frankie

OMG, Helter Skelter is on telly tonight, must record it but not watch it until I've read the book. It's already giving me the creeps!

Oh no, you must have a very low opinion of me I'm not that cruel! The person has recently divorced. (I know you were only kidding, don't worry ) I'll just ask him for his spare ticket. I'll say I will be witty company during the flight and I can teach him more Finnish, and assist him with the rebounding phase by helping him find nice attractive ladies I wonder if Kylie Minogue is on the market. Or Oh dear I'm off, don't want to mess up your reading log completely!

Well normally I always read English books in English if I can only find a copy and if not, I read in Finnish. Basically I try to read as much in English as possible. Usually Finnish translations are okay, good or really good (for example the Harry Potter translations are superb and I love reading the books both in English and in Finnish and I actually own the books in both languages ) but sometimes not so much. The Wuthering Heights translation is really appalling after having read some of the novel in English. There are some tiny details which to me seem like totally misrepresented in the Finnish version. If I'd started the book in Finnish I think it wouldn't be that bad though. If a book is really long, I might prefer to read it in Finnish so it won't take me so long to read it. For example, I read Gone with the Wind in Finnish and the translation was just fine For some reason Stephen King is one of the names that comes to mind when it comes to really poor Finnish translations. The Stand translation was the worst, I actually started writing down some of the slips For example, you guys know 'baby doll pyjamas'? Well, the Finnish translation read exactly that, 'baby' 'doll' 'pyjamas' (in Finnish of course). Imagine a pyjamas with a baby and a doll. Oh man I need to read that book again

All of the books have a month's time. The uni library ones I can re-borrow (unless the books have been reserved by some other person) for a year (!!), the town library ones I can re-borrow five times. There's no saying I'll get to read all of them but I so want to, and I totally must! I'm sure I'd never get through them in one month though. (yes I'm awful when it comes to library books, I'll borrow loads, then won't have time to read all of them and take them back. And immediately borrow loads of other books. It's compensation for not having money to buy books, in a way. I guess ) The Neon Bible, well I have no idea what it's about, but it's a novel by John Kennedy Toole! He wrote The Confederacy of Dunces (which happens to be on the Rory List, which is why I read it myself, I'm not sure if for example Kylie read it for other purposes as well) which is quite a unique novel to say the least You might want to wiki John Kennedy Toole, he didn't exactly have the most amazing career in writing Started reading the Finnish version of Wuthering Heights last night, the translation is awful and I cannot continue this way, must switch back to English as soon as I reach the point where I was at earlier.

I like that idea and I've thought about it myself, but then just figured we would be creating threads about many books which might already have existing threads about them and then we'd just get MODded (quite understandably)

I admit to the first three offences, but I feel very sad for the one who complained about hating all the characters Rawr do join us! I started reading the Finnish edition last night, right from the start as a sort of a remainder of what's been happening so far, and I find the translation is just awful There's no way I can finish the whole book with this edition, I have to get back to the English one as soon as I've read til the part where I'm at in the English version. I would have to disagree. If the book is a difficult one or a particularly long one, I feel that group pressure is essential. I might give up if I were reading a book on my own but if there's a group of enthusiast readers who support each other all the way through I just could not let myself give up. But whatever takes your fancy

I thought you'd be particularly intrigued by The Neon Bible, I know I am That's actually on the 1001 Books -list, Rory list and Frankie wanna read -list I have no idea when I'll get around to actually reading it, I've borrowed it from the library like 5 times and I've never managed to read it yet

Exactly! In our library there are no computers upstairs (where the books are) that are allowed to be used for Internet, there are only ones where you can check out which books are in the library etc. And those programmes don't show the order of book series So I'd have to walk downstairs to the magazine section to get to a normal computer and those are always occupied and there are long queues for them.

So glad to hear you enjoyed it so much! I have to tell you though, that the third Dexter novel was quite disappointing in my opinion at least (some others have felt the same way) but that the fourth books is supposed to be another great Dexter read

Ah I see I never trust those orders in the front of the books because far too many times there are some "slight" changes for who knows why and I just don't trust the lists unless they specifically mention 'in chronological order'. I have no idea why anyone would want to publish the order of the books in any other way but still it always happens When the time comes that I'll work in a library I will print out the right orders of each thriller series there is and put them right beside the thriller shelves so people can check the chronological order of the series!

I understand There's a copy of it in the library, my main concern is that if I only read that one poem and not the whole collection, my conscience won't let me mark it as a read book even if I can cross it off the Rory list. So maybe if I like Howl I might as well try the rest of the poems in that book. If I remember correctly, Allen Gingsburg was quite a character alright. That'll be difficult indeed I was thinking, if plan A doesn't work, I should introduce a nice young bachelor to his daughter who'd then not want to go down under and there'd be this spare ticket I'm quite positive you'll catch up by the end of the book fair, for sure!! I haven't yet had a chance to more closely investigate your latest book reviews but I'm gonna do that now. So far it seems you really did not like that certain book! Is it wrong that I just loved perusing your rant over it, because to me it showed how you were getting rid of all the negative thoughts and emotions concerning the book out of your head just by writing about it? Edit: About liking Bill less? I totally agree. Hmph!!!

Hm, am I completely wrong or did you go straight from the third Sara Linton -novel to the fifth one? Why didn't you read the 4th one? * Anyways, great reviews Shin You are totally making me want to reread the whole series right now * My mistake. You read them in the right order but you just mentioned that Indelible is the fifth novel by mistake. I didn't mean to be nitpicky, I was just worried if you'd accidentally left a book unread between the 3rd and 5th one.

Excellent! Although I think that Puhdistus, or Utrensning, is easily the best novel, I would suggest you start with Oksanen's first novel Stalinin lehm

Why would they want to ban that book? Honestly, sometimes for the "reasons" for banning are so incredible and incredibly stupid Interesting lists you've all posted, I'd like to take a look at some of those books at some point. Thanks

A good pun I want to buy Little Hands Clapping as well, but as much as I don't mind hardbacks, I just don't want to spend 12 euros on a book I wonder how long it takes for the book to be available in paperback...?

I was also thinking maybe French, Italian or Spanish. Such classics they have... Sofi Oksanen is indeed intriguing! Before I'd read any of her books, I thought she was a real weirdo and I had so many prejudices against her, just by looking at her. She has this goth style that sticks out like a sore thumb. And she was really opinionated. Then a friend of mine took a chance and read one of her books and made me read it too and I realised I'd been shallow and stupid to judge her so easily without even having read any of her books. She's written 3 so far, she likes to write in this autofictional way (she's dealt with for example bulimia and social anxieties). Each book is better than the previous one and her latest was simply fantastic! *rant rant positive rant* Edit: Woooot! Amazon.com says Purge by Sofi Oksanen, pre-order now! (coming out on April 1st?) From amazon.com: Soon to be published in twenty-five languages, Sofi Oksanen’s award-winning novel Purge is a breathtakingly suspenseful tale of two women dogged by their own shameful pasts and the dark, unspoken history that binds them. When Aliide Truu, an older woman living alone in the Estonian countryside, finds a disheveled girl huddled in her front yard, she suppresses her misgivings and offers her shelter. Zara is a young sex-trafficking victim on the run from her captors, but a photo she carries with her soon makes it clear that her arrival at Aliide’s home is no coincidence. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in a complex arithmetic of suspicion and revelation to distill each other’s motives; gradually, their stories emerge, the culmination of a tragic family drama of rivalry, lust, and loss that played out during the worst years of Estonia’s Soviet occupation. Sofi Oksanen establishes herself as one the most important voices of her generation with this intricately woven tale, whose stakes are almost unbearably high from the first page to the last. Purge is a fiercely compelling and damning novel about the corrosive effects of shame, and of life in a time and place where to survive is to be implicated.

Maybe Sheldon would be up for giving you some private lessons? I don't think it would be very wise to learn Finnish in order to read great literature in Finnish though, I don't think we have that many world wide famous classics. I wouldn't even know what to recommend. Oh I'd recommend Sofi Oksanen, she's a relatively new author but the thing is she's got partly Estonian roots and a lot of her books has to deal with Estonia's current situation and the history, so she doesn't say that much about Finland. Good stuff though. The minute her latest novel Puhdistus is translated into English I'm gonna harass you people to read the book

One doesn't have to follow the whole challenge in order to join a particular group reading of some book, we're just happy to get anyone who's interested in that particular book to join in on the reading. The more the merrier

The fact that it's our Rory Gilmore Book List - challenge book at the moment might have something to do with it Feel free to join us

Well, if it's any consolation, English is 'forced' upon us in the third grade of elementary school (when kids are about 8-9 years old) so we do start at a very early age. And if it hadn't been obligatory, I don't know if I'd had such common sense to choose to study it myself. Besides, it's never too late to learn a new language. Especially at such a young and vibrant stage where you are now Also, you do get to read an amazing load of texts in their original language: a massive proportion of the world's writers are English speaking!

So nice that you finally got the book Shouldn't you be finished by now, from what I gather you're always reading at least 60 pages a day and now 100 so you must be near the end! Great That's a really nasty bit! Gross! And yet in some very weird way, so awful that I couldn't help but laugh, as well Glad to hear it My friend came over yesterday so I've been real busy playing the hostess, so haven't had a chance to read at all. I did go to the library with her and convince her of putting this and that to her book wishlist (she's kind of new to the whole reading hobby in a way) and when we went to a bookstore she bought Twilight, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and Book Thief. I encouraged her to buy the first and the last I didn't buy anything myself but managed to get loads of great novels from the library.

Borrowed these from the library yesterday&today: H. G. Wells: The Island of Dr Moreau Joseph Heller: Catch-22 John Kennedy Toole: The Neon Bible Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray Ira Levin: Son of Rosemary Ann Radcliffe: A Sicilian Romance Sylvia Plath: Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sapphire: Push (or Precious) Vigd

Hmm, I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but you might want to take a look at Augusten Burroughs. His books are mostly memoirs, some of them 'a bit more funny' than the others (they always have serious and disturbing themes but some of them are written in a lighter and funnier tone). You might want to start with Dry which comes after Running with Scissors, but Dry might be something you'd be more into.

Just woke up so I'm only gonna quickly comment on this one: If I remember correctly,

Oh boy oh boy!! Kell, you've seen episode 16 right? I just watched it and