Back on the road again ...

And so, another german holiday ends. As always, there are regrets; I didn't get to wander around Berlin for long, I missed some nice german bread by staying in bed too long, etc. On the plus side, I got a regular (wonderful) lie-in, and made some solid progress on a programming project (not as interesting to link to as LSystems).

What have I been reading?

What would you do if you were the last man on earth? Get beat up by women seems to be one answer. Flashbacks back and forth are cute but a little annoying, though used to good effect to set it all up; very cinematic. The story is so-so, but this simplicity means that I'm going to buy the german version to help me get some reading practise.

Which brings me to this one. It is way too much for my current german reading level. It took me about 10 minutes to get through the first couple of pages with a dictionary next to me. Admittedly, there is a lot of setup text before we get into the main story, but even so, I need that setup! Currently on loan to a family friend in Germany. Will try again later!

Liebe Schaut Weg (Love looks away) is more my level; it has little text and only half of it is in german, mostly uttered by children! It's a simple biography of the authors American and German roots. As a story, there isn't much drama, and so you aren't really drawn in. The drawing style is subtle and the textures are just very nice. Overall, a relaxing nice book, but wouldn't have been too disappointed to miss it.

This is my pick of the holiday, and not just because it's all in english! There are touches of M.C.Escher here in style and recursiveness of the story. It's an investigation into the depths of The Louvre, told from the viewpoint of a newly-arrived cataloguer of artifacts. No garish colours here, just challenging perspectives, I recommend a look inside to see what I mean.

I've got a fuller review of this but in summary: interesting but I prefer The Human Story.