Weekly Geeks 14: Reading Globally

I’ve come across Weekly Geeks thanks to fellow bloggers Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise, Bernadette at Reactions to Reading and Craig at Crime Watch. And I cannot resist the temptation to participate in this week’s challenge about global reading. The task, if you want to participate, is to answer as many or as few of the following questions:

 

Do you deliberately read globally, and if so, do you track your reading in this area?

I do read globally although I don’t use to keep track of my readings in this area, but it sounds as a good idea.

Have you joined any reading challenges which encourage reading from around the world? If so, what are they?

I’m participating this year in two reading challenges, the 2010 Global Reading Challenge hosted by Dorte at DJs Krimiblog and the Scandinavian Reading Challenge 2010 hosted by Amy at The Black Sheep Dances. In both cases I’ve restricted myself to my favourite genre crime and mystery fiction, but that is not required. There is more information about these challenges on both links and I would like to encourage everybody to participate, there is still plenty of time before the year end.

Do you visit bloggers who blog outside of your country? If so, what have you learned from reading their blogs? Consider sharing a couple of links to book bloggers who motivate you to read around the world.

 

Besides the ones already mentioned I visit regularly the following blogs: Maxine at Petrona, Peter at Detectives Beyond Borders, Glenn at International Noir Fiction, Uriah at Crime Scraps, Rob at The View from the Blue House, Donna at Big Beat from Badsville, Margot at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist…, Martin at Do You Write Under Your Own Name?, Elizabeth at Mystery Writing is Murder, Karen at Euro Crime, Mack at Mack Captures Crime….

There are also two very interesting blogs written by crime fiction writers from different parts of the world: Murder is Everywhere and International Crime Writers.

I’ve learned a lot about my favourite genre, its history, main titles, classic authors, sub-genres, new books, …..etc. And I’ve found people with a similar taste in different parts of the world who have something to say and like to share their views with all of us.

Where do your reading around the globe book suggestions come from? Magazines? Web sites which feature books in translation? Publishers? Other bloggers? If you have a particularly great site for recommendations, give us a link!

I’m most grateful to all the suggestions coming from the blogs mentioned above, particularly to Maxine, Dorte, Glenn, Karen, Uriah (aka Norman), Peter, Rob, Bernadette, Kerrie and Craig (New Zealand).

There are some interesting sites as well like: Crime Beat (South Africa), Mis detectives favoritos (In Spanish), Scandinavian Crime Fiction in English, Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Fantastic Fiction, Crime Squad, Bitter Lemon Press ….

Do you read books in translation as part of your global reading experiences? Share some of your favourite books in translation.

I prefer to mention authors rather than a particular book. Among my favourites I can mention Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Arnaldur Indriðason, Fred Vargas and Andrea Camilleri. In my TBR list you can find Asa Larsson, Deon Meyer, Petros Markaris, Håkan Nesser Karin Alvtegen and Dominique Manotti. I would also like to suggest some Spanish writers like Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Alicia Gimenez Bartlett and Eugenio Fuentes. And last but not least Leonardo Padura (Cuba).

Is there a particular country, or countries, which you would like to learn more about? Why?

I wish more (all) countries can provide as much information like, for instance, the Nordic or Scandinavian Writers as in the two sites mentioned above: Scandinavian Crime Fiction in English and Scandinavian Crime Fiction.