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thedraught · 5 months

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my year in reading | 2022

My books this year were filled with water. Whether their contents overflowed into my life and made me crave the liquid pools of wet more than ever, or whether my summer spent in lakes made me seek them out I may never know. There was a lot of wildness in my reading this year, contemporary writers and many women accidentally. I peered through the cracks of sentences and letters into the lives of others in memoirs and truly felt as though a part of everything I read tethered and centred me this year, teaching me to find a way into my body.

I wrote a lot, for work, and my own writing came too short, as did my reading. And yet, when I look back, I see so much light and airiness that this year has sent my way, no matter the hardships I experienced or the tears I may have shed, that I cannot bear to discount this year. I learned in every conceivable way and I am hopeful that I can apply the lessons I have picked up on further down my path as I continue to move through words and imagery and make sense of what I see.

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This year has given me much joy, my body suspended in bodies of water, hugs and love and so much more music than ever. So I can overlook my failings in the reading department and will continue to call this year visual and social without any regrets. It is a strange yet rewarding feeling to piece the year I had back together through books and photos on my camera roll. So much can happen in so little time, even though I did not experience an actual displacement this year for once, and it is difficult to imagine where I might be this time around 12 months from now, less than 48 hours before the turning over into another year. It is a surreal and scary but also an exciting feeling that I have not yet managed to grasp. So all I can suggest you do, if you feel even remotely the same, is to

Blink three times when you feel it kicking in.

And to look back at all the countless highlights you likely experienced.

My first full year in Berlin began not in Berlin at all, but on a balcony in Rudolstadt, screaming Total Eclipse of the Heart and All Too Well (10 Minute Version) into the newly born January night. I only read one book this cold and grey, grey month, The Written World, while navigating through my new life, receiving visitors and waiting for the heating to get fixed.

February was calm. I saw my grandmother and breathlessly followed the news, battled the winds on Tempelhofer Feld and read inconclusive Japanese fiction (The Factory). I revisited Seanen McGuire’s magical lands in Where the Drowned Girls Go and stayed in the realm of water - the major reading theme this year - with At the Pond, a charming and inspiring anthology about swimming at the Hampstead Ladies Pond.

The highlight of this month (and maybe of this year?) was Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s exquisitely crafted A Ghost in the Throat that made me long for writing and had me seek out many more memoirs for the rest of the year.

I injured my leg running to a yoga class in March, spent a weekend in blissful regency London with J and concocted a violet drink brewed from the arguably worst beverages there are: Dos Mas & ISO. The only book I read this month was The Language of Birds and there’s not much to say about that.

J and me returned to the Bridgerton-realm this April and read the entire Smythe-Smith Quartet, a stark disappointment in contract to the original series. I went to a Bachelorette party as well as a wedding this month and got drunk, drunk, drunk on Hugo of all things. I was successful in not throwing up in the car and read The Houseguest and my first Didion with The Year of Magical Thinking. A Taylor Swift string quartet rounded off the month with a perfect visit from J and lots of vegan food.

I only read four books in May, despite finally catching Covid and spending the first really hot days of the year confined inside. I did tackle the magical and exquisitely crafted Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, was deeply stressed about apartment searching and read two contemporary novels: Nightbitch and Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead, the latter of which was disappointing despite its enticing title. I celebrated M’s birthday, watched trees greening and found a new apartment two days before the end of the month.

Summer entered with a bang and I spent a portion of my June sitting amidst boxes and boxes of my stuff, planning and sorting. I read The House of Mirth and thoroughly enjoyed it, flew through Mona Awad’s All’s Well and read parts of Snuff on K, M’s and my 9€-ticket trip to the Sächsische Schweiz. Sunshine, heat and Lorde’s Solar Power tour made for the magical beginning of a glorious summer - beaming and glittering all around.

July (and very much the rest of my year) was water based. I swam in many different waters and began my journey through many more books centred around cool liquid lakes and oceans, among them this month The Pisces, another contemporary novel. I swam with the company during a canoeing adventure in the Spree, visited many lakes, took friends out on boats and swam in the Badeschiff. We ran through the fountain in the park during lunch breaks and S sprayed us with his spray bottle in the stuffy office.

August continued with its blessed weather and I frequented lake after lake after lake. With M, with B, sometimes alone even, traipsing through the woods and following Jessica J. Lees footsteps through Berlin in Turning. I finally read Where the Crawdads Sing (another watery story) and was touched by Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby. On a birthday trip to eastern France with my family I found my perfect farmhouse table and lounged in a farmhouse in the perfect overalls and by candlelight.

I read nothing in September, busy with a social week at work, drinks and laughs and rooftops and flowers from good friends. I tried to go to a party - and failed, I hosted M and met old friends amidst entering an emotionally turbulent time that now, looking back, taught me many things I needed to feel.

October continued my highly social drive. I carved pumpkins, sewed costumes and had my mum visit for a lovely trip. October saw the release of Taylor Swift’s Midnights and had me host a release party for J, M, M, A and A at my table that finally made it over to me from France. The books I read were all a throwback re-read from the Jette Weingärtner series by Monika Feth that re-entered my mind after a fun day of ice skating together with T at home.

F visited me in November and through him I made a new (and talented!) friend T who sings with me. I met J and brought her a specially made cake and crafted an advent calendar together with N whilst watching the worst Christmas movie ever made. I continued my path through Monika Feth’s series and met Joan Didion once more, as I immersed myself in her Blue Nights before embarking on the final month of the year…

In this poor reading year, I saw myself in a final reading frenzy in December. Broken by Backman’s The Winners - and actually watching a real ice hockey match - filled to the brim again with water in four gorgeous books: Saltwater, Summerwater, Pond and Turning that each moved me in a different way. I went home, engrossed in Die Wand (which was mentioned in Pond) and devastated all the same. I am not sure how (or if) I will ever get over the passing of Luchs or Benji for that matter.

Now, 9 books richer over Christmas, a new diary to fill and excitement overflowing all my edges, I cannot wait for what’s to come. A more succinct Year in Reading, perhaps. A diary filled with words more than pictures. A year of new beginnings, of Taylor (likely), friends and calm.

P.S. My year - at least the atmosphere, feeling and mindset - is probably best summed up through my Spotify wrapped this year: glitter, pink and girly happiness.

#year in books #year in reading #year in review

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thedraught · 5 months

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my year in reading (& songs) | 2021

Time, curious time Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs Were there clues I didn't see?

From a perfect start to the year in January to letting go of tension in December, 2021 has me looking back on a year that was - as all years are - full of ups and downs and changes, but ultimately filled with light and friendship and love. In my mind 2021 is tinged in purple-pink hues - or in Taylors words: it gave me the blues and then purple pink skies, it gave me happiness once I was out of the woods and above the trees. It gave me all kinds of rings, from Paper to Mood, 3 filled journals, only 10 new books bought, and a newest obsession (for who would I be without one?). I did not reach my goal of reading 100 books, but at 82, I am rather happy altogether.at the dusk of an old year…

January was pink and frilly and full of good moods - Emma, Bridgerton, - almost a week over New Year’s Eve spent with J and our journals, Jane Austen, embroidery and apple crumbles. The soundtrack of the month then was clearly (as my poor battered roommates can attest to) Donna Summers Hot Stuff that brought light into the grey January air. In total I read 11 books this month but the highlights were Amina Cain’s Indelicacy and Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. Both of them marked by stunning cover design and stories about women and friendship, though completely different in nature. Indelicacy made me pensive, made me want to write, while Miss Pettigrew charmed me (and still does) - and even made me cry. I also spent time with Susan Sontag and her journals (Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963), underlining laughing at the breakfast table in Brussels when she wishes to paganise her young son’s soul, sending updates to J, marvelling at Sontag’s eloquent words (and the people she knew!) scribbled down next to mundane lists and recounts of her meals.

With February came incredibly cold days, hikes and frozen lakes, a picnic set up in my room and five of the eight Bridgerton books, read and discussed with J, heavily entertained and partially staring at blank walls while doing nothing but listening to Julia Quinn’s historical romances. However, I also read the newest Seanan McGuire (Across the Green Grass Fields), Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang (finally! go read it! it’s “just” a short story) and a highlight of the year: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. A surprising come-back by an incredibly talented author that whisked me away into one of the strangest worlds I ever had the pleasure to visit. I read In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, too, and decided I was going to write my thesis about her experience of queer violence that she lays bare in her unique and daunting memoir.

Where February was still ringing with Hot Stuff and Peggy Lee’s Fever, March turned into an emotional turmoil rather quickly and had me in a daze. But the daze also brought me feverish reading weekends, when I devoured Roald Dahl’s Completely Unexpected Tales, John Fowles skin-crawlingly-horrifying The Collector, and finally tackled a mountain that had been looming above me from my bookshelves ever since 2014: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I breathlessly poured over the 800 pages in a single weekend, curing the distress I was feeling with a story so intricate and wondrous it had me spinning more than the heartbreak that raced through me that month. In March, Catton gave me memories, Catton gave me albatrosses, something to tether myself to, when I was lost. For a book the size of The Luminaries was the only one that could anchor me. Outside my window the cherry tree began to bloom.

Work on my thesis began in earnest in April, the whirlwinds of emotions cooling down slightly (though it was only the calm before a storm that would rattle me later), and I turned to the ever comforting Agatha Christie while tackling another beast I had avoided for years: the ever daunting Anna Karenina. I was not as impressed with Tolstoy’s most famous work, as I was with his War & Peace, but I did enjoy most of the book (read: all parts about Anna, none about Levin who takes up half the novel’s space) and enjoyed logging it from place to place with me.

May hit me with pain that had begun in March, and had been (in retrospect), unnecessarily drawn out til now. But I also received love & support, more than anyone could ever wish for. Distraction from my roommates, kind words from people that (mere months ago!) had been nothing but strangers, love from my parents, J and C, all of my friends. And love from books, to which I turned. Marie Antoinette and Die Welt von Gestern by Stefan Zweig enthralled me, Gone Girl kept me up all night and Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means disturbed and delighted me with its casual cruelty.

In June I was still weathering storms: my thesis, life, fears, which sounds more than dramatic in retrospect but was my reality at the time. I did not read much, except for nights spent with old romance novels by Sophie Kinsella to calm my nervous mind. Musically, however, Lorde made a reappearence and healed my soul with the announcement of a sun-soaked record. And I finally gave up my (hitherto likely unfounded) dislike for Taylor Swift and dipped my toe into her music, filling my days with summer songs from Lover (with Paper Rings front and center), as well as the ever-uplifting Fearless and All Too Well.

July was marked by travel - a strange word in a newsletter that summarises a year in which Covid 19 is and was still very much present. But I travelled locally and carefully. To see my grandmother (finally, after two years!), C in Hamburg, my parents, T and F, pick up my sister in Jena and see J and I, even if just for a day in the sun. I read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee in a heat-filled day on the balcony, before I played scrabble with my grandma and drank cocktails. And I finally read my first Jhumpa Lahiri (I am still dying to read In Altre Paroli, a book with the most interesting premise), The Namesake, and was rather moved by it.

This year’s rain-filled summer culminated with my birthday in August, my second vaccination and a short birthday visit from C, and a long one from J in Maastricht. J and me crafted and painted ceramics, went to the fabric market, cooked food, had picnics, relived the trashiest movies of all time, and finally fully submitted to Taylor. I read Elin Willow’s Inlands (“Precisely because all options are open and I can go wherever I like, it feels like the exact opposite”) and felt it enter my soul at that moment in time, and soothe me and upset me, even though I now barely remember any of it. The soundtrack of August was not Taylor’s eponymous song, but Lorde’s Mood Ring, instead. A brilliantly clever and sympathetically ironic song (paraphrased) - an absolute genius and delight.

In September I began searching for jobs read short-stories of Domestic Suspense, as well as The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy (which briefly recalled Bonjour Tristesse, if not in plot, then in atmosphere) and spontaneously purchased Frank Herbert’s Dune that I ploughed through in three days, since I went to watch the adaptation with M and A. I embroidered on the side, and passed the time with more Agatha Christie, as well as walks in the waning summer light, looking at the pumpkin patches.

I remember a party at F’s in October, Sushi with B, and my very first Dutch read Het Achterhuis, a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s Diary. Next to job interviews and my graduation celebration and fun days with G, I also revisited the Bridgerton universe with J, as I listened to all four of the Rokesby-series books (that were clearly inferior to Bridgerton, I must admit).

I had dinners in November, saw bright-red sunsets, started to work, visited Berlin and saw F. I deepened the attachment to Taylor (All Too Well), spent time with my roommates and organised a move. H and me spent a wholesome evening with Folklore, Evermore, fries and punch. We also had another wonderful silent-dinner. Reading-wise, I finally tackled Imogen Hermes Gowar’s The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock (impeccable writing, a lacking story) and swore off modern romance after a buddy-read of Sally Thorne’s (very well liked?!) The Hating Game.

December saw me moving, laughing lots and being stressed. But now it has me sitting in Rudolstadt at J’s, prepared to put pink highlights in my hair and drink Barbie pink shots to welcome the new year and bid farewell to 2021. Because, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 2022, just as well as I felt 2021. Even though I did not read a single book in December (I was busy embroidering for farewell gifts and Christmas), I experienced so much love and light and saw so many changes in my life that I am more than excited about. Closer to J (to further apart from my dear roommates, my friends, I should say), ready for 22, new books to discover and read, new things to see, new things to create. This month’s song obsession is I Bet You Think About Me. For the country, the vibe, the red lipstick. For everything.the magical dawn of a new one awaits.

In retrospect everything happened as it should have. My heartbreak turned out to be not so much of a heartbreak after all, and it gave me Taylor, a development I might give too much meaning to (and talk way too much about), but then again, I’d like to carry myself forward like this into the following years: Giving things too much meaning rather than not finding meaning in anything. And being open to accept new things, even if they mean discarding old views and opinions. I don’t know what 2022 will bring, if it’s still pink and blue, or burning red. Or perhaps maybe golden, like daylight.

I know that, as such, every day and every year, every life in fact, is reflected in the snippet of the song I’m going to leave you with here, but it seems to fit this year especially, for me:Time, mystical time Cuttin' me open, then healin' me fine Were there clues I didn't see? And isn't it just so pretty to think All along there was some Invisible string Tying you to me?

Can you find an invisible string in 2021? A string that pulled you away from something only to lead you somewhere greater? I hope that you can. And if not, I am certain that you will. Time is funny like that.

All the people I had to lose, or that I got to keep and meet and love in 2021, I’m glad that fate tied you to me. And I hope that the dawn of 2022 is a bright one for you.

#year in books #year in review #year in reading #2021

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thedraught · 5 months

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my year in reading | 2020

Marking the passing of the years has a mystical and at the same time mundane quality to me. But time is passing and to reflect upon this linearity we all are bound to does always seem more magical than anything. So, as every year, I am embracing the turning of the years and look forward to a fresh start.

The end of an old year and the beginning of a new one is always an exciting time for someone as keen on semiotics and symbolism as I am. A thin membrane, much as on Halloween, that allows us to pass through to new endeavours, if we wish to see it that way.

And I do. I don’t scoff at New Year’s Resolutions and while I know that one can resolve to change and integrate new habits at any time of the year, any Tuesday in March or Saturday in June, this brief liminal space between two years is a magical one. Anything we ascribe value to automatically becomes valuable, as it is with birthdays, full moons or anniversaries of any kind.

I would rather be someone to see the magic in these things and give them meaning beyond that which is considered “real”, “plausible”, or “rational”, than turn away and let a moment that could be something special slip away unnoticed, without giving it the chance to attach itself to something.

January began atop the Himalayan mountains for me this year, freezing down to the bone in a tent. I did carry a book with me on this trip - The Snow Leopard, quite fittingly - though I did not turn one single page (difficult in 3 pairs of gloves) and have not finished it since. So, as has been my custom these past years, I began 2020 with The Secret History, a book that could never disappoint, unlike The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, that I had eagerly awaited for more than a year. You win and you lose sometimes.

In February I succumbed to reading two quite popular crime novels - The Woman in the Window and The Girl on the Train - the latter of which was a gift from an Indian friend. Sadly, I wasn’t overly excited about either of them - maybe I have outgrown crime fiction for now? I also read and loved, as always, the fifth book in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series - Come Tumbling Down.

My reading month was otherwise also filled with classics such as Animal Farm, The Turn of the Screw and In Cold Blood (I have apparently not lost any interest in true crime fiction), and I also watched the Greta Gerwig adaptation of Little Women twice at the cinema. But February also saw me returning to Germany, leaving my time in India behind, prompting me to read Vivek Shanbagh’s Ghachar Ghochar and Amitav’s Ghosh Gun Island immediately upon my return.

Gun Island especially was a magical book, in some ways reminiscent of A.S. Byatt’s Possession and I absolutely adored it. I listened to Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House while sorting through all my belongings, freshly picked up from Mainz, and I quite enjoyed it. The story itself maybe not so much as the impression left behind by the tangible aliveness of the house itself. With Faber and Faber, finally, I got a sneak preview of the rather unknown Celia Fremlin and her Ghostly Stories, of which I definitely need to read more.

March was the month that would dictate the beginning of the rest of the year, when the first lockdown came upon us. R came back from India, and we managed to see each other before boarders closed. And my cousin A came to stay with us for two weeks from Milan - which would turn into almost 3 months.

Most of the month I spent ploughing through Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, a truly eye-opening exploration and a gloriously interesting study. Luckily my sleep patterns are already quite healthy but I feel like this book could turn some people’s minds around. I also read Jane Austen’s Emma (amazingly fun and vibrant!) and continued my slow but steady reading of Agatha Christie’s collection with 4:50 from Paddington.

“April is the cruellest month,” as T. S. Eliot teaches us, and fittingly, I read the horrifying A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, a touching but troublesome book that had me cry a little on the balcony. I also finished three more Agatha Christie novels and started a virtual bookclub with J and C for which I read Dear Mr. M by Herman Koch and Les Fiancés de l’Hiver by Claire Dabos, which I truly loved.

In May I began tutoring, visited R in Leuven and read two disappointments: The Wych Elm by Tana French and The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld.

Even another true crime read in June, His Bloody Project, did not convince me, whereas Anita Brookner’s Look At Me sparked memories of Shirley Jackson and was thoroughly enjoyed. I listened to Frederik Bakman’s Bear Town and Us Against You at breathtaking speed, while embroidering a sweater - my best handiwork project yet. I also finished A.S. Byatt’s beautiful The Children’s Book - a magical tale, and stunningly written. A left me in June, and I missed her companionship dearly.

I worked a lot in July, and finally visited C and J ! Embroidering and just simply seeing each other again. I finished Gillespie and I, which turned out to be different to what I imagined - delightful ! I was disappointed in July by The Essex Serpent, reread A Little Princess, Die Unendliche Geschichte and Digital Minimalism.

I continued with my reading of Austen with Sense and Sensibility and listened to the wonderful The Fellowship of the Ring, which made work hours so much sweeter. Finally, I finished off the month with the final Austen - Mansfield Park, which I loved.

In August, the month of my birth, I finished The Lord of the Rings trilogy once more as well as Mythos by Stephen Fry. But more importantly, August called for freedom from working, finding an apartment in Maastricht and seeing H and J in Berlin to celebrate my birthday - with books of course.

September was a quiet reading month, what with settling in the house, at uni and making new friends. I got a sewing machine, went to Munich for an India reunion and revelled in the beautiful autumn days in the city.

I still read Bunny, The House Without Windows and Hex, amongst various reads for uni. Dinners on the balcony and an exorbitant amount of Federweißer with my roommates rounded off the month, despite the low book count.

The month of Halloween, October, called for a sixth reread of The Secret History, a New Zealand read of The Rehearsal, as well as Rest and be Thankful (disappointing somehow) and The Supper Club (surprisingly delightful). I sewed and knitted and did presentations and wrote paper proposals. I also fell up the stairs and hurt my ankle pretty badly.

The most vivid memory I have of November is that of our silent dinner. I also read two more Agatha Christies, reread Daphne DuMaurier’s classic Rebecca and Ali Smith’s Artful, and loved Public Library, also by Smith. I got tested for Corona (negatively!), began Ashtanga yoga and finished Crossing the Water - a brilliant poetry collection of Sylvia Plath.

December began with a classic, Bonjour Tristesse, and culminated with My Best Friend’s Exorcism, as well as The Stranger Beside Me. Both books I had been meaning to read for years and they exceeded my expectations. Uni stressed me slightly, pending holidays as well and as lockdown 2.0 was announced my reading brain switched itself off.

Christmas was still a joy, with the family (minus Oma) coming together, R. visiting briefly and many a book under the Christmas tree. I started reading Susan Sontag’s journals - but I will carry their brilliance into the New Year. I finished off the year sewing costumes for our medieval-plague themed NYE, J and me celebrating together, since Covid plagued us once more and prevented C from coming. But we will enter the New Year singing Total Eclipse of the Heart as always and I take with me all the positive energy I have been carrying with me for a while now.

This is also the first year that I won’t achieve my reading goal - which I set at 80 books for 2020. Instead I am finishing with a still solid 67. Overall, despite all that has been going on in the world, I cannot complain about my 2020. But let’s still hope for the best (and prepare for the worst).

#year in reading #year in books

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