Around the World Through Language - 2017

[Agnieszka]

Cassandra wrote: "Good question, Agnieszka! Choose your native-most language (sounds like German?) and read books outside of that."

Thank you!

[Agnieszka]

Around the World Through Language
Duration: January 1 - December 31, 2017
Completed: 14/10 I'll bump it up most likely at some point of the year :-)

1. = English -> German
2. book 1 of Original English (AE)
3. Original English (showing differences between BE & AE)
4. = Original German (great non-fiction)
5. Original English (BE)
6. Original English (Canada)
7. Original Polish - lit. translation: From the Notebook of Status Quo
8. = Swedish -> German
9. Spanish (Spain) -> German
10. & 11. Old Hebrew -> English (Old Testament) & Old Greek -> English (New Testament)
12. = English -> Polish
13. Spanish (Peru) -> German - lit. translation: The Rose of Jericho: The Story of a New Start
14. = Danish -> Polish (my childhood favorite)
15.

??? English original with passages in Bhasa Indonesia (Indonesisch national language), Irish, French, German, Belgian (only curses) and some Arabic, almost forgot some Geordie

(view spoiler)[
Original English (Australia): The Profiler
Polish -> German or English: Quo Vadis
French (France) -> German: something by Guillaume Musso (Vierundzwanzig Stunden: online library & check local library)
French (Africa) -> English: The African Equation (online library)
Hebrew -> English: Germany, at Odds(?) or Blind Mission(?) (hide spoiler)]

[Chelsea]

I just stumbled across this article and I thought it could be a great jumping off point for this year's theme!

http://ideas.ted.com/required-reading...

[Cassandra]

Thanks Chelsea for the list! I put it in the first post.

Welcome Agnieszka and Toni!

[Adam]

I'm in for 20

Hungarian - Iza’s Ballad By Magda Szabó
Chinese - The Invisibility Cloak By Ge Fei
German - Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer By Patrick Suskind
Colombian - One Hundred Years Of Solitude By Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Irish - Graveyard Clay: Cré Na Cille (The Margellos World Republic Of Letters) By Máirtín Ó Cadhain
French - Act Of Passion By Georges Simenon
Swedish - The True Deciever By Tove Jansson
Hebrew - The Confessions Of Noa Weber: A Novel By Gail Hareven
Portuguese - Rilke Shake By Angélica Freitas
Slavic - A Spare Life By Lidija Dimkovska
Japanese - Moshi Moshi By Banana Yoshimoto
Italian - Aracoeli By Elsa Morante
Spanish - Fever Dream By Samanta Schweblin
Egyptian - The Queue By Basma Abdel Aziz
Japanese - A Personal Matter By Kenzaburo Oë
Polish - The Street Of Crocodiles By Bruno Schulz
Russian - Invitation To A Beheading By Vladimir Nabokov
Argentinean - Labyrinths By Jorge Luis Borges
Chilean - The House Of The Spirits By Isabel Allende
Mexico - The Death Of Artemio Cruz By Carlos Fuentes

[Jane]

I will do 10!

4/10

1. Russian - Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
2. Italian - My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
3. French - The Vagabond by Colette
4. German -
5. Spanish -
6. Dutch -
7. Greek -
8. Polish - The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45 by Władysław Szpilman
9. Japanese - A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe
10. Norwegian - My Struggle: Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgård

[[deleted user]]

Around the World Through Language Challenge
5/10

1. Spanish - Sudden Death - 1/10 ***
2. Dutch - War and Turpentine - 10/23 **
3. Swedish - The Other Woman - 10/7 ***
4. Italian - Ties- 12/20 ****
5. French - Six Degrees of Freedom - 12/24 ***

[Cassandra]

Welcome to the challenge!

[Susan]

I will try for 10. Thanks.

[Lisa]

Apparently am a sucker for overcomplicating things for myself... :D I've decided to not only join in on this challenge, but read some of the books in the original languages they were published in. I know that's not the original purpose but I could use the practice :D

I would like to join for 5 books, please :)
1. Spanish: El brillo de las luciérnagas
2. French: Le Petit Prince
3. Danish:
4. Japanese:
5. Italian:
6. Korean: The Vegetarian

[Marcus]

4. Portuguese...?

[Janine]

Sign me up for 6, please!

[Samantha]

I'm going to aim for 5 :)

1. Death Note, Vol. 1: Boredom (technically, I'm reading more than just 1 translated from another language, but they're all from the same series, so I'm only going to count it as one)
2.
3.
4.
5.

[Zita]

I´m in for 5, for now :)

0/5

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3 -
4 -
5 -

[Cassandra]

Hi Marcus! Would you like to sign up? (Sorry if I missed a post from you.)

Welcome to the challenge, everyone. :)

Lisa - that's so cool! You can always feel free to adapt challenges however you want.

[Clare]

I'm in for 5 books

Completed 5/5

Japanese: The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism Naoki Higashida
Dutch: The Dinner Herman Koch
Spanish: One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez
Swedish: The Lost Boy Camilla Läckberg
French: The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations Zhu Xiao-Mei

[Marcus]

No Cassandra. I only gave a tip to Lisa about a language.

[Shelly]

I am in for 3
So far I am planning on:
Memoirs of a Polar Bear (Japan)
Sudden Death (Mexico)

[Lisa]

Marcus wrote: "No Cassandra. I only gave a tip to Lisa about a language."

Wow, sorry Marcus! That went completely over my head. I had considered Portuguese, but since I haven't practiced the language in so many years I reconsidered. I was thinking of reading The Alchemist so I guess that could be even more of an incentive to try I guess.... :) Maybe I'll still read it either way, just in English instead. We'll see :)

[Marcus]

I'll give you a suggestion you might like: you can read a book of Clarice Lispector, brazilian writer of last century. I think her works are available in english. The NYTimes and The New Yorker published good stories about her.

[Tulika]

Yes I would like to join this challenge.
One question though..... Do have to set goal and now?

[Ligia]

I am going to shoot for 20 and I'm grateful for the list

[Lisa]

Thanks so much for the suggestion, Marcus. I will definitely look into her writings :)

[Tanya Patrice]

I am joining and am in for 10!
Edited - Nov. 10, 2017
1. Norwegian - The Thirst, Jo Nesbo
2. German - The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George
3. Swedish - A Man Called Ove, Frederik Bachman
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5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

[Amanda]

I'll do 12 :-)

[Mary-Lynne]

I'm in for 10! I'll post which ones at a later time!

[Rowizyx]

I would like to try for 20 :)

1) French: Il grande marinaio (Le Grand Marin) by Catherine Poulain
2) English: Persi in un buon libro (Lost in a Good Book) by Jasper Fforde
3) Japanese: Silenzio (Silence) by Shūsaku Endō

[Jessica]

I've decided to join in and shoot for five books (all languages and books TBD at this point). Thanks! :)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

0/5

[Yaara]

I'm gonna go for 10 different languages, to be decided later on..
one question, does English count if i'm not a native English speaker?

1. English - The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin
2. Spanish (mexican) - The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
3. French - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and other Classic Novels by Jules Verne
4. Dutch - The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
5. yiddish - Adventures of Mottel the Cantor's Son by Sholem Aleichem
6. russian - Special Assignments by Boris Akunin
7. Nigeria (I'm not sure which language was this written in, but it's set in nigeria, so I'm adding it anyway) - Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[Marina]

I'm in but I'll start with a low goal and try for 5.

1. Spanish: The Shadow of the Wind
2. English: A Monster Calls
3.
4.
5.

Total: 2/5

[Melanie]

I will start with 5 different languages.

1. Italian My Brilliant Friend Completed 2/18/17
2. French The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
3. German Heidi
4. Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
5. Spanish The Alchemist

Completed: 1/5

[Susan C]

AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH LANGUAGE
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017

I'm going to join - reading 5 books

✓ 1. German - I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago read 4/26/2017
✓ 2. Italian - The Story of a New Name read 7/3/2017
✓ 3. Spanish - The Infatuations read 6/26/2017
✓ 4. Swedish - The Girl in the Spider's Web read 6/19/2017
✓ 5. Vietnamese - Paradise of the Blind read 2/18/2016

5/5 Challenge completed

[Jammin Jenny]

I'm in for 10

[Lisa]

Yaara wrote: "I'm gonna go for 10 different languages, to be decided later on..
one question, does English count if i'm not a native English speaker?"

I would say yes :) Goodluck with your 10 books :)

[Sherry]

I'm in for 5

[Amanda]

I'm in for 5.

5/5 — Finished!

1. Journey to the Centre of the Earth (French)
2. The Alchemist (Portuguese)
3. The Art of War (Chinese)
4. Night (Yiddish)
5. A Man Called Ove (Swedish)

[Claire]

Can I subscribe for 10?
Read 14/10
1. English :Fool's Quest
2. German Een waanzinnig begin
3. Spanish: In the Beginning Was the Sea
4. Norwegian The Snowman
5. Czech Anna in kaart gebracht
6. Japanese: 1Q84
7. Russian The Master and Margarita
8. Swedish: A Man Called Ove
9. Jiddisch A Horse Walks into a Bar
10. Latin The Conspiracy of Catiline in Latin + English
11.Danish De fazantenmoordenaars
12. Italian Tre volte all'alba
13. FrenchTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
14. Afrikaans (south africa) : Koorts

[Harsha]

Please put me in for 7:

Italian: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Russian: The Master and Margarita
French: Swann's Way (Candide)
Japanese: Norwegian Wood
Spanish: Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings
German: The Complete Stories, Steppenwolf

[A.]

I will try for 5- Angela

AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH LANGUAGE
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017
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4.
5.

[Nik]

In for four, please.
===================
[4/4]

1. Blue Is the Warmest Color (French) (2017.02.16, ★★★★☆).
2. The Eternaut (Spanish) (2017.03.08,★★★★☆).
3. The Complete Persepolis (Persian) (2017.03.27, ★★★★☆).
4. A Man Called Ove (Swedish) (2017.08.26, ★★★★★).

[Tammy]

I'll start with 5 please.

[Carrie]

I'm in for 2

[Mindy]

Hi Cassandra and all,

I'm going to try to read titles I already own.

Around the World Through Language - 2017

10/10

1. Korean The Vegetarian COMPLETED FEB 25
2. French Rachel, Monique... COMPLETED MAY 30
3. Albanian The File on H COMPLETED JUNE 9
4. French A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea COMPLETED AUG 16
5. French Les Misérables COMPLETED OCT 13
6. Japanese The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story COMPLETED OCT 14
7. Russian Anna Karenina COMPLETED OCT 27
8. French The Little Paris Bookshop COMPLETED NOV 27
9. French Candide COMPLETED DEC 8
10. ChineseThe Art of War COMPLETED DEC 13

[Karen]

Hi all - I'd like to have a go at this challenge.

I'm going to start conservatively with 5 books this year.

1. The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida, K.A. Yoshida (Translator), David Mitchell (Translator) - Japanese to English (completed)

2. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, Ken Liu (Translator) - Chinese to English (completed)

3. The Absent One (Department Q #2) by Jussi Adler-Olsen, K.E. Semmel (Translator) - Danish to English (completed)

4. Blind Goddess (Hanne Wilhelmsen #1) by Anne Holt, Tom Geddes (Translation) - Norwegian to English (completed)

5. Confessions by Kanae Minato, Stephen Snyder (Translation) - Japanese to English (completed)

6. I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan by Various, Eliza Griswold (Translator) - Pashto to English (completed)

7. Journey of a Thousand Miles: My Story by Lang Lang & David Ritz, Feodor Chin (Translator) - Chinese to English (completed)

reply | flag *


Thank you and I look forward to seeing what everyone is reading.

Karen

[Carri]

I am in for 5
Around the World Through Language
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017

0/5
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5.

[Overbooked ✎]

For starters, I'm in for 5, maybe I'll increase my goal later :D

[Sue]

Count me in for 5 please.

Completed 0/5

AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH LANGUAGE
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017

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Completed 0/5

[cobean.]

I'm in for 5.

AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH LANGUAGE
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017
Goal: 0/5

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5.

[Karoline]

I am in for 5 as well. Will get back to which ones, but I have a couple of books written by African authors that will definitely be included in this challenge!

[Chelsea]

I'm in for 5 books.

1: The Reader (German)
2: The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden (Swedish)
3: The Club Dumas (Spanish)
4: In Other Words (Italian)
5: Into the Thickening Fog (Russian)