Author Archives: admin

Cottbus Bird Census II

It’s become an annual tradition for me to try to record (photo or audio) 50 species of birds in and around Cottbus each December. This year’s results (photos of almost everything this time, but including some dirty record shots): 34 … Continue reading

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Reading List December 2023

Just eight books finished this month (but some whoppers): four by women/POC, (just) three in German, one in Portuguese, and just three that were part of my original plan. For the six months, 50 total, 35 by women/POC, 26 in … Continue reading

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Reading List November 2023

Nine books finished this month, six by women/POC, six in German for #GermanLitMonth, and one in Portuguese. I’ve covered the German books in a little more depth than usual in separate posts, so just to summarise: Austria Echtzeitalter, by Tonio … Continue reading

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GermanLitMonth: Knochenlieder

#GermanLitMonth book six completes my perfectly balanced pattern: representing Swiss woman is Martina Clavadetscher, with Knochenlieder. This is a wonderfully strange book. Most obviously, it’s a novel written (pretty much) in verse. That is, there are line breaks, and while … Continue reading

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GermanLitMonth: Sieben Jahre

#GermanLitMonth book five is Sieben Jahre, by my Swiss gentleman for the month, Peter Stamm. It’s narrated by a Munich architect, within a framework of his telling an acquaintance “now” of various events between his student days and middle age. … Continue reading

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GermanLitMonth: Die Inkommensurablen

And my fourth #GermanLitMonth book, my second for Austria, makes a nice pair with Schachinger’s Echtzeitalter: Die Inkommensurablen, by Raphaela Edelbauer. It again takes place in Vienna, and is viewed through the eyes of an outsider teenager, but this time … Continue reading

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GermanLitMonth: Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg

My third #GermanLitMonth book completes my pair of German books, and is by chance also non-fiction: Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg, by Antje Rávik Strubel. This is certainly odd — as if Margaret Atwood had decided to write a guide … Continue reading

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GermanLitMonth: Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger!

Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger! by Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi is my second book for #GermanLitMonth — sort of. I was reading it for Black History Month in October, before things got in the way, but it fits into the rulebreakers week of this … Continue reading

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GermanLitMonth: Echtzeitalter

I’ve finished my first book for #GermanLitMonth: Echtzeitalter, by Tonio Schachinger. Deutscher Buchpreis-winner this year, it’s a Bildungsroman following a teen gamer at a Viennese school very similar to the one Schachinger went to, where he encounters first a Snape-like … Continue reading

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Reading List October 2023

A Covid-affected reading month meant I only finished seven books, and particularly disrupted my Black History Month plan (to be continued next month). I still finished four in German, one (1) in Portuguese, and five by women/POC. Starting with what … Continue reading

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