Did you hear that November is also German Literature Month? Caroline and Lizzy are taking us on a tour of German literature with prompts and readalongs for the month of November. Lizzy has a great compilation of reading recommendations by theme.

Caroline be focusing on books set during the run-up to WWII, the war itself and its aftermath, including historical fiction set during that period. And, Lizzy offers a tour of German-speaking countries.

No matter what you decide genre, time period, etc, as long as the work was originally written in German then that is all that matters.

I have quite a few books to read from my stacks that would be perfect but while I was pulling out books to feature I found these two collections and I thought they would be fun as they would focus on a German city I’ve enjoyed visiting several times. The two collections are Berlin Noir and Berlin Tales.

We’ll see what I decide to read but no matter which book I choose whether it’s one of these two or another read, I’m excited. As you know I’ve really been missing our yearly trips to Germany thanks to the pandemic so at least I can do a bit of armchair travel for now and of course look through my photos of past trips. Like these from 2006 when we visited Hannover, Braunschweig, Rugen and Berlin.

In case you are wondering what the background is for this picture, it’s this Cavallini Germany city poster or wrapping paper. I love Cavallini papers for making journals and when I found this one I had to have it. Of course I’ve been hanging on to it in hopes of making a special journal for when we return to Germany but for now I can use it as backdrop for pictures.

Anyway, would love to know if this is a reading project you’ve heard about and if you are thinking of participating in?

I’m still very much enjoying spooky reads but I’m already looking forward to November reads and there are several reading projects around the blogosphere that sound so interesting to me that I have to join in. First up is Nonfiction November hosted by five wonderful bloggers who are going to inspire us to read more nonfiction.

Each week there is a prompt to get the discussion going and there’s even an instagram post challenge every day. Get your pencils ready to take note of all the books you’ll be adding to your wish list right?

I don’t know if I’ll be able to participate in the weekly prompts but I’m looking forward to being inspired to read more nonfiction. It has not been a great year for nonfiction reading for me. Not that I read a lot of nonfiction to begin with but this year I’ve only read one nonfiction book so far, which was The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. I thought it was such a fascinating read.

Now we get to the other exciting part, what are my list of potential reads? I have a few nonfiction books on my shelves but these are the ones that are calling my name:

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Have you read any of these? If you were going to pick up one which one would you choose?

And, you did catch that I said there were other reading projects I want to join in right? Don’t worry I’ll tell you more about those soon. But what about you? Are you joining Nonfiction November or any other reading project next month?