MorriganJade

MorriganJade t1_jduub6o wrote

Most of Lolita's covers are maybe not ugly but just not good for the story, with a young girl on the cover which Nabokov explicitly said he didn't want (there's even one of a girl biting an apple, like the forbidden fruit, happily, which is so not the point of the book), or there's the Everymans library one with a fairly ugly picture of Nabokov on the cover which, without knowing makes you think that's Humbert. I managed to find one with a plain blue cover

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MorriganJade t1_jdml2li wrote

If you don't care about what the books look like or having them around I think it's definitely worth it to have an ebook reader. They can be quite cheap and are wonderful to read on. I find it more comfortable than both paperbacks and hardbacks. But I usually get hardbacks when I get physical books because they are more durable and don't get ruined

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MorriganJade t1_jd34h9p wrote

I suggest listening to author interviews! I like Martha Wells, Naomi Novik, Becky Chambers, Ryka Aoki and others. Some of the needy advice I've heard is write fanfiction, that way you can get feedback from an audience that's passionate about the topic and practice character voice (naomi novik) or read your whole book aloud to hear if it sounds right (Becky chambers)

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MorriganJade t1_j9vvvnx wrote

What I've noticed about translations personally is if you read ones that are already famous in your country they can be really good, for example I'm from Italy and I've read many really good translations which I've then reread in English when I was older. But if you specifically go look for a translation, like for example if I loved a book in English, and I look for it in Italian to give to people, the translation tends to be bad or have major flaws. Maybe it has to be an older classic or really famous to always be good

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MorriganJade t1_j9t8moj wrote

My best tip is to read on ebook: that way by putting dictionaries on it you can see the meaning of the word instantly by touching it. If you're reading a physical book the best dictionary app for your phone is I think Wordreference.
As soon as you can I think it's important to start looking up every word you don't know, that way you can quickly expand your vocabulary. Often the same word is repeated so it's better to look it up the first time. If you don't know enough English for that yet start by looking up every word that's needed to understand the meaning of what you are reading. Or if you don't know enough English even to do that, I suggest reading a book you don't care about so that it doesn't always matter if you don't understand, a funny book or a so bad it's good book, that's what I did, the first book I read in English when I was a young teen was actually fifty shades of grey and I didn't understand but I found it really funny and I learned a lot of words without understanding everything. Next I read hunger games looking up every word and it was a very easy read and next I read Harry Potter which was harder and really expanded my vocabulary by looking up every word.
Btw "advice" is uncountable so even when it's plural it doesn't have the s

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MorriganJade t1_j7dcoxr wrote

I think he liked her as a person in general, if she had been considering him as a potential partner she might have been slightly less insulting to him and therefore less witty. Maybe her cutting wit was what it took to push him over the edge of wanting to marry someone without the right social status, or maybe he would have liked her enough no matter what. Hard to tell what would have happened

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MorriganJade t1_j6pf82d wrote

The first thing that comes to mind is the ridiculous translation of the title of The girl with all the gifts by Carey to Italian into The girl(as in teen) who knew too much. The girl is a child (and I see this mistake way too much in translation, it seems people forget that girl can mean child) and she actively knows too little for the whole book. I've wanted to suggest the book to multiple people in Italy and the translation is always annoying

Also the loosening skin by Aliya Whiteley, while I like the cover it looks like horror and the author is known for some horror, but it's literary fiction

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MorriganJade t1_j6pe4zx wrote

Reply to audiobooks by eutychiia

I love audiobooks, some of them are read so beautifully and it's such a fun activity while walking. I only use them to reread though, I prefer to read with my eyes first

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MorriganJade t1_j6a4nwv wrote

I dislike the movie and that's not reality because it's ridiculously easy to escape? There is one barbed wire string and then a forest, no dogs, no guards, no fences, no electricity, a kid digs a hole under it (the prisoner kid would have been killed on entrance to the camp). Even as a child it made me angry that they didn't escape, no one would have died in those conditions. It's not realistic and it's disrespectful. Having said so of course the Holocaust is sad

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