My Life According to the Books I Read in 2019

I've set a new record and read 115 books this year!

That offers a lot of options to fill out my-year-in-books-I-read end-of-year wrap up meme, created by Christine at The happily ever after, but it was still hard to find sensible answers. 

Describe yourself: Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

How do you feel: Broken by Nicola Haken

Describe where you currently live: Beyond Control by Kit Rocha

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Wicked Abyss by Kresley Cole

Your favourite form of transportation: Master Class Linnea May

Your best friend is: For Real by Alexis Hall

You and your friends are: Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

What's the weather like: Arctic Sun by Annabeth Albert

What is life to you: Overture by Skye Warren

Favourite time of day: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Your fear:  Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge

What is the best advice you have to give: Love, in English by Karina Halle

Thought for the day: Love, Sincerely, Yours by Sara Ney

How I would like to die: Flash by Kit Rocha

My soul's present condition: Crossroads by Riley Hart

Have a great New Year's Eve and I wish you all a happy New Year, reading and otherwise!

Virtual Advent Tour: Santa's Train

Virtual Advent Tour is hosted by Sprite at Sprite Writes.

I have always liked trains. And then, by a coincidence, I moved to live right along the railway. And I love it, especially in December when we get to see the so-called Santa's train.

For the past few years in December our national railways offer special rides in different directions across the country on a composition of a historic steam engine and old carriages, decorated with Christmas lights, with Santa and his elves aboard.

It is a great attraction, especially for families with children, but also for everyone else, even if you just watch it huff and puff by.

The steam engine was built during WW II for the German army's transportation needs (hmm, yeah) and was a part of reparations to our country. It is extremely gratifying that a tool made for our destruction was used to rebuild after the war and is now still used to bring joy. Choo-choo!

Virtual Advent Tour 2019: Winter Evenings

Virtual Advent Tour is hosted by Sprite at Sprite Writes.

There is something magical about winter evenings when you are warm and comfy while it is freezing and windy outside. With the fire going and a hot beverage, it is nice to just be in comfortable silence and perhaps enjoy a good piece of poetry.

One such piece is a poem that hit me straight in the heart when I first heard it many years ago, a romantically melancholic, just like a Slavic soul likes best, and I had that instant 'a-ha' feeling of relating to it, for back then I did literally live in an old house in the middle of the marshes and cold, wild wind knocking on our shabby windows was a familiar visitor during many a winter evening while sitting by the wood stove with my grandmother.

I know it by heart in Slovene translation and it takes me straight back to my childhood whenever I remember it. Incidentally, its title is Winter Evening and it remains one of my favourite pieces of poetry. I am pasting it below with some imagery that reminds me of the 'olden' days. ;)

Winter Evening
by A. S. Pushkin

O'er the earth a storm is prowling, Bringing whirling, blinding snow.
Like a beast I hear it howling,
Like an infant wailing low.
Now the thatch it rustles, playing
On our roof; now at our pane
Raps like someone homeward straying
And behighted in the plain.


Old our hut is, dark and dreary,
By a candle dimly lit...
Why so sad, my dear, and weary
At the window do you sit?
Is't because the storm is moaning
That so very still you keep?
Does your spindle's mournful droning
Put you quietly to sleep?

Come, O comrade solitery
Of this cheerless youth of mine,
Take a cup, and let us bury
All our many woes in wine!
Of a maid out by a river
Sing a little song to me
Or a tomtit, one that never
Leaves its home beyond the sea.


O'er the earth a storm is prowling,
Bringing whirling, blinding snow.
Like a beast I hear it howling,
Like an infant wailing low.
Come, O comrade solitery
Of this cheerless youth of mine,
Take a cup, and let us bury
All our many woes in wine!

(Translated by I. Zheleznova.)

Do you have a favourite piece of poetry that reminds you of winter and/or childhood? 

I'm Still Alive

... and I'm still reading, too. Actually, I'll set a new record this year.

However, I don't know what to do with this blog. Hence, the nearly year-long hiatus.

I don't want to abandon it, but even just posting this reminds me of why I'd been struggling lately over the last few years and then vanished into this hiatus - all the signing out and in already takes s much energy. Not to mention other hurdles.

Blogger really isn't user-friendly. Or I've been spoiled by other platforms (*cough* tumblr *cough* - although that comes with its own set of problems). That and perhaps I burden myself with too high standards of what sort of posts both content- and format-wise I want to make. Maybe I should lower those.

I am thinking of maybe setting up automatic cross-posting from GR - or at least try it to see if it works satisfactorily. And/or doing monthly (or some such) recaps of my reading and watching exploits. I will have to mull it over some more and then decide.

But, first thing first, it is my favourite time of the year and that means Virtual Advent Tour! I will have two stops here on the 9th and the 16th, but do check out everyone else's stops as well, because people always share interesting things.