MarthaJeanne's German 1010

Let's see if I can do a full 1010 challenge in German - as well as at least one in English. Statistics are in http://www.librarything.com/topic/79211#1667146

German 10 per category
..1 Fiction
..2 Children's books
..3 Theology and Religion
..4 Cookbooks
..5 Food and Gardens
..6 Austria
..7 Biography
..8 Other

German 8 per category
..1 Fiction
..2 Fiction about Austria
..3 Children's Books
..4 Theology and Religion
..5 Biography
..6 Cookbooks
..7 Other Food and Garden
..8 Austria
..9 Language and crafts
.10 Other
(Sommersee moved from Children's books to Fiction about Austria. Handwerker herrlichkeit moved from books about Austria to Crafts.)

http://www.librarything.com/topic/79212#2361092
Fiction 9
Fiction about Austria 7
Kinderbuecher 10

http://www.librarything.com/topic/79212#2361094
Cookbooks 10
Other Food 6
Garden 4

http://www.librarything.com/topic/79212#2383465
Theology 10
Biography 10

Needlework and Crafts
..1 Dekoratives Papierfalten
..2 Klosterarbeiten: alte Volkskunst neu entdeckt
..3 Atarashii-Patchwork
..4 Stoffe, Farben, Kleider

Austria
..1 Wien-Lexikon
..2 Kurioses Wien
..3 Heurigen G'schicht'n
..4 Denk ich an Österreich (Biography)
..5 Kräuterweiber und Bauerndoktoren
..6 Handwerksherrlichkeit : das Handwerk in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart
..7 Wie Die Zeit vergeht
..8 Wiener Plätze und Nebenschauplätze
..9 Das Leben ist am schwersten zwei Tage vor dem Ersten
.10 "Der Tod muss ein Wiener sein ..."

German language
..1 Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod
..2 Hier ist Spaß gratiniert
..3 Das österreichische Deutsch

Other
..1 Die Macht der Gene
..2 Imperial Sightseeing
..3 Momente der Heilung : Vom Überleben zum Leben
..4 Wie Kinder wieder wachsen
..5 Das Altertum der Neuen Welt
..6 Brennpunkte der Weltpolitik
..7 Mein Amerika : Bestandsaufnahme, Beobachtungen, Berichte 1995 bis 2001
..8 Präsident Obama: der lange Weg ins Weiße Haus

Started here, too.

Wien-Lexikon http://www.librarything.com/work/9455079

I enjoyed reading this book. There were a lot of interesting anecdotes and I learned a lot about Vienna from it.

I am not convinced that an alphabetical list of locations (often only very vaguely connected with the anecdotes) was the best way to organize this material.

The illustrations were not well selected. I assume they were picked because the author had cheap access to an archive of historical pictures of Vienna, and many were interesting, but often a modern photograph would have been much better, and many times the text would have been clarified if there had been a picture of the building being discussed. Also the colour pictures would have been more useful if they had been with the related text and not in separate sections. At least there should have been references to the plates. One is left with the feeling that the pictures were an afterthought, and done on the cheap.

I'm glad I read it. If it had been well illustrated I would have bought a copy.

Die Händlerin

Typical for the first novel in a series - the problems are all set up, but there is no resolution. Not interesting enough to read two more of this length.

I probably should have known better than to try to read a long novel in German that was translated from French.

Ich hab für euch gespielt

Luckily this book in German was a lot easier to read. Paul Hörbiger is my favorite movie star, and his life is also very interesting to read about. I have seen a fair number of his films, and also saw him on the stage once.

BTW if you are English-speaking, you may have seen him in 'The Third Man'. He played the man who saw the death. Apparently he didn't even really know as much English as that character.

Frauen entdecken die Bibel

It is interesting rereading an old collection of theological essays like this one. Some of the essays (particularly those early in the book) are quite out of date. Others are timeless. Still others are testimony to the lack of change in the church, as they are as true today as they were 25 years ago.

Presently reading an interesting novel about the crusades, but loooong.

The last two were both books I had bought, that were very interesting. Zitruspflanzen : auswählen, pflanzen, pflegen is encouraging about my two trees that i am trying to grow.
Handwerksherrlichkeit : das Handwerk in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart is about crafts and their guilds in Upper Austria. Wonderful pictures, and the test was also interesting. I put this into the Austria section as the craft section is really for things I can do.

Another new garden book Duftpelargonien. It's lovely to have some of Miriam Weigele's knowledge at home after hearing her talk at Eveline Bach's many times. If it weren't so hot I'd be out working with my scented geraniums right now instead of working on the computer.

Imperial Sightseeing : Die Indienreise von Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este

This is the catalogue of an exhibit currently running at the Museum fuer Voelkerkunde in Vienna. I was fascinated by the late 19th century photographs of India, both for their content and for the technology. Amazing. Now to visit the exhibit.

This catalogue is available as a free download (in German). http://imperial-sightseeing.univie.ac.at

Just moving this up with the others.

Neni : Lust auf fremde Küche This one is giving me trouble. I borrowed it fromt he library today, but have every intention of buying in on Wednesday when I am downtown. So how do I count it?

I have got to go out and buy this book! Just my kind of food. Haya Molcho was born in Israel, and has travelled and lived all over the world. She has mixed it all together to make good food, but lots of vegetables, chickpeas and spices. Her recipes make me hungry just looking at them. I also need to eat at her restaurant. Soon.

BTW if the name Molcho looks familiar, this is the wife of Samy Solcho, the mime.

German (stepped)
..10 Fiction
...9 Cookbooks
...8 Theology
...7 Austria
...6 Crafts and Gardens
...5 Biography
...4 Other
...3 German Language
...2 Other Food
...1 USA - Auf Deutsch

Done!

I'll continue to keep track, but greatly doubt that I will be able to turn this into a 10x10 challenge.

Great job!

I'm really trying to be good about keeping a book going in German, and my speed has improved, but books in German tend to be longer, anyway, and I do read it a lot slower than English, so even this feels like an accomplishment.

How do you figure out which books to read? I'd love to read some more books in German but I don't know where to begin. Just about the only ones I can name are from old German philosophers, which is NOT what I want to start out reading... I don't think it'd be good for the confidence building.

Your profile doesn't say where you are. I live in Vienna, so it is easy for me to get books in German. I have had little luck in getting light fiction written in German. The last two on my fiction list are longer than I would have liked, but are very recent historical fiction about Vienna, and I can recommend them. Die Zeichenkünstlerin von Wien is the second, and better of the two. It is about the Jews being driven from the city while the cathedral was being built.

In general, I find that the non-fiction is easier to read. I pick it up at the remainers table at one of the bookstores, or at the 'Bestsellers' area of the library. Most of what I pick up is either about Vienna or religion.

Many of the recent memoirs by well known (as they say 'world famous in Austria) people are very good. The one that stands out in my mind is Die Olive und Wir. Hugo Portisch known for his Television documentation of 20th century Austrian history. He and his wife bought a farmhouse in Tuscany. This is what he and his wife wrote about that house. I have also enjoyed many autobiographies of Austrian showbusiness personalities, but they get hard to follow if you don't know the other people mentioned.

I also read a lot of cookbooks. Besoffene Kapuziner is made up of newspaper columns about food, so is really a book to read with some recipes.

If your German isn't good enough to cope with 400 pages or so of dense prose, try to get books by Erich Kästner. Das doppelte Lottchen and Emil und die Detektive are among the best known. He was a children's author several decades ago.

Also try the works of Friedrich Dürrenmatt (http://www.librarything.com/author/drrenmattfriedrich) Most of his work are plays, but quite easy to read. He is considered to be literature. Der Richter und sein Henker is a detective novel that I was given to read in college German several decades ago, and my son read it for IB German this past year.

Obviously, if you want, you can also get translations into German of books you really like. However, the German just isn't as good.

This is great! Thanks so much. I'm in the USA but I'd love to read a bit more in German; I've been going through withdrawal now that I have no opportunity to engage.... It's been hard for me to find things, but even harder to have a sense of whether they'll be any good or not. Thank you very much for the recommendations! I'm going to go out and see if I can find any of these now.

I do have a handful of German translations of English books because they're easier to get here, but that always seems silly; I'm not very much into rereading to begin with, so those end up often like an exercise in German practice rather than expanding my horizons. (Harry Potter, however, is a possible exception; the translated language play is fascinating to me in that series.)

But yes, thank you so much! I will start looking for any of these I can find now. I'm a bit jealous of your bestsellers area of the library. ;)

But you should see how hard it is to get stuff to read in English. I manage, but it isn't what I would be reading if I were near English language public libraries. And now my youngest is out of high school so I don't have that library anymore.

Have you tried bookmooch? Or maybe a Kindle? I can't imagine what I'd do without a library close by... so much of what I read comes from borrowing. I think I'd need a contingency plan if I ever moved somewhere that doesn't read English language books.

Hi, I'm back!!

> 19

LOL I have kind of the opposite experience, Vienna is a heaven compared to Hungary when it comes to finding English-language books in libraries! :D (Good English-language books even more so, but maybe that's more about my eccentric tastes than anything else.) I guess it all depends on one's baseline ;)

BTW I still need to thank you for your advice last year, it was very helpful!

I bet you don't read as many books in English as I do. Yes, Vienna could be a lot worse, but I just got back from a trip to England, and my supply just got a lot better - especially of Theology books.

I'm not sure about that, but who knows. I probably read too many! :D

Religious books of all kinds are hard to find in English here I'd say. *sigh*

Another one that might be interesting to those wanting practice in reading German. Mein Jenseits. For a German language novel it is very short - just over 100 pages. But the combination of psychiatry and very conservative Catholic theology might not be to everyone's taste.

Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt

I did not enjoy this book. But if you want to read a book to practice your German, this one is by a Nobel Prize winner, is short, and is in very simple German. If the German title makes sense to you, maybe the book will, too.

Milchfrau in Ottakring

This one I did enjoy. Bringing Vienna in the late twenties to life through the eyes of a Russian immigrant woman. Well worth reading.

Fiction
..1 Wüstenherz (Mali 20th century)
..2 Beach boy (India 20th Century)
..3 Die Händlerin : Roman (China, Tibet, 7th Century)
..4 Fackeln des Teufels
..5 Herrin der Lüge
..6 Das Geheimnis des Hieronymus Bosch (Belgium 16th century/Spain 20th century)
..7 Die Socken des Kritikers
..8 Mein Jenseits
..9 Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt

Fiction about Austria
..1 Und Nietzsche weinte
..2 Es geht uns gut
..3 Die Zeichenkünstlerin von Wien
..4 Die Hebamme von Wien
..5 Vienna: Roman
..6 Milchfrau in Ottakring
..7 Starkmut

Kinderbuecher
..1 Nonni und Manni: Abenteuer auf Island (Abridged)
..2 Neue Abenteuer auf Island mit Nonni und Manni
..3 Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre
..4 Heidi kann brauchen, was es gelernt hat
..5 Das doppelte Lottchen
..6 Pünktchen und Anton
..7 Der Regenbogenfisch
..8 Wie ein Ei dem anderen
..9 Sommersee
.10 Pippi Langstrumpf

Cookbooks
..1 Das Grosse Julius Meinl Kochbuch
..2 Mazzesinsel Kochbuch
..3 Besoffene Kapuziner
..4 Wildkräuter und Wildgemüse
..5 Meine Küche der Gewürze
..6 Almkochbuch : Rezepte von Sennerinnen
..7 Als Oma im Keller Quargel aß
..8 Vielseitige Ideen mit Wild
..9 Neni : Lust auf fremde Küche
.10 Vollkorn-Backen

Other Food

..1 Gewürze: Geschichte, Handel, Küche
..2 Am besten echt
..3 Die Dirndl
..4 Wie Bismarck auf den Hering kam
..4 Streetfood indisch
..5 Knusperhäuser aus Lebkuchen und anderen Leckereien selbermachen
..6 Koscher

Garden
..1 Gartengeschichten für intelligente Faule
..2 120 populäre Gartenirrtümer
..3 Zitruspflanzen : auswählen, pflanzen, pflegen
..4 Duftpelargonien

Theology ( and other books related to religion)
..1 Frauen Entdecken die Bibel
..2 Jerusalem : die Geschichte einer heiligen Stadt
..3 Esther erhebt ihre Stimme
..4 Ein eigener Mensch werden : Frauen um Jesus
..5 Christliche Volksfeste in Europa
..6 Die Töchter Allahs
..7 Die Sonne geht an keinem Dorf vorüber
..8 Wie gründe ich eine Religion
..9 Ökumenische Spurensuche: Porträts (Biography)
.10 Maria Lactans

Biography

..1 Ich hab für euch gespielt (Biography)
..2 Nicht immer war es wunderbar (Biography)
..3 Tagebuch einer Landhebamme : 1943 - 1980
..4 Sophie von Wittelsbach
..5 Erzherzog Johann: Bauer - Bürger - Visionär
..6 Das gebrochene Gelübde
..7 Es ist nie zu spät
..8 Auch Nonnen haben Parkplatzprobleme
..9 Wie ich ein Priester wurde
.10 Franz Kardinal König : meine Lebensstationen

I'm up to seven categories now, and will be able to read two more children's books this week, which will make 8 categories.

If I had wanted fewer books in 10 categories I would have had to aim at that earlier. I can make it 8 each in 9 categories by moving a boook from Children's books to fiction about Austria. To make 10 categories I would have to move a book from Austria to crafts, and make a category 'crafts and language', which is a bit wierd.

Next year I am aiming for 8 each in 11 Categories, but will settle for 7. (I'll also track a stepped.) I should be able to do that.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/96718