Hello, my name is Abigail and welcome back to Polyglot Progress.
I have been a fan of booktube for probably the last seven to 10 years now, and so for a long time I have wanted to kind of bring
the flavour of booktube onto this channel. I've wanted to talk about books and talk about movies and all of those things
because they're a big part of my life and a big part of my language learning.
And so this week I started working on a video, got about halfway through with it, decided that I really hated it,
started another video, got about halfway through with it decided i really hated it,
and so I just wanted to do something very chill and casual today and I decided it would be the perfect time to just talk a little bit about books.
So today in a very informal, very casual, very unscripted way I'm just going to talk a little bit about the books that I'm hoping to read
next in my target languages and my TBR sort of overall for this summer.
This of course might not end up being my TBR. I'm a very read-based-on-my-mood kind of person, so I definitely go through phases.
Right now I've really been enjoying reading fantasy, both high and low, and quite weirdly for me I've been trying out a lot of YA fantasy series
that a lot of people have raved about for years and years but I have never really gotten into. As kind of a general thing, I don't really like YA very much.
I like middle grade a lot and I like adult a lot and I can kind of go either way with new adult,
but I feel like I just always leave YA books just feeling a little bit frustrated with the way the plot points were finally carried out and seen in the end.
But I've recently just been kind of dipping my toes into it, reading some of those things, like I said, that people have said are really really good
and they really enjoyed but I have sort of always steered away from just because I'm not a huge fan of genre in general.
But, I can also feel a kind of literary fiction mood kind of coming back. So whether or not these will be the books that I read
definitely kind of depends on whether I stick with this fantasy mood or I move into literary fiction mood or
I somehow develop desire to read some nonfiction or things like that.
So I guess I will kind of sort this by language.
So starting off with German, which I feel like is willing which that I have been reading in the most recently,
I recently finished the first book in the Percy Jackson series...
I don't know if it's actually called the Percy Jackson series. Is that the name for it? Or have I just decided that that's the name for it?
And so now I am eight pages into book two. So the first thing on my TBR list is this.
I know I am technically reading it already but I'm eight pages in so it feels more like a TBR kind of book as opposed to a currently-reading kind of book.
and after this one, I would also like to read book three. I don't remember what it's called in German or in English.
This is what it looks like and I guess what it's called as well.
And I'd also maybe like to start book four. I definitely took a long time reading book one, but I'm feeling more and more comfortable reading in German
and one thing that has made it so that I finished the end of book one pretty quickly is I discovered that Spotify has the audiobooks in German.
I didn't use it for very much of the book, but what I did use I think might be abridged.
I don't think it's an unabridged audio book, I need to look into that part still.
But definitely if I do end up using the audio book it makes it go a lot faster, I'm able to read when I workout or when I'm driving or things like that
so definitely, obviously helps me progress through these a little bit faster.
I don't know about other people, but I also really like audiobooks for sort of lulls in stories or parts of books that I'm not as big of a fan of.
I feel like sometimes if I hit a point in a book that I'm not wild about I will end up just setting the book down and
kind of not coming back to it for a long time but if I have the audiobook I can listen to a while I drive like I said, or while I fold laundry or something like that,
and by the time I finished that usually I've caught up to a point where I'm ready to read again.
I'm sure by now most of us are pretty familiar with this series but if not, Percy Jackson and the Olympians--
which apparently is the name of the series, I just looked it up---
is about a 12 (I belive) year old kid? 13 year old kid? who finds out that he is a demigod and
I never read this book series when I was a kid, so this is my first read through of it. I'm very much enjoying it so far,
and I feel like these books have been at the perfect level for me as an intermediate language learner.
So definitely if you are at that kind of intermediate stage in your target language and maybe you enjoyed these books a lot as a kid
or you like middle grade or like the sound of these books and never got around to reading it,
I definitely really recommend them. I definitely am not going to finish this series this summer
but I know a lot of you have heard me talk a lot about that book series so it was kind of expected,
so I guess something else that I am interested in reading at some point is the Inkheart series.
Again, I don't know if that's the official title of this series. This is a book series about a man and his daughter
who have the ability to bring stories to life by reading them aloud. It sounds really fun,
I do love middle grade books, and this book series was actually originally published in German
so I'm really excited to get to read something that I wouldn't have gotten to experience the original of if I hadn't learned German.
And again I didn't read these books when I was in middle school or elementary school, sort of that target middle grade age range,
so I'm really excited to get to finally read and experience them because I do remember that as a kid I was interested in reading them,
I just never actually got around to it.
I definitely don't think I'm going to be moving on to this series this summer.
I don't think I can finish Percy Jackson and the Olympians in the next few months.
But I'm excited to eventually move on to it and actually just learned that there is a sequel, Die Farbe der Rache,
which is going to be coming out in October 2021 in Germany. So if I kind of catch up soon I'll be able to experience it in real time
and I would assume that it's not coming out with an English translation at the same time so I will actually be able to read something
you can only read in German, which is exciting.
Moving on to French because I'd say that's the language I've been reading the second most in recently.
I am currently very early on to Les fiancés de l'hiver and I don't love it at the moment, so I don't know if I'm going to read the second book.
I don't know if I'm going to continue on with the series, but there is a series so if I end up liking this one, I'll continue on with it
and then either after that book series, or perhaps instead of it if I don't end up coming around and loving it, I have a few books that I want to read.
Two of these were originally published in French and one of them is a translation. As I mentioned in my New Year's goals and resolutions video,
I'm really trying to read more in French than in English this year but I've also been struggling a lot with that.
The idea originally was that anything I wanted to read I would just default to reading in French, but I've had a really really hard time
finding translations of things for a decent price, and sometimes I just have a hard time finding translations of them at all that I can even access.
So it's still my goal to read more in French than in English and kind of use that as my default language, but I'm also kind of shifting my mindset a little bit.
I get a lot of books recommended to me from friends and family members that are in English because
my friends and family members speak English, but I also watch a lot of French speaking booktubers
and read a lot of things about books written in French and I can just continue to do that and find more and more books that were originally published in
French, and I think as long as I'm getting more French worked more and more into my life I'm really still accomplishing that goal that I set out for.
So maybe instead of forcing everything to be read in French, which is sometimes impossible or just really difficult, maybe the move instead is
to have sort of a TBR list that includes a lot of things that are maybe only available in French that I really want to read, and then reading those things
that I really want to read in English in English. So, some books that I definitely want to read this summer:
The first one being La ville sans vent. So, this is a YA high fantasy novel. I know another YA book.
I don't know too much about this book or this book series, but I was on the hunt for kind of fantasy novels originally published in French
and I heard a lot of people really enjoyed this one and I mean, just look at the cover, it's beautiful.
So, based solely off of the Goodreads summary: 19 year old Lastyanax finishes her training to be a mage and so she sets off to find
who she has kind of never known and in the process she comes across Arka, who is a young man who was looking for the killer of his mentor,
and they have to deal with all of the troubles that plague the city with no wind. So, overall it just seems very cool.
A lot of people really liked it. Again, I don't know too much about it but I honestly prefer to go into books on knowing too much about them,
and, honestly, I think part of the reason why I'm also really excited to read it now is, it took me a very very long time to find a copy of this book,
I think I started looking because it seemed a little bit interesting and now I'm just determined to get a copy of it.
I finally found one and it's coming to me from Germany, so I'm really excited to read something that doesn't seem to currently, as far as I know,
have plans to be translated into English, so I'm excited to get to use my French to experience something that I wouldn't otherwise get to experience.
La grammaire est une chanson douce, or it's English title Grammar is a Sweet, Gentle song, has been related to the Little Prince several times
which is what really intrigues me about reading it. It's a book about a 10 year old and a 14 year old who are traveling to America when their ship
when their ships become shipwrecked and basically on the island they end up they discover that pretty much it's all sort of run by
grammar and different aspects of language. I found this book literally just scrolling through the French section on Thriftbooks
and I'm so intrigued by reading this. I of course love the idea that it's similar to The Little Prince, has that kind of similar feeling and tone to it
but I also just feel like, as someone that loves linguistics and loves learning languages, a book that sort of personifies nouns, and adjectives,
and grammar, and creates a whole story using that sounds so intriguing to me.
This is one of the things that I'd say I'm most excited to read this summer, so I'm definitely planning to order a copy of that soon and hopefully read that.
And again, this book was originally written in French, so I'm excited, once again, to get to read something in the original language.
And I also just think because it's a pretty quick book and it's got that kind of sweet, nice tone to it, it will be the perfect book to read this summer.
However, a book that I have not heard described as quick, or sweet, or light: Le chant d’Achille, or the Song of Achilles.
This book is everywhere, it seems like, and it has worked. I now want to read it. I'm intrigued.
This is an adaptation of the Italy-- The Italiad? Wow. This is an adaptation of the Iliad set from Patroclus' perspective.
I've heard that it's very well written and I've also heard that you will cry a lot. And I love books that make me cry!
And there's no real specific reason I'm reading this one in French, I just found that I can get the translation of it in French, so that is my plan.
Three books that I definitely can't get French translations of because they haven't been translated yet though
[Jazzy elevator music]
We Run the Tides, by Vendela Vida. This is a book about a teenage girl growing up in San Francisco before the, kind of, tech-boom there
and it is described as an achingly beautiful story of female friendship, betrayal, and a mysterious disappearance.
I really like Vendela Vida’s work, and I've heard several people say that this has been their favorite book by her so far,
so I'm definitely very excited to read that, but because it came out earlier this year, there are, as far as I know, no translations quite yet.
So, again, I think if I just shift my mindset to looking at it as a cool thing, that, I know English so I can read that, and not focusing on just making sure
I only read in French, I will just end up reading more in general.
Next we have Exciting Times. This one came across my radar originally because it was said to be very similar to Sally Rooney's writing, who I love.
This is about an Irish expat in Hong Kong, she goes to teach English as a foreign language to children there
and in the process, she gets involved with a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer. So, very much so a Sally Rooney plotline.
And lastly, yet another work of literary fiction (I guess that's all I really want to read in in English). If we are going off of the actual end of summer
being late September, then Sally Rooney's new novel will come out this summer, and I will read it as soon as it comes out.
Beautiful World, Where Are You is about Alice, a novelist; Felix, who works in a warehouse; her best friend Eileen; and Simon,
a man who Eileen has known since childhood, and basically about their relationships and, knowing Sally Rooney,
all of the horrible, horrible things that happen in their relationships. I'm very excited.
Honestly, I was ready to read whatever it was that Sally Rooney put out, and I don't really know anything other than the Amazon description of it,
and I don't really know anything other than the Amazon description of it, which doesn't give too much away, and it's totally fine. I'm ready for it.
I only have one book, on my kind of Spanish TBR at the moment. Crónica de una muerte anunciada is a book that I’ve wanted to read for a very long time,
but I’ve always felt like I wanted to read in Spanish instead of in English, and I've honestly just felt like my Spanish hasn't been at the right level yet.
But I found this copy a used bookstore for like a dollar? Two dollars? So I figured I should buy it and I could hold on to it until I was ready to read it,
but I kind of flipped through it and I feel like I could do it right now.
I think it might take me a little bit longer than one would expect to get through a book this thin,
and i might not be able to get every single bit of nuance out of it that it definitely holds
but I think I can make it through and I think my Spanish would come out much better as a result.
“Crónica de Una Muerte Anunciada” or “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” in English is about a man who returns to a town where a murder
had taken place 27 years earlier, and as he begins to talk to different people about the murder, and he sort of uncovers that
they all sort of knew it was going to happen, but he can't understand why they didn't try to stop it. I'm very intrigued by it.
I'm also intrigued by how all of that fits into such a thin book. I don't doubt that it can happen, but I always think it's really interesting when
those kind of very deep, complex stories are told in such a small amount of writing.
And yes, just very excited to finally read something like this that I've heard about and has been in my life for such a long time,
that was originally written in Spanish, in Spanish. The vibe right now is definitely trying to read things that I either couldn't
read if I didn't learn these languages, or read things that I could read the translation of, but it's just a little bit cooler to get to read the original version of
and just make the most of the language learning I've done.
So, similarly, in Italian, I would really like to read the L’amica geniale. I'm not sure this is really going to end up being a this summer thing.
I really haven't done very much in Italian this year and I’m not sure that my level is at that kind of level to begin with, but I’d really like to,
so I think I may end up pushing myself to do it. So L’amica geniale, or My Brilliant Friend, in English, is a book about two friends
and their lifelong friendship, and how their relationship changes with each other, how their relationships change with other people,
and even just how the place around them changes. I’ve had this book recommended to me by several people, just in general every time
I’ve read a description of it, it's sounds like something that I would really enjoy, but I’ve just felt like I would much rather
get to read it in Italian than in English, and I haven't felt like I'm at that level yet.
I think what I need to do is get the book, either as an e-book, or buy a copy, or get it from the library, and I either need to work on
getting my Italian to the point where I can read it and understand it, or I need to realize, like with this book, that maybe my level is good enough,
and if I just push myself I'll be able to do it. I think, sometimes I hold myself back
with my reading level in languages, so maybe I just need to push myself to do it.
And that's pretty much the end of my TBR. I would love recommendations, in any genre, for books to read, especially books that were originally published
in any of my target languages and I’d also just love to know what you're reading right now, whether that is something
to practice your language learning, or it's just a book that you're enjoying, or really despising at the moment.
I truly just love talking about books.
I will see you next Wednesday. And remember, Practice Makes Progress!