My reading pace was very slow in the last ten days or so. Nothing special happened, except a very ugly flu - fever, intensive coughing, headache - that wanted to stay with me for a week. First thought was Corona and made all the possible tests as often as possible, but I remember that this is how it goes with me: flu twice the year, in the morning and in the winter and in-between it is health as usual. I got this Monday the flu vaccine - first time ever - and hopefully there will be milder effects the next time, but fact is that my brain was at very low capacity and so was my intellectual energy. Thus, although I have a lot of books waiting for me, I just couldn´t focus enough to finish any. Instead, the audiobooks offered me a good companionship while I was trying to rest after way too much coughing.
Das Lichtenstein. Modehaus der Träume by Marlene Averbeck, read by Sandra Voss was a very easy yet insightful lecture in German - at least I tried during all this time to follow my plan of upgrading my German to stellar levels.
It is a Berlin-based middle class family story, following the building of the fashion house and store Lichtenstein, at the beginning of the 20th century. Set in the turmoil of the industrialization process, as well as of the calls to war, the books follows the family relationships and their interaction with the representatives of the new social mobility trends. There are love stories and brave young women who are as eager as the owners of Das Lichtenstein to see Berlin as a fashion competitor to Paris (dream on, Berlin, dream on). It is a lot of competition mentioned in this book, as the store was suppposedly trying to get a bigger slice of the market from the historical KaDeWe and thus expect a lot of capitalist vibes, more than in any other German books.
As a work of historical fiction, the book has some catchy elements that may entince the curious (audio)reader: the right ambiance, the immersion into the social and historical times and the characters´ historicity. The ways in which the personal stories match the historical times may not be always very well balanced - sometimes there is too much social history and less ´narrative action´ - but overall, at least for a flu-bedridden human, it was a good literary experience. Improving the German language through the lecture of this audiobook is also an important advantage of listening/reading Das Lichtenstein.
Books are always keeping my mind awake when my body is weak but right now I am delighted to be back in the writing business. There will be many many more reviews coming today and in the next days and I can´t wait to share my eclectic reading list!
Rating: 3 stars
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