Every now and then I stumble across an old book review that I never posted here and that surprises me. For example this one. I have absolutely no recollection of having read this and the author means nothing to me. But apparently I really liked this fairytale retelling!
The Book of a Thousand Days
by Shannon Hale
When a beautiful princess refuses to marry the prince her father has chosen, her father is furious. So furious he locks her in a tower, where she has seven long years of solitude to think about her insolence. But when she escapes from the tower, she finds her land has been laid to waste and the kingdom destroyed.
My review from 2011:
I received this book as a surprise in a swap, otherwise I would have never picked it up. Thank you for this gift! What a delightful read.
Based on an obscure fairytale by the Brothers Grimm and transplanted to the steppes of Mongolia, this was a very entertaining story. Light, with a nicely scary bad guy and no real surprises, it wasn’t very challenging, but some feel-good reading for my long weekend.
Ok, one surprise, but I won’t tell. You’ll have to read it yourself.
Back then I still used BookCrossing and BookMooch. I think BookCrossing is still active, but BookMooch might have ceased to exist? Anyway, I sometimes received surprising books in various swapping boxes. It helped mixing things up. That‘s also what I like about the book trading club we created at the office. We meet once a month for breakfast and bring along books we recently read and liked, talk about them and then swap them around. I hope we can keep it going, as everybody else seems to be a less heavy reader than I am. My town recently also finally got a fairly sizable book trading thingie in front of our town hall, rain proof, with glass doors, curated by some townspeople. I added three crime novels in German for which I couldn‘t find takers at the office—half of my colleagues either don‘t speak German or prefer reading in English, same as me. I haven‘t taken anything out yet, but will have a look every now and then. I have so much stuff to read…
Oh, I also just realized that I didn‘t post any photos from my last weekend….
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 