And here you have the first instalment of Weltenwanderers and Schlunzenbüchers „Gemeinsam Lesen“ (Reading Together) for this year.
Each Tuesday one of them asks four questions, with the first three always being the same about the book one is currently reading and the fourth a new one by either of them. All questions below are obviously translated from today’s German post.
1. Which Book are you currently reading and which page are you on?
I actually started reading two books yesterday, but I will focus on a book by my favourite author that I haven’t read yet for BiblioSmiles’s Summer Book Challenge: The Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King. Which is the fifth part of the Dark Tower-saga.
I’m currently on page 57, which doesn’t even count as a proper start.
2. What is the first sentence on your current page?
Contrary to last weeks sentence is this one far too long (4 1/4 lines)…
Eddies Vorsatz, nicht von den Muffinkugeln zu essen, hielt nicht lange vor; sie rochen einfach zu verdammt gut, als sie in dem Klumpen Hirschfett schmorten, den Roland (diese sparsame, mörderische Seele) in seiner abgewetzten alten Umhängetasche aufbewahrt hatte.
or in English:
Eddies resolution to not eat the muffin-balls, didn’t hold long; they simply smelled too damn good as they fried in the lump of dear fat, that Roland (this canny, sanguinary soul) had kept in his worn shoulder bag.
3. What do you desperately need to tell about your current book? (Thoughts, Feelings, a Quote, whatever you want!)
I first started this book back when there were still two zeros in the year I think and I was about half way through, but at some point I just stopped. After taking the book along for many times it now looks battered, even though I barely read anything in it. I tried several times to get back into it and with the challenge I now finally have. But like I said back when I chose it, did I have the same problem I had with Kinder des Judas that I barely remembered a thing that happened.
Having started with the first few pages and the short summary of the previous books it slowly comes back to me. I think I remember that my reason for stopping was that it dragged on a bit too much in the middle part and I never got over it. So I’m trying anew and maybe I’ll feel motivated enough to read the other books as well to finally know what happens at the Dark Tower. Though I am slightly contemplating to re-read the first four books to remember the whole picture and I’m fairly certain that I some point I will, but maybe not this year.
Aside from that is this series interesting in its different aspects of normal life. The variations of the universes and the differences in speech and customs, to what we would consider normal. I have no idea what most of the stuff in this series is called in the original, but I do believe it is at least as creative as the German version.
I’m also slowly remembering more and more about the characters and which I preferred to which. It is also quite helpful that the characters themselves reflect on what has happened. Though I guess this would be annoying if I had (re-)read the other books beforehand.
4. We have now arrived in 2015 and hope you got well into it 🙂 Looking back at 2014 once again, which book or book series was your highlight and why?
I do believe my highlight of 2014 – both as book and series I suppose – was A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. It was just incredible and captivating and I’ll get into more details in my upcoming Book-Week.
The second place goes to The Hobbit (by J.R.R. Tolkien obviously) that I spontaneously borrowed from Anice and nearly finished that same weekend. I really enjoyed the writing style and the atmosphere (Here again: next week there will be a review).
An interesting third place is Ray Bradbury’s A Graveyard for Lunactics that I probably wouldn’t have picked up if it weren’t for BiblioSmiles challenge.
Some of the other books I read weren’t really satisfying (The Haunted Glass, Tiger, Tiger), others were better than expected (Doctor Who: The Wheel of Ice, Torchwood: Another Life), so all an all an interesting year in reading.
Additional thoughts
You can obviously participate in these questions by either using my translated or the original German version.
This post is a bit later than usual as I just got back from the cinema watching the Paddington Bear movie, that I can highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a good laugh. 😀
PoiSonPaiNter
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