get out of the canalization. WTF? ... anyway, nothing really to hate about "Schlaflos". Just not worth reading.

Book number 4: Klinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie. I probably only dislike this book so much because I had to spend so much time with it and then fucked up the exam. It's just a book about clinical psychology and psychotherapy. Some chapters are well written, others not so much. It hardly discusses depth psychology and psychoanalysis, which I think it should. I'm not a fan of psychoanalysis at all, but still I think there should be a chapter in a book like this, just for completeness sake. But of yourse it's not, because cognitive behavioural therapy people think psychoanalysists are weird (which they are) and not scientific and therefore students shouldn't be taught about it - I bet it's completely the other way around at other universities. I don't know. I understand that not every aspect of a field can be taught at university, but most therapists still are depth psychologists or psychoanalysists, so it's not just some weirdos you can ignore. Why not trust the students to be critical thinkers who can deliver their own reasonable judgement?

X) Books you just bought

I'm adding this category, because I just bought a book in the best bookstore ever (they have a cat! And you get free coffee and sometimes even cookies! And there are books! And the owner knows so much about books! And a cat! A real cat! Which you can pet!) and I wanted to share it with you because I think it's absolutely brilliant. It's called "Letzte Mahlzeiten - Die Aufzeichnungen des königlich bayrischen Henkers Bartholomäus Ratzenhammer" (by the way, wouldn't the correct form be bayerischen? But maybe I'm wrong here) and it is just what it sounds like - a book about people who were executed and their last meals, including recipes. How awesome is that?
Bartholomäus Ratzenhammer (even the name is epic!) was born 1860 and became the last Bavarian royal executer. When the guy, who wrote the book, stumbled across his writings, the authorities told him he could keep them. And as he seemed so interested in the whole thing, he could take the old guillotine as well. Apparently he didn't take the guillotine, though, which is weird. In my eyes, a guillotine makes a fitting accessory for every living room. Anyway, the book covers the lives, deaths and last meals of 17 people. One of them is Cossipidus P., a monk who first published the A-Z of penalties of hell, starting with "Abbrennen der Genitalien" and ending with "Zerwuzeln der Hirnmasse" he started killing people after listening to their confessions and blessing them, so he could be sure they would go to heaven. He started with his grandparents and later invented a confessional with a pit full of acid underneath, accessable through a trapdoor he could control. Very creative, the guy. Other than that he had a very chaste and modest life. In the night of his execution, however, he felt that a little bit of sin was necessary and so he demanded not only a four-course meal (bread soup with royale and lovage, pasta with cabbage-sauce, cauliflower with cheese and berries from the woods with sour cream) but also - understandable - someone to fuck. He only got his first wish, though. Poor guy.

3) Your favourite book

My favorite book. That's a tough one which I probably wouldn't have been able to answer until just recently when I read „Lord of the Flies“ by William Golding. Oh. My. God. Such a fantastic book! I already wrote a blog post about it, so go and check out that one. The following post is probably going to be more spoileresque, so if you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading.

To summarize the plot: A bunch of children, who are evacuated from a war, land on a deserted island. While at the beginning they are very civilized (e.g. elect a leader in a democratic way) and all work together to build a signal fire, things quickly get worse, when they start fighting because some people don't fulfill their duties, as they want to hunt rather then keep the fire burning. It turns into a conflict between two boys (Ralph and Jack) and with the help of group dynamics soon two rival groups are formed. After killing one boy by accident and one intentionally it ends with an all-against-one situation. The whole island is set on fire and the group hunts down Ralph, the former leader of the group in order to kill him. Surprisingly he is rescued by a naval officer. They saw the fire and came to rescue the kids (See what he did there? They are rescued by the military, which is involved in a war. So even though Ralph is rescued from immediate danger, the world out there contains the same danger, just on a bigger scale).

I know, this story on it's own doesn't sound too exciting. But it is incredibly well written and he uses such incredible good metaphors, which capture so much truth. For example the Conch. The Conch is some kind of seashell, which Ralph (the first leader) and Piggy (the nerdy fat kid) find in the beginning of the story. When blown it makes a sound that can be heard all over the island. Ralph uses it to gather all the children from the island. They later establish that during an assembly the one holding the Conch, has the right to speak while everyone else is supposed to listen. When people don't pay attention to that rule (which especially Jack, the latter leader, and his hunters never really do), Piggy get's really upset and just says „I got the Conch!“ over and over again. Later, when Ralph and Piggy go to Jack's Camp (after the group has split up), Piggy is killed by a huge rock that is thrown at him, and the Conch bursts into smithereens. This is the final end of civilization (represented by the Conch) and reason (represented by Piggy). And how could you find a better metaphor for civilization then the a Conch? It's beautiful and fragile. Everyone admires it at first, it's what ties the boys together at first (it's a sign for the assembly, for the rules they establish, for a democraticly elected leader). And then it bursts – so easily. Which is exactly what this book is about! But I already talked about this in my last post on Lord of the Flies. Gosh, I could keep on talking forever. Well, let's just talk about one more thing: The Lord of the Flies, which gave the novel its name and which is, by the way, a translation for Belzebub, is (in the book) the head of a killed wild sow, stuck on a stick and left somewhere on the island as a sacrifice for „the beast“, which the boys fear. It starts to rot and more and more flies are attracted to it, thus the name - it transforms from an innocent sow, suckling its piglets, to a grotesque, disgusting, scary thing, just as the the kids „rot“ and transform, most of them out of fear, too. So both (the transformation of the kids and the lord of the flies) is created out of fear and develops a life of it's own - something nobody really wanted to happen - but at the same time, it's man-made. It's not happening without things people do. It's not some evil power seducing the innocent kids, but it's something they all have inside of them that even starts the whole process.

… congratulations, you are at the end of this post. Sorry for geeking out about this book ;)

2) The book that you want to read next

I have a pile of books on one of my bookshelves, where I put the books I want to read. Usually it grows faster then I can read the books and there is always more than one book. When I finish a book I either take the book that's on top of the pile or I choose another one, because the one on top doesn't tickle my fancy at that particular moment. So here are the books that are currently in the pile:

Alan Weisman "Die Welt ohne uns - Reise über eine unbevölkerte Welt", which is a book about what would happen in this world if humankind died, based on scientific knowledge of biologists, physicists, geologists, architects etc. I think it will be very fascinating to read.

Moreover I got Oscar Wilde's "The picture od Dorian Gray". I don't think it needs any further explanation. I'm particularly interested in the character of Lord Henry, as one of my friends hates him, but at the same time says that he reminds him of a mutual friend, who, in turn, doesn't hate Lord Henry at all, but takes it as a compliment. I'm interested to see, whose opinion I will share or if I'll just decide that both of them are mental.

Book number 3 is "Glücklich sein" by Sonja Lyubomirsky, who is a psychologist who does a lot of research on happiness. It's a really interesting topic but as I haven't read the book yet, I have no idea if it's any good. I do remember reading one of her papers, though, and I enjoyed it. The book is not a psychological textbook, but written for normal people, by the way, so if you want to read something about more scientific psychology then the interpretations of fairytales, that I talked about yesterday, go ahead.

On we go. Book number 4 is Terry Pratchett's "Nation". I'm not a fan of Terry Pratchett at all. I tried to read two of the Disc World novels and didn't enjoy them at all, but I'll give this one a try, a) because it's not a disc world novel, b) because someone who doesn't like Pratchett either said it was enjoyable and c) because a youtuber I really like said that it was fantastic. Let's see if that's true. Maybe I will become a Pratchett-fangirl after all.

And the last book on my pile: "Ulysses" by James Joyce. It's supposed to be really complicated and I think I will read the wikipedia article before I read the actual book but I guess I will feel very educated after I read it. Also, who knows, maybe I will actually enjoy it.

1) Book(s) I'm currently reading

As probably most people do, I read multiple books at a time. When I get bored with a book or it's just too scientific for me at some point or something, I usually start reading another book. After a while I either continue to read the book or I decide that it's not worth it and put it back on the shelf. So here are the books I'm currently reading, starting with the one that I started reading first:

"Genome - the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters" by Matt Ridley. It's a very, very interesting and well written book that talks about a gene on one of the chromosomes in each chapter. The only reason it takes me so long to read is that it's quite complicated and I don't feel like reading complicated stuff most of the time when I'm also reading/studying/doing things for university. I feel too exhausted for it most of the time. Nevertheless, as I said, a very good book and worth reading, if you're interested in stuff like that. It's also a very sharp contrast to the other book that I've been "reading" forever:
"Black Dagger - Nachtjagd". This book was given to me by a friend and, well, it's a very good book do read during times of a lot of exams or while you're awake the whole night because you hurt your foot, because you thought it was a good idea to have a physical fight with a friend, because everyone needs to be in a fight once in their life, but you fail utterly, because you're a nerd. If either of this is true for you: read this book. Very easy to read, very predictable and a lot of sex. If you're not: don't. It's really not very well written and as I said very predictable. I don't know if I'm going to finish it. Maybe, maybe not. Oh, by the way, it's about vampires. And if you have to choose between Twilight and Black Dagger, I would definitely recommend Black Dagger. Maybe my lack of enthusiasm is also due to the fact that I'm very picky when it comes to Vampire-stuff. I love some of it and hate some of it.
Anyway, a third book I'm currently reading is the original version of the Fairytales by the brothers Grimm. As most people don't know, quite a bit was changed by Jacob Grimm after the first version was published, either because it seemed to make more sense that way or because it was less dirty. It's quite interesting to read the original, if you have the more common version in mind, but fairytale-porn is missing. But sometimes fathers marry their daughters. Or, to give an example of a fairytale that probably most of you know: The witch in "Rapunzel" finds out that she secretely seeing a guy, because she is pregnant. That doesn't happen in the version most people know. Also, the book has a hilariously stupid introduction by some psychoanalysis-guy, who tells the readers that they want to sleep with their mothers. Or that the people in the fairytales want to sleep with their mothers. Or maybe nothing of that sort. But it's hilarious. For that pleasure, however, you don't need to buy the book but can simply read the Wikipedia articles about various fairytales (e.g. Der Froschkönig) and check out the wacky interpretations of psychoanalysists.
On to the final book, which is the one that I'm reading the most. "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut. It's a classic and I'm all into that at the moment for some reason. Also it takes place in Dresden, where I study right now, and I know two people, who love Kurt Vonnegut, so I decided to give it a try. So far I do like it. His style of writing is very... hm... elegant, I would say. It's also pretty easy to read, which is nice, as I don't have that much brain capacity to spare at the moment. As I only just started to read it, however, I can't really say much about it and will thus quote the back of the book. "Slaughterhouse Five, an American classic, is one of world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most." and also "splendid art... a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears".

Books, books, lalalala books

The lovely Gisi gave me the idea. She actually stole it from somewhere else, but whatever. Stealing stuff is fun (please don't quote me on that)! Anyway, this is how it works:
All in all you write 31 blog posts about books.
1) The book(s) you're currently reading
2) The book that you want to read next
3) Your favorite book
4) The book you hate the most
5) A book that you can read over and over again
6) A book you can only read once
7) A book that reminds you of someone
8) A book that reminds you of a place
9) The first book that you ever read
10) One book of your favorite author
11) A book that you used to love, but that you hate now
12) A book someone recommended to you
13) A book that makes you laugh really hard
14) A book from your childhood
15) The 4th book from the left on your shelf
16) the 9th book from the right on your shelf
17) Close your eyes and take a random book from your shelf
18) The book with the prettiest cover you own
19) A book that you always wanted to read
20) The best book that you read in school
21) The worst book that you read at school
22) The book that has the most pages
23) The book that has the least pages
24) A book, that noone would have thought you read
25) A book with a main character that describes you pretty well
26) A book you would read to your kids
27) A book with a main character that is your idol
28) It's so good that this book was made into a movie!
29) Why the hell was this book made into a movie?
30) Why the hell wasn't this book into a movie?
31) The book you gave to other people as a present the most

I will post number one later today, after I finished my stupid university-stuff.

I've been tagged

I've been tagged by Golli to do something called "Bücherstöckchen". Here is how it works:
- you take the book which is closest to you
- you open it on page 123
- you look for the 5th sentence and post the next 3 sentences
- you tag 3 other people to do the same. I'm gonna leave that part out because I actually don't know a lot of people who blog.

Also, I'm not going to tell you which book it is. You can try to guess ;)

"Yes."
"Did he say anything?"
"No."

Haha, good luck with guessing!