Reading Wednesday - Holiday Edition

[grundyscribbling]

Ok, so there was a bunch of reading in Germany also, but I didn't think to write down all the titles.

I do know Myrrhe, Mord und Marzipan because I bought it (this was one of the many books contributing to the 'will she make the weight limit' question packing to come home last week.)

I didn't read much new in the past week - Night Watch and Hogfather, along with an Agatha Christie. (Don't remember which one, only that it was Hercule Poirot.)

I also just finished a re-read of the entire Anne of Green Gables series, all 8 books. (Don't ask why, I don't know, but I had the urge to read it, and it was strong enough that I hunted out the books in the attic after I discovered the editions on my Kindle are shockingly bad - not just occasional missing words, but whole missing passages.)

Comments

[ysilme]

Don't ask why, I don't know, but I had the urge to read it, and it was strong enough that I hunted out the books in the attic...
Heh, I know this urge well, particularly of a certain kind of favourite childhood/teen books... on Christmas Eve, I dug out the ancient copy of Erich Kästner's "Das Fliegende Klassenzimmer" I inherited from my father, one of my hurt/comfort comfort readings since childhood (along with a few other Erich Kästner volumes and Krabat by Otfried Preußler. Do you know any of these?) Unfortunately the copy is that old that the pages are about to disintegrate, so I treated myself to the ebook, and decided to get the whole Käsnter ebook edition, too, as I love to re-read most of them every few years.

I'm mostly unfamiliar with Anne of Green Gables, but got interested a few years ago, and downloaded it from gutenberg.org. I haven't started anything so I don't know if the editions are also faulty, but it might be worth checking out if you still care about their digital form.

[grundyscribbling]

I know Kästner, and while I haven't read "Das fliegende Klassenzimmer", I probably should - I'm sure it's in the 'complete Kästner' set I have on the shelf. I started to say I didn't know Preußler but then I looked him up and found he's the author of "Die kleine Hexe" and "Der Räuber Hotzenplotz", which I have not read but do know of. (My exchange year I was in the 11th, so my peers were already past those books; in class I got tossed into deeper waters with assigned texts like "Der Richter und sein Henker" and "Kleider machen Leute". I should probably re-read "Der Richter und sein Henker" now that I will actually understand it all - it came so early in the school year I was hopelessly mixed up.)

The Gutenberg copies of the Anne books are good editions as far as I can recall; silly of me to bother with the Kindle editions, really.

[ysilme]

I definitely can recommend "Das Fliegende Klassenzimmer"! How lovely you have the complete set. My other Kästner hurt/comfort comfort read is "Pünktchen und Anton". I didn't expect you to have read any of those in school, but thought you might have got interested in some of the children's classics in general. Preußler's children's books were deeply beloved staples of my childhood; his "Der kleine Wassermann" is also adorable book - and "Die kleine Hexe" was my heroine. "Krabat" is rather for teens and too dark for children, but it's a great read: a retelling of a sorbian saga, set in the Great Northern war in the early 18th century and within a group of miller apprentices, also involving a traditional kind of magic. Apart from the entertaining story it's also giving a great glimpse into the time and region, Lusatia in the east of today's Germany and Poland and among the simple folks, so also interesting from a historic point of view. Can't recommend it highly enough, it's one of my favourite books ever.
I know "Krabat" was also read in school in later generations, but personally I think it's not a good idea to read it in school as it being "Schullektüre" will put off a lot of students, while the others who like to read would discover it anyway, or follow a recommendation. (I once met somebody who was forced to read the "Hobbit" in school and hated everything fantasy for years afterwards. Considering some of my German teachers I'm not surprised... ;op ) I also don't fully remember what we read in the 11th. We definitely did Dürrenmatt, and, if I remember correctly, Candide by Voltaire (translated and in German lessons; I had French from the 7th but nobody was up to reading Voltaire at that level), but I can't remember the rest. I read a lot of classics by myself at that age so I don't fully remember what was for school and what not, or in what year. I generally loved the books read for school, but we had one obnoxious German teacher who really took the enjoyment out of anything we read for her class which caused a difficult relationship with Fontane and Kafka for me until today.

Thanks for the info about the gutenberg version of Anne of Green Gables! I have Kindle versions of a few books even though I also have the gutenberg or otherwise free versions; mostly for the comfort of being able to download it at any time, or because the edition worked better. It figures that it might be the other way 'round at times, too! It's a shame, though, if you have a paid edition that's faulty. If you have the energy open a ticket with the customer support, they might refund it to you. I had that twice already; once the content was a whole different book, and the other time it was also missing parts or something - I don't fully remember. I reclaimed both quite a while after I bought them - years in one case -, which did't matter.