What's Waiting on My Bookshelf

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know how much I adore books and reading. Ever since the beginning of this year, however, I haven't really had any time to just flop down on the sofa with a good book and not get up for six hours because during my last semster before graduation, shit sort of hit the fan, with all the studying and exams.

But even in times when I don't have time to read them, I just cannot stop purchasing new books, so you can only imagine how many books have been pilling up on my bookshelf over the past months. And even now that I've officially been out of school since June, I still haven't been able to read even half of them.

With that stack of books sitting on my shelf, I thought it would be fun to share all those books waiting to be read with you guys - who knows, maybe you'll find something you want to read amongst them as well?

Kassandra by Christa Wolf and Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll were both recommended to me by my Latin teacher who shares my love for books. She also used to teach German, so she pointed me into the direction of some of her favorite pieces of German literature.

Kassandra tells the story of the Trojan War from the eyes of Kassandra, the Trojan king's psychic daughter. I studied Latin for seven years and am obsessed with old Roman Greek myths, so this book is right up my street!

 Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum deals with how a young, respectable woman falls victim to the inhumane coverage of the media just because she happened to be friends with a man who committed a crime. The novel illustrates the tremendous effects the way she is being portrayed in the media has on this woman, and what such a witch-hunt can lead to in the end. This novel even earned Heinrich Böll the novel price for literature in 1972, so I'm very interested in seeing whether the book lives up to all the rave reviews.


Both Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han and Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs are third installments in their respective series, both of which I've thoroughly enjoyed - I've even reviewed the first books in both series, To All The Boys I've Loved Before and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children in my Recent Reads series before, so if you're interested in either of those books, make sure to check out my reviews!

Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane was actually on the list of books we were supposed to read before our Abitur, which is basically the German equivalent of A-Levels. I at least managed to read the first third of the book by the time my German Abitur rolled around - however, I enjoyed the book so much that even after reading up the summary of the remaining two-thirds before my exam, I really want to finish it now that exams are over!

Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling actually wasn't supposed to end up on my shelf in the first place, but as I'm just one big dumbass, I accidentially purchased while trying to get the official screenplay for the film - no idea how I managed to do that either. But now that I already own it, I'm excited to read it nonetheless - I've loved Harry Potter for as long as I've been able to read, after all!


Now, I've heared great things about the two books that are left, but I haven't really read up on them too much so that I can have the most immersive experience possible when I actually get to read them. What I know is this:

 Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne features a main character who has OCD, which instantly made me pick it up because I sadly know way too little about this mental illness and its affect on people - I read that the book deals with this subject very well, so I cannot wait to finally read it!

Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson was one of my favorite reads last year, so I'm excited for The Unexpected Everything. The protagonist, a very ambitious teenage girl who's working hard to get into medical school, gets sucked into a scandal her father, a Congressman, is involved in, forcing her to live under the same roof as him for the first time in years - throwing her completely off her tracks. Now if that doesn't sound like an interesting initial situation for a coming-of-age novel, I don't know what does!



Do any of you have that "to-read" pile of books on your bookshelf that just keeps growing and growing? If so, please tell me which books you're planning on reading next - who knows, they might earn themselves a space on my shelf as well!