The FORMER A Language Learner's Forum Book Club

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lavengro
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby lavengro » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:46 am

Xmmm wrote:
a_ciascuno_il_suo.jpg


A ciascuno il suo by Leonardo Sciascia.

An amateur sleuth investigates two murders in Sicily. But this is not a conventional detective novel. I'll say no more, but I really enjoyed it. Leonardo Sciascia is one of the easier big name Italian authors. Suitable for B2 or above. Also available as a great film on youtube.

Thanks Xmmm for the recommendation - this looks quite interesting. I very briefly checked out the youtube film - the pacing of the dialogue seems good (from the little I scanned near the beginning) from a learner's perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4nbDEHyki8

Watching the scene near the beginning where someone gets and is shown reading an anonymous threatening letter was a bit of an education for me in how accurate closed captioning subtitles might be: the text of the letter is shown in the film: Questa lettera è la tua condanna a morte per quello che hai fatto morirai ("This letter is your death sentence for what you did you will die") but it comes out in the subtitles to the full-length film as: Questa lettera la tua condanna a morte e quello che hai fatto moriraii - according to the Google, this comes out as: "This letter your death sentence and what you did will die."

Close enough to figure things out, and loads better than the subtitling on a short clip of that scene also on youtube: "Queste lettere le tue condal mar morto e' hai quello che fatto ..." [and then it just ends, without captioning "morirai"]). According to Google Translate, this comes out as "These letters your dead sea condom and you have what you did" - which sounds really wrong somehow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGLF8jAJlOU
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby kanewai » Wed Jul 18, 2018 7:09 pm

How's everyone doing with Three Bodies? I finally reached page 200 last night, but I don't want to post much & spoil some of the surprises. Maybe aiming for 100 pages a week was too ambitious?

I'll wait until I think the majority has hit 200 pages before I start commenting.
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby lavengro » Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:42 pm

[highlight=][/highlight]
kanewai wrote:How's everyone doing with Three Bodies? I finally reached page 200 last night, but I don't want to post much & spoil some of the surprises. Maybe aiming for 100 pages a week was too ambitious?

I'll wait until I think the majority has hit 200 pages before I start commenting.

I really tried to keep myself on a strict diet of a quarter of the book per week, but I have already ploughed through to the end. I also hate spoilers, so I will be careful not talk beyond the target points (or requests from others to pause) to avoid spoiling anything, but having said that, I must say that I can hardly wait until I can talk about the final scene at the end when the sharks finally leave the ocean and go inland and have epic swordfights with the "evil" monkeys (or were they actually evil?).

Because I enjoyed the book and I was reading it in my native language, it was a pretty quick read. Your question about pacing for those reading in a second language is a good one.
Last edited by lavengro on Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby Ani » Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:44 pm

Pacing is fine for me.. this book is hard to put down once you get into it :)
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby Mohave » Thu Jul 19, 2018 12:11 pm

We currently have six nominations for the September and October LLF Book Club Book. I plan to start a new poll tomorrow. Any further recommendations?

Un barrage contre le pacifique - Marguerite Duras
My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers - Jules Vernes
La Neige était Sale - Georges Simenon
Les Rois Maudits 1 - Le Roí de Fer by Druon
The Melancholy of Resistance

Thanks for the great input and recommendations!
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby Mista » Thu Jul 19, 2018 2:05 pm

Another recommendation:

The fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions ... -fishermen
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby kanewai » Thu Jul 19, 2018 7:44 pm

Two more potential recommendations from my bookshelf. *Both of these are ones I'll already read sometime this year.

1. Apuleius, Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass. 200 pages. This is the only Latin novel to survive the fall of Rome. It's the story of Lucius, a youth who becomes obsessed with black magic. There are a lot of translations into various languages on Amazon US, a lot of them with facing Latin text. The reviews say it's super raunchy, which is either a plus or a minus, depending on your perspective.

I had never even heard of this novel until a friend and I visited the Villa Farnesina in Rome. One room was covered in these beautiful frescoes by Raphael. My buddy was a classics major, and said they were all from The Golden Ass, his favorite classical-age work. I thought that one day I'd read it in Latin, but now I think that day won't come and my new plan is to read it in Italian. Below, the wedding of Cupid and Psyche from the book:
golden ass.jpg


2. James S. A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes. 561 pages. This is the first book in The Expanse, a science fiction series. It gets excellent reviews, and has been translated into 25 languages. It's a thick book to read in a month, which would be my main caveat.


* edit: Of course, I want to read half the books on the current poll!
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby iguanamon » Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:00 pm

Great recommendation, kanewai! Years ago, in my small town rural high school in the upper south of the US, I read The Golden Ass. Our teacher told us it was the only novel written in Latin to survive the Roman Empire intact. I enjoyed it and I still can't believe that she got away with teaching it to us at that time and that place in that cultural climate. I am grateful to her for also having us read Chinua Achebe's Thing's Fall Apart and Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev. She introduced me to a world of literature and that encouraged my curiosity. I thought about recommending it yesterday when I saw your thread about Non-English translations of the Classics. It should be available in a number of translations and will provide an interesting look at the Roman Empire's culture and customs from a different perspective. I already have it in Portuguese translation: A metamorfose ou O asno de ouro por Lucio Apuleio. It will definitely receive my vote in the poll. I'd love to read it again.

If I might make another suggestion, while not technically "books", graphic novels can be worthwhile literature and accessible for those with a lower level in a language than what is required for TL novels. I would recommend Maus: A Survivors Tale by Art Spiegelman; The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar and also Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi for consideration at some point in this year or next. I have read both in Portuguese and Spanish. They're more than just "comics".
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby eido » Fri Jul 20, 2018 2:29 am

I'd read The Golden Ass in Spanish, though it's probably too advanced for me. 'Raunchy' and 'black magic' are things exactly up my alley.
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby IronMike » Fri Jul 20, 2018 9:33 pm

Sorry to have been absent from this thread after I apparently was the genesis for this whole book club. I had to finish another book first. Finished it on the 17th. Finished Three-Body today. LOVE LOVE LOVE this book. Reminds me of Salman Rushdie books. And other "literary speculative fiction" books I've read throughout my life. Describing it to my wife, she likens it to the Kyrgyz author Chingiz Aitmatov's The Day Last More Than 100 Years. Will have to put that one on my list.
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