The Bookish Seven Deadly Sins

I've been tagged to do the Seven Deadly Sins Questionnaire (created by BookishlyMalyza) by the wonderful Micheline from Lunar Rainbows and because I love bookish questions - here are my answers :) Thanks for the tag, hun!

1. Greed. What's your most inexpensive book? What's your most expensive one?
Hm... cheapest are probably my books from the 'Bücherbrocki' which is kind of liked a used books store. Paperbacks are only two bucks there, no matter how big or small they are.
If you count ebooks though, it'd be one of my Amazon freebies or deals for 99 cents.
As for the most expensive book I own, I think I paid most (or, well, my mum gave it to me for graduation) for my hardcover edition of The Lord of the Rings, illustrated by Alan Lee. It's beautiful :) I also have an edition of Swinburne poems from 1917. I bought in cheaply on ebay, but then had to have it restored for over 80 bucks because the front cover fell clean off as soon as I opened it >_<

2. Wrath. What author do you have a love-hate relationship with?
This is so hard! I know there is someone, I just know! I'm looking at my shelves and I just can't figure it out. Hm. Maybe Sarah Rees Brennan, but just a little. I mostly love love love her, but she has a way of ending books that is just plain cruel. Or Jane Austen. I know she's a good writer but god, most of her characters are just so aggravating! It always takes me forever to get into one of her books because I can't find a single person that I like. Which I know is not how I should look at books as an academic reader but it's just infuriating because she writes about the most horrible people and so many of her protagonists are either doormats (Anne, Fanny) or think they know it all (Emma).

3. Gluttony. What book have you devoured over and over again with no shame.
I don't have time to re-read as much as I used to, but I've read Der Kreis der Dämmerung bei Ralf Isau about 3 times when I was a teen. Another frequent re-read were books by Wolfgang Hohlbein (German YA fantasy, mostly from the 80s and 90s): Der Greif, Spiegelzeit, Dreizehn... I think some of them have been translated to English. I've also read many of especially the first few Harry Potter books several times, as well as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
These days though, I'm mostly a re-reader of poetry because you don't spend days on it and I find it calming to come back to my favorites. The ones I've read most are probably The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot and the poems in Stephen Crane's Black Riders and Other Lines (I always mean to re-read just a specific one and end up going through the whole book). I also love Ode to a Nightingale by Keats.

4. Sloth. What book have you neglected reading due to laziness?
Well. About three years ago I bought a huge omnibus of Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy. All three books in one. But it has well over 1000 pages and it's HUGE and basically impossible to transport. And since I tend to read on the bus/train... somehow I just never read it. Even though I've wanted to for 10 years, since I first spotted Lirael at a local book store.

5. Pride. What book do you talk about most in order to sound like an intellectual reader?
Well. If I wanted to show off or maybe purposefully make another person leave I'd talk about Ulysses by James Joyce. Or The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot.
As for Classics I really enjoyed: Jane Eyre, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Tristram Shandy, Frankenstein, Mrs Dalloway, and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (though that one was very disturbing).

6. Lust. What attributes do you find attractive in male or female characters?
Male: I tend to go for the lean types rather than the bulky ones. Dark hair. Green or blue eyes. Snark and mischief mixed with vulnerability and a sense of humor. If he's creative or good with a sword, that's a plus. I can go for both a villainous or a morally upright guy, but no fake bad boys please.

Female: I love fierce girls or women who can stand up for themselves, be it because they are badass fighters or good with words. Loyalty and compassion are also important. I like protagonists that are mostly self-reliant but also not too proud to ask for help when they need it.

7. Envy. What book would you most like to receive as a gift?
Um. Any book on my TBR that I don't own yet? But a 19th century edition of Paradise Lost by Milton or the above-mentioned poetry volume by Stephen Crane would be wonderful. You know, old, rare books. Perhaps with engravings. I also like it when the previous owners have written into them - little notes, their name on the title page, or a dedication if the book has been a gift.


This took me waaaay longer to write than I thought it would! Okay, time to tag some people! If you've already done it then I'm sorry, no time to check. Perhaps leave me a link to your post?

Kelly from Effortlessly Reading

Jen from The Starry-Eyed Revue

Kayce from Fighting Dreamer

Anya from On Starships and Dragon Wings

Jen from Tangled in Books

Caro from The Book Rogue

 

Discussion: How Do You Travel with Books?

Hey guys, it's been forever since I've done a discussion post! Though I usually talk more about the actual text and story aspects of books in these discussions, this time my question concern the books as objects. I've done quite a bit of traveling this summer (more on that here) and my book-loving were both a source of excitement (visiting awesome bookstores! Meeting authors! So many great books! So much cheaper than at home!) as well as a problem when it came to packing.

When I left for New York City, I packed only one paperback plus my Kindle. I knew I'd buy a ton of books and other stuff and I wanted to keep my suitcase as empty as possible. But already after that first week, I had like a dozen books. A few more were added in New Orleans. At the airport, my suitcase was exactly the allowed 50 pounds. But I knew there'd be more books added in California (San Francisco, I shall one day write an Ode to your book stores). In the end, my sister and I both bought a carry-on each - to be filled with books. Only books. To the brim. Plus a few stuffed in elsewhere.

I always need something to read when I'm traveling, even if it's just a bus or train ride. I need to know that if I have to wait for something (and let's face it, airports mean loads of waiting) I can just pick up my book. I can make my own bubble of comfort and disappear into a story. I like to read at the beach, at a café, basically wherever. But that also means lugging around books all the time. Weight. Space taken up. And even though I love print books, the Kindle comes in damn handy at those times. The problem is just that the battery of my Kindle Fire only works for like 8 hours, even if I have the light turned way down. So I still need a paperback with me, too.

How do you handle this problem? Do you have a Kindle, and do you use it for travelling? Are you a print-books only kind of person? How many books do you take with you when you travel? Do you worry about damage to the books (I sure do)? Do you like to buy books abroad? What was your craziest or most embarrassing book-related traveling experience? Let me know in the comments :)

I am done with EVERYTHING! And coming to the US! :D

Hey guys!

I know I know... it's been a very long period of silence from me. It wasn't intentional. I just couldn't keep up with everything at the same time, and I had to prioritize writing that MA thesis. But I'm done now. Done with the thesis. Done with the exam. Everything is handed in. My next and last action at university will be getting my diploma in September with everyone else who finished this semester.

It doesn't quite feel real yet. Studying was a huge part of my life for the past six years. It was a part of my identity. To not have that anymore... it feels weird. But also good. Because I was sort of fed up with... everything. I just need something else. I need to see the world. Which is what I'm about to do. In pretty much exactly 12 hours from the moment I'm writing this, my plane takes off. My sister and I are doing a huge, six week trip to the US!! :D

WE ARE SO EXCITED!!

Neither of us has ever been to the US before. And now we're going together. First we'll be in New York for about the week, then we're going to Washington D.C. for a day, then we're boarding a plane in Baltimore and flying to New Orleans. We're staying there for another few days, then it's off in the car. We're driving across Texas and then somehow up to the Grand Canyon, then to Vegas for my sister's birthday. After that, down to L.A. and San Diego and then up the coast until San Francisco.

Yup, we've quite a program. And we hope it'll be awesome. And that we'll have adventures. And meet people along the way.

I'm also a bit scared though, to be honest. I've never been so far from home for so long. (I also haven't driven a car in forever) But I also hope I can sort of figure out or at least get more of an idea what to do with my life post-university on this trip. I hope I can write some stories and have new ideas, see new things, get a new perspective.

What does all of this mean for the blog?
Well, even if I'm traveling, I will still be reading. I have in fact read quite a lot even while writing the thesis. I just didn't get around to/have the energy to blog about it. I am VERY out of touch with everyone and everything, including new releases. I also have quite a bunch of ARCs I never got around to reading, but I hope I can catch up a bit over the summer and I still plan to write and post these reviews, even if it's not around the release date anymore. I really missed blogging!! I feel like so many cool things were going on and I am way out of touch with everyone :/

Also, you can expect this blog to become a kind of travel blog for the next few weeks, with pictures and stuff every few days, also depending on where we can get WiFi.

Lastly and very importantly, if you live in NYC or New Orleans or L.A. or San Francisco or basically anywhere I mentioned above, I would love to meet you! It would be so cool to meet bloggers in real life! I wish I could have come earlier and gone to BEA, but I had my exam on  May 27.
I don't mean to come across as a creep with this meeting thing. But we could have coffee or maybe go to your favorite book store or whatever. So if you're a blogger and maybe we've talked before and you live along our route, I'd love to hear from you via email or on Twitter!

So... yeah. I don't really know what else to say. I have to go finish packing and stuff. And freak out some more. And hopefully catch a few hours of sleep. And not do something stupid like forgetting my passport or ESTA thingy. Hopefully you'll hear from me tomorrow or the day after that while I'm sitting in some café in Brooklyn and annoying the natives :P

Have any of you ever gone on a big road trip? Do you have any tips for my sister and me? Places we totally need to see? Things to avoid doing? Bookish places to visit? Let me know in the comments! I've really missed blogging and interacting with you all!

Blogging resolutions for 2014

I know, I know. Another not really all that bookish, blog related post. But I think it's important to set a few goals for myself, officially, in writing. Even though I am usually not at all a new-years-resolution-y person.
But there are things in 2013 that didn't go all that well, that made me feel guilty, that I didn't like. I didn't write as many reviews as I would have wanted. I wasn't very social. I sometimes didn't comment back, or commented back very late. And even though 2014 will be very busy for me, at least the next 4 months (I'm writing my master thesis (deadline in May) and hopefully graduating in the summer/fall), I do want to try to be a better blogger as well. Even though the thesis must take precedence because I really cannot afford to screw this up.

Anyhow, here are some of my blogging resolutions for 2014:

• Review more books, even if this means reading less.
• Be more social: get back on Twitter or at least find a point that I'm comfortable using it at while it isn't eating all my time.
• Also on the social front: comment more, and return all comments on meme posts (unless they are obviously a copy-paste type of comment)
• Restrain myself on Netgalley and Edelweiss
• More original content, not just memes. I really like the discussion posts and judging from the response, I guess you guys did as well. I'm also brainstorming other types of possible posts that haven't been done a gazillion times over.
• Also, maybe try to finally set up that meme/feature I've been meaning to do for a while.
• General maintenance / updating stuff, like maybe some design tweaks (though I really love my header), reconsidering the ways you can follow the blog (do I really need Networked Blogs and GFC?), plus some stuff I consider doing with the FB page or Pinterest. This doesn't have priority though.

I feel like I forgot something... if you have any idea what it might be, let me know :P
Anyway, apart from all that I also simply want to have fun blogging. This is a hobby, not a chore. I'm not planning to ever make any money from this, I'm not affiliated with anybody. I can make my own rules. I think it's important to remember that, too.

I hope you guys had a great start into 2014! If you're a blogger, do you have any resolutions for the new year? Link me up to your post if you have one :)

Spooktacular Giveaway Hop (Int)!

Hey everyone and welcome to my stop on the Spooktacular Giveaway Hop! Though it's not widely celebrated in my part of the world, I love Halloween and all it entails! I love the pumpkins and the candy and the creepy. And in autumn, what's better than curling up with a good book and a cup of coffee while the wind's howling outside?

You don't have a good book to keep you company? No matter, if you're lucky you can choose one from the list below, just click them to find out more about them :) If there's nothing to your liking, you can pick another spooky read around 10$ from The Book Depository. Just enter below and make sure to read the rules! This giveaway is open to wherever The Book Depository ships for free.

Also, don't forget to check out all the other awesome blogs participating! Check the linky below :)

Rules

• Open wherever The Book Depository ships for free
• Only ONE entry per person/household
• Cheating on one entry results in disqualification. I check ALL the entries before picking.
• I will email the winner and they have 48 hours to respond. Otherwise I will pick someone new
• You must be at least 13 to enter, 18 if you choose an adult book like Blackbirds or Blood Rights
• I am not responsible for damaged packages or books lost in the mail. Once I've ordered it, it's out of my hands
• No preorders
• I will order whatever version is available to me for cheap, so covers may vary

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Discussion: do you believe in Second Book Syndrome?

Hey guys :)
Today I want to talk about a topic I didn't really come across or think about before I got involved in the book blogging community. It's often referred to as Second Book Syndrome and the way I understand it, it basically means the inability of the second book in a series (especially a trilogy) to measure up to the first one, or to the reader expectations that had built up for its release. I think if we're talking about longer series, there is sometimes also the impression that the second book is/was the weakest one? (I'm not sure whether this is a common opinion though.)

Now why do I want to talk about this?
Well... quite often I don't see this problem. To be honest, I often like the second book in a trilogy the best! Or even if I don't like it better than the other ones, I at least don't think it's bad. There are exceptions to this of course (see below) but in general I don't understand this whole idea of Second Book Syndrome and why people seem to end up hating the second book. I'd even go so far as to say that most of the time, the problem isn't the book but the reader and their expectations, and well... you yourself are responsible for your expectations. Not the book. Not the author.
I mean, I get that it kind of sucks if you had made your mind up that a book was going to be a certain way and then it turns out completely different, but instead of getting angry I think it's better to take a step back, change gears, and get on board with the book you actually have in front of you instead of mourning the book you had made up in your mind. This is speculation on my part though, and maybe people who experience Second Book Syndrome often have different reasons for disliking book 2?

That being said, I think it's time for some examples of second books that were different from what I thought they'd be but turned out to be really awesome:



I was a bit reluctant when I realized that Demon's Covenant was written from the POV of a different character than book 1 (book 3 is from yet another), and one that I had mixed feelings about. But I turned out to love being inside her head, seeing her struggles, and I admired her strength. This is my fave of the series mostly for that reason.
When the reactions for CP started trickling in, I knew I was in for heartache. But nothing could prepare me for the perfection (and the pain) of this book. I'm not usually a fan of love triangles but here it's just perfectly balanced. All three of them love each other, it's not just two guys panting after the same girl and there's no petty jealousy and power games.
Enshadowed was different from Nevermore in that there was a lot less Varen around... which made me sad, but also allowed Isobel to develop much more as a person of herself, not in relation to some guy, as had been the case before with her ex. Generally with this series I never know what to expect, and I love it!
Now I suppose a lot of you wonder 'why Torment?' To be honest, I don't really know how to feel about this series. On the one hand, it's insta-love and YA stereotypes at their worst. On the other hand, it's like a metadiscourse or reflection on insta-love, especially in book 2. Luce mistrusts Daniel, is angry at being out of the loop, and wants to discover things of her own. His 'love of my life and my past life omg he's so amazing' image gets some serious scratches. Because she's the one dying over and over while he just goes on for another 17 years and gets his next chance, where he'll screw up again. I've yet to read book 4, and maybe then I'll have a clearer idea about the series as a whole.

There are a gazillion other amazing second books I could have mentioned here, but many of them didn't take me by surprise as much. I expected The Eternity Cure, Days of Blood and Starlight, Red Glove, and Crown of Midnight to be awesome, and they were. Oh, and I know many had a problem with Insurgent but I think it was a very realistic continuation of what happened in Divergent. I might not have liked everything that happened but it was a logical consequence.

Unfortunately, also for me there are second books that just didn't work out:



I really enjoyed Hush Hush when I read it two years ago (I got it at a signing on a trip to Ireland) but Crescendo was a big disappointment. My biggest issue was with Nora. Her behavior was stupid and irrational, and her decisions made no sense. I know she's young, but she's supposed to be smart. The magic just didn't happen this time. The book was just full of bad vibes and it really tried my nerves. Silence was somewhat better. I haven't read Finale yet.
I loved the writing in Wither. The mood and world were incredibly strong to me. While Fever was still good, the characters spent a lot of time in a place I kind of hated and that part dragged for me. On the other hand, there were developments that just had to happen and we got a bigger picture of the book's world and how it works.
My Soul to Save is not on here because it is bad, but I do think it's the weakest book in the series. The plot just never really pulled me in and I sometimes had problems with Kaylee's reactions. Book 3-7 though? Perfection.
Sweet Peril is a book I was really really looking forward to, especially with it kind of hanging in the air whether Harper would buy it at all. I wanted to love it. I only liked it. Sweet Evil had a way of completely pulling me into the story; it was really intense. Sweet Peril felt like a kind of stagnation. Anna developed some, but the plot was crawling. They're not really much further than they were at the end of book 1. I got to know the characters better and there were scenes and interactions I really loved, but on the whole I'd just expected more, also in terms of and expansion of the world building. I hope book 3 will give me that punch I kind of missed here, though I still enjoyed the this one.

Now why did I compile this second list? Because I don't think that's Second Book Syndrome. It's a mixture me having my expectations not met, them having been way too hyped up, or me having gotten more picky about books. It could have been my mood. It could have been a lot of things. I just think it's a pity if readers, from the get-go, have it in their heads that the second book is going to be a disappointment and won't measure up to the first. Because if you go into the story with that kind of expectation, you will probably find a lot of things to dislike and feel that your expectations were justified, and you might miss parts that were awesome because you're focusing on the negative.

Do any of you share some of my feelings about Second Book Syndrome? Or if you do think second books are often weak, can you explain why? Are my ideas of why some people might feel like that way off or is there something to them? This is an issue I see around the blogosphere a lot for example when there are Top Ten Tuesday posts about sequels, or also in reviews. I'd just like to hear some other thoughts/opinions/theories, so please share and comment?

Bookish Superlatives Survey

Jamie from the Perpetual Pageturner has come up with a new survey! Remember the A-Z book survey? Well this new one looks like fun too! Click the link to get to her post and participate :)

Characters

Most Likely To Change The World
Tris from Divergent. She's got the courage, the fight, and the principles.

Cutest Couple
This is actually really hard! What does cute mean anyway? There are so many couples I love but whether they're cute is another story. Hm. Maybe Tod and Kaylee from the Soul Screamers series? I also really like Bram and Nora from Dearly, Departed. Yeah I know, we're talking about cute and I give you zombie romance...

Class Clown
Maybe Jamie from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. Or Alaska from Looking for Alaska. She sure knows how to pull off a prank. Or no wait! Puck, from the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa. Puck gets the title.

Most Likely To Become Famous For Their Athletic/Musical/Artistic Abilities
Music: Bailey from Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols.

All Around Good Person
Eddie from Vampire Academy / Bloodlines. He looks out for everyone.

Biggest Flirt
Adrian Ivashkov. Kaidan Rowe. Those guys know how to get a girl's number... 

Most Likely To Be Fought Over 
Noah Shaw from the Mara Dyer series. I can also imagine a lot of people fighting over St. Clair from Anna and the French Kiss.

Mostly Likely To Be Friends Forever
Maybe Donna and Navin from Karen Mahoney's Iron Witch series. Or Emma and Kaylee from Soul Screamers. But I'm missing a really great friendship team, I just know it...

Most Likely To Have Their Own Reality Show 
Mimi from the Blue Bloods series. She's definitely conceited enough to have cameras following her everywhere from shopping to her stylist to her parties.

Most Unique
Varen Nethers. I'm not quite sure what he even is exactly but I've never read anyone like him.

Most Likely To Survive An Apocalypse
Katniss from the Hunger Games. That girl would survive just about anything.

Most Likely To Be A Villain
Jesse from Michelle Davidson Argyle's The Breakaway. He already is a criminal but I think he might as well rise in their ranks...
Or Lila from the Curse Workers series. She's a crime family heiress and one badass girl.

Biggest Wallflower
Um... Simon from The Mortal Instruments before he turns into a vampire?

Most Likely To Break Your Heart
Will Herondale. He broke it very badly. Or Noah from the Mara Dyer series. I'm sure he's broken his share of hearts twice over.

Most Changed
Mac from the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. Starts out as some sort of barbie, becomes one badass fighter against the fae.

Most Likely To Get Arrested
I know so many smartass characters, why won't none of them come to mind?!
Maybe Beth from Dare You To by Katie McGarry.

Self Proclaimed God/Goddess
Jace from The Mortal Instruments. I like the guy, but that ego...
Or Daemon from Obsidian.

Best Person To Bring Home To Mom & Dad
Erm... maybe Hale from Heist Society. You know, he may be a thief but he's also a filthy rich heir and he knows how to behave in polite society and charm people.

Books

Most Likely To Make You Cry 
Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare. Made me cry sooo hard!! Will, Jem, Tessa. What a knot you make.
Oh and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I was book-hungover, and that's not usual with me.

Dares To Be Different (in world, plot, storytelling, etc.) 
In storytelling: Nevermore by Kelly Creagh. I also find Holly Black's books to be different and courageous in what she depicts. She also often features LGBT characters.
Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement was also unlike anything else I've read.

Best Dressed (pretty cover!)
Oh my god, only one?! Anyway, I'm still impressed by this one.

Most Likely To Make You Swoon 
I'm not a swooner generally but some of the things Tod Hudson says to Kaylee certainly come close... so maybe If I Die? It's likely to make me cry too though...

Loveliest Prose 
Nevermore by Kelly Creagh. Beautiful, beautiful writing. New descriptions and somehow... condensed. I also love all the E.A. Poe references.

Most Likely To Be A Favorite Of 2013
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind
Markus Zusak - The Book Thief
April Genevieve Tucholke - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Michelle Hodkin - The Evolution of Mara Dyer

I've read a lot of amazing books this year!!

Most Likely To Change The World (or change your life)
Divergent had a very big impact on me concerning who I am and who I want to be.
As for contemporary books, I can recommend Just One Day by Gayle Forman.

Book You Are Most Likely To Keep Putting Off

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Shocking, isn't it? But I'm not sure I'll ever read it. I know I'm not ready for it. I don't feel like opening old wounds, and I know Green's writing well enough to know he'd make me feel it.

Most Likely To End Up As Christmas Gifts For Everyone You Know
Me giving other people books... not necessarily a good idea ^^''
But I think Pushing the Limits or Shadow and Bone would make fairly good presents.

Most Likely To Be Thrown
Does that mean from my collection?
I have an ecopy of Beautiful Disaster that I won. If it was print, I'd gladly throw it out. It glorifies are very unhealthy relationship and the plot is all over the place.

Most Likely To Be Reread More Than Once
The Mara Dyer series. Throne of Glass.  The Infernal Devices series. The Fever series. Loads and loads of books... I really wish I had the time!

Most Likely To Make You Read Through An Earthquake Because It’s THAT Engrossing 
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness was extremely engrossing!

Most Likely To Be Passed On To Your Children

My editions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, illustrated by Alan Lee. They're very beautiful!

Most Likely To Break Your Heart Into A Million Pieces
Isn't that very similar to the make you cry question? Take those from there and add Black Heart by Holly Black to it. It was a great conclusion to the trilogy but it did break my heart at points.

Most Likely To Brighten Up Your Day
Losing It by Cora Carmack. It was a lot of fun! Oh, or Croak by Gina Damico. Funniest novel involving reapers ever XD


Do you agree/disagree with my choices? So often I felt like if you'd have asked me at any other time, I would have come up with much better answers...

Discussion: Do characters/MCs need to be relatable?

As the title says: do you need to be able to relate to a character or like them in order to enjoy a book and form a connection to it?
This is a question I ask myself quite often and that arose a few days ago because I was reading Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers. Regina, the protagonist, is someone I both feel sympathy for (she is first almost raped and then ridiculed, outcast and bullied by her former friends) and despise (she used to bully a lot of other people at her school and since I've been a victim of bullying myself, that makes it hard to like her).

However, I think that tension makes her an even more interesting protagonist. I can connect to her and the story, even though I've never been even close to her actual situation or in the kind of toxic girl-group relationship she is stuck in. I enjoyed the tension between these two sides of her and her struggle against herself and her peers.

So in general I think being able to relate to a character is not all that important to me. I don't even have to like them. It just has to be an interesting, complex character. For instance, I don't think many people like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, but that doesn't mean he isn't interesting or that the book is bad. In some cases I find myself reading the book to a great part because of the villain (or maybe-villain).

Still, I often read in reviews that people liked a book/character because they could relate to him/her, or that they didn't like a book because they couldn't connect with/relate to/like the protagonist. I think there's also a pressure on authors to write this type of character, and sometimes I feel like it shows. For instance, the character is introduced/constructed in such a way that I feel like the author wanted him/her to be as similar to the anticipated reader as possible so they'd like him/her. If it's that transparent, it actually makes me dislike the character. It somehow feels insincere and  like I'm being sucked up to.

Maybe the fundamental question is what you're reading for. Do you want to find characters with traits that are similar to you, want to find someone who is 'like' you? Or do you want to disappear into a story populated with people who are completely different from yourself? I tend to find difference/otherness/strangeness more interesting than similarity/sameness. But that's just me, and it's not absolutely always the case. I guess in the end it comes down to the quality of the writing.

What's your opinion? Do characters need to be relatable? Likeable? Morally upstanding? Is that necessary for you to connect to the story? Or are there other elements that are more important to you in a book? I'd really like to know :)

Discussion: fravorite city-settings in books

Hey guys!

I'm ashamed of the lack of original content on the blog lately .___. I don't even have a good explanation or excuse. I'm just... not really feeling it at the moment and the thought of writing a review gives me an anxiety attack. So I just... read like a maniac. And the books pile up. Hah. Not very productive but I can't not read.

Anyway, since I still couldn't bring myself to review any of the great books I've read lately (doing them justice makes me nervous) I thought of something I'd like to discuss.


Cities I love as settings for books

I grew up in a village of 700 people but since my mid-teens, I've wanted to live in a big city, so when I was 21 I moved to Zurich (biggest city in the country). I love to read about cities. They have so many different places where things can happen and where different types of people converge. There's this sense of energy and possibility. Every city has its own vibe and I think that also flows into the setting of a book.

I've never been to the US, so whenever a book is set in Europe for once, that already makes me want to read it. If it's by a US author and/or if the characters in the book are from the US and traveling to Europe, it's also interesting to see how someone from there sees my continent. One example for that is Just One Day by Gayle Forman.

Other of my favorite European settings are London (because I've been there so when the characters go to certain places, I know what it all looks like and where they are, which is cool and unusual for me) and Prague. I finally got to Prague last summer and that resulted in me being even more into it as a setting. There's just something so old about it, and it has a history of magic and alchemy that I find very appealing. Examples: Daughter of Smoke and Bone, City of Dark Magic, The Book of Blood and Shadows. (I feel like I'm forgetting some...). For London there are just too many to count. Some of my faves: The Infernal Devices trilogy, Kate Griffin's Urban Magic series, Soulless, ACID, Neverwhere, Mrs Dalloway, the Black Butler manga. Feel free to share your own faves!

Other cities I enjoy reading about are Venice and Paris. They give off this romantic or seductive vibe and I especially love them for historical novels, for instance Venom by Fiona Paul. And there's of course Dublin! I love it as the setting for Karen Marie Moning's Fever series.

As for American cities, I like New York as a setting because that city is just so big and full of possibilites, but it can also really drag you down. I'm not such a big fan of an L.A. setting though I'm actually not quite sure why. I'd LOVE to read more books, especially YA ones, set in San Franscisco! I have a big fascination with that city and feel drawn to it, but I've only read very few books set there. So if you have recommendations, bring them on! As soon as I hear about one, especially with a paranormal element, it goes on my TBR automatically. Another city I really enjoy reading about is New Orleans. I love Kelly Keaton's Gods and Monsters series, where she creates her own unique version of the city, and I also love Poppy Z. Brite's books, many of which are set there. And of course there's Anne Rice.

But really, if the author can make me feel like I'm 'there' I can enjoy pretty much any city as a setting. It just has to set the right mood for the story, in my opinion. What I haven't touched on here are made-up cities. There are many of those I love but that would make this topic too vast for me right now... feel free to point some out to me though!

EDIT: Epic fail!! I forgot Tokyo, or Japan in genral. I haven't read all that many books set there (a couple by a Swiss author, Federica de Cesco, as well as Ink by Amanda Sun and the Across the Nightingale Floor books, which were inspired by Japan), it was mostly manga, but I'd looove to read more stories set in Tokyo! Could be historical or contemporary, fantasy or not, I don't care! If you have recommendations, please share :)

So what are some of your favorite city-settings for novels? Are there any that catapult an upcoming book to your insta-buy list? Are there any you really dislike reading about? Or does it not matter to you at all what city a story is set in? If so, I'm interested to hear why!

Armchair BEA: it's giveaway time!

Yay, giveaways around the blogosphere! I love entering them, and I love hosting them when my bank account allows it ;) I always squee when I win one and from the reactions to the emails I send out to my winners the feeling is pretty universal, and I like making other people happy ^^

Since I think the book bloggers participaing in Armchair BEA come from quite diverse genres, I'm letting the winner pick their own book for once. It must be available from The Book Depository though and not over 10$ (as seen from my location). But please read the rules at the bottom!

Today's discussion is about literary fiction, but since I just wrote a sort of lenghty post on the Classics and don't really read contemporary 'literary' fiction all that much, I'm reverting to yesterday's topic that I missed: genre fiction.

As you know if you've been following me for a while, I love all things fantasy and paranormal. My breakthrough books were on the one hand the Harry Potter books, but after that it was those of a German author called Wolfgang Hohlbein. He wrote about all kinds of fantasy stuff: kids travelling to other worlds, beings from other worlds intruding into ours, high fantasy, computer games coming to live, a guy entering another world by walking across rooftops, creepy houses, elves, Arthurian legends, mirror worlds... I pretty much inhaled it all. Then came The Lord of the Rings (thanks to the movies), which I read many times, same as the Hobbit, the Silmarillion, and other Tolkien texts. After that came my Stephen King phase.

Later I branched out to English&American authors like Anne Rice, Kim Harrison or Melissa Marr and discovered the whole vampire/paranormal/urban fantasy genres (both adult and YA)... and I was hooked! I read nothing else for years. I love the idea of the fantastical being part of our everyday world! Vampires, fairies, and demons are my favorites. I'm not a big werewolf fan but other kinds of shifters are interesting! I used to give zombies a wide berth but I'm slowly coming around to them, as long as it's not a zombie apocalypse thing. I've also branched out a bit more since becoming a blogger and now read contemporaries as long as they're not too heavy on the romance, and dystopians if their concepts stand out to me (I avoided them for a long time and am now catching up).

That being said, here are some suggestions for books you might want to check out if you win the giveaway. As I said though, you can choose whatever you like :)






Rules:

• open internationally, provided The Book Depository ships to you for free
• one entry per person / household. I check EVERY entry before picking the winner! You cheat, you're disqualified.
• you must be at least 13 years old
• the winner has 48 hours to respond to my email, otherwise I pick someone new
• I am not responsible for what happens with the book after I've ordered it
• the book must be 10$ or less, as seen from my location (Switzerland). Prices differ and sometimes I have access to editions that don't show up for US residents.

Have fun, and good luck!! 
If you have any questions or something doesn't work, tweet me! @Butterfly_Ghost
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Discussion: Do you cast your characters while you're reading? How do you imagine them?

Hey guys :)

I want to apologize again for being less active lately, both on the blog and on twitter. There's a lot of change going on in my life right now and I'm trying to deal and find a balance. Mostly I'm just losing myself in one book after the other, which leads to reviews piling up, which leads to me sticking my head in the proverbial sand... yeah.

Anyhow, this is a discussion post! I'd like to talk about how we imagine characters in the books we're reading. I've noticed that a lot of bloggers (and also authors) 'cast' the people in the books they read or write, i.e. choose pictures of actors or models they think represent or resemble the character.

I can never resist an opportunity to show off this cover

Apart from the fact that I'd be way too lazy to search through all those pictures of hot dudes and ladies (because let's face it, they usually are good-looking) I admit I personally don't really see the point. When I imagine a character, they never resemble any other person I've ever seen before, be it from my own life or from a movie/advert/whatever. They just pop into my head as I read them. Even if there is no clear description from the get-go, I always have an image in my head that  I can then adapt/concreticize. Before seeing all those casting posts, the idea of looking for that type of pictures never crossed my mind. But I've seen in a lot in guest posts or on authors' Pinterest boards.

The only thing I admit to is that I sometimes 'lift' a character off the cover if I like it a lot. For Nevermore trilogy is someone I imagine pretty much exactly like the guy on the book cover. Same with Daemon from Obsidian, because that guy is so in-your-face everywhere before you even start reading the book that it's impossible to picture him any other way :P
instance, Varen in Kelly Creagh's

So I'm interested... am I the only one who isn't into casting characters? Those of you who do it... why? Or why not? Or how? I'm curious :)
Also more generally, how does the 'imagining characters process' work in your brains? Do you base them on other people? Do you even 'see' the book in your head like a movie at all when you're reading? The reading process is something I find absolutely fascinating and I'd love to hear how you experience it!

Get To Know Me: that time I went to Dublin and accidentally met an author

Hey guys :)

As I announced last week, I want to keep giving you a little glimpse into my life and stuff I like on Sundays, even though the Know Me Better meme hosted by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer is on hiatus at the moment.

Last week, I talked about favorite TV series (I'm now caught up on Game of Thrones, by the way, and can't wait for the new episode!). This week, I'll tell you about a Dublin trip I went on in October 2011. Why Dublin and not some other city I've been to? Well, I'm reading Karen Marie Moning's Fever series at the moment and it's set in Dublin, and I've been feeling nostalgic. So there.
Note: this post includes quite a few pictures, and they were all taken by me. Don't re-use them without permission. Click them to make them bigger.


Oh Dublin. I'd been meaning to visit you for a while. Then a total coincidence happened. A band a I follow on Twitter retweeted a tweet from a girl from my country being sad about not being able to take part in a video competition because no one else she knew was a fan. She was from Switzerland (and lives really close to where I grew up). I tweeted her. We talked. We met. 10mins later, we decided to go to Dublin together. Two months or so later, we did. She's now my BFF. She's one of those rare people who share both your taste in books AND music!

We arrived at our hotel in Dublin at about 11pm on a Tuesday. We dumped our stuff and headed out again, despite the drizzle and cold. I was really glad to be with someone who already knew the city fairly well. We headed strait for the Temple Bar district, to the actual Temple Bar bar. Despite the weather and being quite tired, I loved the atmosphere! It was quite packed but everyone was happy and in a good mood. There was a live band playing and soon we found ourselves sitting on old wood barrels somewhere near the front, enjoying our drinks and unable to keep our feet from thumping the beat on the floor. I felt like I'd arrived properly, like the city had welcomed me. I didn't want to leave, but we eventually did sometime around 1:30 or 2am, I think.

The band was taking a break.

Temple bar in the morning.

The next morning, we did some sight seeing, visited Trinity College, went to the wonderful library there, and looked at the Book of Kells. I had an intense moment of damn-I-want-to-study-here-it's-so-much-prettier-than-Zurich. Unfortunately, I realize I didn't take so many campus pics, my friend mostly did and we never really exchanged them. Here are some shots from the library that I do not own, because taking pictures was forbidden to protect the books.

Trinity College Campus

Courtesy of National Geographic

The Book of Kells was written around the year 800 in is known for its beautiful illustrations. Image source.

Let me tell you, this city is full of book stores of all kinds!! The biggest one we were at is Eason's, and there we had another lovely surprise!

Seriously you guys, I NEVER get to go to any author events because hardly any I read ever come to Zurich!! And I was so sad to have missed Sarah Rees Brennan by one week and that Cassie Clare would be there about 2 weeks after we left. In that very store. Ugh. So when we saw that Becca Fitzpatrick would sign the next day, we talked the book store lady into wizarding up two more tickets even though the event was sold out. Neither of us had read the hush, hush books yet but I'd seen them around and been debating whether or not to read them for a long time. So we bought them at the event the next day and had them signed. I'd post a pic of the signed book but I've already packed it into one of my moving boxes...

Meeting Becca. I'm on the right side.

 Of course I also bought a great deal of other books. 3 for 2 bargains don't exist over here. Also, books cost more than twice as much in Switzerland. I guess you know what I fill my suitcase with when I go abroad :P

Another author I 'met' was James Joyce. I've read most of Ulysses and a couple of his short stories in Dubliners, and finding his statue on the way to our hotel was awesome! One day I want to go to Dublin on June 16, the day Ulysses takes place. It's called Bloomsday and all over Dublin people dress up like characters from the novel. There are also tours and readings of the book and of poetry and it's generally an awesome literary event!

Me & Mr Joyce

Later that day, we also went to a shopping mall called St. Stephen's Green (I think) and I loved the architecture of that place!

St. Stephen's Green

We also made an excursion to the peninsula of Howth because I wanted to look at the sea. It was really cold so we stopped by the Bloody Stream pub too. Here are some shots.

Harbor

More harbor

Two fishermen

Unfortunately I don't know what this commemorates

Bloody Stream

We did A LOT of walking around over the two and a half days we were there! On the last morning in the hotel, another guest and his wife gave us their tickets for a hop-on-hop-off tour of the city. They were leaving and couldn't use them anymore, but they were valid another day. So we jumped that bus and drove around some more, also through Phoenix Park and some other places. We left early in the afternoon after buying some more souvenirs and stuff. It was quite a short visit and I would have loved to stay longer! I'm thinking about going back for a short trip in the summer, but we'll see. Below are some more random shots of the city, some taken on foot, some from the above mentioned bus. I hope you enjoy :)

The Olympia Theatre

This might be the Halfpenny Bridge but I'm not sure...

That needle was so high I couldn't get it on the pic properly.

That pole is the needle from before. Also, Jame Joyce statue from the back.

O'Connell Street

I love how the buildings along the river blend old and modern architecture.
Lots of brick, lots of glass.

Some more shots from the Temple Bar District:

No such thing as strangers in the Dub.

Street Art

Molly Malone statue. And a Leprechaun.

Irish bilingual street signs.

Hall of Mirrors shop.

So... I hope I could give you guys some sort of impression of the city, but I'm not sure I succeeded. I didn't take all that many simple street level shots, and I'm never sure what to include. The way the shops and all that looks is really different from here and I think it looks interesting, but it might be completely mundane and boring for other people. I also realized I don't have any big shots that give you an overview of the city. And many pics look bleak because of the weather. But I hope you enjoyed those I put there, because I had a great time!

Any comments on the pics or the author event? I kind of bombarded you ^^' Do you even like this kind of travel post? Would you like me to do another city? I've got lots from London, south England/Cornwall, Paris, Prague, Budapest, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Florence... Or I could do more stuff with favorites. Feel free to suggest a topic :)