Schizophrenia86's first 75 book challenge (:

Hello fellow book challengers (: I'll join the challenge for the first time after I missed the start all the years ago and didn't want to start over in the middle of the year (:

I will only count books I read for fun only, and at the moment I'm in the mood to read a lot of fantasy. I just read a couple of fantasy books last year, and at the moment my plan for 2012 is to catch up with all the great fantasy sagas I missed until now. Let's see how this will evolve.

In general, I also like to read some Science-Fiction, Classics and a lot of non-fiction. But now:
On your (book)marks, get set, reaaaaad ;)

List of books I've read so far (:
January:
1. Markus Heitz - Die Legenden der Albae
2. Markus Heitz - Die Zwerge
3. Homer - Odyssee
4. Robert N. Charette - Never deal with a dragon
February:
5. Terry Pratchett - Helle Barden
6. Arnold van Gennep - Übergangsriten
March:
7. J.R.R. Tolkien - The Two Towers
8. Frank Miller - Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

First one for this year: Markus Heitz - Die Legenden der Albae
This one was a christmas present I've got from my girlfriend's parents. I had already heard a lot about Heitz, he is one of the "big shots" of german fantasy alongside Wolfgang Hohlbein or Bernhard Hennen and some of my friends really adore his works, but up to this year I never read one of his books. But as I've said, it's fantasy-time now ;)
The book is about two "Albae" (basically dark elves) warriors, Caphalor and Sinthoras, who prepare a campaign against the lands of the south for their immortal masters. They try to find a demon and to convince him to join the Albae's quest against the dwarves, elves and magicians, but their potential ally might also be a deadly threat for the land of the Albae itself...
I liked this one, well-told, straightforward fantasy with the bad guys as protagonists. Caphalor and Sinthoras are also among the main antagonists of Heitz' books about the dwarves, so I will continue my quest there before I'll read the second book of the Legends of the Albae.

Welcome to the group!

*waves!* Got you starred. :)

Thanks (: I'm looking forward to lively discussions here as well as in the other threads (:

Welcome! Is Heitz's work published in the US, I wonder?

Hello, and welcome. I'm not generally a fan of fantasy so Ill steer clear of your first read, glad you liked it though, and that there are more to come in the series for you :)

7: There are at least english translations of The Dwarves and The war of the dwarves, I don't know about the other books of the series. This books date from 2003/2004 - maybe it takes some time till the newer books get translated.

8: Thanks (:

My second book this year was again written by Markus Heitz: Die Zwerge (The dwarves). It's a rather traditional fantasy story, with elves sorcerers and, naturally, many, many dwarves in it. It's also rather conservative in terms of its narrative structure: "The dwarves" tells a from-zero-to-hero-story, with Tungdil, a dwarf raised amongst humans, getting to meet his people and finally lead a quest to safe all peoples from the evil powers of the dead lands. Yes, the quest-thing is rather common, too, and certainly he is accompanied by a bunch of different characters, he survives a couple of adventures with them and finally saves the day. Nothing new, but it's really well-told and has likeable characters.
I will read the next book of the series later this year, but for now book-money is running short, so I will rather go on with something different that may already sleep on one of the bookshelfs around me, waiting to be awakened.

Homer – Odyssee
Ok, I admit it. I cheated. A bit. I already started to read this book last year, on my very own Odyssee, in a bizarre metal ship pushed by the current to strange islands underground like Saint-Michel, Châtelet, Place Monge, Porte de Clignancourt…
I sometimes felt like Odysseus must have on his journey, marking the best parts in the process of reading, but I was unable to share quotes with friends or fellow students, because the book was a small german Reclam edition I brought with me from Germany; so the Odyssee was a very German experience for me. „Nenne mir, Muse, den Mann, den vielgewandten, der vielfach wurde verschlagen seit Trojas heilige Burg er zerstörte…“ Strange how our language shapes our lifes. Although strange, how our reading shapes how we think. Opening this book I can not avoid thinking of the deep connection between the ancient greek hero on the one side and Paris and its Metro on the other.

Now, long returned, I found that I just read up to Odysseus homecoming, and I finished the rest of the story. The problems of finally arriving at home again didn’t seem to move me back then in Paris.

I recently started playing the RPG Shadowrun with some friends and bought the novel Never deal with a dragon to get a better feeling for the game's setting (i.e. a future equally filled with technical gadgets and magical creatures). It tells the story of Sam Verner, a researcher for the Renraku Corporation, who, by a series of intrigues and unfortunate entanglements in the business of a dragon named Haesslich, is forced into the shadows and discovers his magical abilities. Despite some weak points I enjoyed it, though I doubt that it would be equally interesting for non-shadowrunners.

I finished this semester's last exam yesterday and now I can focus on the really important things in life again (:

I bought Men at arms yesterday, even though I promised myself to never, never, never again read Pratchett in german translation. The plan had only one flaw: I usually buy Pratchett books at train stations, when I've got nothing else to read and by this means I wind up with german editions. The book was still fun to read, but sometimes one had to read it like and archaeologist, searching for jokes Pratchett may have made which just aren't working properly in translation.

That Pratchett in German experience must be very frustrating - so much of his writing is about the verbal puns and playfulness, and it's hard to translate most of that!

You're right, I guess it's also a thankless job to translate Pratchett. I also hope I'll be able to enjoy his books in English without the constant use of a dictionary (;

Meanwhile, I read something completely different, Übergangsriten by Arnold van Gennep. Van Gennep’s book about the „Rites of Passage“ was written in 1909 and is today one of the classical works of anthropology/ethnology. His main merit is to point out the three-fold structure of rites of passage in societies all over the world, which always seem to contain a phase of separation from the former status, a phase of transition and a phase of reincorporation into the new status.. A thing that was rather unfamiliar for me as a historian was van Gennep's constantly jumping around from one time to another and from place to place all over the world. I although didn’t always understand which kind of source material he used. But all in all it was an interesting book.

Boy, that's a blast from the past - I read van Gennep while researching for my dissertation. I think I remember enjoying it, though...

I'm kind of busy reading for my studies at the moment, and I guess I might fail this challenge - but I won't give up yet. Just finished my first read for March, The Two Towers. I enjoyed my first approach to this book in English, having read the trilogy two times before in German translation.

I have a hard time rating this one. Miller’s dystopian „The Dark Knight Returns“ is widely considered a milestone in the history of the Graphic Novel, and it might be pretentious to disagree here as I'm not at all an expert in the field of comics.
In my opinion the story has some flaws. I just don't buy the behaviour of some of those spineless liberal politicians and do-gooder psychiatrists with whom Miller populates his story. It's okay for me that he apparently doesn't like certain approaches to reintegration of criminal individuals, but I'm sorry - no however liberal and half-hearted politician would anxiously assure a bunch of criminals that he's willing to negotiate hours after his predecessor in office was senselessly killed during an approach to negotiate with the imprisioned(!) leader of the criminals. I just don't buy that. And I don't buy other (equally small) parts of the story. Having said that, I like Miller's cynical, aging Dark Knight, and I think all in all it's a good but not groundbreaking graphic novel.