November 2013 on The Reading Life. - A Month End Review

November 2013 was a tragic one for the Philippines.  The worst typhoon to strike land in recorded history struck the  Visayan Islands.  The people of the Philippines are very strong and resilient.  We all offered our prayers for those who lost their lives, their families, their homes, their schools but not their faith.  

I ended the month with 3035 Twitter followers, 795 Google Connect Contacts and my blog received 85,715 page views.  The top countries of visitor residence are USA, the Philippines, India, Russia, and the U.K.  The most common city of residence is Manila then Mumbai.  The most viewed posts are those on short stories by authors from the Philippines.  

I accidentally erased about 250 old comments.  

My reading this month was mostly focused on German Language works in translation read for German Literature Month.

     

Here is what I read for the event:

The Tin Drum-by Gunther Grass. I am glad I read his master work.  No further reading plans

"The Judgement" by Franz Kafka. -  always good to read more Kafka

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque -very powerful war novel - must read 

"A Letter from an Unknown Woman" by Stefan Zweig. - decent story

The Death of the Adversary by Hans Klein - I liked it a lot

"The Job Application" by Robert Walser -great new to me writer

Chess Game by Stefan Zweig-I will read much more of his work- very good work

"The Battle of Sempach" by Robert Walser

I have also listed to podcasts of "Basta" and "Frau Wilkes" by Robert Walser

The March of Radetsky by Joseph Roth I hope to read all his work- has master work

Memoirs of an Anti-Semite by Gregor von Rezzori amazing work of art.

"Flypaper" by Robert Musil

"Mendel the Bibliophile" by Stefan Zweig - I totally love this story.

"The Dead are Silent" by Arthur Schnitzler an entertaining work from 1907

"There Will Be Action" by Heinrich Boll a very good short story by Nobel Prize Winner

Transit by Anne Seghars 1942 very much worth reading

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig - an elegy to a lost culture. 1942

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald. 2001. A modern must read

The Emperor's Tomb By Joseph Roth 1938  a sequel to the first of his works I read. 

"Flower Days" by Robert Walser 1907 (no post) 

"Trousers" by Robert Walser -1909 (no post)

Medea By Crista Wolf very interesting 

An Ermine in Czernopol by Gregor Von Rezzori loved it

"Forgotten Dreams" by StefanZweig (no post)  

Leviathan" by Joseph Roth decent

"The Legend of the Holy Drinker" by Joseph Roth great story

Passport by Herta Mueller

Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse

"Forgotten Dreams" by Stefan Zweig

"The Incomplete Collection" by Stefan Zweig

Of these writers I will try to read as much Joseph Roth as I can, more Stefan Zweig and Robert Walser plus the remaining work by Gregor Von Rezzori in kindle I have not read.

I participated for the third year in Literature in Ghana week hosted by one of my old blogging friends, Kinna of Kinna Reads. 

I continued to read short stories.  

I continued to read Yiddish literature, thanks to a generous gift from Yale University Press. 

I also read these books

Redemption Falls by Joseph O'Connor - an Irish in the US post civil war novel - first rate

The Assassination of the Arch-Duke of Sarajeno by Gary King -non-fiction - popular history

Highway to Hell by Matt Roper - important book on child prostitution in Brazil

The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray by Mitzi Szereto - an entertaining novel based on premiss that Dorian did not die at the end of the novel but lived on for many decades, maintaining his beauty and becoming ever more decadent.  I enjoyed this as an escapist read. It is very sexually explicit and not for the homophobic. 

I began a new project I am very excited about.