#a small town in germany | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oldshrewsburyian · 2 years

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Any suggestions for books that have a cozy fall feel to them? I'm trying to read my way to cooler weather :P

I sympathize with this endeavor! I have a double confession to make, though. 1) I am never sure what people on Tumblr mean when they say "cozy." 2) Even though I am fairly certain what "cozy" means when applied to subgenres of light fiction, this is not what I seek when I turn to seasonal fall reading. What I am usually looking for in autumnal fiction is some combination of:

death and decay are inevitable; they can also be beautiful

autumn is a time simultaneously of hope and of reckoning with that hope's disappointment

the academic calendar and academic communities (see also above, tbh)

With, um, all that in mind... some recommendations.

Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers. "Let us go now, and have the truth at all hazards" and also "epic actions are all fought by the rearguard" and "if it ever occurs to people to value the honor of the mind equally with the honor of the body, we shall get a social revolution of a quite unparalleled sort."

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (for its gorgeous descriptions of all seasons, and also everything else)

Embers, Sándor Márai (the end of a life and the end of an empire... but maybe not the end of love)

On the Edge of Reason, Miroslav Krleža (I'm pretty sure this opens in September; it is beautiful and poignant and savage)

Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner (this actually might come quite close to what you are looking for; this is a lovely and tender and melancholy and hopeful book)

A Small Town in Germany, John Le Carré (small town, large stakes, and Le Carré's customary insight and humor)

Radetzkymarsch, Joseph Roth (this is another end-of-empire one)

Georgics and Eclogues, Virgil (his birthday is in October! lots of lovely harvest poetry and also poetry about destructive love.)

Summer in the Country, Edith Templeton (summer must end, empire must end, deceptions... may or may not)

The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen (the last because in the autumn of 1920, in County Cork, old certainties and old loyalties are about to go up in flames.)

The Salzburg Connection, Helen MacInnes (not only is this that too-rare thing, an espionage novel written by a woman, but the thing I remember best about it is the male protagonist's quotation of/meditation on Rilke's "Herbsttag.")

The Dig, John Preston (this takes place, of course, over a summer, from May to September. But this is 1939, so September is always, always on the horizon. I did not particularly like the beautiful film as an adaptation, but I want a motivational poster of Ralph Fiennes saying "We all fail! every day!")

I hope that at least some of these may be interesting! I also always think Ellis Peters does a lovely job of evoking seasons in her Cadfael novels, and you could do worse than going through and reading the autumnal ones.

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queer-benoit-blanc · 1 year

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John le Carre writing book after book supposedly about spies that all just end up being men falling in love like Sir what was going through your mind

#john le carre #george smiley #the looking glass war #tinker tailor soldier spy #a small town in germany

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haikulibrary · 6 months

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Three hundred pages Of espionage thriller Never felt so long!

Title: A Small Town in Germany Author: John Le Carré Published: 1968 Read: September 2023 Rating: 2/5

#haiku #original haiku #John Le Carré #A Small Town in Germany #reading #books #haikulibrary

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rongwu · 10 months

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Leo Harting

#a small town in germany #john le carre

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veryslowreader · 2 years

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A Small Town in Germany by John le Carré

She Killed in Ecstasy

#a small town in germany #john le carré #she killed in ecstasy #soledad miranda

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tanadrin · 1 year

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Currently on a train through East Anglia, and these are my favorite placenames I’ve seen on Google Maps along the way.

Bungay

Rackheath

Caister-on-Sea

Eye

Bury St. Edmunds

Six Mile Bottom

Tring

Feering

Diss

Lyng

#small towns in Germany have nothing on england #unfortunately

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dumblr · 2 years

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📍Rothenburg, Germany. 🇩🇪

#germany #nature #aesthetics #flowers #rothenburg #street art #street style #beautiful views #small town #evening #love #romantic #streetview #love it #vacation #travel #must visit #dumblr

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johbeil · 1 year

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Plane trees

Recently trimmed. Tübingen, Germany. Olympus 35RC on Foma B&W slide film.

#happy sunday #photographers on tumblr #black and white #trees #architecture #plane trees #Platanen #film photography #35 mm photography #analog photography #Tübingen #baden-württemberg #germany #historical #small town #original photographers #Olympus #retro

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oldshrewsburyian · 1 year

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As much as I'd love to talk Carré, I gotta admit I've tried and failed to get through even one of his novels. (I had to do research to even find out which it was, it was The Spy Who Came In From the Cold). It's really a tragedy, as someone who is SUPER into spy stories, political thrillers, and cold war history esp. re: the GDR, I was so ready to enjoy this book. But it just gave me nothing I enjoyed and I gave up halfway through. Also read excerpts of Tinker, Taylor for university and while that was a little better, I can't say I felt the need to get the full novel either...

Is there any novel of his that is markedly different in style or should I just give up on Le Carré if I didn't like that one?

I'm very glad that you've asked this question so that I can say: please, do not give up on Le Carré! One of the things I love about him is the variety of his novels, the precision of their individuality. Also, I'm trying and failing to imagine how reading excerpts of Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy would work, because while the prose is gorgeous, it doesn't strike me as, really, an excerptable novel. A word in defense of TSWCIFTC as well: when I first read it, in my early twenties, I rather forced myself through much of it it, not seeing, really, how it all added up: the deliberations, the compromises, the aspirations, the betrayals. And then I got to the end, started weeping, and immediately started rereading it to try to force the novel and the characters to some other conclusion.

Anyway! Other Le Carré recs: A Small Town in Germany, perhaps the most Austenian of his works, about the functioning and functionaries of Bonn, and postwar/Cold War anxieties in the Bundesrepublik.

For late Cold War anxieties, there's A Perfect Spy, about the (mis)education of a British spy, and the myths and vulnerabilities of the Old Firm. The Russia House is a particular favorite of mine, with the US, UK, and USSR anxiously figuring out what the parameters (and vulnerabilities) of glasnost are, and people figuring out what heroism is required to live with integrity in an era of inhumane states and... I just love it a lot.

You might also enjoy his more recent political thrillers, whether about neocolonialist exploitation (The Constant Gardener,) Islamic fundamentalism and western cynicism/hypocrisy (A Most Wanted Man,) or the feverish extremism of the Brexit/Trump era (Agent Running in the Field.)

#john le carré #espionage #spy novels #so delighted that my 'talk to me about le carré' ploy is paying off #the spy who came in from the cold #a small town in germany #a perfect spy #the russia house #the constant gardener #a most wanted man #agent running in the field #book recommendations

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palatinewolfsblog · 10 months

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Where are you from?

Good question.

Let's say

I came a long long way.

a star child

or

just stardust

golden

or silver

grey

as time goes by.

a journeyman

voyager on a ship called earth.

located in a remote part of a galaxy.

a sceptic when some folks speak

about the crown of creation.

a citizen of a country in the middle of europe.

a country responsible for great wars.

a country that set the world on fire - almost.

rose from ruins and ashes.

a country at peace for almost 80 years.

but what does that mean

when neighbors are worried about their safety?

a man from a small town

a suburb

actually more of a village

but a village with barracks

and a military training area

that used to be

my playground

when i was a child

and knew nothing about the world.

Now I'm getting older

(wiser? i doubt it.).

but there are still so many things i want to know.

Things i want to learn.

Above all, the answer

to the question that

really

matters:

Where is this journey leading to?

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vogelmeister · 18 days

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twas playing geoguessr and it sent me to nl and then to germany (twice)

#how avacore is that #nl is one of my easy countries tbh #especially if its like a town #for some reason this time though it was the bus stop that got me #but normally the yellow number plates and houses convince me #that and obviously the dutch language/bikes #but yellow number plates are very dutch to me and rules out a lot of europe in my eyes #but this one had .nl so i was like bruh thats boring #germany i got bc it sent me to a small town that looked identical to the one im familiar with near mainz #i was like “its giving x” lol #anyways the dutch one was near zwolle #my other easy countries are australia (but even then i do a through check bc it could be nz) singapore greece and uh... occupied palestine #(bruh)#oh i am decent at tunsia #but yeah #geoguessr

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rongwu · 2 months

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#john le carre #a small town in germany

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dinosaurchurch · 8 days

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Driving on the Autobahn back to Frankfurt.

August 31st 2023.

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when-november-ends · 1 year

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remember how i said i wanted to start selling tarot readings?

well.

i sent the application to get a small business license on January 1st. since then I've talked to my town hall people, the tax office and my health insurance and i sTILL have to talk to a different insurance, a random association for crafty-jobs that has nothing to do with me and the bank.

so. much. paperwork.

im bad at paperwork and official stuff. i cried a lot.

if the application didn't cost me 50 bucks I'd honestly have given up already.

#my advice: be prepared for an ungodly amount of paperwork and calling and emailing people if you want to start a small business in germany.#also don't worry. the application costs 25€ but i messed it up so i had to pay twice. just go to your town hall and don't do it online.

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