How do you find things to read?

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rdearman
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby rdearman » Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:53 pm

There was a spreadsheet I downloaded years ago which was1000 books to read before you die. which you can download from my Google drive. I've read less than 8% of them.

Most of the books I read are by authors I have read before. Sometimes I do searches for "Authors similar to Ray Bradbury" then I trawl through the results looking for something interesting.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby jackb » Tue Oct 12, 2021 7:52 pm

I browse https://www.babelio.com/ sometimes. It's kind of like Good Reads but in French. You can read/write reviews, make lists etc. It will give you suggestions too, but they aren't very good. I thing the best feature they have is the 'listes avec ce livre'. I'm sure the same type of site exists in other languages.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby guyome » Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:28 am

Not something I really make use of but many French bookshops have a "coups de coeur" section on their website. Sometimes it's just a list of books, sometimes they add comments.

https://www.librairies-nouvelleaquitain ... libraires/
https://www.librairie-ledivan.com/coups-de-coeur
https://www.decitre.fr/livres/preferes- ... aires.html
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:55 pm

How do you find things to read?

I take a look in my apartment. I always find something I didn't know that I had.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby luke » Wed Oct 13, 2021 5:45 pm

How do you find things to read?
I look at the back of the cereal box.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby lingua » Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:42 pm

It depends. For Italian I have read enough in the past that I tend towards reading series when it comes to the mystery/crime/police procedural type of books. Otherwise I read all or most of the books of a specific author as in the case of Andrea de Carlo or Alessandro Baricco. For non-fiction I do a search on Amazon for a specific subject and peruse the books until something strikes my interest. I also irregularly read a handful of Italian blogs that do book reviews and sometimes add to my wish list. The bloggers read a lot of translated books that I have no interest in reading though so depending on your personal preferences that may not work for you. This is pretty much the way I read in English too even though it's rare I read English books anymore.

For Portuguese it's different because I'm trying to read Portuguese rather than Brazilian authors. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't have a very good selection of Portuguese books at all. There appears to be a lot of self-published rubbish. Consequently I spend a lot of time on Portuguese publisher sites trying to find ebooks. Most of the time even when I find something I want to read neither Amazon nor Kobo has it in the US. For whatever reason these publishers are slow to expand their market outside of Europe. Even ten years ago Italian was this way too. I could barely find anything but self-published on Amazon. I'm hoping Portuguese will eventually improve.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby galaxyrocker » Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:45 pm

For Irish I'm extremely particular. I generally only read stuff written before the language was standardized, and from the dialectal area I'm focusing on. That makes it quite easy to find stuff, and this includes pages upon pages of extremely dialectally written transcriptions of old folk tales as well. Thankfully, there's plenty of those and I can also transcribe as I go, helping preserve them and make dialectal notes about it for future reference.

On the off time I do decide to read a modern work, it's mainly whatever is in vogue. Usually something shorter by an author I know (the Irish language world is small y'all).
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby thevagrant88 » Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:24 am

Really interesting topic! I relate to this question and probably would have made this myself if I had been on this forum a few years earlier.

I didn’t realize it before I began learning Spanish, but we don’t talk about Spanish language literature a whole lot in the US, apart from Quijote. Maybe you could add Borges or GGM, but even still we don’t discuss/study them to nearly the same extent we do the Germans, French, and of course the literary monolith that is the Russian canon.

So basically I walked into the Spanish language section at Barbes and Noble (book store chain for the uninitiated) and grabbed the first smallish book I found interesting and didn’t have a super difficult to read first page.

I tried to get creative with my google searches too. My biggest cultural link to the Spanish-speaking world is Puerto Rico, so I actively sought out Puerto Rican writers who write in Spanish. I also became open to reading things translated into Spanish as well, which obviously opens up options quite a bit.

Finally, I looked at myself. I thought about what kinds of books I already like to read and sought out writer in that mold. That is to say, alcoholic misanthropes who never heard of the “delete” button. This brought me to theuntranslated.wordpress.com/ which has really opened my eyes to how massive world literature really is.

So yeah, it can kinda be a pain in the ass to find what you want to read in your tl, but some logic and elbow grease will get you there. Happy hunting!!

Bonus: a breakdown of some books in each of these categories.

A. Book Store Grabs:
1. Cajas de Cartón
2. Senderos Fronterizos
3. Más allá de Mí
These books form a memoir trilogy by Mexican-American Francisco Jiménez, detailing his youth as an immigrant and migrant worker in the US during the 50’s and 60s. I always recommend these as a first read for Spanish learners.

B. Puerto Rican writers:
1. Cuando era Puertorriqueña by Esmeralda Santiago
2. Simone by Eduardo Santiago

C. Translated works:
1. Game of Thrones (juego de tronos)
2. The Five Love Languages, don’t recall the Spanish title off the top of my head.

D. Everything else. Way too many to list and I’m only just now starting to explore. Sabato, Borges, García Márquez, Laiseca, Julio Cortázar, Bolaño, Germán Espinosa, and I’m sure droves of others.

So as you see, putting in the work will yield results :lol: .
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby BeaP » Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:30 pm

I mostly find recommendations on goodreads. I do a search for a novel I've liked, read the 5-star reviews, and select the ones I agree with. I click on the profile of the user, and see their favourite novels. It usually works the other way round as well: I do a search for a novel I hated, and look for the 1-star reviews.
I also like to check out the literature prizes like Goncourt or Strega. I usually look at the hyped novels and authors, to see what the natives of a country tend to appreciate at the moment. I only finish reading the novels I like, I don't finish the ones that are boring to me. I do quite a bit of research before buying, and I mostly buy e-books. I never read translations, because being able to read something that others don't have access to due to the lack of a translation motivates me in learning. I also think that things always get lost in translation, so it's best to read (and watch) the original version.
Some examples of novels that are highly regarded by a lot of native readers and that I started when there was no translation: Mariana Enriquez: Nuestra parte de noche, Alejandro Zambra: Poeta chileno, Gesualdo Bufalino: Diceria dell'untore. Some examples for hyped 'must-reads': Elena Ferrante: Naples novels, Aramburu: Patria, Marías: Corazón tan blanco, Daniel Kehlmann: Tyll.
I'm constantly searching for good YouTube channels, but it's very hard to find adult youtubers trained in literature. I'm not a snob, but with my background and taste they are the ones who can probably give me some useful information. I've found one channel so far that I like very much: Ima AndtheBooks. It's the channel of an Italian schoolteacher, whom I like very much. She speaks a lot, and says a lot.
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Re: How do you find things to read?

Postby zgriptsuroica » Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:04 am

Someone already mentioned The Untranslated blog, which I find helpful, but I actually prefer the Modern Novel blog. There's a pretty decent overlap with languages I know enough to read and his tastes, generally, which certainly helps. On the main site that accompanies the blog, he posts books sorted by region/country, often with links to overviews of the literary scene for the country in question. Author pages also tend to be quite detailed. I've found a lot of good stuff clicking through links there or in the sidebar.

Other than that, browsing when I can, friends recommendations and the ol' Google search. I find browsing online much more difficult, though.
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