The 50 Book Pledge 2013

I know, most bookworms are doing this every year and it starts to get boring and blah, whatever!

I pledge to read 50 books this year.

50 books does not sound like an awful lot, but I’m a (literary) student again and there’s so many texts and stuff for school to read that I simply don’t find the time to pick up a book. My plan was to read a book a week, but I decided that I’ll just go with the 50. I’m sure I’ll read most of them during my breaks anyways. So here’s the thing: I’ll update this page whenever I read a new book with a review. Also, some of the books I read are in German, but I’ll add the title in English as well if the book had been translated. Additionally, I won’t re-read anything this year, so don’t be surprised if you’ll find classics on the list or former bestsellers every single person has read so far, except for me. (And because I’m a cheater and always go the easiest way, my readings for class will be on the list as well, minus the theory of course.) [I just realized that my ratings might be a little bit confusing. Here’s what I do: I’m trying to rate the books I read according to their genre. So what I do is, I compare the books I’m reading to ones I’ve already read and liked/disliked in the past. I thought I might add this, because I figured that comparing “chick-lit” with “business”, for example, is like comparing apples and oranges…]
All suggestions for new fabulous reads are very welcome! :* I’m looking forward to reading all those wonderful books and sharing them with you!

And here’s the list for 2013:

#1: The Single Girl’s To-Do List by Lindsey Kelk
To be honest: I LOVED this book! 😉 It’s one of those great books you pick up from the “what a chick reads”-table, perfect for rainy Sunday afternoons. I’m a big fan of chick lit because those kind of books are usually really fast reads and something I don’t have to use my brain for; never overuse those grey cells when there’s no need to. Plus, chick lit is really entertaining. Books don’t always have to be uber-sophisticated! As my friend N (who also borrowed me this lovely book) already said after I told her I’d finished this pageturner, the end is pretty predictable and therefore won’t reach the high score of comedy romances. I won’t reveal the end here, tho. So this is what happens: Our protagonist Rachel is a make-up artist whose boyfriend just asked for the all times hated relationship break and, as optimistic and naive as she is, she thinks that they’ll get together again. Right. As if this would ever happen (admit it, you thought the same as I at this point!). To our big surprise, he’s dumping her and her best friends Emelie and Matthew decide to help her getting over the break up and making Rachel a great single woman. Fact I forgot to mention: Rachel suffers big time from OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) – she has to write a list for everything she’s supposed to do. Every. Single. Day. I’m totally with her on this, there’s nothing better than ticking off things. She’s just a tiny bit overdoing it. So Emelie and Matthew decide (drunk in a pub, on a Saturday afternoon) to compose a list for Rachel; the Single Girl’s To-Do List. Rachel’s boring life suddenly gets super exciting… And there’s a happy end! What else, it’s a chick-read, right? Right!

Lindsay Kelk’s fast-paced, funny adventure of an ordinary girl deserves 3.5 out of 5 bookmarks for The Single Girl’s To-Do List.

#2: The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia because we had a discussion about how obvious Lewis used Christian religion in this series. Additionally, I like Lewis because of the unbelievable amount of imagination of his books. I’ve also seen the adaption for the movies, which might have misled me. Well, when I first started reading The Magician’s Nephew I thought “Oh well, this sounds pretty cute”. But then the New World (Narnia) was created… No offense, I like the idea and all, but still… This is a whole lot of religion, people! I know, Lewis was a theologist and all that, but I think he could have wrapped all his religious beliefs in a story that’s a little less obvious and doesn’t yell “creationism” at you. Not that I didn’t know that he intended to bring Christian beliefs closer to the children by writing The Chronicles, but I nevertheless was somehow surprised. And there’s still six more to go!

3 out of 5 bookmarks for Mr Lewis and his almost never ending creativity and imagination. In my opinion, this is just too much religion in a children’s classic and that’s why The Magician’s Nephew loses some points.

#3: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
What can I say other than “muuuuch beeeetttteeeer”? Okay, that was a little exaggerated. But seriously, I thought The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a much better read than The Magician’s Nephew. After finishing the latter, I feared that this whole uber-religious I-m-gonna-re-write-the-Bible “attitude”, if I can name it like that, would go on for the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia. Lucky me, Mr Lewis decided on keeping it light on the good old religion and The Lion pretty much reads like regular children’s fantasy. However, it took me quite a while to finish volume two of the Chronicles and I’m not sure whether it was because I was kind of discouraged by the first book or if it was really “low-paced” somehow. I mean, it shouldn’t take anybody more than two weeks to read a little booklet of 200 or so pages. Reading this felt more like ticking something off a list, even though I enjoyed it, it did not move anything. Fantastic quality of language and writing, though!

I’ll award The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with 3 out of 5 bookmarks. I’m not quite sure why I can’t rate this higher, but even if it is very pleasant to read and full of fantasy I can’t get myself to giving a four. As I already said somehow, I did enjoy volume two of  The Chronicles of Narnia, but I did not fall in love with it.

#4: The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
I fear there might be some sort of love-hate-relationship between The Chronicles of Narnia and myself as its reader. Somehow, I enjoy reading the series; on the other hand, I wish there were no more books left.
So what I liked about The Horse and His Boy is that Lewis is “talking” to the reader. He is continuously directly addressing the reader as such, just as a storyteller wants to keep the listener’s attention. Therefore, I guess this is a great book to read out loud to someone. Also, Lewis refers back to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by actually naming the previous book, which I liked. Other than that, I thought even though it is re-telling the Bible, I didn’t feel very much that this should be a religious story. However, there are parts where it’s almost too much again, especially towards the end of the story. But then, the adventure of a boy and a girl riding through the desert on talking horses because they want to escape their miserable lives and find shelter in the “promised land” (see, Bible…!) sounds like a fun story for a child.
What I do not agree with is the fact that Aslan is very punitive and judgmental in a matter of old testament Christian morality. I mean, the books were mostly written in the 1950s, but even then – did people really still want to raise their children according to a “An eye for an eye…” morality? The part where Aslan explains that he had to physically punish Aravis because she was responsible for the whipping of her stepmother’s slave really struck me and I found that part quite disturbing.

Again, The Horse and His Boy gets 3out of 5 bookmarks. I liked it somehow, but then I did not become a fan and I’m not sure about the amount of religion packed into the whole story. Sometimes I almost felt that a very religious Catholic might feel offended by some comments/happenings. 

#5: Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
I’m still not quite sure what I should think of the Narnia-Series. Of all those that I’ve already finished, Prince Caspian is definitely the best … so far! Some parts are definitely somehow rushed through, others are a whole lot of blabbing along without saying anything. I like the Caspian character quite a bit; Aslan, on the other hand, was somehow annoying with his whole “testing all the people”. What I did not quite get was the role of Bacchus and the such… They’re quite enjoyable characters – here and also with the trees and the such, the fantasy character of the books is revealed the most – but I just didn’t really get their function. They seemed very written into the story for no further reason. What I did not like at all was the way Susan behaved in Prince Caspian. She is somehow depicted as a (rather annoying) mother-character, rather than the Warrior Queen I liked so much in the previous books.

All in all, I reward Prince Caspian with 3.5 out of possible 5 bookmarks. So far, it was the best/most enjoyable of the series and it definitely encouraged me in reading the other books as well – although I sometimes feel like as if they’re putting me to sleep. Great bedtime stories! 

#6: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader definitely is my favourite of the series. Mainly, because it reads more like an adventure story than Christian children’s fiction. Adventure after adventure, that pretty much sums up the whole book and I guess that’s one fact why I liked The Voyage of the Dawn Treader better than the previous books of the Chronicles. Somehow I thought that this was the first time that the implied narrator really directs his comments at the readers, but maybe I’m wrong in this assumption and it was just the first time I’ve noticed. There’s two little things I did not like at all while reading The Voyage: 1. The kids are drinking! Alcohol! I mean, seriously, reading about children drinking a very strong wine and mead was just so terribly disturbing. 2. The Christian allegory that came through – according to this story, you can’t fix your character by yourself (like being turned into a dragon), only Aslan can give you absolution… Even if the Christian allegory wasn’t as strong as in the other books, I noticed this and it disturbed me just a little bit. Maybe it’s just bugging me because I’m a grown-up.

3.5 out of 5 bookmarks because The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the best of the Chronicles of Narnia. Full stop.

#7: The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
There’s not much to say here: I did not like The Silver Chair at all. First of all, what’s it with the title? I mean, the Silver Chair itself is not of great importance and only mentioned once in a rather short scene. Additionally, the story itself is very weak. Last but not least, I hate the way how Jill is portrayed here (again, the girls – I started coming to believe that C.S. Lewis did not like girls). I like the little goblins, though.

1.5 out of 5 possible bookmarks for The Silver Chair. I can’t make myself giving away only 1 bookmarks – maybe because I really liked the goblins. Now I definitely am looking forward to finishing the last book in the series…

#8: The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
Have I ever been this excited to finally get to the last volume of a series? The Last Battle is not the worst of The Chronicles of Narnia, but I was definitely disappointed of the ‘grande finale’. Previously, I have mentioned that Susan was my favorite character of the series, and the fact that she is banned from Narnia forever disappointed me in the most. And all because she’s interested in worldly goods such as lipstick and invitations… I mean, this novel was published in the 1950s… “Are we supposed to be living like puritans if we want to be in favor of Aslan?”, I asked myself. But the drinking of alcohol among children does not seem to be a big deal…

2.5 out of 5 well-meant bookmarks for The Last Battle. The last of the Narnia-series felt rather lengthy and was not entertaining at all. Also, I did not approve with how Christianity has been depicted here.

Concluding the Chronicles of Narnia, I would not want my children to read the books, simply because it represents certain attitudes that do not belong to our modern world anymore and could somehow be misleading. Contrary to other reviewers, I did not feel that C.S. Lewis was particularly racist here and I don’t think that children would even recognize certain passages where racism occurs. 

#9: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
To be honest, I never thought I’d like Frankenstein this much! I guess one reason for my appreciation for this lovely novel is that I approached it with zero expectations. And after reading many and more reviews, I think this is the biggest problem most of the disappointed readers encountered. There are just so many adaptations – great and horrible ones – out there that might lead us to think so high about the original; the original then might turn out to be very dull and boring, which is very often the case when it comes to reading the classics.
There are two things that I have to say to future readers of Frankenstein: Firstly, we are dealing with a narration within a narration within a narration (I love saying this! 😉 ). So it is not Victor Frankenstein who tells the story, and neither is it the Creature, but it is in fact Walton; I believe this is a very important fact that many readers tend to forget about while they’re reading along. Secondly, the whole written-in-one-night-ghost-story background (I disagree in the genre classification here – I think Frankenstein is primarily a family drama. But then, what do I know, right?) to me is merely crap because apparently Shelley already had the idea to create a story like Frankenstein earlier and surprisingly (or not) there is not one single fragment of the other stories around. So who can assure me that the whole story behind the novel is just some invention? Also, the novel was edited three times (and therefore includes different endings!). I suggest reading the original 1818 version. And good gracious me, I discovered so many very disturbing interpretations that just made me shake my head in disbelief… Sometime I really wonder how people can come up with ideas that are so extremely far-fetched…

Three and a half out of five bookmarks for Frankenstein – just because I liked reading it and because it was a pretty easy read.

#10: Der Hundertjährige, der aus dem Fenster stieg und verschwand by Jonas Jonasson
[The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared]

Just before the celebration of his 100th birthday, Allan Karlsson decided to climb out of his nursery home’s window and disappear. While the old man meets new friends and lives an incredible adventure, the reader gets to know Allan better in chapters about his very exciting life.
I guess my expectations were set way too high when I started reading The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared – mainly because it was praised as last year’s bestselling sensation and because most of the reviews I’ve read in the past year said that this was incredibly good writing. Well, I liked the style of writing Jonas Jonasson uses quite a lot. The humor, every so often criticized as being dull and not funny at all, was in my eyes the grande European style that I love so much, especially the making fun of history and historical people. The Hundred-Year-Old most certainly managed to put a big smile on my lips and I have to confess, every now and then I had to laugh out loud. But then, this is not the quality I expected of a world bestseller, as it turns down in pace quite a bit from early on and I even considered not finishing this book. Luckily, it then took up the page-turner pace again

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared deserves a well-meant 3.5 out of 5 contemporary writing bookmarks. I recommend this to simply everyone out there because Jonasson created a novel that is funny, entertaining, and discusses a different kind of story. Definitely a page-turner, but most certainly overrated by the press.

#11: The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern
With his novel, Steve Stern takes us on a journey through the history of Jewish diaspora. In the 19th century, a Hasidic rabbi is (literally) turning into a block of ice during his meditating in a pond nearby a progrom-ridden shtetl in Poland, found later and being passed down in the Karp family over generations. Until 2002, the rabbi travels from his place of origin to the ghetto in Lodz, the Lower East Side of Manhattan and finally to Memphis, where he is being defrosted during a blackout, comes back to life and is being introduced to a contemporary America by teenager Bernie.

Combined with just the right amount of humor, The Frozen Rabbi is a very entertaining read. Additionally, we learn about the history of Jews by reading about the lives of fictional characters and occasions; it all could have happened in real life, similarly to Stern’s tragic stories of his characters. Apart from the whole “defrost-the-old-guy”-story, of course (which reminded me of so many movies from the 90’s). I’d highly recommend this novel to everyone who enjoys a little bit of historical fiction combined with the right amount of humor. The edition I read also included 12 “questions for discussion”, which make this a great pick for a book club, since the novel provides a good basis for interesting discussions.
There’s one little drawback, though: since this novel tells the story of Jewish immigrants, they tend to speak Yiddish. Therefore, I am glad to know German, which let me understand some of the Yiddish that had not been translated into English.

A very entertaining as well as educational read. I’ll award The Frozen Rabbi with 3.5 out of 5 bookmarks because it is funny but it didn’t really touch me emotionally and, even if I recommend reading it, I wouldn’t re-read it.

#12: Jenny Lopez Has a Bad Week by Lindsey Kelk
I already mentioned in a previous review that I love all the novels by Lindsey Kelk. The only thing I didn’t like about Jenny Lopez Has a Bad Week was the fact that it’s only a “short story”. I really enjoyed reading this, as I did all the novels by Kelk, and I would love to read more about Jenny Lopez. Jenny is the “I heart…”-series’ main character’s best friend, and like all of Kelk’s characters, Jenny is just a regular young woman every “girl” can in some way relate to. And to be honest, sometimes I think Jenny’s and my life are somehow strangely alike.
[note: Jenny Lopez Has a Bad Week is only available as ebook!]

4 out of 5 bookmarks for Jenny Lopez Has a Bad Week, just because I enjoyed reading this so much and I want more! 😉 Thumbs up for chick lit! 

#13: The Englishman’s Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe
Vanderhaeghe created a beautifully written, almost poetic story with The Englishman’s Boy. His choice of vocabulary and his style definitely is extraordinary and I happened to love reading it, even though I might have expected something different when I picked it.
The author gives us an honest view on the early days of “glamorous” Hollywood, the Hollywood of the roaring twenties – the days before Hollywood lost its glamour (as I learned in class). However, Vanderhaeghe shows us that film-making was, even back then, only glamorous on the surface and that it used to be tough business. I happened to know what people he was talking about when he named actors, actresses and directors, but I guess even if you have no clue who he’s talking about, you’ll be able to easily follow the storyline. This storyline links two different happenings: the creation of the “ultimate American movie” – a Western movie, of course – and the story of a young boy (the Englishman’s boy, who’d have thought) living at the American frontier. In the end, the movie will be about this young man since he’s supposed to be the embodiment of the Western, the last true horseman and Indian killer (yes, those movies were all about killing the Native Americans, the more the better since they were looked at as being more wild animal than human being – fact, not fiction). Of course, the whole making of the motion picture is overshadowed by scandals. Hollywood at it’s best.

Guy Vanderhaeghe won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction for “The Englishman’s Boy” and got various nominations for other awards, including The Giller Prize. The awards were well deserved since his novel reflects the brutal truth about a time we nowadays tend to beautify. 4.5 out of 5 poetic bookmarks for the quality of language Vanderhaeghe used in “The Englishman’s Boy”.

#14: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre is one of those novels that make you feel astonished about the high frequency of drama. I mean, right when you think that the story has somehow reached its climax, the author just adds another oddity. Even if most supporters of the classics would probably want to hang me for my next comment, I think that this is drama chick-lit at it’s best! 😉 I do say this without the slightest feeling of shame, and I hope that the one or the other of my readers feel the same and support my rather radical statement. I mean, it’s a total romance, it includes all that makes a girl’s heart beat and it’s an easy read. Also, I don’t think the Brontë would hate me for a comment like that, but rather be proud that her books are still being read and loved by so many people.

So much empiric drama deserves a 4 out of 5 bookmarks and is recommended to all chick-lit lovers. However, I guess most ladies out there have already devoured anything written by the Brontë sisters anyways. Love it very much, indeed!

#15: I’ve Got Your Number: A Novel by Sophie Kinsella
You might have figured out by now that I’m a great fan of chick-lit. So it won’t surprise anybody that I l-o-v-e-d I’ve Got Your Number. Kinsella touches on many facets on our modern society and manages to present so many of our first world problems in a very funny way. The main point in this book is the main character’s addiction to her cell phone. She can’t live without it. Whoever thinks that this is somewhat shallow – think again: when did you last use your phone? Even if it’s just for checking the time. Ha! Anyways, I’m getting off topic. So, Poppy (our main character) not only loses her super old and precious engagement ring, her cell get’s stolen the same night. She’s a klutz who somehow always finds a way. Luckily, she finds a new phone in a garbage bin. And then starts connecting with the owner and slithers right into a major business scandal. About through half of the book I started wanting her to ditch her weirdo fiancé and start off with the (probably) hot and successful owner of the cell. But then, that’d be just too much for this kind of novel because it’s not a romance but more like an “out-of-life”-story; Poppy could be really anybody, like you and me. Also, the reader might be able to identify (or at least feel) with the characters in that way that Kinsella uses text-writing whenever Poppy and the businessman write texts. This style definitely makes it easy and pleasant to read the story and, even though it is being used often in recent contemporary literature, a new and sometimes even inspiring style of writing – however nonsensical but still worth a great laugh. In addition, Poppy uses footnotes to tell us her story, which made me laugh out loud! Also, even if this kind of book usually comes with a high level of predictability, not everything I imagined to happen did turn out that way, which I very much appreciated.

I’ve Got Your Number is plain fun to read and I’d definitely recommend this to every girl who’s looking for a light, sweet romance that is still not really a romance. 4 out of 5 bookmarks. Okay, I’ll give it 4.5… 😉 Quick, easy and enjoyable reads deserve high ratings. 

#16: Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre
Carmen Aguirre, the daughter of a Chilean revolutionary mother, tells her story of living in the resistance which called for all exiled activists to return to their Latin American home. Carmen’s parents fled with their two daughters to Canada after General Augusto Pinochet’s coup. From here, a long and dangerous journey began and at first ended in La Paz, where Carmen’s mother and her new Canadian husband set up a safe house for all those who fled from the dictatorship and who were part of the resistance as well. When Carmen turned eighteen, she became part of the resistance herself and the reader of Something Fierce joins her on nerve-wrecking “errands” across the Argentinian borders into Chile.
I encountered Something Fierce with zero expectations and, frankly, I’ve never heard of Carmen Aguirre before her autobiography was released. Also, wouldn’t it have had a “Canada Reads” sticker on it, I would never have found this book. “Something Fierce is a gripping story of love, war and resistance and a rare first-hand account of revolutionary life” (I got this from goodreads, who got this, I think, from the publisher). This one single sentence really hits the nail on the head. I experienced Aguirre’s “report” as a very intense, fast-paced account of the story of a young girl who does not really have a place to call home, but seeks for one. As someone who reads a lot of non-fiction, I can say that this is a fantastic read that everybody who is interested in ’70s / ’80s history and the political happenings in Latin America will enjoy reading.

Carmen Aguirre not only touched my heart with her brave and involving account of a period of time and a part of the world that so often goes forgotten in our Western oriented history classes, but she also brought about a topic nobody can or wants to stand up for (I understand this is mainly because of security reasons, which is absolutely plausible and makes Aguirre’s autobiography the more special). With this book, I can say that I’ve learned a lot to understand some of the revolutionary history of Latin America and made me think about what we really know about it. Because this book reawakened my interest in political (auto-) biographies and because Something Fierce feels so honest, I’m giving away 5 out of 5 bookmarks.

#17: Flowers in your hair – Wie man in San Francisco glücklich wird by Milena Moser
[I’ve read this in German. Unfortunately, this has not been translated (yet?).]

Flowers in your hair was my first book in German since last summer, and it was a great pick! Milena Moser, a writer and columnist from Switzerland, writes about her falling in love with San Francisco and her sudden decision to move there. She gives us an insight in what it means to move not only to a different country, but also into a different culture. There were several occasions in this book when I had to smile – “this is exactly what it’s like!” – such as the description of friends and family members who just could not understand that Milena was packing up her family and moving to California. Swiss people are very often affected by a sometimes rather unhealthy amount of prejudice, and when it comes to the U.S., the multitude of prejudices put the Americans down as a nation without any culture at all. That is what we encounter when reading about Milena and a bunch of her Swiss friends, all sophisticated and culturally very interested and informed, go out for dinner one night. The night ends with Milena literally crawling out of the restaurant and excusing her friends to the waiters.
Flowers in your hair is a description of what happens when you move to a different country. All the challenges one comes across, but also the new experiences one makes while getting to know a city and its people.

I enjoyed reading Milena Moser’s Flowers in your hair a lot. This is a great read for everyone who either immigrated somewhere or has friends / family who went for this adventure. 4 out of 5 bookmarks for this page-turner!

#18: And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
First things first: And the Mountains Echoed should not be compared to Hosseini’s previous books. I think that’s the major mistake most reviewers that I’ve recently read made. And then they were all disappointed because his new novel is of a different format. “A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop on-board, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.” This quote from the books very much describes what Hosseini’s new book is: short stories, interwoven into each other so they always come back to the same place and the same two characters – Abdullah and his little sister Pari. Two children from Afghanistan that are connected to each other by a very special bond. All stories that are being told in this novel are somehow connected to those two people and their Afghan home. And the Mountains Echoed is not just another “cute” story that can be read on public transit – the way it is constructed encourages the reader to think beyond the words. The fact that this is not just another cover-to-cover story probably made this such a pleasurable read for me and I would highly recommend And the Mountains Echoed to all of those out there who not only want to read words, but who also enjoy their meaning.

I reward And the Mountains Echoed with 5 out of 5 possible bookmarks. Just because I enjoyed this emotional and poetic tale so much and because it’s great writing and so much different from so many other books that were published recently. 

#19: The Candidate: What It Takes to Win – And Hold – The White House by Samuel L. Popkin
Samuel L. Popkin, professor for political science at UCSD, offers a great insight into the organization of a presidential campaign. In plain, understandable English, he explains why some of the “more successful” and leading candidates ended up not winning the elections. This book helped a lot to understand the complexity of such a campaign and with various case studies from the past fifty years, Popkin also suggests that there is no “recipe” of how to be the ideal candidate – who would have thought ten years ago that stepping out of the box and addressing voters with all kinds of new media would be such a success? A recommendation to those of you who like politics and are curious about how even a well-prepared and “successful” candidacy can fail. Just to take the …well… “dryness” off the topic itself, Popkin manages to pepper the topic with funny, astonishing and sometimes unbelievable anecdotes.

I reward the insights into the hard fight for the keys to the White House given by Popkin with 3 out of 5 bookmarks.

#20: Sutton by J.R. Moehringer
William “Willie” Sutton was one of the most notorious bank robbers in 20th century America. Yet, we know little about this man who robbed banks “because that’s where the money is”. Born in the Irish slums of Brooklyn, Sutton was an intelligent man and demonstrated this by the way he did all his “jobs”. He promised he would never hurt anybody and he kept his word to the end, which makes Sutton so lovable.
J.R. Moehringer, who helped Andre Agassi write his memoir, portrayed “Willie the Actor’s” life in this biographically inspired narrative. I liked the flashback-style Moehringer used in his novel and with the help of Sutton’s memory and “Reporter’s” and “Photographer’s” pressure, we travel through time and get to know the New York of the past. However, I was quite confused sometimes, especially in the end. The book itself is well-researched, even though there is little passed down on the bank robber’s life. As the Reporter in the novel states, there are several stories behind Willie Sutton’s life – one for himself, one for the reporters, the one that really happened… Nobody really know which one’s the real story. Additionally, I thought the last chapter was somewhat unnecessary.
As a fan of gangster stories, I enjoyed reading this book and I think Sutton was quite a personality. This book is very well written and I would recommend it to everybody who likes these kind of stories as well as biographies. However, it took me a while to read it because it didn’t catch my attention as much as it should have. I just missed something, but I can’t really name what it was, because in theory there is everything there that makes a great read.

Sutton gets 3.5 out of 5 bookmarks. I liked it and I’d recommend it because I loved the story itself, but I did not fall in love with the narrative.

#21: I Heart London by Lindsey Kelk
I Hear London is Lindsey Kelk’s fourth novel out of the I Heart series. Our protagonist Angela Clark takes us back to London where her adventures started two years ago. Angela is primarily flying back there because she didn’t tell her parents that she got engaged (a while ago, actually), and so her mom invites her daughter Angela and her American fiancé Alex to visit and attend her birthday party. This is also a great opportunity for Angela to advertise her new magazine to the London editors – so she’s also there for business. Somehow (because of morning sickness caused by heavy drinking, actually – the mom thinks Angela’s all abstinent…), Angela’s mom believes her daughter pregnant and suggests the young couple gets married in the parent’s backyard – in a week. Jenny came along as well and is now going nuts planning the wedding. By the end of the week, everybody is somehow slightly going crazy, nothing turns out as supposed. Especially Angela’s well-prepared business presentation…

Although I love the I Heart series, I was somehow disappointed when I finished reading I Heart London, and therefore I can only reward this with 4 out of 5 chick-flick bookmarks. Witty and enjoyable as usual, Kelk brings back all our favorite characters from the past three books and makes this a page turner. The only thing that wasn’t enjoyable at all was the “new” Jenny – she’s my fav character in this series, but she seriously turned into a very annoying b****.

#22: You Had Me At Hello by Mhairi McFarlane
How fun it was to read a novel in plain British English again! I figured that many British authors, especially the ones who want to conquer the American market as well, adapted some American English vocabulary or are trying to not using too much of a British dialect. Mhairi McFarlane was using a lot of Brit slang, and I love her for doing this. Her debut novel might not be the crème de la crème of chick-lit out there, but I very much enjoyed reading this. I picked it up as a bargain e-book not only because it was a bargain, but it was also one of the official 50 Book Pledge recommendations, so I thought I couldn’t go wrong here. And I was right!
This is very briefly what happens: Rachel and Ben were best friends when they were at university, but after graduating (and after declaring their love to each other) they never happened to see each other again. Mainly because of a huge misunderstanding / the lack of proper communication. Ten years later, Rachel just ended her engagement with long-time BF and meets Ben accidentally on purpose again at the library. But this was not the cheesy beginning of a love story!

You Had Me At Hello deserves a well-meant 4 out of 5 bookmarks. I liked reading Rachel’s story, mainly because it’s very ordinary. There’s nothing really that couldn’t happen to anybody in the world – mean colleague, weirdo date, a break up, the catching up with a lost love that is now married and just moved back to the city. You Had Me At Hello is reading about real people (with the one or the other twitch). A great read for the train or plane, I’d say. 

#23: Schiffbruch mit Tiger by Yann Martel
[Life of Pi]
What shall I say? Did I like it? Did I not? And most importantly: Why? I simply don’t know. I enjoyed reading Life of Pi, but then, I did not as much enjoy it as I should have according to all the prizes Yann Martel won with it and the good reviews that are out there. I just couldn’t get my mind around Life of Pi. In the end, it was just a nice collection of quotes – good language, okay story-telling. However, the so very highly praised spirituality did not reach me as much as it should have and I can’t say why this it is like that.
Little Pi Patel lives a happy life in India. He grew up in a zoo, so he knows a lot about animals and tells us about this. Then, his father decides to move to Canada and sells all the animals. With some of the animals aboard, they intend to move there on a container ship. The ship sinks one night due to an accident (nobody really knows what happened) and Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, a hyena, an orang-utan, and an injured zebra. The hyena kills first the zebra, then the orang-utan. So only the tiger called Richard Parker and Pi actually survive. Now they live on this tiny little lifeboat and a self-made raft and live of what the ocean gives away. After Pi manages to train the tiger, the live on the lifeboat together and one day, they set ashore of Mexico.

3.5 out of 5. I liked it more than 3, but Life of Pi doesn’t deserve a 4. Is it fiction? Is it a fantasy? Is the whole story just the result of a dehydrated imagination? Only the reader himself will find out…

#24: High Noon im Mittelland by Milena Moser
[This title is not available in English. It has been translated into French, I believe]
Milena Moser is probably my favourite columnist. She has a weekly column in a family-friendly magazine and writes in such a witty but very honest way. So High Noon im Mittelland is a collection of some of her columns from that magazine. Moser writes about pretty much everything one could think of, but (since the column is for a family magazine, I guess) her main topic is her patchwork family and the curiosities of life. After living in San Francisco for a while, Milena and her family (well, mainly Milena) is facing everyday life in Switzerland again and writes about some curiosities, like the fact that there are rules on how to use the shared laundry facilities of an apartment building. It only took me a Sunday to read this collection and I have to confess, sometime I had to laugh out loud (I bet our cat thinks I’m mad…)!

Just because I love her and her books so much, High Noon im Mittelland is rewarded with 4.5 out of 5 bookmarks. I wish I could give her all, but then, there’s always something. Reading this was so much fun! The perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

#25: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*le sigh* – I love The Great Gatsby. Simple as that. I have always been a great admirer of everything written in the roaring twenties of the last century, especially the U.S. I can’t tell why, though. This is a book about some very queer people living in a queer society. Nick, our hero who is everything else but a ‘hero’, is the only character who has to go to work and is not one of the uber rich high-society. In the middle of everything is Mr. Jay Gatsby, Nick’s neighbor, who is throwing the most extravagant parties and whom Nick gets to know as a friend. But then, nobody really seems to know who this Gatsby is, where he comes from and what he does – not even Nick, as it turns out.

I reward The Great Gatsby with 5 glorious bookmarks – I can’t find anything to complain about. Fitzgerald has such a splendid way with words and I have to admit that I was somehow sad after I was done reading because it was already over. The Great Gatsby is definitely one of those books one has to read over and over again and I most certainly will.

#26: Der Mann, dem ein Olivenbäumchen aus dem Ohr wuchs by Benny Barbasch
[Unfortunately, I could not find an English version of this. The original edition was published in Hebrew.]

A tremendously funny story about a little olive tree – that is growing out of a man’s ear. But that’s not it, Der Mann… is also the story of a Jewish family living in Tel Aviv and how they experience the life together with the Palestinians. The olive tree starts growing after the slightly overweight father decides to try out the olive diet – all he eats is olives, and all he drinks is water. One night, a little stone gets stuck in his airpipe (so he believes) and after a few days, there’s a little something growing out of his ear. Which turns out to be an olive tree. From then on, we witness how he copes with his symbiotic life with the tree…

Der Mann, dem ein Olivenbäumchen aus dem Ohr wuchs gets a wonderful 4.5 out of 5 bookmarks. This little book kept me entertained for a great afternoon out in the sun. Such a great read for everyone who just wants to enjoy a few hours of pure entertainment (I admit, I had to laugh out loud a few times). Additionally, one can learn a whole lot while reading this book – about Jewish families and how they deal with the holocaust, about how some Jews seem to experience the life in the promised land, about the cosmos, about olive trees, …

#27: On The Road by Jack Kerouac
I’m not sure whether or not I like On The Road by Jack Kerouac. What happened while I was reading this is that I got very much hooked on it and I always wanted to know what was yet to come, but then the whole story was somehow featureless to me. People were driving across the US all the time – from East to West and the other way round. At one time I thought that all that mattered to the post-World War II youth was drinking and getting laid and just driving around without any money in their pockets. And still, the storyline was attractive, Kerouac’s writing very fast and it made me demand more.

So far, this is the first time that I find it very hard to decide on how many bookmarks I want to give away for a book. I feel like four is almost too many, but then three will not do the job. Can I reward On The Road with 3.75 out of 5 possible bookmarks, please?