“Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired
produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books
than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity...
We cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort,
their ready access reassurance.”
A. E. Newton

OpenBookCase map
Karte öffentlicher Bücherschränke

I'm very interested in Asian literature, South and South-East Asian mostly, the literary kind. And I often read Booker Prize nominations. Literary novels. Postcolonial literature. Dystopian fiction. Climate fiction. No chicklit. No romance. No horror. Mysteries/thrillers/spy fiction occasionally (1001 level).
The fact that I registered a book does not necessarily indicate that it reflects my taste.
All books I receive through BookCrossing will sooner or later travel again.

What I like: besides wishlist books...
- Vegan salty liquorice / salmiakki (not the sweet kind) (no gelatin!)
- green tea (tea bags, organic, fair trade would be great)
- Marmite cashews, Marmite peanuts
- Dynamite Chilli Marmite
- vegan chocolate (not too dark; fair trade is great) or other vegan snacks
- official Bookcrossing release bags
- organic handcreme (vegan, with natural ingredients, without parabens / anything petroleum derived / silicones)
- sorry, I don't like Christmas (or Easter) ornaments, Christmas-themed books and such things (I'm not Christian)
- and I don't like to read German translations of books written in English (and vice versa)
- no need for non-wishlist books
- I'm always happy to get paperback wishlist books instead of hardcovers (second hand is fine of course!)


“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;
they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors,
and the most patient of teachers."
Charles W. Eliot

Ballywoods

lendwithcare BookCrossing Team

Finally joined Postcrossing in June 2023. Same name as here.

Are you also fond of embellishing your JEs with pics? Feel free to use mine.

If you want my address to send a RABCK: please contact grovalskii who holds my address (see RABCK Address Contacts forum thread). Due to customs dues I'm not keen on getting books from outside the EU, sorry & thanks anyway. My home address is good for anything not too large up to 3.4 cm thickness (1.3 inches).

           

“I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us.
If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull,
why bother reading it in the first place?”
"Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt nur noch solche Bücher lesen,
die einen beißen und stechen.
Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen,
uns nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den Schädel weckt,
wozu lesen wir dann das Buch?”
Franz Kafka, Brief an Oskar Pollak, 27. Januar 1904




Some of my favourite books (which deserve eight or nine stars, I'm still waiting to read a ten-star-book):

- in no order -
Haruki Murakami: Hard-boiled Wonderland or the End of the World
Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
Salman Rushdie: The Moor's Last Sigh
Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie: Shame
David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell: Ghostwritten
David Mitchell: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
David Mitchell: The Bone Clocks
Ian McEwan: Atonement
Petina Gappah: The Book of Memory
Kamila Shamsie: Burnt Shadows
Kamila Shamsie: Kartography
Nadeem Aslam: The Blind Man's Garden
Nadeem Aslam: The Wasted Vigil
John Williams: Stoner
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun
Margaret Atwood: The MaddAddam Trilogy
Samrat Upadhyay: Buddha's Orphans
Gabriel Garcìa Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Rana Dasgupta: Solo
Yiyun Li: The Vagrants
Hana Yanagihara: A Little Life
Esi Edugyan: Washington Black
Tan Twan Eng: The Gift of Rain
Tan Twan Eng: The Garden of Evening Mists
Ruth Ozeki: A Tale for the Time Being
Orhan Pamuk: Snow
Dan Sleigh: Islands
Susanna Clarke: Piranesi
C Pam Zhang: How Much of These Hills Is Gold
Carsten Jensen: We, the Drowned
Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance
Aminatta Forna: The Memory of Love
Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, The Mirror & the Light
Kate Atkinson: Life After Life
José Luís Peixoto: The Piano Cemetery
Pauline Melville: The Ventriloquist's Tale
Sanjeev Sahota: The Year of the Runaways
Amor Towles: A Gentleman In Moskow
Richard Powers: The Overstory & Bewilderment
... and many more ....

Apolonia Xander (23 April 1625 - 16 September 1678) was my great-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandmother.
She lived in a wine-growing region in the south-west of Germany, survived the plague and the Thirty Years War, a vintner's daughter, married a vintner from the next village. Here's her marriage entry from 1643:

Georg Schmid, Michael Schmiden Gerichtsverwannten Ehelicher Sohn von G.Heppach, vnnd Apolonia, Georg Xanders S. nachgelassne Eheliche Tochter von Grunbach.