International Reading

Currently Reading: Dave Eggers' Best Non-required Reading 2009 & The Brothers Karamazov.

Sorry this is long overdue, but I have been busy settling in, making friends, lounging on the beach, etc. Rough life, I know. I'll review some more books next post, as I have been reading reading reading here in Malta!

I decided to make this post about my international reading experiences so far. I started jotting down notes while stuck in the London airport for nine hours, and with all the foreign students I'm living amongst at the University Residence in Malta, I have had time to observe some more about international young adults and what they're reading.

While perusing the English bookshop in Heathrow, (WH Smith seems to be the British airport bookstore equivalent of Hudson Booksellers), I noticed that a lot of the bestsellers are the same, (The Lost Symbol was definitely an airplane favorite), although most had different covers:

and several were in paperback that aren't yet in the states (See Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire, left. I'm definitely investing in a copy of this when I find it in Malta!)

Some books, on the other hand, I had never heard of, like this number one bestselling work of non-fiction. Apparently it is the story of Britain's most successful TV duo.

I then compiled a list of specific books and authors I saw people reading while waiting for their flights. Of those, I only recognized a couple, as the majority of airport/airplane reads seem to be thick mysteries that I have no knowledge of. However, of the ones I DID recognize, here is my list:
(I tried to be sneaky while creeping on these readers, and pretended to read Dave Eggers' Best Non-Required Reading of 2009, although the parts I actually have read have been awesome. Montana's Testy Festy made the Top Best Festival Names section!)

Books:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Larsson)
The Time Traveler's Wife (Niffenegger)
1984 (Orwell)
The Devil's Company (Liss)

Authors:
Ken Follett
John Grisham
Michael Crichton
Tess Gerritsen
Jodi Picoult

Fleeting thought of the moment: Wouldn't it be neat to have drop boxes in airports for books people have finished? I talked to a flight attendant in Fact and Fiction a couple weeks before I left, and she told me they get most of their books after people have left them on the airplane. What if you could drop those books off when you left the plane and trade them for new ones?
P.S. The flight attendant also said that the most left behind book is Water For Elephants. It sort of makes sense if you've read it, because it's pretty good, but not one you'd necessarily want to hold on to.

So, to conclude, I will provide a little game. These are some books I've seen people reading around the residence lately. I copied the titles exactly, even though I would have no idea how to pronounce them. It's been great seeing so many readers, and once again I have been extremely envious with the knowledge that most of these readers could be reading their books in at least two other languages.

Can you guess what they are?

• Ber ättelsen om Pi
• Liefde in Tijden Van Cholera
• Duizend schitterende zonnen (OK, this one is impossible, so I will tell you. A Thousand Splendid Suns, in Dutch)
• Schlachthof-funf

Next up: A review of Lev Grossman's The Magicians, and more fun!