2025 Reading Challenge discussion
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Around the World Through Language - 2017
updating msg 66 Finished the second book for this challenge. This time in Spanish :)
El brillo de las luciérnagas (★★★☆☆ (3,5))
Progress: 2/5
I've finished 3 more books (7/10) and updated Message 14✔Norwegian - The Drowned Boy -- 02/14/17
✔Icelandic - Snowblind -- 02/18/17
✔Russian - Roadside Picnic -- 02/20/17
I have just completed my first book for this challenge. I read The Spy. It was just ok. Now on to my next one.
I'm in (a little bit late) for 10 books. Since my mother tongue is Spanish, I will have to skip that one, though if you'd like me to give you some advice, feel free to ask!My list so far is:
1. English - O Pioneers! by Willa Cather ✔
2. French - En vieillissant les hommes pleurent by Jean-Luc Seigle.
3. Russian - Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
4. Italian - Bagheria by Dacia Maraini.
5. German - The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
The rest of them I will post as I go. My progress so far is 1/10...
If you have any piece of advice for me about other countries' novels or poetry I will be eager to read it!
I managed to finish 3 out of the 10 books that I want to read for this challenge:1. The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Original language: Korean
2. The Diary Of A Young Girl by Anne Frank. Original language: Dutch
3. Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak. Original language: Turkish (this is debatable since Shafak apparently wrote the book in English then hired a professional translator to write it in Turkish and then she re-wrote the entire thing again in Turkish).
Update #9Around the World Through Language
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017
4. German
The New Sufferings of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf Completed 8/3/17 Rating 3 stars
4/10
Dutch: The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years OldProgress: 5/5 Challenge completed!
link to my book list
I should be able to add other books for this challenge before the year is out, I’ll keep updating as I read them :)
Update to message #6.
✅ Swedish: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 03/18/2017 ★★★★☆
2/10
✅ Swedish: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 03/18/2017 ★★★★☆
2/10
Update: 4/5Language: Swedish
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (3 stars)
Translated by Henning Koch.
I am in with 7/10. 1. Nigeria: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2. Teheran: Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
3. USA: Anotimpul regasirii by Sarah Jio
4. France: M-am hotărât să devin prost by Martin Page
5. UK: Cameră cu vedere by E.M. Forster
6. Sweden: Paganinikontraktet by Lars Kepler
7. Canada: Povestea slujitoarei by Margaret Atwood
[2/4] (OM 97)1. Blue Is the Warmest Color (French) (2017.02.16, ★★★★☆).
2. The Eternaut (Spanish) (2017.03.08,★★★★☆).
3/121. Dutch - The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
2. French - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
3. German - All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
[3/4] (OM 97)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, ★★★★☆).
Kristin, Goodreads can certainly make this information more clear. Currently, I only see hints. For example, I recently read Blue Is the Warmest Color. If you look at its Goodreads page, you can see that it says "Original Title: Le bleu est une couleur chaude". So that's the first hint. But perhaps I don't know French well enough to recognise it, so that may not be enough. So the next thing I do is click the "All editions" link and then sort that by "Original date published" and then go to the first listing. That sends me to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... where I can see "Edition language: French".It's a pretty unnecessarily convoluted process and hurts my brain, but I hope it helps you. And I really, really, really hope that I'm doing this all wrong and someone will chime in with a really obvious way of finding out this information that I've completely missed. =)
Good questions, Kristin! The original intent of the challenge was to have each book be from a different translated language, but I'm fine if you want to count multiples.On the question of how to tell if books have been translated, it's unfortunately tricky. Nik had some good suggestions, and the Wikipedia articles for books can be quite helpful. Of course, in both cases, you often have to have an idea that the book has been translated before going to hunt down the information.
Let us know if there's anything we can do to help! Luckily there are listopias and other lists with translated books.
Welcome to the challenge, Claire, Vicki, and Miriam. Glad to have you on board. :)Congratulations to Kiwi for completing their challenge!
UPDATEGoal: 4/10
Books Read
Swedish - The Darkest Room
Chinese - The Three-Body Problem
Spanish - Sacrifice
French - Madame Bovary
For April I have read Snowblind translated from Icelandic ..... excellent intelligent who dunnit - highly recommended
I've overachieved a bit on the challenge (12/10) but I think this finishes the unique languages in my to-read list for the year. All 12 are listed in Message 14 and here are the ones I read in March:✔Danish - The Marco Effect -- 03/01/17
✔Italian - My Brilliant Friend -- 03/13/17
✔Polish - This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen -- 03/26/17
✔French - A Climate of Fear -- 03/29/17
✔Dutch - Summer House with Swimming Pool -- 04/03/17
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✅ Polish - The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy ⭐️⭐️⭐️