Castle in the air – an eccentric's Wagnerian legacy

Neuschwanstein

Monday dawned, but not particularly bright or fair. The cloud, although showing the vaguest signs of an inclination to shift, was nonetheless clinging to the tops of the ridges that stand between Füssen, the mountains and the castles.

But we had made our plans and, after breakfast, headed to catch a bus that would take us the short distance to Schloss Hohenschwangau.

This castle – the name translates as High Swan County Palace – was built between 1833 and 1837, although additions were made until 1855 on the orders of Maximillian II of Bavaria.

He had come across the site while walking. It bore the ruins of a fort that was first mentioned in 12th-century records, and had been built by a family of knights.

Indeed, the king’s family traced it’s own roots back seven centuries in the area, so the appeal was obvious.

The Other Half at Hohenschwangau

And there it was that Maximillian and his Prussian wife, Marie, spent summers with their two sons, Ludwig and Otto.

Marie, in trend-setting mode, used to enjoy mountaineering: when I asked, our guide explained that, while she’d wear a long skirt as normal on top, she’d have “a man’s pantaloons underneath”.

But as our guide – a large man with a bullet head and garbed in a long, loden overcoat – acknowledged with a wry comment, this was not a case of happy families.

Many tour guides are not scintillating, but good ones are a joy. This one was in the latter category.

When the group we were included in was assembled in the first room, he informed us, in excellent English but with a German accent, that “all the contents of the rooms are genuine antiques. So please do not touch – everything is poisoned”.

Hohenschwangau to Neuschwanstein

It was glorious looking around at other visitors to see how much they ‘got’ this very dry German humour. Some confusion was evident.

But if you want further evidence of the dysfunctionality in the royal family, then it’s worth noting that, in later years, Ludwig referred to his mother as “my predecessor’s consort”. Which doesn’t say much for his attitude toward his father either.

Maximillian died in 1864, leaving Ludwig the Bavarian throne. Four years later, his grandfather Ludwig I died, leaving him the sort of money that made his castle-building aspirations possible.

Like Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein stands on the site of old remains – in this case, of twin medieval forts.

Begun in 1869, it was never completed, although Ludwig was able to move into it for a short time.

The Alpensee

But in 1886, in response to the concerns of ministers – not least at his almost total lack of interest in matters of state – he was classed as insane by doctors, and confined.

Within days, Ludwig was dead in mysterious circumstances, found in the shallow waters at the edge of a nearby lake, but with no water in his lungs according to the autopsy, and with rumours abounding of his having been shot trying to escape.

Neuschwanstein

With his younger brother Otto also declared insane and, from 1883, confined under medical supervision until his death in 1916, Bavaria was ruled by their uncle Luitpold as prince regent from 1886-1912.

Our guide suggested that Ludwig was not really “mad”, but that “today he would have been called eccentric.”

Later, he observed: “he was born either 200 years too late or 100 years too early”, which might have been a reference to Ludwig’s sexuality.

The king’s diaries make it clear that he struggled with his homosexuality, trying to abide by the teachings of the church. He broke of an engagement and “spent his time building castles instead”.

Inner courtyard, Neuschwanstein

Whatever the reality, the rumours, mysteries and myths surrounding the castles – and Neuschwanstein in particular – only add to their allure.

The new castle was originally called New Hohenschwangau Castle by Ludwig – only after his death was it renamed Neuschwanstein.

Seeing Hohenschwangau, with its murals of German mythological tales, it’s not difficult to get a sense of the background to Ludwig’s obsession with that mythological past.

But it’s also impossible, standing at Hohenschwangau and looking up at Neuschwanstein, towering above; bigger – much bigger – and higher than his father’s castle, not to see it as a statement of a son to his dead father, and very obviously a statement of dysfunctionality.

The phallic nature of the towers take on even greater meaning when viewed from such a perspective.

Starting back to Füssen

Of course it’s more complex than that: in part, Neuschwanstein was a homage to Wagner, whose operas Ludwig adored.

At one of his others castles, Linderhof, he had a ‘Venus Grotto’ built in the park so that he could be rowed about in a golden swan boat as though in the composer’s Tannhäuser, while there was a ‘Hundling’s Hut’ in the grounds too, inspired by the first act of Die Walküre.

Wagner visited the king at Hohenschwangau – I wonder if that piano that he had played really was poisoned? Oh, how to reach out and just touch it – but as our guide explained, he never stayed in the bedroom next to that of the king, because Ludwig never liked anyone staying that close to his own quarters.

However, one notable guest at the castle who did sleep in the bed we were looking at was Hans Christian Anderson, who was a guest during Maximilian’s life and who was probably, our guide mused, inspired to write the Princess and the Pea by the rather lumpy-looking mattress.

Castles, mountains, trees and a lake

Yes, there really are fairytale connections to these castles.

The nature of the ticketing at the castles means that you have a set time in Hohenschwangau and then, a 50-minute gap in which to walk up the hill to Neuschwanstein.

That sounds plenty – but only if you don’t leave the first castle, amble down to the Alpensee behind it, stopping to get excited about seeing a red squirrel, tufty ears and all, in it’s black winter coat, then sit by the lake for a while musing on the beauty of it, only to find that the hill to Neuschwanstein is very steep and you aren’t going to make it in time.

Not swimming weather

That said, the outside is really what I wanted to see – and it is awesome. You might be used to seeing pictures of it or remember it from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but nothing can prepare you for standing next to it.

With Tegelberg soaring up behind, and the Pöllat river tumbling down a waterfall and into the gorge between, it could scarcely be a more dramatic setting.

Somehow – perhaps because I had no expectations of finding it peaceful – even the crowds of tour groups, decanted from coaches below, couldn’t dampen the awe I felt. In the height of summer, the castle can see 6,000 visitors pass through each day.

I was impressed when a young girl nearby suddenly said to her parents: “It’s Cinderella’s castle!” Good visual recognition, that – and also a good indicator of how much Disney has been inspired by Neuschwanstein.

Into the woods

After spending some time outside the castle and in the inner courtyard, we took the easy option of sitting in a horse-drawn trap to make the descent.

A quick, late lunch of bratwurst in a roll, eaten standing, followed, and a visit to one of the souvenir shops that now sit next to the carparks and eateries below Hohenschwangau, and then we set off back toward Füssen.

Moving off, the sun finally started to break through and the clouds dissolved into delicate ribbons across the revealed mountains. The views were simply breathtaking.

The plan was to walk – Google maps seemed to suggest that there was an easy path around the base of one of the wooded ridges, which would bring us out alongside the Lech on the opposite side to the town.

Lesson number one: don’t trust Google maps when planning a walk.

Sunset looking toward Austria

To start with, they have no contour lines so give no indication of whether or not you’re climbing, and it’s almost impossible to judge distance while looking at a map on a phone.

In future, we’ll get the old-fashioned folded paper sort for planning any such walk.

In the event, the first part of the walk was occupied with turning around regularly to soak up the views.

But then we headed into the woods and started climbing. And went on climbing. And then climbed some more. And, just as we thought we must be as high as we’d be going, we’d find that the path was continuing in an upwardly direction.

At long last we rounded the hill and emerged pretty high above the Lech, getting down to road level in time to see a glorious sunset as we looked back up the river toward Austria. It was some compensation for screaming feet.

A sauna and schnitzel followed. But I don’t think that anything will make me forget that landscape of castles, forest, mountains and lakes revealing itself as the day passed.

Awe-inspiring would be a gross understatement.

  

Walking in a winter wonderland

Looking over the Lech to St Mang's 

Being English means, in part at least, developing an obsession with the weather. The Other Half and I had spent weeks before our Bavarian trip studiously watching the weather forecast for the area – not least in an effort to work out exactly what clothing would be required.

Overall, the outlook was not good, with precipitation of various sorts predicted for almost the entire week.

Looking back to Füssen

And it began exactly as forecast, with snow falling throughout Saturday night so that we awoke to a winter wonderland. A winter wonderland, it should be said, with knobs on.

And fairylights on the knobs.

Even in London, a little snow is transformative. In terrain such as this, it’s magical.

After breakfast, dressed in proper walking boots – mine, coincidentally, from Bavaria – and wrapped up against the cold, we set out.

A snowy stroll

The cloud was still low as we headed down the road. I was desperate to see Neuschwanstein and insisted we continued down a path the bordered a park, believing that, as soon as we reached a certain point, it would be there, soaring majestically out of the woods.

We never quite got that view, but we warmed instead to a walk that gave us the chance to enjoy the snow. And to see the slopes of the lower hills, with trees dressed in white – evergreens bowing under their thick garments; deciduous with a dusting that gave an illusion of mistiness – was just one of the pleasures.

Then there was the water of the River Lech as it wound its way toward the Forggensee – crystal clear and a wondrous, malachite green.

The Forggensee itself – the largest lake in the immediate vicinity and the fifth largest in Bavaria – is partly drained in the winter, which makes for an odd sight.

The clear, icy waters of the Lech

Created in 1954 when the Lech was damned for the first time to create the Lechsee further north, being able to drain it helps to reduce the risk of flooding during the spring snow melt, and provides a perfect setting for aquatic sports in the summer. It’s also a great source of pike, eel and trout.

And while we’re on the subject of such things, the Lech is a tributary of the Danube, flowing from lake Formarinsee in the Austrian Alps down past Füssen, before flowing through the Forggensee and on north to reach the Danube near Donauwörth.

The walk back was as pleasant and we continued under the main road bridge and round toward the side of the summer palace of the bishops of Augsburg before slipping back into the old town alongside St Mang’s Abbey.

The Benedictine abbey has stood there for centuries and is named for a hermit, Magnus of Füssen, who built and oratory and cell there and died on 6 September in a year nobody bothered to remember. The first proper documentary record shows that, while he was certainly not the first abbot, Gisilo held that position in 919.

The Heilig-Geist-Spitalkirche

But there were practical and political reasons for the founding of the monastery there too. Füssen lies on the medieval road that leads from Augsburg south and across the Alps to Italy – it’s the point where the Lech breaks out of the mountains, which is what gives it great strategic importance.

Thus both the bishops of Augsburg and the Holy Roman Emperors considered it to be of political interest.

But we’ll return to the abbey another day. In the meantime, as we enterted the old town, we came across the Heilig-Geist-Spitalkirche (Holy Ghost Hospital Church), which was built between 1748-49 by Franz Karl Fischer.

At this point, you might be thinking that that name reminds you of Spitalfields in east London – named because the land in that area belonged to St Mary Spital, a priory and hospital nearby.

Damn such linguistic connections, illustrating how we don’t live in clearly-defined national vacuums.



But back in Füssen, the tiny church’s rococo façade shows the trinity and assorted religious figures, including Johannes Nepomuk, the patron saint of rafters – rafts being an important craft used on the Lech when this was built.

The walk gave me a first opportunity to see if my photographic experiment was going to work.

Having finally been pretty much forced to upgrade my phone, instead of bringing the big camera, I’d decided to see if I could shoot the entire trip on a camera phone, albeit that the phone in question is an iPhone 6 plus, which I was just starting to realise has a very good camera.

Cake. And coffee

This is a phone camera that will do macros and panoramas and various other whizz-bang things, including video, which I was determined to try – and the first attempt can be seen above, giving you a brief look at the inside of the Heilig-Geist-Spitalkirche.

But after a stroll around the streets and a first sense of orientation – and a first chance to admire some of the painting on the buildings, including plenty of trompe-l’œil – given that it was still rather grey, we returned to the hotel and took coffee and cake in the Kurcafe, which was how our hotel had begun life, back in the late 19th century.

The cake involved chocolate. And creamy truffle.

Schweinebraten

And after that – and after a break to let thew cake and coffee settle – it was off to enjoy the sauna for the first time.

An early dinner followed in Himmelstube, the hotel’s Bavarian restaurant. For me, it was a first experience of a Schweinebraten, a roast pork dish; this one in Dunkelbiersoße – a dark beer gravy – with a substantial potato dumpling, a little side salad and some red cabbage, and with a glass of beer on the side.

And so, sated and warmed, and with the mind full of the winter landscape, we slept, with the weather forecast having told us that the following day would be the best of the week.

Fairytale castles awaited.

Bearing east for Bavaria and beer

Frauenkirche and Neues Rathaus, Munich

Commeth the hour, commeth the beer. But first came the chaos. Our long-awaited trip to Bavaria was thrown into chaos at the 11th hour when our flight to Munich was cancelled by virtue of a strike by Lufthansa pilots.

With only a little over 24 hours to go before we were scheduled to fly, The Other Half fortunately managed to get us new tickets on board EasyJet, from Gatwick.

One point to remember here: we were booking late, obviously, but those EasyJet tickets cost more for a one-way journey than the original Lufthansa return flights had cost.

So much for all the guff about ‘budget’ airlines. And unless you are travelling with only enough luggage for a couple of days, and can therefore cram it all into a cabin bag, you can expect to pay around £30 per case for the privilege of taking more.

Mind, judging by the sight of fellow passengers struggling to cram a bag into the overhead lockers, some people stretch the definition of cabin baggage to its limit and probably beyond.

That said, I’ll give EasyJet credit for being considerably less unpleasant than RyanAir.

Erdinger

At Gatwick, we discovered that the plane was a little late arriving. But, with the wind now in the ‘right’ direction, we made up time on the journey to Germany.

Our initial plans would have meant that we arrived at Munich airport at around 11pm German time, so with that in mind, we’d booked a room for that night at the Hilton hotel that sits squarely between the two terminals.

In the event, we had slightly longer at the hotel, since the EasyJet flight was two hours earlier. But having checked in, neither us of felt much like sitting down to a meal – travel days do disrupt eating patterns – and opted instead to sit outside (yes, outside) in the clear evening air (albeit under a small heater) to enjoy a couple of glasses of beer.

In this case, it was Erdinger: a clean weißbier with a good taste. And jolly welcome it was too. After the previous day’s panic, merely being in Munich felt like a victory.

The next morning, with sun in the sky, we grabbed a coffee (€25 for breakfast was not on the menu) and caught a train into central Munich.

Bavaria may, in many ways, be a conservative part of the world, but that it not a neo-liberal conservatism that believes in taking every opportunity to rip people off.

At the main railway station, which we were due to depart from in the afternoon, there were whole rooms of lockers where we could leave our bags for the day at a mere €3.

Weißwurst, pretzel and mustard

That’s right: no airport-style ‘security’ to allow some jobsworthy tosspot to spend 10 minutes running a finger around your laptop as though it’s the most mysterious container he’s ever encountered (all the while, giving you an unpleasantly challenging stare), and then charging you a rip-off £6 to hold your bag for three hours, with the company claiming that’s a “competitive” price.

Take note Britain and, in particular, the Excess Baggage Company at Manchester Piccadilly. 

Free to wander, we headed straight toward the Marienplatz and, claiming that coffee as our ‘first breakfast’, sat down on Neuhauser Straße outside an eatery called Schnitzelwirt to engage in a great Bavarian tradition.

Second breakfast traditionally occurs at around 11am, but always before noon. The reason for that is that it includes weißwurst, a local delicacy that, in the past, would have gone off if left any later.

It’s served in in the water in which it has been gently simmered and comes with a pretzel, sweet, grainy mustard and beer. The beer in this case was a Franziskaner – a gorgeous weißbier brewed in Munich, which I have experienced from bottles in the UK.

Altes Rathaus, Munich

It’s the sort of drink that makes you stop anything else, sit up and pay attention to the taste.

The most traditional way to eat the weißwurst is to cut off one end and suck the light veal and bacon mix out of its skin. Or you can slice it from end to end and then roll the meat out with a fork. I opted for the latter approach.

But all in all, this Bavarian ritual was observed properly and very much enjoyed.

We ambled on, seeing the extraordinary Rathaus-Glockenspiel strike noon. Made in 1908, its 32 life-size figures re-enact scenes from the city’s history, accompanied by 43 bells.

This is the new town hall – a vast piece of Gothic Revival (it has 400 rooms) built between 1867 and 1908 by Georg von Hauberrisser.

Its predecessor, the Altes Rathaus, stands at the east side of the Marienplatz, and was first documented in 1310.

The site of a 1938 speech by Goebbels that was the prelude to Kristallnacht, it now, rather more pleasingly, serves as a toy and teddy bear museum.

Heilig-Geist-Kirche, Munich

Here too, we could see the iconic twin onion domes of the Frauenkirche, the city’s cathedral. A Romanesque church was first built on the site in the 12th century. What stands there today crosses architectural styles, with the main building – completed in 1494 – being Gothic, while the Renaissance-style domes were added in 1524.

I bought a hat – of which more another time – and between exploring churches (a first taste of Bavarian baroque), markets and shops, we took coffee in thetypically large German cups that are almost bowls.

The original plan for our time in Munich had involved visiting one of the three major art galleries, but we soon realised that, to do so, we’d be rushing ridiculously. Thus we’d settled on a rather less frenzied approach.

But heading back to the railway station, we found ourselves facing another less-than-relaxing snafu: The Other Half’s locker wouldn’t open.

Welcoming coffee

Thankfully, we’d allowed ourselves plenty of time, and I raced off to deploy my pidgin German in finding someone to sort it out.

That was not entirely straightforward, but for the first time in my life, I actually understood directions in another language and did, after what seemed like an age but probably wasn’t, find a young man who understood, picked up a fistful of keys and followed me back.

Checking first that we could describe what was in the locker, he then opened it and liberated the case, leaving us to head to the train that would take us to Füssen.

The journey south east into the Alps takes two hours: fairly fast for the first half, it slows as you start the real climb into the mountains.

Not that we could see anything more than Alpine pasture that was close by, with heavy cloud draping its gloom over anything higher. My frustration was almost tangible.

We emerged at Füssen into a dark early evening, a fine drizzle in the air.

A fine plate of zander

Our hotel, fortunately, was only a very short walk away and, as a large tour party was decanted from a coach into the lobby, hauling industrial amounts of suitcases up in the lift for a single night, we were handed flutes of sparkling wine by the lady at reception.

Settling in a short while later, we found that we could look out and see the summer palace of the bishops of Augsburg close by.

After a dinner in Chili, one of the hotel’s two restaurants – a very enjoyable first taste for me of zander, a fresh water fish – we decided that it had been a long couple of days and an early night was in order.

But, with one or two hitches, we’d made it. Now Füssen awaited.

A rare piece of early Brecht and Weill

Trinity Moses, Widow Begbick & Fatty (Peter Hoare)

Like the proverbial London bus, it seems that you wait ages to visit the Royal Opera House and then, once you’ve done it for the first time, another visit speeds into view in a matter of weeks.

If I was the prime mover behind the desire to see some Wagner in mid-February, then The Other Half was probably ahead of me in wanting to ensure we didn’t miss a new production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Brecht and Weill.

Given that Brecht declared of Mahagonny that it was an written in an attempt to “pay conscious tribute to the senselessness of the operatic form,” there’s a certain piquancy to rare chances to see it being more likely to be in opera houses than in theatres, but whatever one’s opinion. it has become an accepted part of the opera canon.

However, as an early piece – first performed in 1930 – it is fraught with difficulties for any company.

Unlike in later works, Brecht was here still developing his worldview, and Mahagonny offers an unrelentingly misanthropic and dystopian perspective, with nothing – even right at the end – to suggest that we might have a chance to stop the insane drive to self-destruction.

One also has the sense that, when writing this, Brecht was still a small-town boy feeling ill-at-ease in the big city – it isn't simply a rant against capitalism per se.

Jenny (centre)

Three on-the-run criminals – Widow Begbick, Fatty and Trinity Moses – find their vehicle broken down in Amerika, and decide that, since they can go neither forward nor back, they will found a city based on nothing but pleasure, and that city will be called Mahagonny (Brecht’s nickname for Munich – this is not simply an onslaught against the ‘American Dream’).

It’s a place for (male) workers who are exhausted, and offers booze, fighting and sex.

When the first group of prostitutes arrive, we hear one, Jenny – a role first created by the legendary Lotte Lenya – sing the work’s most iconic number, the Alabama Song.

However, trouble starts, when lumberjacks Jimmy McIntyre, Jack O’Brien, Bank-Account Bill and Alaska Wolf Joe arrive from Alaska and, when Jimmy defies an impending hurricane, his own even more anarchic ideology wins approval.

But even in Mahagonny, rules are required and, when Jimmy cannot pay for a round of drinks, he’s arrested, tried and – as he has no money left to bribe the court – executed.

This current production is in English, with a new translation by Jeremy Sams, but this was never a straightforwardly German libretto anyway: Alabama Song is one of two songs that were written in English originally.

It is certainly flawed – the third act is paced far too slowly and reduces the possibility of any real punch at the end.

But there are some very interesting aspects to it – not least the opportunity to see such an early work. The staging is wonderful, as the new city starts from a single lorry and, at the start of the second act, we see a container city rise up.

Jimmy McIntyre (centre)

There’s plenty to maintain interest and plenty to consider, up to an including working your way through Brecht’s philosophical jumble.

There’s a big question as to whether Weill’s works with Brecht should be sung by opera singers or non-opera singers, but that’s generally subjective. My Other Half – a serious Brecht buff – and I had differing responses, but while he was, in general, more critical of the overall production than I, he still considered it a very worthwhile evening out and with plenty of points of interest to spark subsequent conversation.

As it happened, we saw this three weeks after seeing Der fliegende Holländer at the ROH. It made for some intriguing contrasts and connections. Not least in that Wagner never regarded many of his works as ‘operas’ but as ‘music dramas’. It was a serious point for him.

And it’s a description that can probably fairly be applied to Brecht and Weill’s works together. While in general, Wagner’s own choice of terminology has been quietly forgotten and his works widely accepted as part of Opera, it is easy to see why people still feel uncomfortable, if you will, with knowing how to describe and site works such as this, since they don’t fit comfortably into most established cultural pigeon holes.

Mahogany is not, strictly, ‘opera’, but neither is it a ‘musical’ or a ‘play’ or a ‘cabaret’ or any other performance type that you can think of. ‘Music drama’ – Wagner’s term – seems entirely the best fit.

At the end of the interval, two other members of the audience behind me were discussing why it was being staged at the ROH, with one wondering whether it was a “cash cow”: it remains to be seen when Brecht (and Weill) has ever been a “cash cow” in the UK. And if you wanted to go down that route, using Brecht, your best bet would be Die Dreigroschenoper, not this.

So, to the cast.

Container city

It was a joy to see Sir Willard White as Trinity Moses, while Anne Sofie von Otter as Begbick really grew into the role as the evening went on.

Christine Rice gave a strong account as Jenny – beautiful singing on the Alabama Song – while Kurt Streit as Jimmy was, for me, also very strong.

There, are nods to all sorts of things all over the place – including to Nietzsche, in terms of the citizens of Mahagonny killing God – and to Wagner, whose ‘motif of longing’ from Tristan und Isolde is quoted in the opening sequence of the work.

I think that John Fulljames has done a generally good job with a difficult piece, while, as mentioned earlier, the set design of Es Devlins really gave me another look at opera as spectacle – and I have so appreciated that in the last month.

The use of projection works really well here – and it does also make you aware that Brecht, as someone who used surtitles to further stamp home what he was saying, was arguably a leader in terms of multi-media theatrical performances.

But if this is cannot offer a perfect production of an imperfect work, then it still a very good opportunity to see a rarely-performed piece by Brecht and Weill and a production that has a great deal to enjoy and admire, and will certainly provide plenty of food for later conversation, as The Other Half and I found.

Photos: Clive Barda for the Royal Opera House

There can never be too many books

And so it is that World Book Day is upon us again – and almost gone, at the time of writing.

In an era where, increasingly, digital seems to dominate, it’s wonderful to think about books.

Yes, yes: I know that books can be digital too, but, to me – and many millions more – there is nothing to beat the tactile joy of a real book. Indeed, for billions of people on this planet, the old-fashioned variety of bound paper is all that they can hope to have access to.

Do you remember the joy when, as a child, you managed to read a book on your own for the first time?

I cannot remember the title of the first book I managed like that, but I remember sitting in a small red and white straw child’s basket chair with it, and being so proud when I got to the last page.

Not that long after, I took enormous pleasure in Enid Blyton’s Well Really, Mr Twiddle, which had me hooting with hysterical laughter.

Many years later, I got pretty much the same sense of pride from reading an entire Asterix book in German. Books always offer potential for new moments of personal achievement.

At the beginning of my twenties, I suffered some sort of breakdown after being injured and then chucked out of polytechnic. For ages, I couldn’t read – even much-loved books could not hold my concentration beyond the first few pages.

What revived reading for me was Stephen King. I picked up Carrie in a local bookshop and couldn’t it down. Then The Stand and It, with many more to follow.

I ‘discovered’ Terry Pratchett before he was anywhere near national treasure status, standing in a small sci-fi and fantasy bookshop to meet him once when nobody else was even around.

The result is three very precious signed volumes of the earliest Discworld novels.

Books – among the very first things I’d unpack in my nomadic early adulthood: get those out and it would start to feel like home.

Books, which provide a wonderful pre-holiday ritual when considering what from my buckling shelves I wish to take.

Books, which bring with them knowledge and entertainment.

While the majority of the books that I have bought in recent years have been non-fiction, I still seek out good storytelling too.

Penguin are now releasing the entire Maigret collection, and with new translations that finally do Simenon’s noir novels justice. Those are on pre-order with me.

There are old friends that I have read many times already and will probably read many times more: Jan Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre (which I hated at school), Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, Stephen King’s The Shining (the movie was crap) and Joanne Harris’s Chocolat, all of which I find new things in every time I pick them up.

I have a few antiquarian (relish that word) books – some up to 200 years old. They are to be treasured and looked after: I feel only a temporary guardian.

And I also rather pride myself on having a collection of books about German history – no! Not that period! – that would, I suspect, count as pretty decent.

I still judge a bookshop on its history section: on whether it is just full of WWII and the Nazis or goes beyond that.

Of course, talking of the Nazis, it’s always worth remembering how they burnt books on Bebelplatz in Berlin in 1933 – right next to the Humboldt University. That symbolism should tell you something about the power of the written word. And today, of course, we have groups of religious fundamentalists who want to deny people – and women and girls in particular – the right to learn.

Whether in the deepest, darkest days or winter, curled up on the sofa with a good read and a hot chocolate or under a parasol on the beach in the height of summer, is there really anything that can compare to the pleasure that can be found in the pages of a good book?

So let’s celebrate books today – and those who create them and those who read them – but let’s never stop loving books for all the other days of the year.

And PS: make sure you love your local library too.