Maybe he could get me some this week?

What funny Swedish names??? Of course all Swedes sleep with everybody else. All the time. Nothing to it.

I love scratchy towels! That aside, I know what you mean. The climate thing was weird. Have only read one book by her, a long time ago, but you're right, people don't have to be nice to write well.

I've come across Susan Hill on Facebook, as she is friends with some of mine, and I've been taken aback by her belligerence on almost every subject. She hates bloggers who review books, for instance. We are very bad at it. So, Maxine, we'd better give up here and now... I'll do my own Oxfam blog later this week.

I want everything from authors' websites, but they have to be good, i.e. have the information I need and also to be updated often. If they can manage to be funny in a corner somewhere, I'll be even happier. Facebook is for talking to my 'friends', and I don't find Fb pages much use at all.

Thank you for reminding me of Vesaas. I read this as a set book at uni, and by coincidence was just today discussing with my son what he might get to read if he picks Norwegian. (Except the tutor has gone off on paternity leave...)

I know where you are coming from, and I agree. Mostly. In reverse, possibly. I read English language novels, and mainly British ones, because I feel at home with them. And that's something I need to do. I'm not the type who travels well. I need to feel at home. Same with books and films, though I did enjoy that Japanese film I saw recently. Some people enjoy travelling to far flung places, and some enjoy translated books. We are not all the same. Then there is the hazard of knowing both languages involved in a book. You can tell the translator had no idea what a certain word or phrase means and made something up. It grates. Sugar cake, for instance, which hubby found in an old Mankell. English speakers may well believe this to be a Swedish delicacy. I on the other hand know what it was before it got mangled.

It's so easy... Or not. I don't know. I think the son said it's quite hard, although he's been at it all his life. His great grandma thought it might be stunting his development.

If it wasn't nearly exclusively in Swedish, I'm sure you would love the Gothenburg book fair every September. So much crime.

Well done, for a leftie!

I came to this post via Martin's blog, as I must have missed it before. That last book you mentioned; I remember something to do with Finland, as well. Sweden was less interesting to me, somehow. It's a book I still think about from time to time. Just went to have a look, but it seems I haven't got any left. Did keep a couple until recently. I think they were more like 35p in my time.

I had forgotten about Cherry Ames! Thank you for the reminder. From the beach. You should have brushed it off a little better.

Emeritus makes you sound too old, I think. We'll have to come up with a better, but still posh, title.

It sounds great! Dorte, shall we start saving up?

Here is the link, Sharon. http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/what-language-do-you-read/ I forget that you don't get immediate access from my Typepad identity. (Now you must bookmark me!)

At age 13 I understood about half of every Agatha Christie I read. Could usually work out whodunnit. Afterwards if a word really really annoyed me and wouldn't leave me alone I'd look it up. Is there something in the air right now? My blog this morning is on the 'same' subject, inspired by Charlie Butler on ABBA.

I have two books I very much want to read sitting on my desktop. One problem is keeping track of what page I'm on when I take a break. Publishers would be better to send me books when I ask for them, and not when I haven't. But then some are very careful with how many they send out, and others put books in the post like there's no tomorrow.

Q How much money do you make? A ________________ Sharon - mint tea?

We'll all be weird together, then.

My 16-year-old just asked me if she is strange to like the music I, her elderly mother, listens to. Is she?

But you must have had a good number of donuts to enjoy on your own!

I'm only halfway through series 1, due to having too much to do, but will get there in the end. We missed about three episodes in the recording however. And I came to the conclusion that subtitles weren't necessary. It's not my hearing that's iffy; it's just that I need a dictionary to understand what the words mean.

Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty. They will love you forever. If that's what you want.

Ah well, I wasn't going to link, but here goes: http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/i-am-david/ http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/2007/09/29/henning-mankell-made-me-cry/ You mustn't cheat and look at the end of I Am David before you get there, but it starts the waterworks every time I think of it.

Think about it. You are lonely and know you have money that needs leaving to someone when you die. Why not that person who lets you chat once a week? Maybe all the others kicked him out? I get picked on for the talking by people I don't want to know. Don't think there is any money in it, though. But it just happens.