 A new year comes with a new reading challenge! Or better said: three of those. The one from Popsugar is hard this year, but I am confident I'll make it again ;). One of the others is to read all the titles present on my book skirt!
1. A book based on a fairytale Done: Michael Cunningham - The Snow Queen 2. A National Book Award winner Done: E. Annie Proulx - Close Range (She didn't win the NBA for this book, but I couldn't get my hands on The Shipping News, that's why I chose to read this instead) 3. A YA Bestseller Done: Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games (review) 4. A book you haven't read since high school Done: Jostein Gaarder - The Solitaire Mystery (review) 5. A book set in your home state Done: Suzanna Jansen - Het Pauperparadijs 6. A book translated to English Done: Bernhard Schlink - The Reader (review) 7. A romance set in the future Done: Suzanne Collins - Mockingjay 8. A book set in Europe Done: Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell To The Arms 9. A book that's under 150 pages Done: William Shakespeare - Macbeth 10. A New York Times bestseller Done: Harper Lee - Go Set A Watchman (review) 11. A book that's becoming a movie this year Done: Paula Hawkins - The Girl On The Train 12. A book recommended by someone you just met Done: Alan Bennett - The Uncommon Reader 13. A self-improvement book No. 14. A book you can finish in a day Done: William Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet 15. A book written by a celebrity Done: Julianne Moore - Freckleface Strawberry 16. A political memoir Done: Femke Halsema - Pluche 17. A book at least 100 years older than you Done: Lousia May Alcott - Little Women 18. A book that's more than 600 pages Done: Herman Melville - Moby Dick 19. A book from Oprah's Book Club Done: Cormac McCarthy - The Road (review) 20. A science-fiction novel Done: Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire 21. A book recommended by a family member Done: Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain 22. A graphic novel Done: Alfonso Zapico - James Joyce 23. A book that is published 2016 Done: Anna Romer - Beyond the Orchard 24. A book with a protagonist who has your occupation Done: A. F. Th. van der Heijden - De Ochtendgave 25. A book that takes place during Summer Done: F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby 26. A book and it's prequel Done: J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows 27. A murder mystery Done: Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None 28. A book written by a comedian Done: Horst Evers - Mein Leben als Suchmaschine 29. A dystopian novel Done: Aldous Huxley - Brave New World 30. A book with a blue cover Done: Joseph Heller - Catch-22 31. A book of poetry Done: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 50 Gedichte 32. The first book you see in a bookstore Done: DBC Pierre - Breakfast with the Borgias (review) 33. A classic from the 20th century Done: Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451 (review) 34. A book from the library Done: John Steinbeck - East of Eden (review) 35. An autobiography Done: Nelson Mandela - Long Walk To Freedom (abridged) 36. A book about a road trip Done: John Steinbeck - The Grapes Of Wrath (review) 37. A book about a culture you're unfamiliar with Roy Adkins - Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England 38. A satirical book Done: Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote 39. A book that takes place on an Island Done: H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau 40. A book that's guaranteed to bring you joy Done: Jonas Jonasson - Hitman Anders And The Meaning Of It All
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Here are all the 24 pictures of my Christmas Calendar! It features books I loved as well as bookstores I've visited. And last but not least, you can get a glimp of my own book case ;-) See the original postings on my Facebook page! Inspired by the Goodreads with a view hashtag on Twitter, I took a daily book picture during my travels through Italy and southern France. Enjoy!  I have been living in Germany for over three years now, and though I like my German life a lot, I do miss my home country. It may sound curious, but one of the things I miss is the foundation 'Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek' (CPNB, "Collective Promotion for the Dutch Book"). This foundation supports and promotes Dutch literature. One of their main activities is organizing the book week, which is annually held in March. During the book week there are lots of literary activities throughout the country, starting off with the book ball, which is attended by invited publishers and authors. During the ten day "week", everyone that buys Dutch books for an amount of 12,50€ or more receives a novella that was written by a well-known Dutch or Flamish author especially for the book week. The book week usually has a theme, and the novella should fit to this theme. The book week is supported by the Dutch railways, for everyone with a book week present can travel the train for free on the second Saturday of the week.
Besides the book week, the CPNB organizes a youth version of it in October, as well as 'de maand van het spannende boek'; a month in which crime novels are in the spotlight, and many other themed weeks. Since 2006, the CPNB organizes the annual event 'Nederland Leest' in November, which is sort of a book club for the whole country. Members of public libraries can get a special reprint of an existing Dutch book, and they are supposed to read and discuss it together. In order to get children to reading, the CPNB organizes the "Kinderjury". During one and a half month, children can rate Dutch books that have been published in the past year. The books can be bought or are available in public libraries. I remember filling out special vote cards that could be handed in at the library, but nowadays the kids can choose their favorites online. The book with the highest rating gets a price, and when a new edition of the book is printed, it's likely that the Kinderjury price is mentioned on the cover.  I read a lot of late 18th/19th century novels and it is striking how often women faint in those stories. It seems they can't hear a slightly upsetting message or - boom - flat they lay. Did Victorian women really swoon as often as literature want us to believe, or is it just a way of adding more drama to the story?
First thing to realize is that there are physical reasons for fainting. Women in that time wore tight corsets, which made it difficult to eat much - and undernourishment can cause dizzyness and eventually fainting. Second, it was impossible for women to take a deep breath as their organs where deformed by wearing a corset. There are moments where one really needs to take a deep breath - when overheated, or when seeing something disgusting, when hurt - and these women just couldn't. The fact that women always carried smelling salts with them indicates fainting was quite common. But it's not impossible that there were psychological motives as well. One important insight is that women do faint a lot more often in novels by male authors than in for example any novel of the Brontë sisters. It is likely that male authors portrayed women as weak creatures that would fall into a swoon easily, probably because a fragile woman was attractive to men. Novels written in the Romantic Period (1790-1860) were characterized by sentiment and strong emotions. Gothic romances were really popular in the female readership, and it thus is possible that women orientated to their fragile, obedient heroines and draw male attention to them. Whatever the real reasons may be, fact is that swoons add a lovely bit of drama to a situation. Warning for all book lovers who are already shocked by dog-ears... you'd better stop reading here. I have the bad habit of buying books and then disliking them. I've told myself a million times that I should FIRST read the book from the library and only buy it when I'm sure it's good, but I just can't help myself when in a book store. At book markets it's even worse (books for one euro! Honestly, who could withstand?!) It wouldn't be all that bad if I'd have infinite place to store my books, but my apartment's only got space for two book cases and both are full. So, whenever I buy a new book, a book (or two, depending on the size) needs to move out. Some titles are given away, some books have moved to the basement, others are just hanging out somewhere in the apartment. Today, I bought three books, and thus I found myself in yet another challenging situation. However, there are still a number of titles in my shelf that I will never read again, and so I could just as well get rid of them. But I cannot just throw away a book. I do make dog-ears, and I mark in my books, but throwing away goes too far even for me. Then I had the idea to have a nice do-it-yourself afternoon... using book pages! Here are some results: To keep an eye on the progress in this 2015 reading challenge (source: Pop Sugar), I keep a list here on my blog.
20 december 2015: finished! 1. a book with more than 500 pages Done: Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Shadow of the Wind 2. a classic romance Done: Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (read review) 3. a book that became a movie Done: Pascal Mercier - Night train to Lisbon (read review) 4. a book published this year Done: Andreas Gruber - Todesurteil 5. a book with a number in the title Done: Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities 6. a book written by someone under 30 Done: Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist 7. a book with nonhuman characters Done: Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit 8. a funny book Done: Jerome K. Jerome - Three Men In A Boat 9. a book by a female author Done: Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin 10. a mystery or thriller Done: Agatha Christie – Murders in the Orient Express 11. a book with a one-word title Done: William Beckford – Vathek 12. a book of short stories Done: E.T.A. Hoffmann – Nachtstücke 13. a book set in a different country Done: Charlie Lovett - The Bookman's Tale 14. a nonfiction book Done: Philipp Blom - Enlightening the World: The Triumph of Reason in a Unreasonable Age 15. a popular author's first book Done: Jane Austen – Sense and Sensibility 16. a book from your favorite author that you haven't read yet Done: Mark Twain – Life on the Mississippi 17. a book a friend recommended Done: Josephine Pennicott - Poet's Cottage (read review) 18. a Pulitzer-prize winning book Done: Alice Walker - The Color Purple 19. a book based on a true story Done: Solomon Northup - Twelve Years A Slave 20. a book at the bottom of your to read list Done: Noah Gordon – The Physician 21. a book your mom loves Done: David Lagercrantz - The Girl in The Spider's Web 22. a book that scares you Done: Stephen King - Revival 23. a book more than 100 years old Done: Louis Couperus - Van oude mensen, de dingen, die voorbijgaan... 24. a book based entirely on its cover Done: Carlos María Domínguez – The Paper House 25. a book you were supposed to read in school but didn't Done: Harry Mülisch – The Discovery of Heaven 26. a memoir Done: Anne Frank - The Diary of Anne Frank (read review) 27. a book you can finish in a day Done: John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men 28. a book with antonyms in the title Done: Arthur Japin - De zwarte met het witte hart (read review) 29. a book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit Done: Josephine Pennicott - Currawong Manor (read review) 30. a book that came out the year you were born Done: Ken Follett – Pillars of the Earth 31. a book with bad reviews Done: Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary 32. a trilogy (the first) Done: Stieg Larsson – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1) 33. a trilogy (the second) Done: Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium #2) 34. a trilogy (the third) Done: Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium #3) 35. a book from your childhood Done: A.A. Milne - Winnie-the-Pooh 36. a book with a love triangle Done: William Shakespeare - Othello 37. a book set in the future Done: Dmitri Glukhovski - Metro 2033 38. a book set in high school Done: Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower 39. a book with a color in the title Done: Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange 40. a book that made/makes you cry Done: Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (read review) 41. a book with magic Done: William Shakespeare - The Tempest 42. a graphic novel Done: Art Spiegelman – Maus (read review) 43. a book by an author you've never read before Done: Wilkie Collins - The Haunted Hotel 44. a book you own but have never read Done: Geert Mak - Amsterdam: A brief life of the city 45. a book that takes place in your hometown Done: Max Dendermonde – Kunstmin, liefde en dood in Dordrecht 46. a book that was originally written in another language Done: John Milton – Paradise Lost 47. a book set during Christmas (or similar holiday) Done: E.T.A. Hoffmann - Nutcracker and Mouse King 48. a book written by an author with your same initials Done: Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita 49. a play Done: Friedrich Schiller - Die Räuber 50. a banned book Done: Marquis de Sade - Justine 51. a book based on OR turned into a tv show Done: Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 52. a book you once started but never finished Done: Ildefonso Falcones – Cathedral of the Sea Every now and then, I take out my pencils and paper and start to draw something. So far I had only used lead pencils, but I never was satisfied with the result. The colors are pale, there's always too little choice in color, etc. etc. Painting is nothing for me, but then I found out about pastels. With pastels, you can mix colours, you can rub them for color transitions and the colors themselves are very intense. So I got me a box of pastels, as well as pastel pencils for details. I've been busy discovering how to work with them... you can see my first try outs below! (I am not very talented, but hey, it's the fun that counts anyway!).
In the weeks before Christmas, I published a literary advent calendar on my Facebook page. I took photos of my favorite books and tried to express the atmosphere of the book in the scenery of the photo. Now that it's over, you can see all of these pictures here in my blog. If you want to read more about the books and my opinion, check out the album on my Facebook page! One always hears about a writer's fear of the empty page. Probably that's a saying dating from the time writers were using pens or type writers. In these modern times we're living in, writers have to cope with an increase of the blank page: the cursor.
Nothing is as depressing as the blinking vertical line in a freshly opened document in my text editor. Even when I do not look at the screen, I can see it blinking – on, off, on, off, on, … - in either corner of my eyes, as if it is screaming for attention jovially: “Yoohoo, there’s an empty sheet here, time to fill it up…!” The weird thing is that it’s impossible to let the thing blink for a longer period of time. Then there are two solutions: either I would close the document, empty as it is - in that case I am disappointed and frustrated, and soon after I would hate my whole life and am likely to throw away any ambition of becoming a writer – or I just start hitting the keys, forming words, filling lines; so that at least this merciless cursor stops blinking and crosses the page, that slowly becomes less white. The second thing is basically what has just happened. |
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