J.R.R. Tolkien

January was awesome! I blame the Vampire Academy series for reading much more than usually – I was glued to the pages and literally couldn’t put the books down. I was also able to finish four other books that had been on my currently reading shelf for up to 10 months – and sneak in two short horsey novels to pump up my TBR pile statistics …

… that is the question! For many people, there seems to be an easy answer. There’s so much hating out there, it makes me sick to my stomach, especially since some people just can’t distinguish between Tauriel, a fictional character, and Evangeline Lilly, an actual person who breathed life into said character because that’s her job as an actress. Seriously, people, what the hell is wrong with you?! If you’re in for a Tauriel witch hunt, fine, suit yourself. Just keep Evangeline out of it. For what it’s worth, she did a bloody brilliant job. It’s not her fault that the material she had to work with turned the whole thing into a mess …

I’ve probably forgotten countless characters I love and would love reading more about, but here are a couple of favourites I do remember …

Do I reread books?! Hell yeah! I’m the Queen of Rereads! Last year’s reread ratio was one third, this year’s ratio is slightly higher so far. However, much has changed these last couple of months. The number of rereads has plummeted; I haven’t reread a novel in two freaking months! I really need to get back on track, but right now, I don’t see it happen (and to be honest, it’s not that bad. I have more than enough books on my TBR pile anyway). That said: here are the ten books I desperately want to reread as soon as possible …

I think when one hears the term classic, one immediately thinks of old, literary novels. Still, every genre has its classics and every person has a different opinion guided by personal preferences and context. So here are some of the novels I read and consider classics …

Talking about my new camera: you have no idea what I went through to get that thing! The retailer messed up twice and I wouldn’t have it yet if it weren’t for a long phone call. It basically took them all of March to ship it to me. But it’s gorgeous and I adore it. Have I mentioned that it has freaking WLAN?! You can remote control it with an app on your mobile. So cool! Naturally, it was quite expensive but I wanted a new camera for ages. I’ve outgrown my beautiful EOS 1000D a while ago and it’s literally getting senile anyway. Ever since we strolled through Vienna on a rainy day in March 2013, it has some kind of error and frequently forgets that it has an SD card to which it’s supposed to save the images. It’s my own fault for not taking care of it properly that day. After all, it survived several wet holidays in Ireland and the UK. The new one is waterproof though I won’t test that anytime soon. I’ve been saving for the last couple of years but could never bring myself to spend that much money. When I finished my bachelor thesis, I decided that it was time to reward myself – although I didn’t know whether the thesis was any good. Turns out it was and now my new camera answers to the illustrious name of Katniss EOS-70D-een …

Nerd alert! If you are a fan of The Lord of the Rings, this might interest you. I compiled a list of 9 fun facts about the characters, the storylines, and the writing process I learned in The Treason of Isengard…