I spent the weekend in Bonn together with Tanja. It’s not that I had much time to think – on the contrary, for we spent the days exploring the surroundings of Bonn. We did a little ship cruise on the Rhine, we climbed a hill and saw the old castle on the top.

The contemplations take place when I am back at home. Then I have plenty of time to think. And plenty of time to read, of course. And then I think about some things. One of them is:

How it is possible to make my blog interesting for other people if my life is so boring that I have to read books about other people’s more interesting lives? As you can probably and probably easily understand this is a question that I try to answer every time I update my blog. Which parts of my life do appear at least somewhat interesting? Which parts are not interesting but can (with the use of some narrative techniques) appear interesting? Which parts of my life shouldn’t (for the sake of the mental well-being of my readers) be mentioned at all?

This time I have decided to tell you which books I have read since my return to Germany.

Bill Bryson: Notes from a Big Country (A collection of columns about the American way of life)
Ambrose Bierce: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (Very good collection of short stories about the American Civil War)

Johann W. von Goethe: Die Leiden des jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther) (Probably the most beautiful love novel ever written in German – by a Goethe who was just 24 at the time)

Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (A nice comedy about the Victorian society)

Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The most hilarious piece of Science Fiction I ever read)

Sven Regener: Neue Vahr Süd (Novel about serving in the German army. Difficult to understand for people who weren’t there and almost impossible to translate. Sorry for the non Germans!)

Ralf Sotschek: Gebrauchsanweisung für Irland (User’s Manual for Ireland: Very funny collection of facts, trivia, tips and stuff for people interested in Ireland).

I try to have a balanced diet with a mix of English and German books. After Belfast I was so used to reading in English and to the difficulties I had with it (being a non-native speaker of English) that it was very surprising for me at first how easy it can be to read German books again. Right now I am reading Hallelujah by Joachim Fernau, a history of the USA; very entertaining, funny and in German; but the next book on my list is O Pioneers! by Willa Cather.

Okay. This was definitely one of the not so interesting things about my life and I doubt that I could improve that by the use of narrative techniques – for I used none. (Or have I?)
But there’s a treat for you: I have uploaded more pictures to flickr.

What I almost forgot: I went to the concert as I mentioned in my last post. I didn’t bring my camera which is sad because I couldn’t make pictures but which is good because it means that I still have a camera. The crowd was nuts. Jumping, shouting, singing, cheering. And Flogging Molly was great. They really rocked the house! For samples check:

www.floggingmolly.com

Next update will be after the 20th of August for I’ll be travelling quite a bit. Destinations: Gothenburg, Bonn and Freiburg. (Almost without break).

I’m really looking forward to that and you, dear reader, should be too, because maybe those travels make my life a bit more interesting which in turn means that I’ll be able to tell more interesting things than listing the books that I read recently.

cheers!

Max