Where'd the time go?

 Holy shit. I totally forgot about this blog. Jeez Louise, I need to catch up. So...

...German. The class is going ok. I've learned that 8 weeks is long enough for me for online/virtual 5 hours/day training. Unfortunately, the class is 10 weeks long. Sigh...  But German is still on-going. Not sure how I'll do on the DLPT/OPI. I'm guessing 1+R, 1L, 1S. We'll see. 

So, the books I've read since last I've updated this blog:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret/HP und die Kammer des Schreckens. So since we last talked, I've read Harry Potter #2 in English, then followed it up with reading it in German while listening to it in German. Way over my head. But figured, this is part of the L-R process, so we'll see how it goes.

The wife has been bugging me for years to read more Lovecraft, so I "read" At the Mountains of Madness. (Italics because it was Audible.) Very creepy and good. I could imagine listening to it while being stationed in Antarctica while watching The Thing. 

The Big Hello, by Morris Renek. I read a great review of this author, purportedly the most dedicated writer (finished a book, then immediately started working on the next novel). Loved this book. About the "divorce market" in the '60s, at the start I thought it would be an apologetic to men, but it turned out to be a great "family first" story. A love story. I loved it and will read more of his, if I can find them.

I listened to Edmund Morgan's Benjamin Franklin bio (thanks Hoopla!). My main character of the novel I'm writing is Franklin-esque, so I considered this study. Great bio. Every few years I read a bio of this, one of my favorite (two) Americans.

Trip of the Tongue, by Elizabeth Little. A tour through the variety of America's languages. I wish I'd investigated my Goodreads first. I already read this 4-5 years ago. I hated it then, I hate it now. What an f'-ing whiner. So narcissistic. 

The Next 100 Years, by Friedman. Suggested by the other student in my German class. Pretty good. The author tagged Russia: he wrote it in 2009 or so and said Russia would be moving west and would try to take land from Ukraine, and possibly Crimea. Wah....?!  But some of his other predictions? Not so sure. But who knows.

Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat. Read this 20+ years ago in Alaska. Loved it then, love it now. Great book. If you want to know about wolves, this is the first book you should read. (FWIW, if you want a great book about coyotes, read God's Dog by Hope Ryden.

The Body Builders. Again, thanks to Hoopla and the Melrose Public Library. This one was good, along the lines of The Sports Gene and Endure. But I wanted more on bionics/prosthetics. (Read Endure for a great scientific-sports book.)

Perdido Street Station. This is the third China Mieville I've read. This is not to say that the novel was bad, but it is my third favorite of his. He is a master of world-building. Holy shit, he had all the answers. Totally new world. Great. And third person except for two chapters at the end!

Wow, that's a lot of books since my last update. Sorry! I promise to write more in the future!

German & books

 Sorry I haven't been updating. I've been busy! Ich war beschäftigt!

I'm in week 6 (I think) of my 10-week full-time German course. It's going great. I think I have a good chance of a 2/2 on the DLPT and maybe a 1+ on the OPI. 

Books-wise, I've been reading. Still a good 2-3 books behind schedule, but catching up. Some of the books I've read recently:

Refuse to Choose, by Barbara Sher. I learned I'm a scanner. Some say fickle, but really, I have many interests, and I love learning new things, getting as much info on the subject as I feel I need, then move on. This book had great ideas, albeit some of it is old, but still worth it. Fast read.

Smiley's People, by John LeCarre. Another great one. I'm going to be sad when I've read all of his. RIP, Mr. LeCarre.

Havana Bay, by Martin Cruz Smith. Arkady Renko #4. One of the best. Not sure if I like this one or the one on the fishing boat the best. But every single Renko is great. Why didn't they keep making the movies? I would have loved seeing William Hurt play him in more films.

The Big Sleep. Noir par excellence. Family book club choice by my SIL. Fantastic. Never saw the movie, but now I must. 

Is that a Fish in your Ear, by David Bellos. A book about translation. I've recently gotten interested in literary translation. This book really gives you an inside look into the job, as well into traditional translation jobs, like those superstars at the UN.

Why Translation Matters, by Edith Grossman. Ms. Grossman translated Don Quixote, and I will say now and will always say: her translation is the BEST translation out there. This book, though, is okay. Her politics came up a few times in the book, which was unnecessary. Still, important book on translation. 

The City & the City, by China Mieville. This was my choice for the family book club and, well, to put it modestly, I ROCK! What a great read. I've only read his The Last Days of New Paris, which was so weird and well written, I knew I had to read more of him. This book, City, was a detective story, and so well done and I'm still debating some things about the two cities in the book. Unsure which Mieville I'm going to read next.

White Noise, by Don DeLillo. I loved his Zero K, or whatever it was called. This one was good, and of course well-written, but oh so concerned about death, and the character in the book is a couple years younger than me, so...uh, get over it.

Wheat that Springeth Green, by JF Powers. I read his only other novel, Morte D'Urban, which was awesome. This one, too, was great. What is it about stories about priests that I like so much? Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory. I'd put Powers' novel up there with Greene.

And finally, in prep for L-R'ing German, I read Harry Potter #2 (Chamber of Secrets). Just finished that today and will start the German-version probably tonight or tomorrow. 

Damn...been a while since I've updated you guys! 

Tonight I'm starting In the Mountains of Madness by Lovecraft, for the #1936Club, which started today. My wife loves Lovecraft, and I've only read one story of his, so reading this one will double how great of a husband I am. 

Books, books, books

 So much reading has been going on!

First off, some nice hard sci-fi. Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space. Outstanding space opera, with solid science behind it. Unlike another recent read which just was plain horrible. Don't even want to mention its name, but yuck.

Next up was dumb luck. One night at dinner I saw the British colonel here eating alone, so I joined him. Talk at one point finally led to our reading interests I mentioned my love for Evelyn Waugh. Turns out he wrote his dissertation on Waugh. Then we talked for about a half hour, comparing books. During this discussion, he mentioned Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins. So of course I had to read it. Oh. My. God. Best book in about a year. Best since The Memory Police. I cannot stop thinking of this book and it's been about a month already. So glad I sat with him that night!

Next up was a book I started at least twice over the years. I got it on Audible and finally finished it. All the crows around here, I felt I had to know more about corvids, in this case, ravens: Bernd Heinrich's Mind of the Raven. Great book, this guy really knows his stuff. These birds are so interesting, I can't wait till we move again as I'm going to set up a feeding station for ravens and crows and see if I can get them to bring me gifts. 

Finally, the family book club choice most recently was John Scalzi's Redshirts. So funny. Clever. Definitely read the codas at the end. No, it's not about Star Trek. 

OMG, how did I not publish this one. I wrote the above on 25 Feb, and just now looking here and realized I never published it. 

So many more books have been read! But I'll save that post for another time. 

Russian results

 So how about this? 3/3 on the Russian reading and listening DLPT. (Only took 34 years.) And, a 2+ again on the OPI. 

And no, I'm not going to sit for the upper level DLPT, thank you very much!

Russian

 This year's testing is complete, and I've got great news. For the first time since I started taking DLPTs 30+ years ago, I finally got a 3/3 in Russian. 

For the uninitiated among my dear reader(s), that's a great score. That's the max you can score on the lower range DLPT. Yes, I can sit for the upper range test, but holy hell, I think I barely made the 3/3 this time. Not sure I wanna try for a 3+. Honestly don't think I am a 3+.

So, listening and reading tests done for a year. I did the OPI on Tuesday, but of course those take a bit of time before the results come through. Last time I got a 2+, which was miraculous. This time I think I'm a solid 2 but possibly a 2+. She was pushing me with multiple topics, and that's normally a sign they're trying to get you to the next level. My God, I hope she wasn't trying to get me to a 2! 

I guess all the studying and the one-on-one with Marina worked. I'll hold off on the celebration till I get the OPI score back. Пожелай мне удачи, дорогой читатель!

A Distant Mirror, and more

 I finished Barbara Tuchman's classic A Distant Mirror a few days ago. Great book, especially if you are interested in the so called Dark Ages. I applaud her on telling the history through one normal joe,de Coucy. Lots of pages on the Black Death and supposed chivalric valor. Good read. 

I dumped the Russian HP4. Not enough time left before my DLPT and OPI, and I need to concentrate on Russian that I'll be tested on, therefore, lots of news articles. The big ones now are on changes Biden is proposing with respect to Russian-US relations; changes proposed to the Russian retirement system (дедушкам и бабушкам надо дольше работать!); and some other subjects I can't remember right now. One more class left this coming Friday night, then the speaking test on Tuesday, listening on Thursday and reading on Saturday.

Then I'll start an Esperanto book that my daughter sent me: Bogomolov's La Momento de Vero. Another in my favorite sub-genre of books by Esperantists about WWII. 

I'm a bit behind in my 2021 reading challenge, but I don't get as much reading time here as I do at home, so I expect to catch up once I've returned to the family.

Russian

 Doing another Russian class with a Defense Language Institute (DLI) instructor like I did last March/April time-frame. I tried to get six weeks, twice weekly for two hours, but all they had available was six classes of two hours each. Gonna take what I can get.

I think I've been trained to be anxious before these classes due to the year of the Russian Basic Course at DLI way back in 1986. The teachers then, oh boy, God help you if you didn't do all your homework. I had one break into English once and tell me she was going to "fucking smack" me if I kept pronouncing в комнате as /və kom-na-tə/.

So now I don't sleep well the night prior, for fear of disappointing my instructor, who couldn't be nicer of course. I study and read, and study and listen, till I'm tired of the language, then have a great time during the two-hour block. Ugh.

Besides the things I'm doing for class, I'm also listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Russian while reading in Russian (one chapter) and English (the next chapter). So far so good, but I know I won't have enough time before my DLPT and OPI to finish the book; too slow going as I get back to my room so late every night.

Now, I'll finish this short post and get back to reading. Harry & Co. are about to go to the Quidditch World Cup. Nothing bad could happen there, right?

New year

 New year, new goal? Maybe. Who knows.

Goal again this year is 70 books. Secretly hoping for 80, but we'll see when I get back home. Currently I'm reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (HP4). I'm reading it in prep to L-R it in Russian. I'm starting a Russian class this Friday night. Two hours, six times in January. Then my tests in the beginning of February. Hoping to maintain my 2+/2+ and at least a 2 in speaking. 

I'm also "reading" (by Audible) Tuchman's A Distant Mirror about the 14th c., one of my favorite historical time periods. It's very long (29+ hours) but engrossing, as she traces history through the life of one "normal" man (thus, not royalty or a woman, as she explains if there is enough written about a woman in the Middle Ages then she was extraordinary, and not "normal"). Review later (16 hours left).

Coptic continues this week after a two-week holiday break. We're in chapter 8 still, two sets of exercises left then on to ch 9 where we work on prepositions with pronouns attached. Very interesting language, this. If this gets in the way of the Russian I'll audit till my tests are done.

After the Russian, I'm reading a new Esperanto book I got called La Momento de Vero (The moment of truth) by V. Bogomolov. It's a military detective story about the search for German spies in Belarus during WWII. Right up my alley!

I did end last year with 71 books, not just the 70 I reported in my last post. The family book club read was Rosone's Into the Stars, a really horrible and horribly edited sci-fi novel. (FTL or FLT, depending upon the chapter you're reading.) Thank God it was short. Thankfully, it cost zero dollars. Would have hated myself if I'd paid any money for it. 

2020 Reading Challenge complete!

 Just finished The Monks of War, and thus have finished both my 2020 Reading Challenge (70 books) and my Dewey Decimal Challenge.

I had originally set 80 for my reading goal, I believe, and was on tap to exceed that, what with COVID shutting down most other fun things. But I'm working a lot now so my reading slowed down. I put away 23,461 pages, the longest, no surprise, being W&P. The shortest was the Diaries of Adam and Eve at 72 pages. (W&P at 1298.) 

For the Dewey Decimal Challenge, where I wanted to read one book in each "century" (000-099, 100-199, etc), I read at least one in each, but for a few, I read more than one book: 300s (The Medieval Machine and The Pursuit of Power); 400s (International Planned Languages, Serendipities, and How to Learn Any Language); 600s (Leaving Earth, You are Your Own Gym, and Strong Advice); 700s (The Naked Nude, The Nude, and Long Distance Swimming); 800s (The Fatal Eggs and Sexual Personae); and 11 books in the 900s (not gonna list them all, but tops of this almost-dozen had to be Story of a Secret State). 

I read five books not in English. Three in Esperanto, one in Russian and one in Croatian. Not too shabby.

A couple reads, and nostalgia

 Since finishing War and Peace (thank the sweet Lord) I've had fun reading other stuff. First stop was back to one of my favorite characters: Arkady Renko. Damn that Martin Cruz Smith sure has pegged the Russian soul (русский дух). If I didn't know the author's name or background, I would have believed the book was translated from the Russian. 

This time I read Red Square. Renko is back in the (semi-)good graces of the prosecutor's office after his time afloat. As usual his investigating nose is getting him into trouble with 'the man.' Another great story, and set at a time that I lived through in one of the settings of this novel: 1991 in Berlin.

My father came to visit me and my wife in Berlin in summer 1991. We took him to Brandenburg Gate where I was stunned to see, over the former killing fields between East and West Berlin, a crane from which for a mere 100 deutsche marks one could bungee jump. It was surreal. 

That exact scene that my father, my wife and I all experienced took place in this novel. One paragraph for what to me has been decades of memory. It simply blew me away. 

(c) Martin Cruz Smith

Then came the coup against Gorbachev. Both in real life and in this novel. So close to home. What a great read. 

After Renko I read the hilarious and quite quick Twain novella The Diaries of Adam and Eve. Holy crap it was so funny. This can't be the first ever 'he said, she said' in literature, is it? Maybe not, but it might possibly be the best. I had such a good time with it. Despite the terribly sad ending. 

I'm still reading The Monks of War by Seward and just started Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John. When I finish those two I will have officially completed my 2020 reading challenge (70 books) on Goodreads. But I'll probably get a few more books in before 00:01, 1 Jan. 

War and Peace and War, and more War, and Napoleon

 I've never wanted to finish a book more in my life. Oh dear God, this thing never ended. Took me forever. About as long as the frigging Napoleonic War lasted. Or so it seemed. 

War and Peace is, well, mandatory if you claim to know something of Russia. Or Russian culture. You really must read it. Just as you should read Crime and Punishment (excellent) or The Master and Margarita (incredible). 

But oh lordy, it just kept going. 

I decided to read it at the start of the are-you-essential-or-non-essential time, March-ish. I'd just heard about a bunch of book geeks who were going to read W&P over the year 2020. There's 361 chapters, so a chapter a day with some flex, and boom, you're done in a year. 

I figured: I'm going to be deployed for six months. Why not do two chapters a day for the deployment? Boom, book read. 

Don't get me wrong. It really was good. I was way ahead of the 2-a-day sked within a couple days. No reason to put the book down if I was enjoying it. At any point I was anywhere from one week to one month ahead. 

But after a few months it dragged. I just wanted to read something else. I read other books during this time, and that's when I would lag on W&P, then have to catch up. But I like variety and too much Napoleon after a while. 

I went balls to the wall the last couple of weeks. And got 'er done. And I'm glad. I even threw in some chapters in Russian toward the end. Since I knew how the story was going and where it was going, I was able to get a lot through context if I didn't know. So count some language practice in there too.

But now I'm free! I'm reading my last of the Dewey Decimal Challenge now (The Monks of War by Seward) and will start a fiction book probably tonight or tomorrow. Can. Not. Wait!