5 Links on a Friday #1

I come across a number of links to articles, blog entries and news items about books and reading when I'm web-browsing in my free time and occasionally also when I'm doing web searches at work. I have decided to post the interesting ones about reading and books for others to enjoy. (Here are some of the other links).

Whenever I have gathered five links I want to recommend, I'll post them. Here is the first batch:

Frivolous post, but true sentiments:
14 Thoughts You Have When Someone Tries To Talk To You WhileYou're Reading.

This is .gif heavy, but I have had some of these thoughts when interrupted while reading. I'll add the one that they didn't post: "I'll fucking deck you if you interrupt me again!" (she didn't just interrupt me, she did it by tickling me).

Interesting:

The working titles of famous novels from Pride and Prejudice to 1984.
Trimalchio in West Egg just doesn't have the same ring as The Great Gatsby, does it?

A subject close to my heart:

The subtle art of translating foreign fiction.

I am not a literary translator myself, but I have translated bits and pieces that have been published, and I know how difficult it is. (I'm a legal and tech translator, btw).

Something for the TBR list:

100 Must-Read Mystery & Crime Novels Around the World.

On my favourite comic strip:

Why Calvin and Hobbes is Great Literature.

I cannot even begin to express my feelings for Calvin and Hobbes.

Comments

Icelandic folk-tale: The Devil Takes a Wife

Stories of people who have made a deal with and then beaten the devil exist all over Christendom and even in literature. Here is a typical one: O nce upon a time there were a mother and daughter who lived together. They were rich and the daughter was considered a great catch and had many suitors, but she accepted no-one and it was the opinion of many that she intended to stay celebrate and serve God, being a very devout woman. The devil didn’t like this at all and took on the form of a young man and proposed to the girl, intending to seduce her over to his side little by little. He insinuated himself into her good graces and charmed her so thoroughly that she accepted his suit and they were betrothed and eventually married. But when the time came for him to enter the marriage bed the girl was so pure and innocent that he couldn’t go near her. He excused himself by saying that he couldn’t sleep and needed a bath in order to go to sleep. A bath was prepared for him and in he went...

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down ...

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. Yo...

Reading in Reykjavík

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