The commander went, as they say in Ankh-Morpork, totally Librarian on them.

Sir Terry Pratchett

1948 - 2015

If you are following my blog for a while now, you might have noticed my love for Terry Pratchett and his Discworld novels. I talked about it here and here and lots of other times too.

On March 12th one of my favorite authors closed his eyes forever and joined DEATH in his domain. We all knew that he was sick and that this day would come sooner rather than later but it still hit me pretty hard when I heard the news. He was the mastermind behind all 40 books in the famous Discworld series (the 41st book which he finished before he died will be published this fall) and many other great books, including Good Omens which he wrote with Neil Gaiman. I own all 40 Discworld novels and I read at least 30 of them - many twice or three times already. I also own my favorite ones mulitple times. I own 4 copies of Wyrd Sisters because the first one I got as a gift and read it so many times that it is almost falling apart, so I had to buy a second copy and I also have the beautiful cloth-bound edition and recently I found it in a bookstore for under 4 Euros and it looked so sad that I had to take it home (great argument, right?).

Terry Pratchett showed me the way into the fantasy genre, created some of my favorite characters ever, made me laugh, made me cry and made me think about life and the things we do without appreciating them. His books are loved by me, my mum, good friends and even my cousin who does not read (and I still love him - Go me!) listens to his books as audio-books and adores them.

a small part of my Terry Pratchett books

His books will always have a special place in my heart and on my bookshelf and since his death I often sat at my bed and stared at my collection of Terry Pratchett books and thought about nothing particular. I know that he will be missed by many readers but I'm glad that he will live on in his great books.

I really hope that DEATH let you ride Binky over to the other side Sir Terry!

"The commander went, as they say in Ankh-Morpork, totally Librarian on them." 

Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam

Change...

 

Wow, you can really forget how to write a blog post after some time...so please excuse any weird rambly bits. As a regular reader of my blog you might have noticed a slight decrease in posts over the last months. I needed a break. A break to think about things, to figure out if I was missing blogging, to realize that I do but that I needed to change my blog because I changed.

Over the last 18 months a big part of my life changed. I encountered some health issues in February 2013 and it took the doctors almost a year to figure out what it was and how to treat it which really wore me down. I became a recluse, which I had never been, and after being on the right medication, I had to start building up my confidence again. I needed to realize that I was able to do all the things I did before and that is still a work in progress. I am still not 100% the old me and I will never again be the old me.

I always was a bit (or a lot, to be completely honest) chubby but I always had a big group of friends and never felt left out or even bullied because of my weight. I know how incredibly lucky I am but still I didn't feel comfortable. I wanted to be able to chase my friend's baby boy around the playground for more than a few minutes and I wanted to feel good about myself. So one day without any intention I stopped eating too much and started to loose weight. It really just happened. The well known switch in my brain just turned.

So all of these personal changes forced me into thinking about my blog as well. I never intended it to become solely a book blog. I always had a wide variety of interests which I wanted to share here but the bookish community is so lovely and welcoming that I immediately felt at home and focused on all things bookish. I don't want to stop book blogging - don't get me wrong, it still is my biggest hobby and the one thing none of my friends is really getting - I just want to incorporate my other interests as well. I love photography, cooking, traveling, going on adventures, exploring new and old places and I want to start sharing bigger parts of my life with you guys. I want to be able to talk to you about my ideas, my worries, my small steps into fitness (maybe, hopefully) and other things that are on my mind. I will, of course, keep talking about books, authors, the pure joy of reading but in the future you will also find other things on here and I can happily say:  

"I changed, so my blog did too!" 

Which brings me to my new layout - what do you guys think about it? Do you like it? The header is one of my photographs taken in Western Australia in July 2011. I just love the colors, the remoteness, these wide open spaces.

I am really glad to be back and getting into the swing of things again. It also felt amazing telling you what has been going on in my life and what has brought these changes. I hope you're all doing well and I cannot wait to start writing blog posts regularly again. I have so many ideas that I want to tell you about, things to try and things to change, so I'm really glad that next week (March 23rd till March 29th) will be Spring Bloggiesta (for more information click here). I am already working on my to do list.