Nun estas la semajnfino kaj mi havas pli da libertempo. Miaj kontoj pli-malpli bilancas, kaj mi povas ripozi. Hieraŭ mi pasigis trankvilan tagon. Mi ankoraŭ legas tiun strangan libron, “La Lada Tambureto”, sed nuntempe nenio terura okazas. Fakte mi iomete fieras, ĉar mi ĵus atingis la finon de la unua parto kaj komencis la duan. La finajn paĝojn de tiu parto mi ne bone komprenis, ĉar ili enhavis multajn vortojn kiujn mi ne konis en Esperanto. Migdaloj, ekzemple, kiu ŝajne estas Mandeln, kaj rafanetoj, kiuj estas Radieschen. Mi scias tion nur, ĉar mia fratino helpeme trovis sian germanan version de la libro kaj kune ni legis la problemigajn paĝojn samtempe. La germanan mi feliĉe komprenis pli bone; estis multe da germanlingva vortludo en tiu ĉapitro kiu ne bone tradukiĝis en Esperanton. (more…)

Kutime mi tre ofte blogas pri la libroj, kiujn mi legas. Dum longa tempo mi ŝajne ne faris tion. Kial? Certe ne, ĉar ne plu plaĉas al mi legi. Kiam mi estis ĉe la IJK, mi kaptis la okazon aĉeti Esperantlingvan tradukon de la fama germana libro, “La lada tambureto” de Guenter Grass. Mi volas legi tiun libron jam de tri jaroj, sed germanan version mi ne posedis, kaj mi kutime klopodas eviti anglajn tradukojn de germanaj libroj - ĝenas min, kiam la tradukistoj uzas usonajn vortojn anstataŭ britajn. Do, kiam mi ekvidis la Esperantan tradukon mi tuj volis ĝin aĉeti kaj ege ekscitiĝis pri la legado. (more…)

I got this over at Damon’s blog.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.

1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline the books you love.
4. Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5. Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them. (more…)

Having greatly enjoyed Kate Morton’s debut novel, ‘The House at Riverton’, earlier in the year, I was greatly excited a few months back when Babel very kindly bought me a copy of her second; ‘The Forgotten Garden’. It being quite a large book, I didn’t get around to starting it for some weeks, but when I was packing to go to Szombathely it struck me that it would be an ideal book to bring. No one wants to read something too heavy when they are on holiday, and whilst the size of the paperback meant it was actually quite heavy for packing, nevertheless I knew the content would be pretty light. The upside of the size meant I thought it would probably last me all week, although I did take the precaution of packing a few other books in case it turned out to be horrendously bad (more…)

I’ve just been watching ‘The Painted Veil’, a 2006 film adaptation of the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. I confess to never having read the book, or indeed anything at all by W. Somerset Maugham, but it was one of my father’s birthday presents and we were humouring him by sitting and watching it with him It was actually very good, although not, I think, a film to go to bed on, because it was rather depressing and disturbing. (more…)

This was a book which Babel lent me, and it took me an incredibly long time to read. I’m not sure why, because I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was bad. Perhaps after how good he had told me it was, I just found it somewhat of an anti-climax. The premise of the book, which is that Hitler won the Second World War and is still in power in the 1960s, is an amazing, mind-blowing idea; the amount of thought which has got into recreating this version of the 1960s which never existed is deeply impressive; but somehow, the actual characters and plot failed to grab me and by the time I got to the end I was left with the feeling that I’d just read a rather mediocre thriller. (more…)

Yet again I was bored on a train, and because I seemingly never learn from my mistakes, I decided to embark on another Esperanto ebook. There were plenty of translations of English-language works I already knew well which I could have chosen, but I decided to be brave and opt for something which I’d never heard of. That something turned out to be “Nuntempaj Rakontoj”, a collection of short stories by a Bulgarian author called GP Stamatov. Happily, the collection starts with an explanatory note, informing readers is a famous Bulgarian author who specialises in stories with a satirical twist, and that these tales have been translated from the Bulgarian by Ivan Krestanoff. So, this time there is no room for confusion as to nationality (more…)

I hardly dare to review another Esperanto language book on my website, but this evening I finally got to the end of a novel I have unsuccessfully been trying to read for three months: “La dua invado de marsanoj” by Arkadij and Boris Strugackij. When I was going on holiday to Geneva in April, I asked my boyfriend if he had anything in Esperanto he could pack for me to read on the plane, and this was what he produced from his limited collection. I had high hopes for it at the beginning, because in my younger days I used to be rather a fan of sci-fi, but over the course of five days I managed to struggle through at best forty pages of it before giving it up as unreadable It languished on the desk in my bedroom for several months before this Sunday I felt bored and decided to pick it up once again. I don’t like a book to beat me, and this time I was determined to get to the end of it (more…)

Bored in Stuttgart airport a couple of weeks ago, I decided to have a mooch around one of the duty-free shops, and was pleased to discover it had a small selection of books. My pleasure was actually short lived, as I soon discovered that virtually the entire stand consisted of trashy American novels in translation Just when I was about to give up and find myself a copy of Der Spiegel to read on the flight home instead, I came across a paperback novel by Bernhard Schlink. Having seen it, I had no choice but to buy it (more…)

My boyfriend recently read a book called “Battle Royal” by Kirstie MacLeod, and recommended it to me as something well worth reading. Nice as my boyfriend is, we don’t necessarily share the same taste in books, and so as a rule I might be rather apprehensive of his choices Nevertheless, he reviewed it so positively that it really did sound rather interesting, and I decided to give it a go. I started reading it for half an hour a night when I was in Bolton last week, to help me wind down from writing my article for La Brita Esperantisto. It did indeed have the desired result of sending me to sleep. (more…)