The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger
Vintage, 2005
ISBN: 0099464462

When Henry is twenty-eight he meets Clare. Except, she already knows him because he is a CDP, a Chrono-Displaced Person, whose genetic clock periodically resets and he ends up at some other time and place. Clare first met him when she was six and he was thirty-six. So, when she meets him in 1991, he does not know her but falls in love with her as she did with him many years ago. They get married two years later and try to life a normal life, with is not too easy because Henry leaves every now and then and disappears for some time before returning from a Clare at some other time and place to the Clare today.

It is an intriguing book because even though it does not seem possible, it sounds so credible that it is almost real and makes you wonder if it is not possible after all that somewhere in the universe CDPs exist. But it is in no way only fantasy because in its essence it is a wonderful love story about two people who meet and love each other, just under not so normal circumstances. An elegy to love and loss.

Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and a professor at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. She teaches writing, letterpress printing and fine edition book production. This was her first novel.

This book is available at Amazon in Germanand   English.

Tags: English, novel

Finding Myself

Toby Litt
Penguin Books, 2004
ISBN: 0141006544

Victoria About is a bestselling novelist. For her new novel, she wants to do something completely different that will rock the world: She rents a house by the sea and invites eleven of her friends to stay there with her for one month. What the others don’t know is that there will also be hidden cameras and microphones involved. Victoria hopes for games, chats, affairs and lots of material for her new novel. Of course, things don’t turn out the way she had planned it because people behave like people and not like characters in a novel. Worst of all, they discover the cameras. So now she has to deal with guest who do not trust her at all, who do what they want – even more so than before. How can she talk and write herself out of it, fix up the friendships and relationships that got seriously damaged?

Now, it is a rather interesting book. But. Never in my career as a reader have I had such a problem with the author not being of the same sex as the person telling the story. There were so many times when I thought ‘That’s more what a man thinks a woman would say or do.’ I found that quite sad because otherwise the novel is quite entertaining, above all because it contains all the notes of her editor. Sentences and paragraphs crossed out, comments, etc.

So, would I recommend it? Difficult to say. I would recommend it to people who want an easy holiday book to have a laugh. I would not recommend it to anyone who does not really have time to read. There many other books in this blog that I would rather have them read. Like the Albom books.

Available at Amazon in English.

Tags: English, novel, humor

Die Entdeckung des Himmels

Harry Mulisch
Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995
ISBN: 3499134764

Den Haag, 2001 - ein neuer Film in den Kinos mit dem Namen "De Ontdekking van de hemel" - Die Entdeckung des Himmels. Ich war total begeistert von dieser schrägen, aber liebevoll erzählten Geschichte: Gott ist von den Menschen enttäuscht und möchte die beiden Gesetzestafeln mit den zehn Geboten wiederhaben. Er gibt also einem Oberengel den Auftrag, einen Menschen dazu zu bringen, sie wieder in den Himmel zu bringen. Dieser kann natürlich nicht einfach einen Menschen bestimmen und zu ihm sagen: "Du, mach mal!", sondern er muss ganz subtil den Weg der Dinge beeinflussen, um das gewünschte Resultat zu erreichen. Und so erstreckt sich die Geschichte über fast 100 Jahre. Wir befinden uns in den Niederlanden...

Max und Onno treffen sich "zufällig", werden beste Freunde und treffen irgendwann Ada. Beide werden (nacheinander) mit ihr zusammen sein und sie wird die Mutter von Quinten Quist, einem außergewöhnlichen Jungen, den die Engel auf den Weg zu den Gesetzestafeln schicken werden. Nein, es hat den Anschein, dass er sich selbst auf den Weg dorthin begibt, ohne wirklich selbst zu wissen, wonach er sucht.

"Toeval bestaat niet, alles gebeurt met een reden." Es gibt keinen Zufall, alles hat einen Grund. Und es ist gut, dass genau diese drei, Max, Onno und Ada ausgewählt wurden, die Eltern von Quinten Quist zu sein: Ein Astonom, der seine Blicke und Hände nicht von den Frauen lassen kann, ein leicht verrückter Sprachwissenschafter, der in der Politik Karriere macht und eine ruhige Musikerin, die von beiden fasziniert ist.

So macht Onno bei seiner Hochzeit das folgende Gedicht auf seine Braut:

"Siehe, wie bist du schön, meine Braut!
Deine Augen sind gleich der Sonne,
die aufgeht über den Anglern,
die morgenblaß mit ihrer Kiste Würmer aus der Stadt radeln.
Deine Stimme ist das Gezirp der ersten Vögel in der Dachrinne.
Dein Haar glänzt wie das Öl, das im gewaschenen Licht des Morgens
überall dort auftaucht, wo Autos geparkt haben.
Deine Zähne sind wie die Milch,
die die Schulkinder in der großen Pause schlürfen,
deine Lippen wie die scharlachrote Blutlache
der am Mittag überfahrenen Dame.
Du bist über und über schön, meine Braut!..."

Eine liebevoll geschriebene Geschichte, ein bisschen verrückt, auf jeden Fall lesenswert!

Erhältlich bei Amazon.

Der Film "De ontdekking van de Hemel" in der IMDB und bei Amazon als DVD.

Tag: Roman

Das Kartengeheimnis

Jostein Gaarder
Dtv, 1998
ISBN: 3423125004

Der 12-jährige Hans-Thomas (gibt es in Norwegen wirklich solche Namen?) fährt mit seinem Vater nach Athen, um seine Mutter zu suchen. Auf dem Weg dorthin bekommt HT ein winziges Büchlein geschenkt, das eine wundersame Geschichte erzählt. Diese Geschichte ist wirklich phantastisch, aber meiner Meinung nach nicht so philosophisch wie vom Buchumschlag angepriesen. Eine nette Geschichte. Wer aber einen wirklich guten Einstieg in die Philosophie sucht, der kommt an Sophies Welt nicht vorbei und sollte es auch gar nicht erst versuchen. Mehr Lust auf so ein doch recht schwieriges Buch kann man durch keine andere Lektüre bekommen.

Nun, auch das Kartengeheimnis hat natürlich seine guten Gedanken...
So ist es mit allem, dachte ich, so ist es mit der ganzen Welt. Solange wir Kinder sind, haben wir noch die Fähigkeit, die Welt um uns herum zu erleben. Doch dann wird uns die ganze Welt zur Gewohnheit. Kind zu sein und aufzuwachsen, dachte ich, ist wie sich an Empfindungen, an Sinneserlebnissen zu betrinken.
Nur schade, dass man das erst viel später bemerkt (wenn überhaupt). Meine Eltern sagen ja auch immer "Jugend ist wie Trunkenheit ohne Wein." (Naja, seit ich nicht mehr zur Gruppe der Jugendlichen zähle, sagen sie das irgendwie nicht mehr. Komisch das.)

Jostein Gaarder, geboren 1952, lehrte elf Jahre lang Philosophie an einem Gymnasium in Bergen, Norwegen. (Ich wünschte, ich hätte am Gymnasium Philosophie gehabt!) Mittlerweile lebt er als freier Schriftsteller in Oslo.

Erhältlich bei Amazon.

Tag: Roman

The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios

Yann Martel
The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
Canongate Books, 2004
ISBN: 1841955361

Four stories form Martel's early years of writing:
. The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
. The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton
. Manners of Dying
. The Vita Æterna Mirror Company: Mirrors to Last till Kingdom Come

If you've read a very inventive story by one author and then you decide to read another one of his books, does that mean you are prepared for what is to come? Not necessarily. I found these four stories to be just as imaginative as I had thought, well, maybe a little more. I mean, if you look at the titles of the stories alone, they are wonderous. And so are the stories. I did not enjoy Manners of Dying as much as I enjoyed the other ones. Martel gives his stories a twist that you just don't expect but that makes total sense.

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963, of Canadian parents, and currently lives in Montreal. He is the author of Life of Pi and Self.

This book is available at Amazon in English and German.

Tags: English, stories, fantasy

Life of Pi

Yann Martel
Canongate Books, 2003
ISBN: 184195425X

So I have been wanting to write an entry about this book since I started this blog. Today I ready some bits and pieces of it again and I suddenly knew again why I had wanted to write something about it. But indeed, it is difficult to find a point where to start, so let me begin with the story:

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan ... and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

As incredible as this description might sound, it does not prepare you in any way for what is to come. It starts off nicely with Pi's childhood in India, leading all the way up to that trip with his family on the cargo ship. And then there comes the tale of the time he spends on the boat. Ultimately it is a story about believing. Believing in yourself, in God, in the world and in your own tale.

I liked this review from the Financial Times:
"Absurd, macabre, unreliable and sad, deeply sensual in its evoking of smells and sights, the whole trip and the narrator's insanely curious voice suggests Joseph Conrad and Salman Rushdie hallucinating together over the meaning of The Old Man and the Sea and Gulliver's Travels."

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963, of Canadian parents, and currently lives in Montreal. He is the author of The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and Self.

Available at Amaazon in English and Deutsch

Tags: English, novel, fantasy

If You Could See Me Now

Cecelia Ahern
If you could see me now
HarperCollins, 2005
ISBN: 0007212259

To Sandra, Enjoy the Read! Cecelia Ahern. When she wrote that (yesterday) I told her I would. And indeed I did. If you could see me now is so different from her other two books and yet it has the same warmth and compassion as the other two. It just draws you in.

It's the story of a woman who never had the chance to really do what SHE wanted to. When her mother leaves the family, she is left with raising her little sister. When she leaves her family to study, her father does not forgive her. And then she has to come home because her sister refuses to take care of her little son. So Elizabeth ends up raising her little nephew Luke. All her dreams of leaving this suffocating village, living in NY with her boyfriend and working in a job she enjoys, are shattered. So she becomes this really tidy, uptight person who never allows herself to laugh, or who simply forgot what that is.

But then, Ivan Elbisivni from Ekam Eveileb enters their life. He is everything Elizabeth is not: carefree, spontaneous, adventurous and funny. With his help, Elizabeth dicovers something that had been missing from her life for so long: fun, love and enjoying yourself. But their relationship also gives Ivan something that he had never experienced before. That someone sees him like he is. Looks him straight in the eyes. Loves him. That is something new for Ivan, who is, after all, an ivisible friend.

..."Bonjour, Madame," Ivan spoke.
Elizabeth looked up to see both Ivan and Luke entering the conservatory from the garden. Both had a magnifying glass held up to their right eye, the effect causing their eyes to appear gigantic. Across their upper lip a mustache had been drawn in black marker. She couldn't help but laugh. [...]
"Forgive us for just barging into your 'ome. Allow us to introduce ourselves. I am Mister Monsiour and zis iz my foolish sidekick, Monsieur Rotalsnart."
Luke giggled. "It's backwards for translator."
"Oh." Elizabeth nodded. "Well, it's very nice to meet you both but I'm afraid I'm very busy here, so if you don't mind..." She widened her eyes at Ivan. [...]
"Do you think she did it?" Luke asked.
"We shall see. Madame, a worm was found squished to death earlier today on the path leading from your conservatory to the clothesline. His devastated family tell us he left home when the rain had stopped in order to cross the path to the other side of the garden. His reasons for wanting to go there are not known, but it's what worms do..."

Cecelia Ahern, born in 1981, is the daughter of Ireland's prime minister Bertie Ahern. (Now, who wins the Google Fight?) Before starting her carreer as an author, she completed her degree in journalism and media communications. She is the author of PS, I love you and Rosie Dunne.

Available at Amazon in English and Deutsch.

English, novel, humor

Tuesdays with Morrie

An old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson
Mitch Albom
Doubleday, 1999
ISBN: 0385496494

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. [...] [Mitch Albom] rediscovered [his mentor] Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuestday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live."

In every one of Albom's words that he uses to describe these last months you can feel just how much this teacher has given him, how much this teacher meant to him.
The phrase 'A true story!' just sound so wrong, so catchy, but there was a constant feeling that this story was true. It was not only true, is told in such a true, sincere and honest way that you feel like you are there with them. Going through the process of realizing death, of saying good-bye and thank you. Both, teacher and student, knew how much they meant to each other. Do the people that influenced you, that mentored you, know?

There is also a movie with Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria, which was the last film Jack Lemmon made before his death in June 2001. Has anyone seen it? Does anyone have it? Is it good?

Mitch Albom has been voted America's No. 1 sports columnist ten times by the Associated Press Sports Editors. He hosts a daily radio show on WJR in Detroit and appears on ESPN regularly. Albom, a former professional musician, lives in Michigan.

The book is available at Amazon in English and Deutsch.

Tags: English, novel, Sachbuch

the five people you meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom
Time Warner Paperbacks, 2004
ISBN: 0751536148

... Everyone has an idea of heaven, as do most religions, and they should be respected. The version represented here is only a gues, a wish, in some ways, that my uncle, and others like him - people who felt unimportant here on earth - realize, finally, how much they mattered and how they were loved.

Eddie, a lonely war veteran, dies on this eighty-third birthday in a tragic accident at the amusement park where he has been working all his life. He dies while trying to save the life of a little girl and as he dies he feels two little hands in his. When he wakes he feels different, is in a different place but still does not know whether he could save the little girl. He then meets five people who explain his life to him, explain why things went a certain way and slowly he realizes many things that have been hidden from his understanding all these years. And slowly things start making sense, things come together, everything falls into place, while he is still waiting to get to that peaceful place he has heaven imagined to be. Where we would meet the people who left before him, who he'd missed for so long...

Many times we are not aware of how our actions influence other people's lifes. Only if they do tell us we will realize. But that hardly ever happens because we also don't tell people how they have influcened us. Sometimes because we might not realize, somtimes because we think it would not matter to them anyway. That is why we need to wait so long until someone explains things to us and things become clear. It is a truely moving book but one that is delightful and inspiring, one that does not let you get depressed about the past, because in the instant everything becomes clear, the worries of the past disappear. The enlightenment is more important then the suffering.

Mitch Albom has been voted America's No. 1 sports columnist ten times by the Associated Press Sports Editors. He hosts a daily radio show on WJR in Detroit and appears on ESPN regularly. Albom, a former professional musician, lives in Michigan.

Available at Amazon in English and Deutsch.

Tags: English, novel

Gebrauchsanweisung für Tschechien und Prag

Jiří Gruša
Piper, 2003
ISBN: 3492275265

Jiří Gruša nimmt den Čechnforšr bei der Hand und mit auf eine Reise durch die Geschichte seines Landes. Zeigt diese oder jene Geschichte, erklärt Zusammenhänge, Personen, Eigenheiten.

Er spricht über die Sprache, die eng verbunden ist mit der Jetztbezogenkeit der Čechn und sagt dazu:
Grammatikalisch manifestiert sich diese Jetztbezogenheit in den tschechischen Zeitformen. Unsereiner kommt mit einer einfachen Vergangenheit aus, und seine Zukunft hat ebfalls nur eine einzige Dimension. Zwischen einem War und einem Wird liegt aber eine schier unendlich gegliederte Ist-Landschaft. Die so genannten verbalen Aspekte. Der Čet will alles wissen. Ob ein Ereignis partiell oder im Ganzen geschieht, ob wiederholbar oder einmalig, ob aussichtsreic oder aussichtslos, ob in einem totalen Jetzt abzuwickeln oder ausdehnbar. Und er will es sofort wissen, während des Sprechens, in einem einzigen Verb. Kann er sich austoben, so tut er das in einem Lindwurmwort ungeahnter Präzision. "Da haben wir uns ausgetobt", klingt čechiš: To jsme se nadovyváděli. Und meint: "Wir haben stückweise und wiederholt getobt, bis wir letztendlich fröhlich aufgehört haben zu toben." Spühren Sie die Üppigkeit, die Kompaktheit dieses Tobens?

Nun, es ist genau dieses Toben, das uns Tschechischlernern so viele Probleme bereitet. Aber wir kämpfen. Wir kämpfen für die Lindwurmwörter, auf dass wir sie eines Tages beherrschen mögen. Bis dahin kann dieses Buch uns unterhalten und uns zeigen, was uns wir alles Neues erwartet, wenn wir durch die Sprache in diese Kultur eintauchen.

Erhältlich bei Amazon.

Tags: Sachbuch, Humor

PS, I love you

Cecelia Ahern
PS, I love you
HarperCollins, 2004
ISBN: 0007165005

Can someone write a story about how to survive the death of your soul mate in such a way that it makes the reader laugh and actually see that 'with a little help from your friends' there is a way out of this most dreadful personal disaster? Someone can. Because in PS, I love you Cecelia Ahern does just that.

When her husband Gerry dies just shortly before her 30th birthday, it seems like Holly will never get back on the track of what we call 'a normal life'. But then she finds a letter addressed to her - one that Gerry sent her. In it, there are several notes, one for each month of the rest of the year. Each one with a task she has to fulfil. What seems really strange, after all, it is like getting letters from the grave, actually is something that sort of takes her by the hand and leads her through the next horrible months. It helps her in a way that not even her friends and family can help her.

It is a great read, sad and funny at the same time, with a love for life, an ode to soul mates, friends and family. And, on top of that all, a debut novel. Wonderful.

Cecelia Ahern, born in 1981, is the daughter of Ireland's prime minister Bertie Ahern. (Now, who wins the Google Fight? Before starting her carreer as an author, she completed her degree in journalism and media communications. She is the author of If you could see me now and Rosie Dunne.

Available at Amazon in English and German

Tags: English, novel

Sakrileg

EN: The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown
Gustav Lübbe Verlag, 2004
ISBN: 3785721528

Eine entstellte Leiche im Louvre...
Rätselhafte Zeichen in den Werken Leonardo da Vincis...
Eine mächtige Geheimgesellschaft...
Ein Mythos, der die Grundfesten der Kirche erschüttert...
Der Roman über die grüßte Verschwörung der letzten 2000 Jahre.

Normalerweise schrecken mich solche Ankündigungen eher ab. Aber ich wusste, dass ich mich nach dem letzten Buch, das ich gelesen hatte, nur sehr schwer auf ein anderes Buch einlassen könnte. Und so war ich froh, aus beruflichen Gründen das Sakrileg lesen zu können/müssen/dürfen. (Ich brauchte Informationen über den Heiligen Gral und die Merowinger und all diese Sachen und hatte keine Ahnung, wo ich nach der Wikipedia weitermachen sollte.)

Meine Skepsis legte sich aber, nachdem ich mit Lesen angefangen hatte, da es ein spannendes Buch ist. Ich werde mir wahrscheinlich auch den Film ansehen, der im Mai weltweit startet. Das Buch ist auf jeden Fall keine Zeitverschwendung, aber auch nichts nachhaltig Beeindruckendes. Buchdeckel zu - fertig.

Ich muss allerdings dem Übersetzer Piet van Poll an dieser Stelle noch danken. Zum ersten Mal, seit ich festgestellt habe, dass weder mein Mann noch seine Familie den Ausdruck "Ich hätte nicht übel Lust, ..." kennen, habe ich diesen Ausdruck schwarz auf weiß gesehen. Danke! Hätte ich das Buch - engegen meiner berufsbedingten Abneigung gegen Übersetzungen - nicht auf Deutsch gelesen, hätte ich diesen wunderbaren Ausdruck gar nicht entdeckt. Gibt es eigentlich noch jemanden, der diesen Ausdruck nicht kennt? Würde mich mal interessieren.

Tags: Roman, Fantasy

The Lord of the Rings

John R. R. Tolkien
HarperCollins, 1995
ISBN: 0261103253

I know, I know, I know - Why have I not read this before, you ask. All I can say is: I've read it now. And I won't be able to read any book in a while because nothing can be just as good. Those were three intensive weeks, I can tell you. I had read The Hobbit a few years ago but that had not prepared me for what I was up to now, reading the 'real' tale. So when I was finished I did not want it to be over so soon (1008 pages is not really much if the story is so magnificent) so I also read the annexes and parts of The Silmarillion in order to understand some of the things that happen better. I really don't know why it took me so long to sit down with the book, as I've had three wonderful weeks with it. As soon as I sat down with it I felt so much drawn in the story that I was reluctant to get out of it again...

Indeed, I could not agree more with what the Sunday Times said: "The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and those who are going to read them."

I can totally understand how some say that they don't like the book. It is because they have started reading it in German. It makes such a difference in what language you read it as the greatest marvel for my lies in its language. Plunge into the language and the story will sparkle in many more colours then if you stay on the surface.

Available at Amazon in English and Deutsch (But mark my words: if you can - read it in English. It may be hard in the beginning but soon the fogs will rise and you will understand it...)

Tags: English, Fantasy

Buntschatten und Fledermäuse

Leben in einer anderen Welt
Axel Brauns
Hoffmann und Campe, 2002
ISBN: 3455093531

Im Gegensatz zu the curious incident of the dog in the night-time wurde dieses Buch wirklich von einem Autisten geschrieben.

Das Leben im Autismus ist eine miserable Vorbereitung für das Leben in einer Welt ohne Autismus. Die Höflichkeit hat viele Näpfchen aufgestellt, in die man treten kann. Autisten sind Meister darin, keines auszulassen.

Trotzdem schafft es Brauns aufs Gymnasium, er schafft das Abitur als Dritter seines Jahrgangs und geht später zur Uni. Und das alles, ohne dass jemals jemand merkt, dass er Autist ist. Brauns ist normal genug, um nicht aufzufallen und zu auffallend, um als normal zu gelten. Aber Sonderlinge gibt es genug und nach einer Weile lernt er, dass er nicht alles, was er nicht versteht, erfragen darf, denn erst das ist auffällig. Viel besser ist es, seine Mitmenschen zu kopieren und ihre Erwartungen zu erfüllen.

Durch die intensive Beschäftigung mit Sprache schafft es Brauns, sich etwas zu erschließen, was ihm als Kind große Schwierigkeiten bereitet hat: das Schreiben. Inzwischen hat er seinen zweiten Roman veröffentlich und lebt als Schriftsteller in Hamburg. Das merkt man natürlich auch an der Art, wie er schreibt, denn er klingt überhaupt nicht wie ein Autist, sondern sehr ab:geklärt. Er mag sich vielleicht nicht alles erklären können, was die anderen um ihn herum tun, sagen oder denken. Aber seine Art zu schreiben, bringt ihn uns sehr nahe und seine Probleme, mit Sprache umzugehen, kann man sich gar nicht mehr vorstellen.

Erhältlich bei Amazon.

Tag: Roman

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Mark Haddon
Vintage Contemporaries, 2003
ISBN: 1400077834

The story of a 15-year-old autistic boy, Christopher John Francis Boone, told by himself. Suddenly it just makes so much sense the way they see the world. Like:

And Siobhan says people go on holidays to see new things and relax, but it wouldn't make me relaxed and you can see new things by looking at earth under a microscope or drawing the shape of the solid made when 3 circular rods of equal thickness intersect at the right angles. And I thing that there are so many things just in one house that it would take years to thing about all of them properly. And also, a thing is interesting because of thinking about it and not because of being new.

Now, who of us hasn't had that thought yet. When I show people around in my city or they tell me of things they have seen in my city, I suddenly see so many new things in it that I have never seen before. And I guess that is the way it should be. Maybe it would be good to look at our own lives with a stranger's eyes and see it all new. That gives it a whole new meaning. Not that we need that all the time. But every once in a while is probably not bad...

Available at Amazon in English and Deutsch

Tags: English, humor, novel, Von Katrin

Rosie Dunne

Rosie Dunne
AKA Where Rainbows End
AKA Love, Rosie
Cecelia Ahern
Hyperion New York, 2005
ISBN: 0-7868-9089-4

Now, this book gets the BBEA - the Best Book Ever Award! - for now. I read this book in two days and it has 486 pages! I even did not mind waking up in the middle of the night coughing, because I just got up, made some tea and read for an hour before going back to bed.

But what is it about? Two people who are made for each other, don't notice it, stay in touch, see each other get married and have children, know that the other one means a lot to them but don't want to tell them because they are married and have children... Now, that is all it is about, well, and all the things that happen in their lives.

But what's so special about it? The book begins with notes they write each other when they are seven, it continues with mails when they are separated by a great big ocean, with instant messages and letters. Now, having spent a year on the other side of the ocean as well, and having friends living far away, I have written countless letters and e-mails myself. Reading them now, reminds me of a lot of things that I would otherwise have forgotten. So there I can totally follow that way of writing.

One last warning from the cover which I found out to be totally true: Addictively page-turning, Rosie Dunne will keep readers laughing and guessing until the last page. Gifted bestselling author Cecilia Ahern has written a charming and romantic novel that readers everywhere will find impossible to put down.

Cecelia Ahern, born in 1981, is the daughter of Ireland's prime minister Bertie Ahern. (Now, who wins the Google Fight?) Before starting her carreer as an author, she completed her degree in journalism and media communications. She is the author of PS, I love you and If you could see me now.

Available at Amazon in English and German.

Tags: English, humor, novel

Guerrilla Radio

Rock'n'Roll Radio and Serbia's Underground Resistance
Matthew Collin
Last Gasp, 2002
ISBN: 1560254041

Rock'n'Roll Radio and Serbia's Underground Resistance: Armed only with a stack of old punk records and a dream of freedom, one defiant Belgrade radio station waged a ten year war against Slobodan Miloševič's dictatorship - and won

For most Europeans, the war in Serbia was just a bit of news on TV. Very few of us are probably aware of the fact that the struggle for freedom actually lasted ten years - as they went by unnoticed by the west. What we might have noticed was 24 September 1999. That day, NATO started bombing Serbia in a last attempt to stop Miloševič from attacking Kosovo. But the countless demonstrations against Miloševič were not seen on TV. Nor was the struggle of Radio B92 or of the activist group Otpor ('Resistance'). This book tells the story of Radio B92. But also the story of people who stayed in their country to fight for it without weapons and those who left it because it did not leave them air to breath. How would I have decided if I had been in their position? I don't know and I am glad I never had to take this decision.

But B92 was also about fun, punk and not being conformist. But how can you be all that if people in your country rely on you for true information they don't get anywhere else. Tough question....

Amidst the serious programming were plenty of silly stunts [...]. But there was also a lot of hard-edged, bitterly dark humour. This was the period when Miloševič's mass rallies of nationalist Serbs all across Yugoslavia were reaching boiling point. A demonstration was organized in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia - a city noted for its lack of Serb inhabitants. A B92 presenter began randomly calling numbers in Ljubljana, introducing himself as "Voja, your old friend from the army", and asking whether he could come and stay at their house that Saturday and bring twelve Serb friends with him. The recipients of the call, naturally, were horrified at the prospect of a dozen redneck nationalists descending upon them - but their reactions exposed what the rest of Yugoslavia thought of Serbia's populist frenzy.

Matthew Collin is a journalist from Great Britain who mainly writes about popular culture, music, travel technology and the politics of social justice.

Available at Amazon in English.

Tag: Von Katrin, Sachbuch, English

Cooking with Fernet Branca

James Hamilton-Paterson
Faber and Faber Ltd, 2005
ISBN: 0571227066

"Cooking with Fernet Branca" is a gleefully tasteless bad dream of modern Italy, told through the eyes of Gerald Samper - effete Englishman, culinary adventurer, and ghostwriter to the stars.

Trying to keep his neighbour away from him, Gerald Samper makes her some nice ice cream for a welcome dinner at her house:

Garlic and Fernet Branca Ice Cream
15 large cloves of garlic
150 mg granulated sugar
4 tablespoons cold double cream
1/4 pint Fernet Branca

Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, this is the least strange in a series of recipes. But don't worry, this is not a cook book but rather a highly entertaining tale of two people from different countries living in a third country... Do I need to say more?

James Hamilton-Peterson is a highly acclaimed author of non-fiction books. He actually got teh idea for this book when he moved to Italy himself. In contrast to Gerald Samper, he moved as far away from his next neighbour as possible...

Available at Amazon in English and Deutsch

Tags: English, humor, novel

Deutsch und anders

Dieter E. Zimmer
Deutsch und anders – die Sprache im Modernisierungsfieber
Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg, 1997
ISBN 3 499 60525 2

Steht Deutsch auf der Liste bedrohter Idiome? Ja, es sieht so aus, sagt Dieter E. Zimmer, der Literaturkritiker, Übersetzer, Herausgeber, Buchautor und Wissenschaftsreporter der ZEIT. In diesem Buch breitet er das von ihm in Jahren gesammelte Material aus – und man liest es höchst amüsiert, fühlt sich aber ständig auch blamiert, weil man selber dauernd Pidginbrocken in den Mund nimmt. Zimmers Befund: „Niemand kann sagen, ob der Punkt, an dem es für einige europäische Sprachen keine Rettung mehr gibt, bereits erreicht ist und wann er erreicht ist. Niemand kann aber auch sagen, er sei noch nicht erreicht; erst recht nicht, er werde nie erreicht.“
Ein weltoffenes Buch über die Sprache, diesen bereits angefaulten Kern unserer Identität, geschrieben in einem Deutsch, das immer noch so überzeugend schön klingt wie bei Lessing, Heine oder Nietzsche.

Bei Amazon erhältlich

Tag: Sachbuch

RedensArten

Dieter E. Zimmer
RedensArten – Über Trends und Tollheiten im neudeutschen Sprachgebrauch
Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, München, 1996
ISBN 3 453 09581 2

Dieter E. Zimmer unterzieht unseren modernen Sprachgebrauch einer ebenso fundierten wie witzigen Kritik
Vom Beamtendeutsch zum pseudowissenschaftlichen Jargon, von der nonkonformistischen Jugendsprache über die aufgeblasene Sprache des Kulturbetriebs bis zum unverständlichen Politikerdeutsch spürt er jedem sprachlichen Modetrend unbestechlich nach.
RedensArten ist eine Absage an Schwulst und Schmus und zugleich ein amüsantes Plädoyer für einen bewussten und wirklichkeitsgetreuen Sprachgebrauch.

Hier ein Auszug aus dem Kapitel Wettbewerb der Übersetzer – Die einstweilige Unentbehrlichkeit des Humantranslators. Schon allein dieses Satzes wegen ist das Buch unbedingt empfehlenswert für alle, die mit Sprache und mit dem Übertragen von Sprachen zu tun haben:

Der [Literatur-]Übersetzer kann Schlimmeres machen als Fehler. Eine fehlerlose Übersetzung gibt es nicht, und wer sich seiner Sache zu sicher ist, der ist von vornherein verloren. Der gute Übersetzer ist ein Mensch, der es fertig bringt, auch die gebräuchlichsten Wörter noch einmal im Wörterbuch nachzuschlagen, und der sein Verständnis wie seine Einfälle ständig in Zweifel zieht.

Tag: Sachbuch