Ninety-one
"Herr Oberwachtmeister Jeschke hatte einen dienstfreien Nachmittag."
Book Title: "Emil und die drei Zwillinge"
Author: Erich Kästner
Page Count: 176
First Published: 1934
Summary: The second story of Emil and his detective friends. This time, they go to the seaside and have adventures with boats and circuspeople.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood
I thought I wouldn't like it. As a matter of fact, I have thought that I would not like this book ever since I first saw it in the library, which must have been in the 80s, but I loved it, I really did. I never had rational reasons for disliking it anyway. The characters have grown convincingly older, the new story is vastly entertaining, and it still has the same quirky, today rather antiquated style I love about Kästner. Now if only someone could tell me what the hell "echter Karlsbader Zusatz" is. It must be some stuff you put in coffee.
Edit, 01.12.2009: Today, a friend of my mother's came over for coffee, and she came with gifts. She is still in the process of cleaning out her late mother's flat and tends to bring over stuff that she thinks we'll like. She brought handmade egg warmers in bright orange for me, she's that good. She also brought "Ich weiß alles", or "I Know Everything", a compendium of newspaper clippings with helpful hints for the modern housewife, in alphabetical order, from sometime - holy crap I was just looking for the date and hello, little Swastika in the corner. So, from sometime in the 1930s or 40s, I guess (though the paper quality makes me think early 30s)... anyway:
"Kaffeezusatz, wird aus Malz, Gerste, Feigen, Zichorie usw. hergestellt, dient dazu, den Kaffee zu strecken, beeinflusst aber erheblich den Geschmack, wenn ein gewisses Maß überschritten wird." So now I finally know at least what is in "echter Karlsbader Zusatz", though I shall never know the taste. Interestingly, "Karlsbader Salz" is a laxative.