I’m usually not a big fan of long books. But recently I found that all the books on my nightstand were over a thousand pages (although I managed to slip some short ones in, Matt Ruff’s Bad Monkeys and Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea, which I finished in no time). It started with Against the […]

We’ve had a couple of warm sunny days here, finally. Time to try out the terrace and I’m pleased to announce that after the first test run yesterday the terrace proved to be quite awesome. After a long dry run of being stuck with Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union I finished that yesterday and the […]

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men

Everyone laughed, but in her heart was a little bird flutter of dread. Michael Chabon – The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

So, if you want to read like one book this year, trust me and make it The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. I’ve been ranting about The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and I could have been ranting about how I still don’t really get Anna Gavalda’s books (although Ensemble, C’est Tout was an […]

Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone. Cormac McCarthy – The Road

Because it’s a) hilarious and 2. should serve to remind me of something else (yeah, enough with the cryptic already…). The limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I’ve seen So seldom are clean And the clean ones so seldom are comical No idea who wrote this or […]

I usually don’t rant about books. If I didn’t like it, I put it away and mark it off as experience. The thing is that when you read as much as I do you’re bound to have a few bad seeds in the mix and I rarely even have some. I guess that’s a) because […]

I really shouldn’t read the Powell’s Books newsletter. It just makes my wishlist even longer. I’m usually not even a big fan of newsletters. Most of the time I delete my Amazon newsletters without even having a glance at what might be in there. But the Powell’s newsletter kind of just has exactly the stuff […]

I mean, at least I updated my reading list and am proud to announce that I can make my 52 books this year without any problems. I’m already at 48, although I admit there were some comic books in between and I usually finish these within a day, so it’s like half-cheating or something. On […]