Antony John

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.

I got lucky and discovered a couple of amazing authors this year! …

May started out great: I read four books in the first week! That blew me away since I hadn’t read much in April. Suddenly, everything seemed possible – even finishing off my whole utopian tbr-list. And then … then I spend two long weekends at home and everything went downhill. It’s the strangest of things, but when I’m surrounded by almost all of my beautiful ~1,300 books, I just don’t get to read at all. There’s a fast Internet connection and four horses that keep me busy. At least I somehow managed to read the book(s) for my fantasy literature seminar but instead of getting back to my list, I spontaneously decided to re-read A Game of Thrones, because we were also discussing it in class and I thought that my memory could use some refreshing. In an act of extreme desperation, I tried to read The Nightmare Affair on the very last day of the month, but I was too slow to finish it in time …

In May, there was music in the air. The task was to read one book each that somehow fits one of the following media: record, cassette, CD, and MP3. How we interpreted the connection was pretty much up to ourselves, as long as we could come up with somewhat of a decent explanation …

Buying books is both my fervent passion and my worst vice. Sometimes, I even wonder whether it is not an addiction or an illness of some sorts, because I’m constantly buying – much more than I will probably ever be able to read. But, you know, they look so pretty on the shelves! …

Normally, I’m trying to buy in reasonable masses. However, if I find an excuse with which I can keep my conscience quiet, I forget all good resolutions. That’s what happened in April, because I thought that Easter would be a great excuse to buy tonnes of new books. Well, it’s my one and only treat after all.

Dieses Wochenende habe ich zur Abwechslung mal wieder etwas mehr weggeschafft. Das bedeutet außerdem, dass meine utopische Leseliste für Mai gar nicht mal mehr so unmöglich ausschaut.

In April, I hardly had the time to read thanks to university. Admittedly, my reading list was utopian and hardly manageable, but I always like to plan more and hope that I would take it as an incentive to read more. Now, I have to transfer the still utopian list into May, whether I want it or not. I hope that I will have more time to read due to the holidays and can work off a few books at least.