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HTLAL Book Club 2015 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Multilingual Lounge |  | |
| Carola Tetraglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 3393 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 65 of 69 16 August 2015 at 1:04am | IP Logged |
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These days I'm mostly focusing on Japanese, and I'm currently reading 気まぐれロボット
(Kimagure Robotto) by 星 親一 (Hoshi Shin'ichi). It's a collection of science fiction 'short-shorts' - short stories of around 5 pages. I'm about halfway through and the stories so far have been quite enjoyable. I love how each story ends with a punchline, but I must say they are getting a bit repetitive. After this I am thinking of continuing reading Harry Potter. I started reading the first book a while ago but stopped after the first chapter because I got distracted by other books. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5795 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes  Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 66 of 69 16 August 2015 at 3:23pm | IP Logged |
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In Japanese, I am currently reading a translation of "Rage of angels" by Sidney Sheldon, quite interesting, using
parallel text in English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4236 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 67 of 69 20 August 2015 at 11:56am | IP Logged |
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I am afraid to read in German because my vocabulary is not big enough and my knowledge of grammar is like a map fill of white spots. Yet that didn't stop me from reading (listening-reading the book in German plus German audio) Herr aller Dinge. Andreas
Eschbach isn't an excellent writer, at least from what I have heard, and if you're looking for quality sci-fi you probably need to keep on looking. I have less demands here. What I need is an interesting plot (interesting enough to keep me reading, at least) and not too complex style (to be able to follow). And, well, I think, Herr aller Dinge can give you both. It's a story of a Japanese boy and his dreams, be it the dreams of things he could do, or of people he cherish. Everything adds to the mix along the way - drama, adventure, politics, economy, history, sci-fi. I can only compare it to a soap opera. You have this boiling kettle of genres, and you present in in episodes, one line of the story changing the other abruptly each time. The language is easy enough for me to follow. There is quite a bit of scientific stuff explained in the book, but the vocabulary isn't all too hard and it's fine if you don't need 100% comprehension. I don't know whether Eschbach has checked what he's written, because in one of his other books Ausgebrannt (which I read in Russian) he states that crude oil chemically (!) decomposes to a number or products including propylene while distilling. Call me when you find enough propylene in crude oil. Or that diesel and mazut are the same - and this is matters a lot, you'll know why if you read the book. Still, I don't think that I should be too picky. I rated both these books 4/5 on goodreads, and I would recommend to at least try them, especially if you haven't read much in German beforehand. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5795 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 68 of 69 20 August 2015 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
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In German, I am reading a book adopted by I. Franck method, "Schachnovelle" by Stefan Zweig. Reading the very
first pages make me think about Nabokov's "The Luzhin Defense", one of my favorite books. Later, I understood that the main character is very different. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3971 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 69 of 69 18 September 2015 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
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In Spanish I am reading Dime quién soy by Julia Navarro. Currently I am on page 123 out of 1097 pages total. In part I chose this novel because it is a BFB, a big fat book. I just finished the Spanish translation of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, which is an even bigger BFB, and my reading of it was far slower than I liked. It took me about a year to read the two volumes, about 1400 pages. Part of that was because it is not one of my favorites by Murakami, it goes a bit slow, and part was because my reading speed in Spanish is definitely not up to par. So I wanted to read another BFB to help speed up my reading of Spanish.
Dime quién soy was a lucky choice, because I am finding it fascinating. The plot covers the time from the events leading up to the Spanish Civil War to, I suppose, the present. Interesting characters, interesting predicaments, a bit less convoluted than Carlos Ruiz Zafón's La sombra del viento and a lot less gothic, too. In French I am reading Souvenirs d'une ambassade à Berlin by André François-Poncet, who was French ambassador to Berlin from 1931-1938. Hence he got a close-up look at the rise of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. Not exactly memoires, the book is an account of the significant events of the times with very occasionally bits of the ambassador's own personal role in the action. I just finished the chapter on the Olympic Games of 1936 and on the flamboyant lifestyle of Goering. In Ancient Greek I am reading with parallel text The Civil Wars by Appian. Because Appian lived centuries after the times of Classical Greece and Athens, his use of words and the words he uses differ a bit from Classical Greek, but he manages well to describe the turbulent politics and prominent personalities. There are enough words unfamiliar to me that I would be lost without the parallel text. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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