MissWatson's BFBs in 2021

I'm glad to be back and I hope to read more big books than last year, but won't commit to a firm number. Happy reading all!

Hi Birgit, welcome back to this group too.

Hi Birgit, welcome to the group again my dear.

The first BFB of the year is Maria Christina : Tagebuch einer Tochter, a fictional diary of Maria Theresia's favourite daughter and tells her romance with Price Albert of Saxony. Unlike her siblings, she was allowed to marry for love.

The second BFB is Orley Farm. Not my favourite Trollope, most of the characters didn't seem like real people.

The third BFB is Drei Kameraden. Last of a trilogy about the First World War, this time three veterans run a car workshop together and try to make ends meet. It's the late twenties, the economy is getting worse, and the politics becoming more bloody. The youngest meets a girl who dies of tuberculosis.

The fourth BFB is Les deux régentes, a non-fiction book about two French queens who ruled during their sons' minority: Marie de Médicis and Anne d'Autriche.

The fifth BFB is an omnibus edition containing the first three novels of the Alatriste series: Alatriste.

The sixth BFB is a collection of pieces that Joseph Roth had published in the "Prager Tagblatt" between 1917 and 1937: Heimweh nach Prag.
It's not a book you can read in one go, the topics of the various pieces are heterogeneous and often bleak, given the times they report.

The seventh BFB is 1794, a historical Scandinavian noir of unrelenting bleakness. You need a really strong stomach for this, and the worst thing is that it is open-ended. The third book will be published in January 2022, and I don't know yet if I really want to know how this misery ends. It probably will just go on...

That sounds terrible!

It is a very, very dark story, and the people are dirt poor, literally, there's mud and dirt and vermin everywhere. And the evildoers are truly evil.

Yikes!