#GermanLitMonth25 Hermann Hesse “Demian”

by Hermann Hesse

Finish date: 06.11.2025
Genre: Novella (176 pg)
Rating: A
#GermanLitMonth25 – #ReadingNobels – #NovNov25

Good News: Herman Hesse uses symbols to deepen the themes and character development:

What does the Mark of Cain symbolise?
— representing individuality, the journey toward self-realization = core message of the book!

What is Abraxes?
— Abraxas symbolizes necessity of embracing all aspects of true self-awareness.

What does Lady Eve symbolise?
— she encourages Demian to “go beyond” societal limits …think out of the box!

Personal: This is a …deeply moving and engrossing bildungs-novella. I was totally absorbed.
This book may not appeal to everyone  but once you have read it then let it sink in.
#MustRead Classic

#SciFiMonth2025 Outcast’s Oath (military scifi)

by Richard Tongue

Finish date: 04.11.25
Genre: novella
Rating: D
#SciFiMonth25 – #NovNov25

Conclusion:

Good News: I finished it. It may sound corny but this is a giant step for someone who does not like Scifi…but I’m giving the genre at least a chance.

Bad News: Typical military elements: conflict, heroes, empathic commanding officer, soldier who has to prove himself, body count loss of friends in battle, squadron regroups after defeat….to fight another day. That will probably be #2 in the Maxwell’s War series. Note: I still don’t know what the aliens looked like, no description at all!

Bad News: The pace was good….but the writing was just filled with military clichés (“We’re going to hunt it down and we’re going to kill it, an Outcast’s Oath).  The only  cliché  I missed was the famous “Hoo-wah” we all know and love in the film The “Scent of a Woman” by Al Pacino!

Personal: The book felt “sloppy” not accurate with spelling mistakes (pg 93 – “Our orders game through, Ryder guessed.” Also…how can the crew find rusty hulks, components, buggy, mechanisms in a desert environment? (Hùh?). In 23 chapters we did keep up with the “Star Trek” vibe (sensors, thrusters, escape pods), a dash of “Dirty Dozen” team spirit and a whiff of  “Saving Private Ryan” as soldiers regret losing one of their own and a pinch of  “Top Gun” with daredevil aviation dog fights!
In conclusion, I am still not the target audience for (military) SciFI…but I will keep reading until I find a book I like! Never give up, “Hoo-wah”!

Quick Scan:

Outcast’s Oath (Maxwell’s War Book 1) – Richard Tongue – 190 pg (novella)

1. Ten years ago, the Terran Commonwealth dispatched its most advanced ship,
2. …CSS Eudoxus, on a top-secret mission.
3. A mission so secret that when the ship failed to return!
4. Flight Lieutenant Carter Maxwell, commanding a crew of misfits and outcasts,
5. …must win the race to uncover the truth of the mystery that sent Eudoxus and her crew into the dark,
6. NOTE: This is my first experience with “Military SciFi”.
7. I did not know this was a “thing”. 
8. But I’m ready to board  the patrol ship, CSS Endurance  and I heard
9. … I going to meet an alien doomsday cult!  Yikes!
10. BTW…the book cover is impressive!

#SciFiMonth2025 Join the Fun!

• It’s November…and you all know what that means
• …SciFiMonth2025 is started!
• Follow on: @SciFiMonth on Bluesky and Instagram
• INTRO/WRAP UP POSTS  Document

Hosting:

1. Annemieke  @A Dance With Books
2. Lisa @Dear Geek Place
3. Mayri  @Book Forager
4. Imyril @ There’s Always Room For One More

• Hashtag: #SciFiMonth2025
• Theme for the month: travel in this speculative genre of scientific endeavour,
• alien encounters, alternate timelines and parallel dimensions.
• My theme: anything I can find…I’m terrible when it comes to Scifi!
• SIGN-UP INFO:  HERE

NOTES:

1. Need some books that are  “light” to balance a month of  “heavy” French reading.
2. Not going to read about octopuses  (…sorry Adrian Tchaikovsky)
3. Reading 2 Hugo Award winners 2025 (novel and novella)
4. Posting  VERY  short reviews…just one or two sentences
5. …b/c I do ‘t feel myself any judge of
6. …what good SciFi should be.
7. I’m just glad I finished the book! 

1. The Ministry the Future – K. S. Robinson – READING
2. The Wall – M. Haushofer  – READING
3. QualityLand – March-Uwe Kling – READING

————————————————————————————————————————

Outcast’s Oath (Maxwell’s War Book 1) – Richard Tongue – 190 pg (novella) – REVIEW

1. Ten years ago, the Terran Commonwealth dispatched its most advanced ship,
2. …CSS Eudoxus, on a top-secret mission.
3. A mission so secret that when the ship failed to return!
4. Flight Lieutenant Carter Maxwell, commanding a crew of misfits and outcasts,
5. …must win the race to uncover the truth of the mystery that sent Eudoxus and her crew into the dark,
6. NOTE: This is my first experience with “Military SciFi”.
7. I did not know this was a “thing”. 
8. But I’m ready to board  the patrol ship, CSS Endurance  and I heard
9. .. I going to meet an alien doomsday cult! Yikes!
10. BTW…the book cover is impressive!

Tusks of Extinction – Ray Nayler – 112 pg  (novella) – READ (review soon…)

1. When you bring back a long-extinct species, there’s more to success than the DNA.
   
2. Moscow has resurrected the mammoth.
3. I had to look up on Google what a mammoth looked like!
4. But someone must teach them how to be mammoths
5. …or they are doomed to die out again.
6. How do you teach a mammoth?
7. This NOT a book I’d grab off the shelf…but is is short, novella
8. …so that’s a good thing!
9. I think I’ll  #NeedMoreCoffee…for this one this morning!
10. NOTE: Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novella 2025

GermanLitMonth 2025 Death in Venice (novella)

by Thomas Mann

Finish date: 01.11.2025
Genre: novella
Rating: A
#GermanLitMonth 2025  – #NovNov25

Good News:
Death in Venice is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a boy in a family of Polish tourists—Tadzio, a nickname for Tadeusz. Tadzio was likely based on a boy named Władzio whom Mann had observed during his 1911 visit to the city.

Personal: The tension in the novella b/t order and passion begins in chapter one. It starts with a slow pace while Von Aschenbach walks through the empty and somber streets of Munich (order). Suddenly he has the desire to travel (passion). With each chapter Mann accelerates the plot building suspense and tension. We want to know how Von Aschenbach’s stalking of the young boy will end! Somebody is going to die….but who?

Last thoughts: Perhaps not a book that everybody will like….but it is a classic and Thomas Mann is one of the greatest writers of 20th Century !

#French: Prix Goncourt shortlist “La maison vide”

by Laurent Mauvignier

Finish date: 30.10.2025
Genre: novel (family saga)
Rating: F-
#ReadingFrenchMonth25

Good News: None!

Personal:

This year, I chose to read some of the novels selected for Le Prix Goncourt 2025.
I don’t care if this book wins or not…it was endlessly boring, boring, boring. Why use one word when you can use two hundred? What a disappointment!

My God, the long descriptions of EVERYTHING (…that stupid cherry tree….branches, shaving of paint from the shutters, the letters on a tombstone, the war medal in a box… etc) in an excessively cold clinical style was unbearable.
I don’t shy away from a “chunkster” but this 744 pg book is not worth my precious time!

How do you say in French: I’ve had enough!!
“j’en ai eu ma claque”
DNF = I made it to page 17!

#NonFicNov25 week 1 Your Year in Nonfiction

Week one (10/27-11/2) Your Year in Nonfiction: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorites? Have you had a favorite topic? Is there a topic you want to read about more?  What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

QUICK SCAN:

1. Timeline: my nonfiction year to run from Nov 2024 – Oct 2025.
2. 2025 has NOT been a very good reading year.
3. My percentage of nonfiction is WAY DOWN (20% vs an average of 54%)
4. 2024: (63/115 books)  54% of total reading
5. 2025: (24/125 books)   19% of total reading

1. Conclusion:
2. What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?
3. Find some reading recommendations from other readers.
4. Evaluate my 2025 reading ….I’ve not read as broadly as I usually do.
5. Make some changes…in my reading plans.

#AusReadMonth25 Wrap up

Tawny Frogmouth

• To close my #AusReadingMonth25…
• ….would not be complete without the bird of the year:
• Tawny Frogmouth!
• Isn’t he adorable?

1. While often confused for an owl… the tawny frogmouth is actually part of the nightjar family.
2. The tawny frogmouth is active at night… 
3. …by day it perches in trees perfectly camouflaged.
4. They are native to Australia and also found on Tasmania.
5. The beak is abnormally wide like the mouth of a frog.
6. They are short and stout birds measuring 8.5 to 21 inches tall and can  weigh up to 15  pounds! 
7. Tawny frogmouths are not the most “talkative” of birds.
8. They will hiss if they feel threatened.
9. At night, they hunt for food using the sit-and-wait technique.
10. What do they eat?
11. Tawny frogmouth’s diet consists of mice, pinkies, crickets,
12. …giant mealworms, and wax worms.
13. They mate for life! 

Conclusion:

1. I’ve read 6 books on the Walkley Award long list.
2. I read 4 books on the Australian Political Book of the Year long list.
3. The winner?
4. I hope Mean Streak by Rick Morton wins  BOTH prizes!
5. Why?
6. Excellent writing by an investigative journalist who is able
7. to combine non-fiction facts with a deep sense of empathy for the victims involved.

My  October Reading list: 

1. The Chairman’s Lounge –  Joe Aston – REVIEW
2. Mean Streak  – Rick Morton – REVIEW
3. Nuked –  Andrew Fowler – REVIEW
4. Slick: Australia’s Toxic Relationship with Big Oil – Royce Kurmelovs REVIEW
5. The Holy and the Broken – I. Fletcher – REVIEW
6. The Winter Road – K. Holden – REVIEW
7. Bunker in Kiev – John Lyons – REVIEW
8. Meadow’s Law – Quentin McDermott – REVIEW
9. Great Game On: Contest for Central Asia – Geoff Raby –  REVIEW

#GermanLitMonth25 DNF

by Marc-Uwe Kling

Finish date: 22.10.2025
Genre: novel(dystopian, satire)
Rating: F-
#GermanLitMonth25 – #SciFiMonth2025

Bad News: This is a major waste of my reading time. I made it to page 100…then I could not take it any more. There are better SciFi books to read!

Personal: Beyond the quirky gimmick of “surnames” this book had little to offer me in the form of reading entertainment. I usually push onwards with a book, even if I have to skim it. I am ready for any book that pokes fun of technology but I wish it could’ve done so in a more enlightening way. It was a chore to read through the satire. It was a chore to skip from character to character each chapter. It was a chore to read the lives of characters who were unlikeable, unmotivated and frankly dumb. It was a CHORE! My advice? … “ drop it like 3rd period algebra”

#GermanLitMonth 2025 Reading List

1. November isn’t far away, and you all know what that means
2. …German Literature Month is just around the corner!
3. …reading German, Austrian, or Swiss books.
4. Hosting: BeautyIsASleepingCat.com
5. Co-host:  Tony’sReadingList 
6. Hashtag: #GermanLitMonth 
7. One special feature for this year’s event is a
8. ….Thomas Mann week to celebrate his 150th birthday. 

• November 1st-9th: Genre Week (free choice)
• November 10th-16th: City  – German city, or an author from a particular city
• November 17th-23rd – Thomas Mann week
• November 24th- 30th –  (author from…) GDR Week

My List:  (…reviews on blog in November)

1. The Wall (1963) SciFi dystopia   – Marlen Haushofer – READ
2. Death in Venice (1911) novella  – Thomas Mann  – READ
3. Michael Kohlhass (1810)  novella – Heinrich von Kleist – READ
4. Demian (1919) novel  – Hermann Hesse – READ
5. The Chess Story (1942) novella – Stefan Zweig – READ
6. The Collini Case (2011) novel – F. Von Schirach – READ
7. QualityLand (2017) SciFi – Marc-Uwe Kling – REVIEW
8. Siddhartha (1922)  novel – Hermann Hesse
9. Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) novel  – Hermann Hesse
10. Dr. Faustus (1947) novel – Thomas Mann
11. Hesse (2018) biography – Gunnar Decker
12. Rummelplatz (2007) novel – Werner Bräunig (Chemnitz, GDR) – READ
13. The Trial (1925)  SciFi dystopia – F. Kaka 
14. The Director (2023) historical fiction  – Daniel Kehlmann – REVIEW
15. The Glass Bead Game (1943)  SciFi, utopia  – Hermann Hesse – READ

#AusReadingMonth25 John Lyons

by John Lyons (no photo)

Finish date: 18.10.2025
Genre: Australian non-fiction
Rating: B
#NonFicNov

Good News: The last 5 chapters (6-10) were the most revealing:
Cyber fighters, Drone Busters and portraits of Zelensky, Putin, Trump.
The rest of the book was a description of Ukrainian life (anecdotes of various Ukrainians) in wartime.
If you have been following the news there was not much new information.

Bad News: The Ukranian political and military battlefields have changed since J. Lyons finished his book one years ago. There is so much more that WE know that is not in the book. It lessened the impact this book had on me.

Personal: The book was good….but not great. We know of Trump’s smack down of Zelensky at the White House (February 2025) and Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska (August 2025)…and perhaps Trump’s permission to use long range Tomahawk missiles by Ukranine. That would be a game-changer!
Ukraine has not yet received official permission from the United States to use long-range Tomahawk missiles, but active discussions are underway between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, with President Donald Trump indicating he has “sort of made a decision” but has set clear conditions regarding their intended use. No final approval or public delivery has been announced as of October 2025.
Will this book win Walkley Award Best Book 2025? No.