As I usually celebrate my New Year in autumn, I don´t count too much on the ´normal´ end or beginning of the year. However, symbolically at least, the end of the 12 months are important for many organisatorical, legal and economic reasons therefore, although I tried to ignore al the fuss around it, I cannot ignore any more its milestone meaning.
After all, it is not so bad to have more than one New Year, as you have the chance more than once to start anew, but also to look back with less anger. Soon, there will be another year´s end and you still have the chance to make things better.
My bookish 2021 was a fantastic year. Probably the best year as a book blogger, with many posts, new authors every couple of days, representing a wide array of countries and topics. Although my focus - my lifetime mission - was more on reading German books by German-speaking authors (for the first time, I had the chance to cover a lot of titles from the short and long list of Deutscher Buchpreis 2021 and I still have some interesting authors to feature until the next edition of Germany´s most prestigious literary competition), I offered more space for French authors, read in the original language.
My library bag was heavier and heavier, and the list of ARCs acquired via various editions of NetGalley, Edelweiss oder directly from authors and edition houses is very long.
Another achievement was to read more poetry and fill my time with many interesting audiobooks. 12 months ago I was less inclided to give a chance to this book format, but I started slowly with nonfiction books and was able to focus my attention to cover complex novels.
Part of my blogging time was dedicated to taking part of awesome blog tours, organised by the talented queen of books Anne Cater and also by the very brave Corylus Books. It was such a honor and priviledge to be considered for taking part to those tours that brought me often out of my comfort zone and opened my eyes and my soul to new topics and authors.
Although travel was nonexistent in my life - and I was one of those free people that used to be out of their city at least two times the month - and therefore, participation in person to literary events was impossible, Zoom and the power of social media brought me close to authors, topics, literary critics and books that I am interested in.
With so much time spent at home, or around the home, watching movies filled those long dry hours when I was longing to see other worlds. I went at least once round the world through a very eclectic collection of movies, featuring less known film directors and their movies. As books, films are equally eyes opening and help at a great extent to understand not only individual humans, but their cultural and historical context as well.
When I don´t read, read about reading or watch movies, I learn languages. For very strict professional reasons, German took most of my time this year and I am relatively satisfied with the results but with some exciting literary translation projects in sight, I tried to spent time with my beloved French as well. Spanish was lucky to get a bit of more attention than usual, and once in a while I tried to pay attention to some Portuguese grammar here, some funny Italian- or Hebrew-spoken movies there, some Arabic poetry once in a while (bad news, one of my favorite Iraqi poet Lamia Abbas died unfortunately this year).
What´s Next?
I wish I can keep the same pace of intensive and immersive reading for the next 12 months. There are a couple of book tours landing to my page in January and February, and hopefully many more in the making. I have some extraordinary books coming out soon, that I can´t wait to review soon, among which Shahriar Mandanipour and many authors from the Middle East, Carribean and less known literary realms.
In terms of movies, I want to be even more curious to explore particularly those areas that rarely make it the news. Discovering new, less popular, film directors is also one of my priorities, and hopefully I can share more and more fantastic finds soon.
I promise to keep my ratio of German authors read in original, but I have some important - for me - French project, which is to re-read A la recherche du temps perdu by Proust, a book that has for me a very familiar scent of a lost time. I rarely revisit old books, but this one is relevant for me for more than one reason and I can´t wait to observe where this experience will lead me to.
On my TBR, there are a couple of classical reads that for various reasons I haven´t read until now, and hopefully I will find the right mood to go through them. I gave myself around 24 months for this project, that includes some Shakespeare´s plays or Ulysses by James Joyce.
I am ready for more poetry and I want to use my time even better the next year. I don´t have necessarily a list, but I do have some books and authors that I hope to add to my bibliography soon. Some works of critical literature and reading more reviews will probably help me hone my own reviewer skills as well.
After being fully vaccinated, me and those I love to have in my life, I hope to be back on the road again, and thus, have a more diverse bookish experience soon, including my taking part to book festivals and other person-to-person events. However, I do count on Zoom meetings as well as a very smart way to connect from anywhere, anytime. This is a habit I will be happy to maintain further in my life.
Although I wish to be more strict with my language diet - Monday: German, Tuesday: Portuguese, Wednesday: Spanish etc. - I know myself too well for being sure that it will be rather chaotic: For example: Monday: One page in Portuguese, and some German writing, and maybe some little Spanish conversation with my friends...I plan to improve significantly a language that I randomly started to learn this year - more details one day, and maybe start anew a language different from all the languages I´ve learn before - Asian language, the easiest one. I would be keen to learn about various Spanish dialects - spoken in Spanish-countries around the world, or to be able to spent more time conversing in Ladino or doing some translations from Yiddish - I´ve produly read the Communist Manifesto in an Yiddish translation recently, don´t blame me. Time is a high commodity and my time is very limited, split between my personal life, my busy work, my books and my loved ones.
On purpose, I haven´t add anything about writing. Except professional emails in German and book reviews, my writing was almost non-existent and I am not worried about it. With so many changes on all plans, words need a break until figuring out the new realities. I haven´t professionally published in a very very long time, either books or articles or anything at all. I am ready to be back in the writing loop, but not sure how and when. The experience of the last two years is to give myself time and space and all good things will come at the right moment.
As for now, I am happy to be alive, and healthy and surrounded by the best people in my life.
Cheers to a better and kinder 2022!
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