Just finished Joachim Fernau: Caesar lässt grüßen. Die Geschichte der Römer [Caesar sends his regards. A History of the Romans]
Not a book if you want/need to know data, facts and the current state of research. But a highly original, personal and well written comment on Roman history and via that on our current times.

Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Book 2 of Kingkiller Chronicle

We refuse to buy the second book until the dude decides to finish the series. Stop writing side books Rothfuss!!!!!!!

Just finished Stephen King's "the stand". Despite being a tad scattered , chronology and characters wise, I was reminded that King is, IMO, indeed an excellent writer. Well-developped and evolving characters, just enough thoughts or discussions on civilisation, religion... Really excellent.

Just finished Rick Boyer "The Giant Rat of Sumatra". I like Conan Doyle's Holmes novels and stories a lot - and this book seems as if Doyle had written it. I have read several books of other authors that continue the Watson/Holmes universe and this is one if not the best I have read so far. Fits seemlessly.

Just finished the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. A 3.000 pages beast of a space opera. Nice!
So of course now I started with Pandora's Star. Interstellar travel with.. wait for it.. Trains!!!

So, i did finish "Sand" a few days ago and i liked it, although i didn't get it. I had no idea in the end who the guy with amnesia actually was. As i read it from the complete edition of Wolfgang Herrndorf i only learned about the exquisite construction and all the details i overlooked (is overread a word?) in the following text about the novel. It's hilarious and my admiration for the author only grew.
It's impossible to find a genre for the novel, it's a bit of everything and mostly a phenomenal puzzle, spread over some 500 pages. I'm tempted to read it again some time in the future. I'd highly recommend "Sand".
Btw. it's the same title for the english edition.

Now i read "Drei Sekunden jetzt" from Hans Platzgumer. The title translates to "Three seconds now" but there is no english edition.

The SAS Survival Handbook Volume 1 wilderness Survival by John "Lofty" Wise man

Because it is a topic that has interested me since I was a teen. Being from Northern Ireland I am subject to hearing about street shootings and bomb scares every couple of months or so and every few years the UDA & IRA (and subsequent organisations) become more active. It goes up and down every couple of years and (while probability is low) I do worry about another "troubles", because of that English politicians "Brexit" suggestion there almost was another but worse version.

For a few weeks the shops had hardly any food or drinks and then covid on top... things did appear to be rather dier but I was just like "we'll be fine" but what if someday the shit really hits the fan?

This is just me imaging the worst possible outcome but I doubt it'll happen.

I'm also reading it because I want to become an adventurer and that comes with risks so gotta prepare.

Recently finished Journey to the Center of the Earth (Verne) - After really enjoying 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and its sense of wonder, adventure, and lyricism, I was unpleasantly surprised to find this one fairly mediocre. Again Verne gets hung up on technical details (the conclusion wraps up a loose thread concerning a compass, for instance), but what really does the novel a disservice is its framing device. It's written in first-person, not quite as a diary but not far off either - and so despite the narrator frequently relating how concerned and scared he is that they might die, there is no sense of tension for the reader because we already know that the narrator has survived his ordeal. I think there could be a version of this book that would be a really fun romp if Verne wasn't so hung up on being scientific (ie, just embracing the absurdity of his premise and making it more of a fantasy), but as it stands I found this one kind of dull.

After s couple of DNF I'm now in the middle of "Klara and the sun", the latest Ishiguro. I really like it! His writing is always beautiful, and I'm sad I didn't like two of the other 4 of his books I read. But I loved the other two, so with this one we go over the average!

After losing the first week of the month to the Olympics, I still managed to finish 6 books this month

Fall Of Berlin 1945 - Self explanatory, after getting tired of reading history earlier in life, really enjoying Anthony Beevor's historical works though
The Greatest Americans - A somewhat jingoist look at Americans that lived through WW2
We Were The Lucky Ones - Fictionalized account of a real Jewish family struggling to live through the Holocaust
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - About the German occupation of Guernsey during WW2 and the aftermath

Finished: Transport 7: Ursprung

I'm done with The Colour of Magic. I have a mild headache, and I'm resisting the temptation to steal a couple of pages from The Light Fantastic.

Just finished Lee Child 'Personal' and Lee Child 'Past Tense'.

Just to enlighten the background: I have read most novels of the Jack Reacher series and I was thrilled with the first dozen or so. Before I had read many novels of e.g. Henning Mankell who had blazed the trail for something I would call the Scandinavian wave of crime novels and I had been very enthusiastic of Mankell's novels as well. Reading a crime novel where the investigation of something is described on 150 pages and the outcome is that this investigation had been an error and the team has to start completely anew, that was something.

However after having read many of the novels of this subgenre of crime novels, the concept in a way had worn out from my point of view. I started to get tired reading about the psychic problems of superintendents, reading endlessly about their problems with their children who all were so damned smart and successful (with this perfect outcome of an education, what actually went wrong?), I started getting tired reading about their family and relationship problems and that they had to see a psychologist every week because they had fired a gun 1500 years ago etc etc.

The character of Jack Reacher seemed to be like a fresh breeze. Somebody who killed the bad and did sleep like a baby. It was also very interesting to follow a lonely drifter's journey through the US, reading about the characteristics of the many places of this huge country that is all too often seen as monolithic from our viewpoint from overseas. However I got the impression that Child at a certain point lost interest in developing his character further; some of the later novels seem to be like the completion of a chore to bring some fresh money in. That applies in my view to 'Personal' - a one dimensional main character, a plot that starts quite interesting but evolves in something only lukewarm - book had to be finished by a certain time it seems, so let's get over with it.

'Past Tense' is much better. A much more multidimensional plot with different lines of action, much better style, much more interesting, a novel that ties in with the standard of the first dozen of the series imho.

Recently finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Chabon) - This is an excellent book. Maybe gets a little long after a while, but deft and light on its feet. Funny, sad. You can feel Chabon's love for his characters, even when they make poor decisions. Highly recommend.