The Bookkeeper

I usually write in English, even though it is not my native language. The reason is that most of the books I read are in English, so it makes sense to talk about them in English as well. Recently, however, I started to read a lot of craft books in German, simply because that is their original language. No point in buying a originally German book which was translated into English just to keep the language consistent. I have done that in the past (and mentioned it in a blog post called “What’s the plan?”), but I had a valid reason for it (sort of).

So, I decided that in the future, when I want to talk about books I read in German, because they are only available in German (I don’t think many German craft books have been translated into English, that would be like carrying coals to Newcastle) I will do so on German.

Fiction will be reviewed in English just like before. The same goes for non-fiction I read in English. So if you happen to come by and not understand a word I’m saying, don’t worry. It’s only temporary.

Blurb: Whether you are an experienced jewellery-maker looking to move up to the next level, or a complete beginner, "The Encyclopedia of Wire Jewellery Making Techniques" is an invaluable resource. Using this book you can: learn how to manipulate wire to create elegant structural designs for earrings, rings, pendants, necklaces, tiaras and brooches with clear, illustrated instructions; combine wire with beads and stones through threading and wrapping for an intricately embellished look; have fun experimenting with different types of wire, from precious metal to electrical and recycled wires; and, progress from basic wire-working skills to more advanced techniques, such as making linked jump-ring chains, simple soldering, and using chemicals to alter the wire finish.

My thoughts: Apart from some smaller publications in German, I haven’t read many books about wire jewelry, so I can’t really say that Sara Withers writes the best books on it, but I think that her books must rank quite high as far as quality of explanations and pictures are concerned.

Where her “encyclopedia of beading techniques” explains various styles of bead jewelry, this one goes into minute detail of making wire jewelry. Once more the photographs are very detailed and clear. I have looked inside various books of this kind on amazon and a lot had either only sketches which to me are not very helpful, or photographs that were not detailed enough. The photos here leave nothing to be desired.

The book consists of three chapters. The first one deals with core techniques and is divided into various sub-chapters like findings, shapes and spacers, chains, decorating beads, knitting and twisting and constructing with wire. The second chapter already introduces some basic silversmithing skills and the third one is a gallery with the work from designers from around the world.

Again, you won’t find any projects in this book, but simply detailed explanations of how to do things and some inspiration on top of it.

Available on amazon

Blurb: A guide to creating bead jewellery. This book contains information about materials and equipment and demonstrates the techniques in several easy-to-follow projects which use a variety of material from traditional wood to papier-maché.

My thoughts: This is a book ideal for beginners who would like to start to learn making bead jewelry with projects instead of only reading about techniques.

After a short chapter where Sara Withers talks about materials and tools she goes medias in res and introduces the first project, a pair of hoop earrings. Slowly the projects become more difficult and more techniques are shown. Everything is explained in detail and with clear and close up photographs.

Some of the projects didn’t appeal to me as far as the choice of beads or colors were concerned, but this is a matter of taste and can easily be rectified by simply substituting the beads.

All in all the following pieces of jewelry can be recreated with the help of this book:

• Hoop earrings
• Straight earrings
• Frosted necklace
• Stars and Moons necklace and earring set (crimps and a little wirework)
• Triangles necklace and earring set (developing crimping and wirework skills)
• Venetian-style glass necklace and hatpin
• A chain of fishes necklace and earring set
• Double stripy necklace (managing threads and using calottes)
• China blue necklace (necklace with four strands)
• Clay and tile bead necklace (this is getting complicated)
• Monochrome choker (introduces bead weaving)
• Jasper necklace (knotting)
• African choker (macramé technique)
• Special beads and leather (leather necklace)
• Lapis and silver necklace (wirework skills, additional tools)
• Sprung wire bracelet
• Two-strand bracelet
• Loom made bracelet (using a beading loom)

If you like to work with given projects this book is a great find. Available on amazon.

Not only does Great Britain have very small houses, now they claim to have the smallest library in the world, too.

In a village in Somerset they purchased and transformed a red telephone booth into a library. From the description it sounds more like a BookCrossing location than a library. What a cool idea! I like the thought of not having to go all over the place but just go to the phone booth to drop off and pick up books.

And just because I can, I’m posting an image of the smallest house in Great Britain, located in Conwy, Wales.

I only had a first look at twitter a couple of days ago and have no idea yet whether I like it or not. I’m going to try it out and see whether it’s any good for me. 140 characters doesn’t seem to be a lot, maybe it’ll teach me to keep it short for once.

To find me, just click on the little icon right here or on the twitter icon in the sidebar.

Blurb: Beads have been used for decoration for centuries. Available in a huge array of colours, shapes and sizes, they are beautiful, adaptable, and easy to work with. These practical projects show how you can add detail, texture, colour and originality to garments and accessories by incorporating beads into your knitting, crochet and needlework. Learn traditional and contemporary techniques such as bead weaving, stringing, wirework and strand-knotting, and even find out how to make your own beads.

My thoughts: Just in case you were wondering, no, this blog is not turning into a craft blog. But since I recently started to look into jewelry making and at the same time try to review every book I read, I decided to have a shot at this non fiction book.

If you want to make your own jewelry, don’t know what you might like, what techniques you might want to use and generally have no clue as to how to do what, this is the perfect start. It is exactly what the title says, an encyclopedia that talks about materials, tools and techniques in detail. Everything is explained with the help of great photos that show exactly what to do and how to do it.

Sara Withers doesn’t lecture on what colors to use and what materials to get but rather encourages the reader to find their own style and gives them the knowledge to go and try stuff out until they do. You won’t find any projects that tell you exactly what materials to get to recreate exactly that one piece of jewelry. The books very effectively gets you acquainted with what materials and techniques are out there, so you are able to go and create jewelry your way.

Highly recommended.

Available on amazon (you can have a look inside there as well)

Blurb: Philip and Clive now share both a home and two secrets: Philip’s past and their love. One wintry night, Philip leads Clive back to the thicket where they first came to an understanding, and this time a promise will bind them for decades to come.

My thoughts: This is the sequel to “Vespers in the Snow”. Again it is only 30 odd pages and makes a few jumps in time. It starts in 1969, at a time in between two periods that were already talked about in the prequel. Then it jumps to 1974, shortly after where the prequel ended. And then we get a short glimpse into 2004.

Again, I liked the story and the two men, but not the way their story was told. I don’t mind time jumps from time to time, but in general I prefer stories to be told in a chronological order. So, to have the sequel jump back to a time before the end of the first book, wasn’t very satisfying for me.

In my opinion another format would have been better for such a story. After all it covers a time from 1955 to 2004 in about 65 pages. I would have preferred a novella at least for such a long period of time.

Available at Dreamspinner Press

Prequel: Vespers in the Snow

Blurb: When a colleague extends his summer vacation, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is forced to stay in Vigàta and endure the August heat. Montalbano’s long-suffering girlfriend, Livia, joins him with a friend—husband and young son in tow—to keep her company during these dog days of summer. But when the boy suddenly disappears into a narrow shaft hidden under the family’s beach rental, Montalbano, in pursuit of the child, uncovers something terribly sinister. As the inspector spends the summer trying to solve this perplexing case, Livia refuses to answer his calls—and Montalbano is left to take a plunge that will affect the rest of his life.

My thoughts: As far as contemporary detectives are concerned Salvo Montalbano is my first choice. I know, Donna Leon fans will crucify me for saying this, but compared to Montalbano Commissario Brunetti is a wet towel.

This is Montalbano’s tenth case (apart from various short stories) and once more he doesn’t disappoint. The case develops reluctantly in this book, the pace is pretty slow, but this fits the scenery perfectly. It is the middle of August and it is hot. It seems everybody is moving in slow motion, because the heat is insufferable.

Once more we get totally immersed in the Sicilian way of life and the atmosphere of an island ruled by corruption, nepotism and the Mafia.

However, a few points really annoyed me while reading it, well, not really annoyed, I just thought they didn’t quite fit.

First of all, the reason Livia left Sicily. Obviously she had to leave in order for the story to develop properly, but the reason was far-fetched. Admittedly, I don’t particularly like Livia (it must be jealousy; I totally know where Adelina, Montalbano’s housekeeper, is coming from) and would believe every negative thing about her people could possibly come up with, but even for me, the reason was implausible.

Then Montalbano’s obsession with his age. You would think the man is 70. For Christ’s sake, he is 55. Hardly an age where mental and physical decay are setting in. I found this constant moaning and worrying to be beneath him.

The end was way too abrupt for me. I don’t like abrupt endings and prefer it when a story slowly fades out instead of ends with a bang like this one.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. If you like Montalbano this is a must. If you don’t know the character yet, I recommend you start with an earlier novel.

I have put together a list on amazon with the Montalbano series in chronological order. It seems the books with various short(er) stories are not out in English, at least I couldn’t find them on amazon.com.

Fuer deutschsprachige Leser gibt es eine Liste mit allen Buechern der Montalbano Serie in chronologischer Reihenfolge bei amazon.de.

Blurb: When Corvinus receives a letter, with a tantalising PS, from his adopted daughter, Marilla, mentioning there might have been a murder, he hot-foots it to Castrimoenium at once. Not that everyone agrees that Lucius Hostilius was murdered. Poison was apparently the means of death, but Lucius was terminally ill: it was only a matter of time. Although he hasn’t any official investigative status, Corvinus can’t resist doing a little amateur sleuthing. And he has barely begun when two other corpses turn up and he is formally on the case. Lucius had been suffering something of a personality change because of his illness, so there is no shortage of suspects among friends and family whom he had antagonised. But Corvinus goes up many a blind alley before arriving at the heart of the mystery. As we follow Marcus Corvinus, clue by clue, on his twelfth case, we allow ourselves to be pleasurably diverted by rumours of Meton’s love life – and by an authentic recipe for fish pickle sauce . . .

My thoughts: What can I say? I absolutely love Marcus Corvinus, this wise cracking, wine-loving nobleman is by far my favourite Roman historical detective. This is his twelfth case and just as intriguing as all the others. But what makes David Wishart’s Corvinus books such great reads are not only the great characters, but also the descriptions of ancient Roman life. What I always find a bit distracting are the translations of Roman words that everybody knows anyway into English, which takes a bit of fun out of it, for example a toga is a mantle etc. But once one gets used to that, it’s ok.

The story is set in Castrimoenium again, a place we already know from “A vote for murder”. But where the first took us into the world of politics and property development, “Illegally dead” deals almost exclusively with lawyers and the Roman law.

Castrimoenium also seems to be THE playground for Meton, the pretty greasy but skilled chef of Corvinus’. Too funny to read what he’s up to now again.

If you like Ancient Roman detective stories the Marcus Corvinus series is a must. I put together a Marcus Corvinus mystery series list on amazon to view the books in chronological order.

Available on Amazon

Blurb: Professor Philip Osbourne is Clive Aldridge’s toughest teacher, but he has a secret: Osbourne is sneaking out to celebrate Hanukkah at the risk of offending his peers. Bolstered by the knowledge that his teacher is actually human, Clive makes an effort to form a friendship that will over the decades grow into much more.

My thoughts: This was much different from what I anticipated. In only 34 pages it covers a period of about 20 years. It is written in the first person, something I don’t particularly like.The time jumps from 1955 to 1964 to 1974 were a bit too far apart in my opinion. I liked the story, but would have wanted it to be way more detailed than it was.

There is a sequel available, hopefully it will tell us more about the two men and their story.

Available at Dreamspinner Press

Sequel: Walking on the moon