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Maybe he could get me some this week?
Tulips
I've been a bit miserable this week. I've been struggling with a horrible cold, and short on sleep because I kept coughing myself awake - I managed through Monday to Thursday but gave up on Friday after my sixth night of broken sleep in a row. So, Handsome bought me tulips to cheer me up, an...
What funny Swedish names???
Of course all Swedes sleep with everybody else. All the time. Nothing to it.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ~ Stieg Larsson
The night before I headed off for London I suddenly decided to download something different onto the e reader. It's already stuffed full of classics and a wonderful selection of out of print books from girlebooks, then Ellen in New York had alerted me to netgalley. I'd requested a copy of the f...
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.
Speaking up for Oxfam and for those who seek to do good
I don't like to post negative opinions here, but I have got pretty cross at Susan Hill's latest broadside, against Oxfam bookshops, in her Spectator blog. Some of the comments to her post are, in my view, quite ugly. (There are some more enlightened points of view at the Bookseller's website, in...
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.
Speaking up for Oxfam and for those who seek to do good
I don't like to post negative opinions here, but I have got pretty cross at Susan Hill's latest broadside, against Oxfam bookshops, in her Spectator blog. Some of the comments to her post are, in my view, quite ugly. (There are some more enlightened points of view at the Bookseller's website, in...
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.
Are Author Web Sites Obsolete?
Jeff Cohen My dear and wonderful friend E.J. Copperman is now putting together a web site to help "educate the public" on the upcoming (June 1) release of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED, the first in the Haunted Guesthouse Mystery series. And in discussion with E.J. and the fantabulous Lorraine Bartlet...
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...)
Gelid
"Unn looked down into an enchanted world of small pinnacles, gables, frosted domes, soft curves and confused tracery. All of it was ice, and the water spurted between, building it up continually. Branches of the waterfall had been diverted and rushed into new channels, creating new ...
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.
A foreign country
I think I’m about to make myself unpopular again, but what the heck, I’m a big girl, I can take the flak. Translated crime fiction seems to have been all the rage for a few years now, at least here in the UK. I keep finding well-known authors who list it among their favourite reads. The CWA f...
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.
Look out for Swedish Book Review 2010-1
If you are thinking of buying a translated crime novel from Amazon, there is a good chance it will have been reviewed there by Simon Clarke. I find Simon's Amazon reviews an incredibly helpful guide to whether or not to buy the book - and it's amazing how he always seems to have read the latest,...
If it wasn't nearly exclusively in Swedish, I'm sure you would love the Gothenburg book fair every September. So much crime.
Look out for Swedish Book Review 2010-1
If you are thinking of buying a translated crime novel from Amazon, there is a good chance it will have been reviewed there by Simon Clarke. I find Simon's Amazon reviews an incredibly helpful guide to whether or not to buy the book - and it's amazing how he always seems to have read the latest,...
Well done, for a leftie!
Happy New Year
Apart from two or three pre-timed posts, I haven't written on this blog for about 10 days, owing to my right arm being incapacitated after an operation. As I managed to make the Christmas dinner more or less completely left-handed yesterday, I thought I could run to a blog post today to wish eve...
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.
Alphabet in crime fiction: Desmond Bagley
This is my second entry in Kerrie's alphabet meme. During the 1970s, I was an avid reader of authors like Alistair MacLean, Hammond Innes and Desmond Bagley. I liked Desmond Bagley’s thrillers so much that I actually kept a couple of my favourites from all those years ago – Fontana paperbacks ...
I had forgotten about Cherry Ames! Thank you for the reminder.
From the beach. You should have brushed it off a little better.
But enough about me
Kim Malo Hello, my name is Kim and I (ducks head shyly and scuffs toe in the sand—note to self: MUST vacuum more often) am a mystery fan. It started small, when I was young. Entry books? Oh the usual things for the time. Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investi...
Emeritus makes you sound too old, I think. We'll have to come up with a better, but still posh, title.
Goodbye to all this . . .
Sharon Wheeler It's an appropriate day to be going out with a bang, as it's Fireworks Night in the UK. Knowing me, it'll be more like a damp squib … You know, I was never going to blog. I'd got too many better things to do, and anyway, why would anyone care about my train being late, or the ro...
It sounds great!
Dorte, shall we start saving up?
The Bouchercon Blog
Robin Agnew This year, when I went to Bouchercon, I decided I'd take notes, so I could really do it up proud, and found that naturally the writers I was listening to were continually saying interesting and funny things that were worthy of recording. I encountered author Sharon Fiffer a few time...
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!)
Passing as a native
Sharon Wheeler One of the things that used to drive me demented on the generally admirable DorothyL discussion list (aside from the relentless BSP from a cabal of writers who clearly don't bother with mundane things like eating, sleeping and going to the loo) was that of language. Every so of...
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.
Passing as a native
Sharon Wheeler One of the things that used to drive me demented on the generally admirable DorothyL discussion list (aside from the relentless BSP from a cabal of writers who clearly don't bother with mundane things like eating, sleeping and going to the loo) was that of language. Every so of...
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.
The dilemma of review copies
Sharon Wheeler I discovered very early on in my journalistic career that you don't make a living from reviewing. A fairly well-known sportswriter confided to me that the book and theatre reviews he wrote for one of our national papers were just a sideline and brought in peanuts. And it's been the...
Q How much money do you make?
A ________________
Sharon - mint tea?
The Only Open Book Here is Me
by Barbara Poelle So I have a rash of conferences coming up, I will be in 4 cities over a span of 5 weeks and I just get giddy with the idea that my next little duckling may be out there right now practicing the pitch to me to their spouse/sibling/dog/cab driver. What fun! We are going to have a...
We'll all be weird together, then.
Swimming Against the Tide
Jeff Cohen Things I Love That Other People Hate 1. Black-and-white movies: What the heck is the problem with seeing something that might have been made before CGI? Was there Shakespeare before Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Danes? When Ted Turner colorized some of the MGM catalog, did young people...
My 16-year-old just asked me if she is strange to like the music I, her elderly mother, listens to.
Is she?
Swimming Against the Tide
Jeff Cohen Things I Love That Other People Hate 1. Black-and-white movies: What the heck is the problem with seeing something that might have been made before CGI? Was there Shakespeare before Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Danes? When Ted Turner colorized some of the MGM catalog, did young people...
But you must have had a good number of donuts to enjoy on your own!
Kerrytown BookFest Diary 2009
Robin Agnew 6:45 a.m. Pick up donuts for boy scouts. 7:00 a.m. Arrive at Farmer’s Market. Find tables & chairs have been left outside all night, luckily it didn’t rain. 7:15 a.m. Realize boy scouts are a no-show – start setting up tables with oh so patient and hard working husband. Th...
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.
Dangling from The Wire
Sharon Wheeler I have got withdrawal symptoms like you wouldn't believe. After five months, the BBC have finally finished screening all five series of The Wire. And I am bereft. I have the concentration span of a gnat, and almost never stick with TV shows. But it's a tribute to the sheer po...
Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty. They will love you forever. If that's what you want.
Lynne's August challenge
Memo to self: must stop organising book launches on a Wednesday. For one thing, it means I struggle even harder than usual to fit my Dead Guy post into the day; for another, it’s probably the most blogworthy thing that happens that week, but by the time my turn comes around again it’s old news. ...
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.
It'll end in tears …
Sharon Wheeler Which books have made you cry? I only ask, as I'm having trouble remembering any that have made me blub . . . Poetry and music, though – they have the potential to start me off, and I'm not a particularly tearful sort of person. I can't believe, though, that I've been reading nove...
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.
This is a True Story (Really)
Robin Agnew My mom has been begging me to write about this, and now it’s been long enough that I can. For awhile I was too weirded out by the whole thing to write about it. As every retailer knows, we all have customers who are a bit on the odd side. 4 or 5 years ago (maybe 6) I first met a cu...
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