2015

We’re back in Joanna Campbell’s wonderful world of thoroughbred horse racing, this time, Thoroughbred [Vollblut] series edition. If you want to find out more about the series and have a laugh at the spin-off prequel series’ titles, go check out Part 1 here. If you read it, you already know that sometimes titles in this series might fool even the most experienced horse novel reader by being totally ambiguous. We had the example of Ashleigh’s Promise where Promise does not refer to a promise but to a horse by that name. In the Thoroughbred series, however, we have several different types of ambiguity. So, let’s play a little game. In the following, there’s always one title out of place. It’s basically a guessing game since you won’t be able to determine the true meaning without reading the blurb or being already familiar with the series …

“You were a very imaginative child and we always supported it. Sometimes I think we overdid it.”
Saying I was shocked doesn’t even begin to cover it. I was flabbergasted, didn’t understand where this notion came from, and my feelings were crushed. That’s not something you expect from your mum in a random conversation. I can’t even remember what we’d talked about. Suddenly, this statement dropped, my face fell and I asked in a squealing voice: “Why?!” Why did my mum think I’m too imaginative? Is there even such a thing as being too imaginative? Is it really a bad thing? After all, it definitely didn’t sound like a compliment. The answer surprised me. Apparently, my parents have figured me out much more than I believed …

Game of Thrones, my favourite TV series, is finally back! Another year of desperately waiting to be reunited with some of my favourite characters of all time has come to an end. I’m sure you’ve already noticed that I’m an ASoIaF/GoT geek. Although I only started reading the novels shortly before the series started – but always stayed ahead of the show – I followed the series from the first episode on. However, I’m not only rejoicing at watching a new episode each week, I’m also looking forward to what I dubbed the “Golden Trio of Game of Thrones” …

Valar morghulis – All men must die. If you haven’t lived under a rock for the past couple of years, you should be at least vaguely familiar with this quote from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and its TV adaptation Game of Thrones. For the purpose of this post, let’s just ignore Dany’s objections and understand ‘men’ as ‘all living beings, human or otherwise.’ The resulting message: everyone must die …

I don’t mark my favourite parts in books. Instead, I either write down the page numbers or take pictures with my phone. Afterwards, I go back and copy the lines in my little black notebook. Currently, I’m a little behind on transferring but I’m trying to catch up. I love browsing through all of my favourite quotes from time to time. It’s like revisiting the books I’ve taken them from; their hearts and souls contained in a couple of sentences …

They divide books into delicious morsels ready to be devoured – and sometimes we decide to eat up the whole serving tray in one go resulting in a major hangover with the flavour of our huge disappointment that there’s nothing left. They help us remember where we left off – well, at least those people who have awesome memory. Everyone else lets the good old bookmarks do the remembering. They are wonderful excuses to procrastinate – “Just let me finish this.” – “Only one more.” – we’ve all been there. Sometimes, they make us tear out our hair because they leave off with a cliffhanger and we have to stop to do annoying real life stuff or have to read half the book to get back to this certain point of view – or even one and a half books, in case you’re reading A Song of Ice and Fire. They come in different sizes and even more shapes to look their very best.

Well, to be exact, it should be “currently not reading.” On the one hand, I’m moving in two days and have so much to prepare. On the other hand, I’m procrastinating reading this one …