What's everyone been reading?

[sweet_sparrow]

Yep. It's that time again... What's everyone been reading in... Oh, wait, I didn't ask last month, did I? Since I've last asked then. I think that makes in 'in May and June'.

Anyway, what's been on your reading palate and would you recommend it? ^-^

I've had a good reading month the past June, but May wasn't quite as spectacular. But in the interest of brevity and reading-list-friendliness, I'll leave more detailed responses for in a comment. I want to see how/whether that works better for people than a cut. ^-^

Comments

[sweet_sparrow]

Eeee! How awesome! And reading is such a great way to learn the language, don't you think? I learned English, in part, by reading loads of it. How is your skill level progressing in Swedish? And have you tried to read books that were translated into Swedish from, say, English? I found that really helpful when I was younger. (But, er, I grew up on LotR and if my memory was any good I'd have known the Dutch version by heart by the time I was up to trying the English, so maybe I'm biased.)

That first book sounds absolutely wonderful! I don't think they have it in English (or, at least, Amazon can't find it), but they show a German copy, so maybe I'll have to track that down. It's been positively ages since I read anything in any language other than English. I kind of miss the comprehension challenge. *rambles*

If it's any help, I find that most translated books I've read suffer in translation. Sometimes there's no way a translator can keep the nuances of a story intact simply because the language it's translated into doesn't have the nuance. (Haiku are, I think, a good example, but my Japanese isn't near good enough to say for certain.)

I hope the book you're reading will continue to be a good read! ^-^

[marshtide]

It definitely is. :) I'm doing pretty well, I think. I'm living in Sweden & my partner is Swedish, which helps a lot in terms of speed... I talk Swedish at home when I can, read picture books out loud and longer books to myself, and watch TV and films with Swedish subtitles. The variety is helpful and also keeps it a bit more fun. ^^

*wry* German might be a better language to read it in, theoretically, as it's one step closer to Swedish in terms of the way it's structured and so on than English is. Neither are totally dissimilar, but I get the impression that Swedish would be even easier (especially grammar) if they'd let me continue studying German at school when I wanted to!

Mm, yeah... Some feel more obviously translated than others, though - some of Tove Jansson's books didn't feel so obviously translated to me, for example, though so many different people have worked on her stuff that it really depends.

[sweet_sparrow]

I am awed. O_O I had the hardest time trying to learn Japanese when I was on exchange there. It didn't really help that everyone by far preferred practicing their English over teaching me Japanese. Ah, well. I'm glad to hear that you're doing so well at learning!

Hmmm... It'll be harder to track down in German, but it still sounds fascinating.

True, true. I love the ones that don't feel like a translation, but they're far and few between in my limited experience.