Skip to main content

Booking through Thursday

 Today's question on Booking Through Thursday is:

I saw a Latin edition of “The Hobbit” last time I was at the bookstore… Do you read any foreign languages? Do you ENJOY reading in other languages?

Answer: I definitely enjoy reading in foreign languages and actually do most of my reading in a foreign language: English. I also read Danish and Norwegian fairly fluently and can get through Swedish and German texts with occasional help from a dictionary. Lately I have also been reading in French (which I am learning), although so far it has mostly been simplified texts. I'm currently reading a Commissaire Maigret mystery in simplified French and plan to use the summer to get through another, unedited one.

Labels:

Comments

Jenn said…
Wow! How awesome it is to read in different languages!
April 18, 2013 1:04 pm
Tribute Books Mama said…
Here's mine.

http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2013/04/booking-through-thursday_18.html
April 18, 2013 3:53 pm
DawnTreader said…
I think those who have English as their first language sometimes don't quite realize for how many of us that also use English fluently it's really our second language. I'm Swedish... In my post I quite forgot about Norwegian and Danish ;) I don't usually read books in those languages but if I really wanted to I don't think it would be too difficult.
http://dawntreader-island2.blogspot.se/2013/04/booking-through-thursday-languages.html
April 18, 2013 5:56 pm
Wendy Lohr said…
Geez, that's really impressive!

Here's my BTT Post!

Wendy @ Wendy's Musings
April 18, 2013 6:06 pm
William Stanger said…
I wish I could read in at least one other language apart from English. Maybe I need to stop talking about it and do something about it! Here's my BTT Post for this week.

On a side note, someone directed me to an article about Halldor Laxness today. I'm curious to read something by him. What would be a good book to start with? (Ideally, I'd love to read him in his own language, but I don't see that happening soon!)
April 18, 2013 8:58 pm
Bibliophile said…
William, I usually recommend either Iceland's Bell or The Fish Can Sing as Laxness starter books because they are fairly short and make good introductions to his style, but I know people who have delved straight into his masterpiece, Independent People, and loved it.
April 19, 2013 11:48 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading report for January 2014

Here it is, finally: the reading report for January. (February‘s report is in the works: I have it entered into Excel and I just need to transfer it into Word, edit the layout and write the preface. It will either take a couple of days or a couple of months).

I finished 26 books in January, although admittedly a number of them were novellas. As I mentioned in my previous post, I delved into a new(ish) type of genre: gay (or M/M) romance. I found everything from genuinely sweet romance to hardcore BDSM, in sub-genres like fantasy, suspense and mystery and even a quartet of entertaining (and unlikely) rock star romances. Other books I read in January include the highly enjoyable memoir of cooking doyenne Julia Child, two straight romances, and Jennifer Worth‘s trilogy of memoirs about her experiences as a midwife in a London slum in the 1950s. I also watched the first season of the TV series based on these books and may (I say 'may') write something about this when I have finis…
1 comment
Read more

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark:

Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines.


Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds.



Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap.



Fold the square diagonally in two. You…
25 comments
Read more

List love: A growing list of recommended books with elderly protagonists or significant elderly characters

I think it's about time I posted this, as I have been working on it for a couple of months.
I feel there isn’t enough fiction written about the elderly, or at least about the elderly as protagonists. The elderly in fiction tend to be supporting characters, often wise elders (such as  Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books) or cranky old neighbour types (e.g. the faculty of Unseen University in the Discworld series) or helpless oldsters (any number of books, especially children’s books) for the protagonist to either help or abuse (depending on whether they’re a hero or not).
Terry Pratchett has written several of my favourite elderly protagonists and they always kick ass in one way or another, so you will see several of his books on this list, either as listed items or ‘also’ mentions.
Without further ado: Here is a list of books with elderly protagonists or significant, important elderly characters. I leave it up to you to decide if you’re interested or not, but I certainly enjoyed…
7 comments
Read more