9 Comments

What a great project! I like that it shows the variety of genres around the world, too. Great read.

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Thanks, Chevanne. I'm combing through Bookmarked to find a few reads.

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I loved the movie too, and Tabitha's project - wow!

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Yes - I remember how viscerally I felt all the stimuli of Tokyo coming at Bill Murray's character in the early scenes, how difficult it was to imagine myself doing that without an anchor of some kind. Then, the whole relationship addressed how two people who share the same language can also get "lost in translation."

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Great interview! Tabitha's newsletter was one of the first bookish newsletters I subscribed to. I enjoyed learning more about her life outside of her newsletter. I assume I have probably read a book in translation before, but I have never set out to read books in translation; maybe I should. Thanks for this interview Betsy.

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I'm glad you enjoyed it, Gayla. I hope tax season is not making you too crazy. I've been loving your newsletters and admire how you manage to cover so much with all you've got going.

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How long have you got? Here’s two series and three others I love and re-read regularly: All 10 Beck Swedish crime procedurals still going strong after 50 years, written by the late Maj Sjowall and late Per Wahloo. Now rivalled in my mind by Italy’s Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri (Best TV crime series ever, which my wife Susan and I regularly retreat to). Then there is ‘Death and the Penguin’ by Russian Andrey Kurkov. Then, then there is France’s Antoine Laurain and two books I have just re-read, ‘The President’s Hat’ and ‘The Red Notebook’. I only speak English, so I really appreciate a translation so good that I enjoy the novel. I just don’t have the skills to be a nit-picker. Regards Robert Howard. P.S. I have excluded English speaking countries.

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Ahh.. Montalbano and of course Maurizio DiGiovanni. Two great "escape" writers. I've tried to read one of the "I Bastardi di Pizzofalone" novels in Italian but I'm not ready for it yet. And yes we've watched all the Montalbano films on MHZ. I have to say: I am NOT happy with that last one, the one they made after the death of Camillieri. Livia deserved a proper goodbye and I had a hard time believing that Montalbano could change so dramatically so quickly.

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Now there’s a topic for you. The translation of novels for TV and film. You could start with Little Women. As for Montalbano he is a ‘Commissioner’ in Italian and ‘Inspector’ in English English. Maybe not in America and I have a vague recollection of a book in recent days which is not making it across the Atlantic because of changes the US publisher wants to make. If I don’t think about it, it will come back to me… Robert.

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