fluentfriends Newsletter Oct 14 Bookclubs

 Quo vadis baby? #1 Best sellers -Crime fiction booms in our bookclubs>>

A good crime writer will grasp you by the throat - whatever the language - and as foreign literature sales boom, translated novels top the charts. Take The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo crime novel by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson, part of The Millennium Trilogy which has sold more than 75 million copies worldwide. If you're interested to find out how it's done, Dr Karen Seago is running a taster workshop 'Translating crime fiction' .....

in the Piazza for the Languages Within Literature Forum at the heart of Saturday's Language Show Live. The forum, which explores how to connect cultures through the use of literature, will also feature book-readings and signings, with national and international special guests. Social media have fuelled the growing demand for international books and record sales of the kind of titles mainstream publishers traditionally shy away from. Jo Nesbø for example, the Norwegian crime writer, has sold more than 23 million copies internationally. Contemporary Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, topped one million copies within days of publication of Norwegian Wood.

Seven years on since its inception, our Italian Book club can vouch for the enjoyment a good foreign read can bring. On theme, we are currently reading a crime novel by Grazia Verasani 'Quo Vadis Baby?', probably our fifteenth novel. From classics like Giorgio Bassani's Garden of the Finzi –Contini, to We Used to wear Sailor Suits – autobiography by Susanna Agnelli of the Fiat Dynasty to Involuntary Witness by Gianrico Carofiglio we have chomped upon and chewed over the best Italian sellers. For sure, each read brings discovery and lively debate. And a sense, in good and in bad, of a shared journey into the inner workings of another mind, other times, a different slice of life.

Last year we built on the success of the Italian Club dei Lettori by hosting a Thursday night Spanish Book Club. The group read Cronica de una muerte anunciada [Chronicle of a Death Foretold] by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Federico Garcia Lorca's La casa de Bernarda Alba [The House of Bernarda Alba]. This Autumn the group has come back for more and from 30th October will be reading The Maiden's Consent [El sí de las niñas] by Leandro Fernández de Moratín.

A good read is not only for those with who are no longer linguistic fledglings. Increasingly we marvel at the benefits of introducing an 'easy reader' (an adapted text with modified range of vocabulary) at intermediate level study. Readers are often so engaged by their response to a book that it brings a genuine desire for expression to the fore. Not to mention the unequivocal rush of achievement felt in discovering that you really did understand the bit you read on the train without notes. You're undeniably flying solo!

Fancy a good read, then you may like to know:

• The Spanish Book Club starts Thursday 30^th October 8.15pm. Follow the link if you would like to find out more or book onto the Spanish Book Club>
• Italian intermediate Plus group is reading The Last Caravaggio Easy Reader. Follow the link if you would like to find out more or join the Intermediate Italian >
• The Italian Intermediate/Advanced group is ongoing. Follow the link for more info or to book onto the Intermediate Advanced Group
• Read on for more info on the Language Within Literature Forum and its weekend programme>
• Waterstones autumn book club has chosen The Rabbit Back Literature Society, an entertaining Finnish novel by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Pushkin Press)

Read on to find out about The Language Show Live>>

Read on to find out about  Our Beginners Italian with specialist Marta Cappellini >>