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Post by bjd on Dec 11, 2023 16:36:54 GMT
As far as the Camilleri translation into English in the book I have, the translator is obviously a Brit and uses words like "arse" and other British slang terms. No attempt made to imply that there are Sicilian words and expressions used. The only original terms used are the names of food.
Fumo, my Italian knowledge has gone so far downhill, I wouldn't be able to read a book in Italian any longer, and in particular one with lots of Sicilian dialect.
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Post by whatagain on Dec 12, 2023 7:46:51 GMT
I am reading a boring book.on the Merovingians (sp ?) Whose best known is Clovis. Author starts e plaing thatvwe don't know much then goes into acdescription of who was who and did what to whom...
I read another book on Gettysburg, very well researched imo and for once, written by a french, so some bias are avoided.
And i started a Baldacci polar (police/detective) - usually good.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 12, 2023 15:07:04 GMT
I never read Baldacci, & don't really know why. Well, it was probably my wariness about authors who write "too many" books. I have read some of those authors, though -- Michael Connelly, Nevada Barr, others -- and the books are often very good. Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books are wonderful, for instance. But sometimes I've had the impression that the books weren't actually written by the author whose name is on the cover. I had stopped reading Nevada Barr after a couple of hers where the writing was so leaden that I didn't even care about the plot. Then later I gave another of her books a chance and it was quite good again. Maybe these very popular authors get overwhelmed by too many publishing commitments & just hire someone so they can dictate the bones of a story, let that person string it together, then slap the famous author's name on it.
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Post by whatagain on Dec 12, 2023 17:47:42 GMT
I think these writers who write for others are nowadays called ghostwriters ?
In French they used (still are ?) called ‘negres’. Not very politically correct anymore.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jan 2, 2024 5:02:45 GMT
I remember that James Michener had a whole staff of researchers for his big books (Hawaii, Alaska, Space...) so that he could just concentrate on the plot and not worry about the historical and geographical details. And there are plenty of other writers of bestsellers who do that. It doesn't seem fair that rich writers can get away with it. Even though they put in acknowledgments, it would be more honest to label books "60% written by..." or things like that.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 1, 2024 20:05:49 GMT
Just finished this one. A fascinating true tale of seafaring men forced to try to survive after being shipwrecked in Patagonia. A bit different from his last book, now a popular movie.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 1, 2024 22:21:28 GMT
Hmmm. That keeps coming up on Amazon with "books that might interest you". I'll put it on my kindle wish list & wait awhile to see if it becomes a flash bargain.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 1, 2024 23:32:35 GMT
Might it be available from library near you, Bixa?
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 2, 2024 1:13:26 GMT
Most unlikely. We have a book exchange, so someone might donate it. I'll get to read it eventually.
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Post by bjd on Feb 2, 2024 7:36:35 GMT
I found a novel about the CIA in the library. Originally called The Company by James Littell. It's very long, 1200 pages in the French translation, so it's taking me a while but it's pretty good. Using lots of "real" people with the repeating characters invented as it goes from the late 1940s in Berlin, through the various CIA disasters like the Hungarian revolt in 1956, Bay of Pigs in 1961... I'm about to start on the section about involvement in Vietnam. Kennedy has to prove to Khrushchev that he's not a wimp after the Cuban disaster so will encourage CIA involvement in Vietnam.
I end up looking up people on Wikipedia: Sam Giancana, James Angleton, etc. to see how much is real and how much invented by the author.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 9, 2024 17:17:43 GMT
American Zion, about the right-wing rebellion against our public lands. Very good, but sobering.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 17, 2024 1:18:39 GMT
I’m enjoying this one very much. It’s set in a small southern city with a controversial confederate general statue that is mysteriously destroyed during a rare winter ice storm that causes an odd cast of characters to have to cohabit in a new widow’s home until the ice melts and the power comes back on.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 17, 2024 3:18:47 GMT
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Post by Kimby on Mar 17, 2024 16:31:31 GMT
Bixa said I added a description below the photo.
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Post by bjd on Mar 17, 2024 18:06:26 GMT
I'm reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I usually really like her books but keep stopping this one and looking for something more light-hearted. It's the story of a poor Appalachian orphan after his young, junkie mother dies and the kid's life is so depressing. Well written though, like all her books.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 17, 2024 18:44:25 GMT
Ha ~ I got that book for my mother when it first came out. She said much the same about it and decided to put it aside until a time that she felt it wouldn't depress her so much.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 17, 2024 18:50:31 GMT
I was the same when I read Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt) bjd. I could only manage a few chapters at a time because of the gloom and tragedy, despite the occasional amusing incident...
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Post by whatagain on Mar 18, 2024 13:10:50 GMT
I am reading a book about our king Leopold 3
Leopold 2 was a butcher and 3 wanted to be a dictator.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 18, 2024 13:53:01 GMT
Non-fiction for a change: Amanda Knox is the American college student arrested in Italy for the murder of her roommate and who spent 4 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Written from the journal she kept throughout the experience.
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Post by fumobici on Mar 18, 2024 18:32:24 GMT
I got both the full Italian press, and US press versions of that story when it was unfolding as where it all happened, in Perugia, was nearby my family's home. If she'd dealt with the more professional Carabinieri instead of the inept local police, she'd probably have been spared most of what she'd been through.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 22, 2024 23:46:54 GMT
More non-fiction: Breathless
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 5:51:02 GMT
I have a mix of mostly fiction (in particular detective stories) and non-fiction piling up. I found a book about an Inspector Gently in a book box. Written in the mid-1950s and very old-fashioned, taking place somewhere around Norfolk.
Then at my local library, they recently bought a few detective stories in English. I have no idea who recommends them. One I started also takes place around Norwich and is one of a series by Elly Griffiths, The Night Hawks. I find it terribly written -- it reads like the screen play for a TV show -- and will probably take it back unread after getting through the first few chapters.
I bought Homelands by Timothy Garton Ash. He is a British professor of European history and writes about his own personal relationship with Europe. I haven't started it yet but generally appreciate his writing. There is also Barack Obama's first autobiographical book (Tales from my Father, or something like that)in my pile. Found at the local charity shop.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 19, 2024 6:47:41 GMT
That's very good news/bad news about several of those books, Bjd. I hope the last two you mention pan out better. Right now I'm reading a Commissario Brunetti book by Donna Leon. I'm on the seventh one of this 32-book series of mysteries set in Venice. I usually read one of them when I need a strong contrast with whatever I was reading before it. The book I'd just finished and want to whole-heartedly recommend was The Fall of Light, by Niall Williams. I've read a couple of his books before -- one which I can't really remember and the other about a man who falls in love with an opera singer. As I recall, both were enjoyable reads, but nothing that made me seek out more by the author. As a matter of fact, I didn't exactly snatch up this one, fearing it might be a bunch of precious writing with a smattering of plot. How wrong I was! Honestly, I love this book and can't wait until enough time has gone by for me to read it again. The author's prose is indeed unhurried and poetic, which somehow works perfectly with the sprawling, compelling plot. Some reviewers did not like it at all, but I say it's one of those books that you should just let have its way with you. You'll be taken on quite a ride and be treated to some glorious prose to boot. www.theguardian.com/books/2001/oct/13/fiction.reviews2
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 7:18:58 GMT
I like the Brunetti books by Donna Leon. Have read lots of them. I was surprised to learn that she had left Venice and now lives in Switzerland. I suppose it was either for tax purposes or because she can't stand the tourists any more.
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