Recently read books

[luzula]

Översättarens anmärkningar. Dagbok från arbetet med Ringarnas Herre, by Erik Andersson
Ha, this book was total win (if you read Swedish). It's a journal from the translator who did the recent re-translation of LotR into Swedish. The previous translation is acknowledged to be, well, not all that faithful to the text, although of course I still loved it when I was younger. The new translator was not a Tolkien fan at all--he'd only read half the first book and didn't much like it. But being a translator, he's still a language geek, and it was so interesting to read about his struggles with the text and with all the names, many of which had to be translated, and about his communications with the Tolkien fans who were his proofreaders and reference group.

Mockingbird, by Sean Stewart
I liked this! It's about a woman whose mother was a witch, and who inherits those powers when her mother dies, even though she really doesn't want to. The main character has a warm and immediately engaging voice, and the book also has a great sense of place.

The Golden Mean, by Annabelle Lyon
Read for my book club at work. This is a historical novel from Aristotle's perspective about his time with Alexander the Great. Meh, I found it boring--I just never cared about any of the characters (which for me is the death blow for a book). I probably should've read Mary Renault instead.

Comments

[riverlight]

The Swedish book sounds fascinating! My Swedish abilities are probably not quite good enough to read it, but I bet my mother would like it a lot, actually. Maybe I'll have to see if I can find a store online that'll ship to the U.S!

[luzula]

I checked for you, and the largest online bookstore in Sweden (adlibris.com/se) does not seem to ship abroad. Another one, bokus.com, does ship abroad, but not to the US (due to complicated customs procedures). If you really want the book for her, I guess I could buy it and send it to you? It's only 150 pages and wouldn't be very heavy.

[garonne.livejournal.com]

his struggles with the text and with all the names, many of which had to be translated, and about his communications with the Tolkien fans who were his proofreaders and reference group.

That sounds fascinating. Shame I can't read this one, but I do adore books like that.

[luzula]

Yeah, language geekery is always a lot of fun! And it's like he was won over by Tolkien almost against his will, too--at he end he really does appreciate the books.