Recent reads

Some recent reads:

The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy. What a great book. Never saw the movie, but will soon. The characters were superb, the afterword even better (had no idea the author's mom...oh my). Even more shocking, had no idea The Black Dahlia was based on an actual case! 

Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition, by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. Found this at Savers for $2.99, but then got 30% off! Great, short travelogue. Great little book, will donate it to the Goodwill. 

Election, by Tom Perrotta. Read this back in 2014 or 2015, on a short bus (marshrutka, or маршрутка) from Bishkek to Kara-kol on the east side of lake Issyk Kul. Picked this for our family book club. I'd really like to rewatch the movie. Matthew Broderwick and Reese Witherspoon were superb in it. He's written more, but I haven't gotten into any of his others (yet?). 

Currently I'm reading The Woman in the Dunes, by Kobo Abe. I've also started The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Heinlein on Audible. My SIL picked it for the family book club, which is funny because my wife just finished reading it a week ago! (Not a fan.) I'm also continuing my translation of the masterful novel Mi Stelojn Jungis al Revado, by Mikaelo Bronŝtejn.

August 2022

 Another month has come and gone. I more than doubled last month's, despite being busy in Vegas the last four days. 

Books read:

• How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, by Corinne McKay. 
• The New Plant Parent, by Darryl Cheng. We're getting houseplants again and this time, I don't want to kill them.
• From Here to Eternity, by James Jones. One off my 50 Classics list. Very good.
• Civil Wars, by Caesar. Also good. One more Caesar "war" book to go.
• Mulliner Nights, by PG Wodehouse. Great, as usual.
• Children of Cain, by a friend. Really good. Can't wait to see in print and listed in Goodreads.
• Earth Alone, by Daniel Arenson. Not good. A bad version and obvious plagiarism of Starship Troopers. 

Books bought (all $2 deals this month!):

• Extinct Languages, by Johannes Friedrich. I can't pass up a book on language for two bucks.
• Fear: A Novel of World War I, by Gabriel Chevallier. Ditto for war books in NYRB editions.
• The Smell of Night, by Andrea Camillieri. My wife read his first in this Italian detective series and loved it, so now I buy his whenever I see the $2 Kindle deals. I need to read one thought, to see if I've wasted my money.
• Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America, by Rebekah Koffler. Reading this on Audible. Preaching to the choir.
• The History Man, by Malcolm Bradbury. I heard he's a good author, so why not for two bucks.
• Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide, by John Cleese. Yes, that John Cleese. 
• Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages, by Gaston Dorren. I hope this one is better than the traveling 60 language one I read (again) several months ago.

Almost done with the Middle Egyptian class and they've announced the next translation group. We'll be translating The Instructions of Amenemhat. Can't wait to start it. It'll start sometime in September. 

Speaking of September, my Serbian/Croatian refresher with the DLI instructor starts again in a couple weeks. I plan on taking the DLPT the week of Thanksgiving. Fingers crossed for a 2/2. I've got to get back to watching Novine, but have been busy this trip. I might start reading Agatha Christie's A Cat Among the Pigeons, which I've got in a Croatian version.

I paused the Esperanto book for a bit so I could beta-read my friend's book and finish the family book club choice. I'll jump back in it after BCS. I am still reading plenty of the language, though, as I'm still translating Mi Stelojn Jungis al Revado, by Mikaelo Bronstejn. 

How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, by Corinne McKay

 I've been translating the book Mi Stelojn Jungis al Revado for my monthly writing club, and it has been such a blast. My Esperanto is pretty good, but translating is another thing altogether. Trying to remain "invisible" as the translator isn't easy. And trying to render in English the creative ways Mikaelo Bronstejn uses Esperanto? Quite the challenge!

So I thought I should read some books. I've read other books on translation and have tried to take lessons from them, but this particular one is about one possible future. Could I make it, even part-time, as a freelance translator?

This book is primarily not about literary translations. Doubtful I'd ever be contracted to translate birth certificates, deeds, or the like from Esperanto to English. But the information was still beneficial. Lots on setting up your day, your office, billing. Also networking, which I'm sure measures heavily in how these freelancers earn money. 

The author, Corinne McKay, hosts a wonderful website, Training for Translators, with many nice-looking courses at affordable prices. It was from this website that I got this book. 

May 2022

 (Edit: I realized I forgot about "digital purchases" so update to my purchases below.)

Here's my May.

• Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. Best book of the month. Movie not too bad, either.
• Clicking of Cuthbert, by PG Wodehouse. Funny, for a golf book.
• The Double, by Jose Saramago. Interesting and wordy.
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Hemingway. Meh.
• Honey for the Bears, by Anthony Burgess. So damn good. 
• Money in the Bank, by PG Wodehouse. Very good.
• The Trial, by Kafka. Finally read it. So annoying.
• Network Effect, by Martha Wells. Murderbot! or plural.

And my purchases

• Complete Middle Egyptian, by Richard Bussman. Should have gotten this earlier.
• Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia, by Brigid O'Keeffe. Pre-order. Can't wait till this comes out...IN DECEMBER. Ugh.
• A Person from England and Other Travelers to Turkestan, by Fitzroy Maclean. 1st ed. hb w/dj. Will start this soon.
• Ukridge, by Wodehouse. This and the next three were on a deal.
• Mulliner Nights, by Wodehouse
• Summer Moonshine, by Wodehouse
• Money in the Bank, by Wodehouse
• Cluny Brown, by Margery Sharp. Sharp!
• Between Two Worlds, by Upton Sinclair. Lanny Budd series. Heard it's good, and all the novels seem to come up on Kindle deals, so why not?
• The Cave, by Saramago. Based on The Double, I got this one for 2 bucks.
• Papillon, by Henri Charriere. One night of BCS class, my instructor and I talked about this movie. Very next day, this book on Kindle deals!
• Earthlight, by Arthur C. Clarke. Never heard of this one and I thought I'd read all his.
• How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, by Corinne McKay. I am translating Mi Stelojn Jungis al Revado, after all.

BCS is going well. The language is coming back, slowly. I'm going to try to do another 2-3 months starting in late September. (This iteration goes through July.) I'm also doing the Hippocrene and Complete Croatian still, at lesson 5 and 4, respectively. Middle Egyptian also good. That Complete text above is a great reinforcement for C&M.

The Dangerous Language

 An historian decades ago wrote an awesome book called The Dangerous Language. Ulrich Lins did research in German and Russian archives (along with some other nations in Eastern Europe and Asia) to discover how totalitarian regimes dealt with Esperanto and Esperanto speakers. Bottom line: not well.

The book was written in Esperanto and has been translated into, I think, a dozen languages now. It's also been revised in the last few years. I'll probably get a copy of that one and (re)read it. 

Lins is a great author in this subject area. Dear reader(s) of my blog know that I have interest in this area, along with Esperanto with respect to the two world wars. Thus the great books Antaŭ unu jarcento and Mi stelojn jungis al revado. Both great. But last year I found out that some Esperanto historians had put together an homage-book (festlibro or memorlibro in Esperanto) for Lins's 75th birthday. I had to get a copy, of course.

En la mondon venas nova lingvo [A new language comes into the world] is broken into four parts: I) The suspicious language, II) Life and actions of Esperantists, III) Traces from the historical processes, and IV) Ideas and practices on Esperanto and other interlanguages [conlangs]. I read the first part last year and picked the book back up this week to read part II. So many articles in this book's 700 pages. Many of them great. All of them fully referenced and peer reviewed. And of course, each one is leading me to more books and articles I need.