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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
I bought this after hearing a talk about it by the author and finding the idea fascinating. I found it an interesting insight into the extent that where we live shapes what we read. I enjoyed the geo-political themes that the book discusses, although I would have liked a review of each of the books read (I believe this can be found on the author's website though).
I tried so hard with this book over a period of three months. I really wanted to love this book. I love the concept of this book and Ann's journey. I've read parts of her blog and watched her TED Talk.
But this book just did not work. It was so, so very boring. It would have really benefit from an editor chopping much of it out, and just leaving the substance. The book is academic and rambling. The author tends to make a point about something - a really great point - in the first few pages of a chapter and then goes on and on and on for 20 more pages. Many of the examples seem disjointed and only loosely related to the them of the chapter.
It's disappointing, but this book really misses the park. I made it about 175 page before I started skimming, and even then I had to stop before I finished. I'll stick to Ann's book list and blog.
But this book just did not work. It was so, so very boring. It would have really benefit from an editor chopping much of it out, and just leaving the substance. The book is academic and rambling. The author tends to make a point about something - a really great point - in the first few pages of a chapter and then goes on and on and on for 20 more pages. Many of the examples seem disjointed and only loosely related to the them of the chapter.
It's disappointing, but this book really misses the park. I made it about 175 page before I started skimming, and even then I had to stop before I finished. I'll stick to Ann's book list and blog.
the author manages to cover an extensive list of topics in only 300 pages (national identity, commercial and self-publishing, oral storytelling, culture shock, translation, racism, and internet algorithms) and in some ways that's to the book's benefit.
however, it really takes away from the memoir aspect of the book, and some of the chapters are much stronger than others, which leaves me with the impression that the author stretched herself too far with the ground she covered. i still found it an enjoyable read through, and really enjoyed some of the chapters!
however, it really takes away from the memoir aspect of the book, and some of the chapters are much stronger than others, which leaves me with the impression that the author stretched herself too far with the ground she covered. i still found it an enjoyable read through, and really enjoyed some of the chapters!
This is not a book about the books the author read in the year -it's about the trials and tribulations of finding books in translation. We do not want to read books which are only Western in style. It is about expanding one's cultural reading - something I aim to do over the next year.
A slow and thoughtful read. Ann Morgan decided to read a book from every country of the world and blogged about it over the course of a year. This book describes some of the challenges, frustrations as well as the benefits she found in doing this. They ranged from defining which countries to include, issues of censorship, political ideologies encountered, the lack of a publishing industry in many countries, translation problems and how we are all essentially reading through our own cultural lenses, no matter how hard we try.
This was quite dry at times, hence only the 3* rating but I think its a book I have learned a lot from, especially about the way I read, and I will come back to it in the future.
This was quite dry at times, hence only the 3* rating but I think its a book I have learned a lot from, especially about the way I read, and I will come back to it in the future.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
What this book is not: a review or summary of books read.
What this book is: an interesting conversation about how one reads the globe.
Ann Morgan talks through topics such as why she chose to read a book from every country (plus a few) in a year, cultural identity, publishing and translation perspectives, dealing with culture shock, censorship, empathy, politics, how a country is determined, and more. I've found myself much more contemplative about what and how I read.
I'd recommend this to anyone interested in reading more globally.
What this book is: an interesting conversation about how one reads the globe.
Ann Morgan talks through topics such as why she chose to read a book from every country (plus a few) in a year, cultural identity, publishing and translation perspectives, dealing with culture shock, censorship, empathy, politics, how a country is determined, and more. I've found myself much more contemplative about what and how I read.
I'd recommend this to anyone interested in reading more globally.
I love undertaking reading projects, such as Ann Morgan does as the basis for Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer. I have never, however, read only translated literature throughout the course of a year, as Morgan does. She decided, when the Olympics came to London in 2012, that she would read one work published in every country in the world during the course of the year, and blog about them. This sounds like an easier project than she found it, on the face of it; firstly, the difficulty of deciding how many countries are in the world came about (the numbers differ wildly dependent on who is being asked), and is discussed in depth in the first chapter, before she discusses the trouble which she sometimes had in getting her hands on a single book from some of the countries.
I had read several mixed reviews about Reading the World before I began to read, and the doubt which some readers have had in Morgan's approach to her book are, I feel, justified. I thought that Reading the World would be like Nina Sankovitch's wonderful account of a yearly reading journey, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, with a lot of focus upon the books chosen, the reasons for them, and a series of personal thoughts which follow the reading. Instead, Morgan presents what feels like a series of loosely connected essays, talking at length about the ways in which we define world literature, and addressing things like cultural identity and heritage, and the kinds of books which tend to be translated into English.
The majority of the books which Morgan read during 2012 are not even mentioned in the body of the text; rather, they have been fashioned into a list at the back of the book, which is ordered alphabetically by country. These entries do not always include the translator, and feel a little inconsistent as a result.
Reading the World is undoubtedly an intelligent book, but it is not one which I would recommend to the general reader. For the most part, Morgan's prose is fine, but in several places it came across as clunky, repetitive, and even a little patronising. There is an academic, or perhaps just a highbrow, feel to it, which does not make it an easy tome to dip in and out of at will, like many other books about books tend to be; it errs toward the heavy-going in places.
It isn't that Reading the World is an uninteresting book; it is simply not at all what I was expecting. I would go as far to say that it is more involved with the translation and publishing processes, than with reading the end results. I did read Reading the World through to its conclusion, but did not find it a very engaging book. All in all, the ideas which went toward the book were far better than its execution, which seems a great shame. I have, perhaps fittingly, left my copy in one of those sweet little free libraries in France.
I had read several mixed reviews about Reading the World before I began to read, and the doubt which some readers have had in Morgan's approach to her book are, I feel, justified. I thought that Reading the World would be like Nina Sankovitch's wonderful account of a yearly reading journey, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, with a lot of focus upon the books chosen, the reasons for them, and a series of personal thoughts which follow the reading. Instead, Morgan presents what feels like a series of loosely connected essays, talking at length about the ways in which we define world literature, and addressing things like cultural identity and heritage, and the kinds of books which tend to be translated into English.
The majority of the books which Morgan read during 2012 are not even mentioned in the body of the text; rather, they have been fashioned into a list at the back of the book, which is ordered alphabetically by country. These entries do not always include the translator, and feel a little inconsistent as a result.
Reading the World is undoubtedly an intelligent book, but it is not one which I would recommend to the general reader. For the most part, Morgan's prose is fine, but in several places it came across as clunky, repetitive, and even a little patronising. There is an academic, or perhaps just a highbrow, feel to it, which does not make it an easy tome to dip in and out of at will, like many other books about books tend to be; it errs toward the heavy-going in places.
It isn't that Reading the World is an uninteresting book; it is simply not at all what I was expecting. I would go as far to say that it is more involved with the translation and publishing processes, than with reading the end results. I did read Reading the World through to its conclusion, but did not find it a very engaging book. All in all, the ideas which went toward the book were far better than its execution, which seems a great shame. I have, perhaps fittingly, left my copy in one of those sweet little free libraries in France.
I’m glad I found this book at the library. I was all gung ho to buy it at B&N. Glad I didn’t, as it honestly isn’t my kind of book. Ann Morgan explores all the philosophical reasons behind why she decided to read a book from each country of the world...how many countries are there?...what is a country, really?...how do you choose something representative from each place? I wasn’t terribly interested in all that discourse; I kept waiting to hear about the books she chose and read. And the books she chose and read was pretty much confined to a list of twenty pages in the back. Quite disappointing, really.