Reading Challenge: 10 Books in Translation in 2023
This year I’m on Storygraph and there are challenges on this app, too. In this challenge I need to read 10 translated books, so not in Italian but that are originally from another language. Obviously, this is easy for me, but I want to see how many times I can complete this challenge. I’m not doing the bonuses since I’m already following another challenge about languages (and accordingly by countries).
First time ended Marzo 27 with The Winter of the Witch
Second time ended Aprile 30 with Spy x Family 2
Acclaimed by many as the world's greatest novel, Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.
Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.
About the book
Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karénina” follows the story of two families and focuses on the love affairs of the characters. The book explores the “double standard” of society at the time and the strict morals women were forced to follow.
Monday 28 September, 00.17. The Düsseldorf police receive a strange call: someone has noticed suspicious movements in an abandoned factory in the port area. But when the agents arrive on site, they immediately realise that it is not trivial trafficking: this is a case for Homicide; this is a case for Georg Stadler. Awakened with a start and led to the scene, the commissioner is faced with a disconcerting sight: a pool of blood on the floor, a razor, a shattered mirror, but… no corpse. Just an obscure code drawn on the wall. An indecipherable mystery, except that a few days later, in a hotel room, the body of a woman is found wearing only a pair of briefs, her right hand resting on her chest in an unnatural pose. Her blood everywhere: on the white sheets, on the carpet, on the victim's neck and long hair. Two seemingly unrelated cases, yet Stadler can't free himself from a suspect: both crime scenes seem set up like a macabre film set. The Commissioner just has to resort again to the help of Liz Montario, the brilliant profiler to whom he is bound by a subtle attraction. But this time even Liz will have a hard time, because every progress in the investigation, every new discovery seems to converge on a single suspect: Commissioner Stadler himself.
This book doesn’t have an English version.
About the book
A killer who plays out the most famous Horror films, a new flame for Commissioner Stadler and a colleague resentful of a case involving a policewoman he was in love with. In this new chapter of the Stadler and Montario saga, the commissioner and the psychologist will have to capture a bleak assassin.
When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. And at night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors.
The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. One day, with the help of two unexpected companions, she discovers a way in. Is everything in the garden dead, or can Mary bring it back to life?
About the book
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a children’s book that tells the story of Mary, an orphan girl who goes to live with her uncle in England. Mary discovers a secret garden which she tends to together with a servant’s brother and her ailing cousin. The book deals with the theme of illness and healing, but also with the cultural diversity and nature that she always tries to survive.
Penny is in great trepidation: she is about to have an interview with the famous Mr. Dollagut, the enlightened owner of the Department Store of Dreams, the most coveted four-story store in the city. A completely unique place where you can only enter when you are asleep and where only dreams are sold. Dreams of all kinds, for all tastes, organised by sections: dreams related to the small pleasures of life or memories of special moments, exclusive dreams that allow you to meet those who are no longer there, dreams dedicated to naps for animals and children, limited editions and timeless bestsellers sold at special prices. After an enigmatic interview in which Dollagut questions her about the meaning of her dreams, Penny is hired, but her euphoria gives way to her despondency when she finds herself literally overwhelmed by the amount of customers who storm the shelves every day of the department store. As she learns to orient herself alongside her more expert colleagues, she also discovers the secret that makes the Department Store of Dreams such a special place: the magical function that every dream brings with it, the ability to awaken buried emotions, to bring to life sensations never experienced, and very often to overcome traumas, such as mourning or the end of a love story. Among the clients chasing dreams, Penny will meet Jeong A-young, who takes refuge in dreams to escape loneliness, looking for a spark that can warm her heart, or Hyeon Jong-seok, who seeks confirmation in dreams that he is ready to love again. She will learn that a premonitory dream, like having a baby, is a small foray into the future, and that even nightmares are precious allies in overcoming a critical moment in life.
About the book
This book, at this date hasn’t an English translation.
It would be nice to be able to buy dreams so that we only dream what we want. In this world you can. There is a large warehouse of several floors where while sleeping you wander around the city until you get to the reception of the warehouse of the dreams. And here you can choose what to buy. Not always though.
Penny gets a job at the dream department store and meets all kinds of people there. Sold dreams are of many kinds and slowly we discover people’s lives through their dreams.
Master spy Twilight is the best at what he does when it comes to going undercover on dangerous missions in the name of a better world. But when he receives the ultimate impossible assignment—get married and have a kid—he may finally be in over his head!
Not one to depend on others, Twilight has his work cut out for him procuring both a wife and a child for his mission to infiltrate an elite private school. What he doesn’t know is that the wife he’s chosen is an assassin and the child he’s adopted is a telepath!
About the book
A spy, an assassin and a little telepathic girl get together for a mission.
Анна Каренина
