books read this year
Apr. 18th, 2012 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaI used to read all the time, back before I started my PhD. I kind of thought that when I finished it I would return to reading all the time. Then I moved to Sweden and created a rule for myself "No fiction in English, only in Swedish*". This is doing good things for my ability to read Swedish, but it is much slower going. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blamebrampton just posted reviews of the Books she read in February of this year. She read nearly as many in that month as I have read all this year. More if you count the fact that a couple of books I finished this year were actually started last year.
So, what have I managed to finish? So far it is mostly things I have read before in the English version:
Liftarens Guide till Gallaxen is a translation of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I can't say that I understood a high percentage of the words in this one, but I read them all, and could always tell where in the story I was, even though I was missing a fair few details. 146 days elapsed between starting this one and finishing it, but that was due, in part, to being a paperback that lived in my backpack awaiting those moments when I was out of the house and in need of something to read--I had other books going at home during those days.
Anne på Ingelside is a translation of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Ingleside. (I read the Swedish version of some of the earlier books in the series last year). I understood more of this book than the one above, because I have read the English version more times, and the target audience is children/young adults, so I think that the language is slightly more basic. However, 154 days elapsed between starting it and finishing it.
Familjen Robinson is a picture-book retelling of Johann David Wyss's book The Swiss Family Robinson This version is very similar to the one I had, and loved, as a small child, and was short enough that I read it aloud tolord_kjar at one sitting, with me reading a sentence, him repeating it the way it should have been pronounced, me reading it again (hopefully closer to the way it should have been pronounced), and then going on to the next sentence. Since I read my kid's version so often as a child, and have once read the full-length English version as well, I had no problems understanding the meaning of every paragraph (and I was able to check with him on words I didn't already know).
Huset vid Plommonån is a translation of Laura Ingals Wilder's On the Banks of Plum Creek. I read the first two books in the series last year, sincelord_kjar already owned them, and we found a bunch of the others for sale at a garage sale, much to my delight--the exact same illustrations at the ones I had as a child. I loved these books when I was a kid, and read them over and over again, but they got left behind when I moved away from Alaska, and I don't think I have read them in more than 10 years, possibly as many as 20. This one took me about 20 days to read, and while I relied on my memory of the story to help me understand it, I did notice that I could understand more of the words than in the above mentioned books.
Vid Silversjöns Strand is a translation of Laura Ingals Wilder's By the Shores of Silver Lake. This one also took about 20 days to read, but by this time I was using the googleTranslate app on my phone sometimes when I hit a word I didn't know. Certainly not always, often one can tell from context what the word means, and why interrupt the flow of the story if you don't have to? (Though I confess that sometimes I can tell what the word is from context, and look it up anyway, to confirm that I was correct.)
Liten Stunden på Prarienen is a translation of Laura Ingals Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie (sadly, the garage sale didn't have a copy of The Long Winter, so I haven't read that one in Swedish yet). It also took me about 20 days to read, which, while much faster than I read the first two books on this list, is still WAY slower than the single afternoon it used to take me to read these in English.
At this point I am able to read in Swedish for much longer at a session, and am sometimes resenting the fact that I have to put the book down to do other things. Indeed, I am only six days into the current book (Gyllande År, av Laura Ingals Wilder), and I am 2/3 of the way through it, so I am hopeful that while the year's reading got off to a slow start it will creep up towards a reasonable number before the end of the year. I will try to remember to report my progress now and then...
*OK, I confess, that I am reading aloud Patrick Rothfus's The Name of the Wind tolord_kjar, even though we only have it in English, but reading aloud isn't the same as reading for oneself, and it is taking us months to go through it, and not just because it is a HUGE book...
blamebrampton just posted reviews of the Books she read in February of this year. She read nearly as many in that month as I have read all this year. More if you count the fact that a couple of books I finished this year were actually started last year.So, what have I managed to finish? So far it is mostly things I have read before in the English version:
Liftarens Guide till Gallaxen is a translation of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I can't say that I understood a high percentage of the words in this one, but I read them all, and could always tell where in the story I was, even though I was missing a fair few details. 146 days elapsed between starting this one and finishing it, but that was due, in part, to being a paperback that lived in my backpack awaiting those moments when I was out of the house and in need of something to read--I had other books going at home during those days.
Anne på Ingelside is a translation of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Ingleside. (I read the Swedish version of some of the earlier books in the series last year). I understood more of this book than the one above, because I have read the English version more times, and the target audience is children/young adults, so I think that the language is slightly more basic. However, 154 days elapsed between starting it and finishing it.
Familjen Robinson is a picture-book retelling of Johann David Wyss's book The Swiss Family Robinson This version is very similar to the one I had, and loved, as a small child, and was short enough that I read it aloud to
lord_kjar at one sitting, with me reading a sentence, him repeating it the way it should have been pronounced, me reading it again (hopefully closer to the way it should have been pronounced), and then going on to the next sentence. Since I read my kid's version so often as a child, and have once read the full-length English version as well, I had no problems understanding the meaning of every paragraph (and I was able to check with him on words I didn't already know).Huset vid Plommonån is a translation of Laura Ingals Wilder's On the Banks of Plum Creek. I read the first two books in the series last year, since
lord_kjar already owned them, and we found a bunch of the others for sale at a garage sale, much to my delight--the exact same illustrations at the ones I had as a child. I loved these books when I was a kid, and read them over and over again, but they got left behind when I moved away from Alaska, and I don't think I have read them in more than 10 years, possibly as many as 20. This one took me about 20 days to read, and while I relied on my memory of the story to help me understand it, I did notice that I could understand more of the words than in the above mentioned books.Vid Silversjöns Strand is a translation of Laura Ingals Wilder's By the Shores of Silver Lake. This one also took about 20 days to read, but by this time I was using the googleTranslate app on my phone sometimes when I hit a word I didn't know. Certainly not always, often one can tell from context what the word means, and why interrupt the flow of the story if you don't have to? (Though I confess that sometimes I can tell what the word is from context, and look it up anyway, to confirm that I was correct.)
Liten Stunden på Prarienen is a translation of Laura Ingals Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie (sadly, the garage sale didn't have a copy of The Long Winter, so I haven't read that one in Swedish yet). It also took me about 20 days to read, which, while much faster than I read the first two books on this list, is still WAY slower than the single afternoon it used to take me to read these in English.
At this point I am able to read in Swedish for much longer at a session, and am sometimes resenting the fact that I have to put the book down to do other things. Indeed, I am only six days into the current book (Gyllande År, av Laura Ingals Wilder), and I am 2/3 of the way through it, so I am hopeful that while the year's reading got off to a slow start it will creep up towards a reasonable number before the end of the year. I will try to remember to report my progress now and then...
*OK, I confess, that I am reading aloud Patrick Rothfus's The Name of the Wind to
lord_kjar, even though we only have it in English, but reading aloud isn't the same as reading for oneself, and it is taking us months to go through it, and not just because it is a HUGE book...