Diesmal gibt es gleich den kompletten Beitrag auf Englisch. Warum? Keine Ahnung, aber irgendwie bin ich es derzeit einfach eher gewohnt auf Englisch zu schreiben, weil ich täglich lange englischsprachige Nachrichten auf Tumblr austausche und auch immer noch Fanfictions zu The Thick of It schreibe. Ich liebe die Serie immer noch sehr <3 Äh ja, aber nun zu den Büchern. Mangas sind auch wieder mit dabei, diesmal sind es aber auch irgendwie recht viele Bücher, auch wenn ich gar nicht weiß wann ich die alle gelesen habe???

Die Welt des Sherlock Holmes (Maria Fleischhack)
Aside from a few minor errors (no, the film ‚The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes‘ isn’t based on the 1933 Vincent Starrett book of the same name – that was wrongly mentioned about three times) this was a pretty interesting book about both the Holmes canon and also the various pastiches and adaptions. However, I wouldn’t have actually needed to read it because I knew about most of this already. I would recommend it for newcomers to the Holmes fandom though.

Art in the Blood (Bonnie MacBird)
Ah well. Obviously not every Sherlock Holmes pastiche can be just the right book for me. But sadly his one was a pretty disappointing read, even though it looked like it could be really good. However, there were multiple things which just took away most of the enjoyment for me. First off, Holmes‘ character. When a client was telling him about her case, he just waved her off impatiently. Well, I know that Sherlock Holmes is all about the facts and doesn’t like mindless chattering, but I don’t think the would cut a client short if that caused him to miss out on vital information. Holmes generally seemed pretty incompetent in this book and that’s never a good sign. And the second big negative factor was the fact that the story was pretty dark. Too dark for my tastes, actually. I know Victorian England wasn’t exactly a pleasant place (especially for the poor), but gruesomely murdered children and even frequent mentions of child abuse? These might be important issues, but just not something I want to read about in a Sherlock Holmes story. I’m reading these for pure pleasure after all, or else I would read a non-fiction book instead. Well, anyway, no matter how good the reviews are, I’m not too keen on reading the other volumes in the series now, so I most probably won’t. Oh, and note to self: just don’t buy pastiches which are said to be ‚darker than the original stories‘ anymore, you just never like them.

Todessprung – Reiche Mentoren auf fernen Welten/Ganymed, Gone – Wer stiehlt schon einen Mond?/Showdown Beijing – Quo vadis, Korechina? (Ivan Ertlov)
I enjoyed reading the first book in this series a lot! The sequels are just as good (or maybe even better), and so I finished reading these three books pretty quickly. I just love the combination of laugh-out-loud funny scenes, cool space fights and the often thought-provoking plots. Well, and now I would really like to read the last two volumes in the series, but I also don’t want it to be over anytime soon, haha.

British Politics for Dummies (Julian Knight)
Since I’m not from the UK after all I guess I could easily be considered a dummy when it comes to the basics of British politics, haha. Well, I’m closely following the daily political events, but that doesn’t mean I knew about the details of, for example, the different election systems used in the parts of the UK. This book explained stuff like that pretty well and so it was pretty helpful to me, even though it mostly covered the basics. I might read some more books from the Dummies series, they are pretty helpful to get familiar with a subject, I think.

How To Be Right…in a world gone wrong (James O’Brien)
I never listened to the author’s radio show before, but I might as well give it a try now! Reading the conversations between the host and various callers in this book definitely made me want more of that. I liked the way he tried to make the callers realise their wrong conclusions and prejudices about multiple subjects like feminism, Brexit or political correctness. (And I couldn’t help but admire his patience, I honestly don’t think I could stay calm when confronted with such thick people…)

Das Wolkentor (Yarito Niimura)
This book is a collection of short stories which are all somehow related to Buddhism. I kind of liked it, even though I obviously didn’t understand the deeper meanings of most stories. It’s entirely possible to read them just for fun, though.

Doctor Who Official Annual 2016
I only bought this for fun, since it’s mostly aimed at children anyway. Maybe I’ll buy some more of the annuals for collector’s purposes thought, since the books are kinda cute. ^^

Abenteuer Mineralogie (Andreas Landmann)
I’m really fascinated with pretty minerals, shiny stones, fossils and all that stuff since I was a child. I don’t collect minerals myself, and so that book wasn’t all that useful to me because it’s mostly aimed at amateur collectors. The first part about the origins of various mineral types was pretty interesting though.

Das waren die Bücher, kommen wir jetzt zu den Mangas. ^^

Behind the Scenes vol. 6-7
I read the first five volumes ages ago and so I hard quite the hard time remembering what happened last. Maybe that was why I didn’t enjoy the final two volumes as much as the beginning of the series. It still is a pretty unique and cute story, and maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for it anymore, but I could have done without reading the conclusion.

23:45
I only read this manga by chance, but I loved it a lot! It’s quite hard to find good BL manga among the masses of releases on the German manga market, but I’m glad I read that one! Apparently there’s also a second volume which apparently the story from the other protagonists‘ view, if I got that right? Well, of course I already ordered that one too, haha.

Hyouka vol. 1
I can’t believe the anime adaption aired almost ten years ago. Am I getting old? (Well…yes. ^^) Anyway, I finally got around to read the first volume of the manga version after all this time and I really liked it! I remember liking the anime too, but the manga version might be even better? The small mysteries in every chapter are a pleasure to read and I really liked the drawing style too. I definitely need to buy the next volumes too, even though most of them got released years ago and might be hard to find…

Moriarty the Patriot vol. 9
An okayish volume, I guess? I wasn’t as hyped when I read it like as for the last few volumes, but I really enjoyed the flashback to William’s childhood. Also, Milverton is really hot <3 I’m still looking forward to the next volume. Need to wait one more month, aaah….

Umineko: When they cry – Episode 8: Twilight of the Golden Witch vol.3
I can’t believe I’m finally done with Umineko. I’ve been reading the manga for quite a long time and now all the mysteries that were left in the final episode of the story are now solved. The final volume really was a joy to read, especially since the ending was way more positive than expected! Anyway, I love Umineko and while I can’t compare it to the original visual novel, I think the manga captured the story and characters very well. And I will do a complete re-read one day. Probably not anytime soon though, I’m glad I don’t have to hold another one of these huge omnibus volumes during reading anymore. xD