aquascum attacks Mount Doom

Gearing up for another assault on Mount TBR...

...once more unto the breach and all that...

Welcome aboard for 2014!

Looking forward to your 2014 reading!

Happy New Year aquascum & good luck with your 2014 reading challenges. I look forward to following you.
I must say that your username cracks me up & you will probably find me calling you 'scum'. lol!~! I also love your little sketch!

*waves hello*

Die tote Kuh kommt morgen rein by Ralf Heimann

Irgendwie hatte ich amüsante Landwirtschaftsgeschichten von und mit Kühen erwartet... weit gefehlt.

Wilkommen to the group. Happy reading in 2014!

Tagebuch einer Reise mit Alexander von Humboldt: durch Hessen, die Pfalz... by Steven Jan von Geuns
Intersting and amusing, particularly as I'm living there...

Orks vs. Zwerge: Roman by T.S. Orgel
Won a couple of awards... don't quite see why...

Die Feuerreiter seiner Majestät 05. Drachenwacht bý Naomi Novik
Hum... I know I enjoyed the first one or two, but lost interst as they went away from the Napoleonic Wars. I had expected to like this one as it's getting back to the wars and features Wellington battling Napoleon and the other dragon.

But...

... had to force myslef to keep reading and finish... no joy.

Oh bother. I did find they started to drag, and I haven't read past #3, I think it was. I doubt I will continue, sadly.

yeah *sadface*

Just a quick fly-by-Hi! I 'no speak' but it appears that you are off to a good beginning. :-)

The Game Of Kings: The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett

Hmmm... I think I should re-read this in a translation (if there is one - starts poking interwebs) or an annotated version, or both. I haven't been bitten by the Lymond bug, and I suspect I should be...

The Last Continent by Sir Terry Pratchett

... because I'll visit a veterinary congress in Australia this year... beware of kangaroos...

LOL! Kangaroos are pretty cool, and much easier to find (outside of a zoo) than any other native animal. (Unless you want me to include creepy crawlies under "native animal" :)

Beware of kangaroos, also our possums, emus, kookaburras (but do really beware of our salties if you are up north !).
Great to see another Terry Pratchett reader in the group, have you read Bill Bryson's Down Under which is another entertaining look at this bizarre country and its eccentric inhabitants !?

Yes, I read Down Under a couple of years ago, was planning another read... as soon as I get my hands on it... it's gotta be somewhere...

Oh, that stack of books looks awfully similar to my stack of books...

Need to go through a few stacks and take some to charity, I think.

Ah yes, kangaroos. Lovable and sweet they may look, but don't get too close!

Love your photo!!

Wirby und Zeus: Entlang Australiens Ostküste (audio) by Michael Wirbitzky, Sascha Zeus - Fun!

and working on Reise Know-How Hörbuch KulturSchock Australien (audio) by Elfi H. M. Gilissen - keeps missing what I'm interested in and is somehow fascinated with UNESCO sites...

Die Katte-Tragödie: Band 2 der Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg by Theodor Fontane
... I keep thinking Tolkien had Friedrich-Wilhelm and Friedrich in mind when he thought up the Denethor - Faramir relationship...

Der Herrscher Der Zeit by Marc Hillefeld
How did this get published? ... rather cavalier attitude to rape there, Mr. author...

Lobsters by Charles Stross
*flails* and *is speechless*

22> that doesn't sound like a wholehearted recommendation!

*grins* I have recommended it to my programmer/it/computer nerd/cyberpunk-y friends... others should read up on Charles Stross beforehand anyway XD

Rather adoring your reviews, aquascum!

Oh, I must read some Stross one day!!

26 having had a look at the books we share, you should! Do you like Cuthulhu Mythos as well?
If yes... LAUNDRY FILES, LAUNDRY FILES!

Deutschland in den Schattenby Hans J. Alpers
The scary bit is they are sort of talking about setting up DMZs... Gefahrenzonen

*headdesk* went and spend the night readig

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

... Laudry Files are rather hard to put down...

LOL, I get the hint. :)

I've read one Lovecraft and it didn't grab me, but I do like the whole idea of Cthulhu.

Rapture of the Nerds by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow

*GRINS* got some epic quotes from that!

I'm not sure what language you guys are speaking. But it sounds like fun.

I'm probably the last person who should explain the Cthulhu mythos, but here goes: early(ish) last century, H.P. Lovecraft wrote a series of books about the elder gods and how they're still here on earth (somewhere near NZ/the Antarctic) and to see them is to be driven MAD from gibbering fear!!

I thought the one I read (the first, At the Mountains of Madness) was rather clunky, but I liked the idea of elder Gods hanging around driving the unwary mad with their great and deep and unspeakable evil and their wibbling tentacles.

And other people REALLY liked the whole Lovecraftian ideas, and Cthulhu (one of the elder Gods, and I always forget all the other ones) is now its own little subgenre in horror. The Laundry Files by Charles Stross are part of this subgenre, but with humour, and bureaucracy. I think they're probably fairly comparable to The Rook which several of us (including you, judylou?) enjoyed last year.

There are fun fanworks...

... even Discworld ones ;)

Cthulhu looks like Dr Zoidberg *giggle*

I did enjoy The Rook. Perhaps I will have a look at the Stross book.

;) I strongly reccomend a cyberpunky mindset for the Laundry Files...

Aaand back to Australia!

Frühstück mit Kängurus by Bill Bryson
with for some reason seems to have two English names, 'Down Under' and 'In a Sunburned Country'...?
Favourite bit is the chapter about Cairns and the Barrier Reef - going there for the cowfish!

Oh, and have I told you about my Australian Movie Endeavour?

HAhahaha Watching those movies will definitely give you a well rounded overview of the typical Aussie. note the use of sarcasm font here ;O)

*GRINS*

*GRINS MOAR* to keep with the spirit of the sarcasm front, just found this:
http://www.amazon.de/No-Worries-Mate-Manly-Adventure/dp/0595122973/ref=sr_1_30?i...

... am tempted... any advice? (other than NOOOOOO!)

oooooh, and found more movies!

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AustralianMovies

*bounce, boun... NO! hop, hop, hop!*

*still grinning* will keep watching more movies...

And now for something completely different:

History of the King's German Legion by North Ludlow Beamish
This is a kind of 'narration' of the legion's exploits during the Coalition Wars. The author sticks very closely to despatches, letters and journals written by the people involved in the proceedings. This means that charming little asides turn up - like:
It is recorded in one of the MS. accounts of this skirmish, that, during the fight, a large dog, which had for some time attached itself to the hussars, seeing one of them in the water, plunged in, and brought the man out through the midst of the combat.
or
Dierking states that Lord Wellington, having suggested throwing shells into the French colums against which the cavalry charge was directed, and orders having been given to that effect, was so pleased at the precision with which the German bombadier executed his task, that his lordship clapped him on the back, and said, "Very well, my boy."

but also means that the reader doesn't really get the 'big picture', how the single skirmishes and actions are connected in the overall proceedings.
... and now I want to read the some of the mentioned journals...

Love the Australian movie list. :) And the TV Tropes! (BMX Bandits! Back when Nicole Kidman sported an Australian accent and had curls!)

And something different again...

Blickpunkte in die Medizingeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts by Wolfgang Hach, Viola Hach-Wunderle

Makes me sad to realise how wrong the majority of historical fiction and historical fantasy (scowls at steampunk) get it...

... and you can tell I'm parallel-reading, right?

*sigh* moving and starting an old job... there won't be time for fun i.e. reading *waves* and *sniffles*

Ah well, you'll find some reading time somewhere, I'm sure. Its hard to lose the reading bug. :)

And I hope you get to furnish a nice reading room (or reading nook) in your new place.

Re: No worries mate - manly? Us Aussie Sheilas get all that done before lunch while holding the baby and cooking up some lamingtons!

And the movies . . whatever you do, don't watch Chopper or Wolf Creek (we're not like that at all); but you must watch The Castle and Muriel's Wedding because just like they are in these movies, we are all a bunch of happy-go-lucky dags here.

Hope you find some time for your books.

>40 aquascum: Hi, just stumbled across this group and thread by accident, and I just have to know: how and where did you find that book about the KGL?

#45> "You're awful, Muriel."

I love dropping that into conversations, wherever possible.