Even though I was excited for the non-English books, I have been craving the kind of reading experience I often had before I came here, which involved my picking up a good book and devouring it quickly. It's quite enjoyable, and I recommend it to those of you who have not yet experienced this. Of course, I am sure there are several of you who have and know exactly what I'm talking about. And although I can read well in French and pretty well in German, I usually can't pick up all the details at the speed I can in English. I had knowledge of a library in Bern that carries English-language books, because when I went to Bern a couple of weeks ago to visit a quasi-Australian friend who was about to return home from her exchange year in Switzerland, she showed me this library. It's called Kornhaus. Naturally I went and signed up for a card.
The card has a pretty cool design on it. But what was better were the books I found. I never got around to finishing the epic tale of the Baudelaire orphans, and since the entire series was on the shelf, I thought I would start back at the Bad Beginning and read all of them. Also, I read Fellowship this year in French but I had never finished the series in English (stop smirking, Jamie, Joseph, and others). And there were the Bond books. Incidentally, I quite enjoyed the film of Casino Royale, and while I often prefer to read the book before seeing the film, it didn't happen this time. But I guess it's better to read the book after seeing the film than never to read it at all.
And this is the result of my shopping quest. I told myself it would be lame to buy books in English here since they will be easy to find when I get back. So I went for the original language version of The Reader, the film of which I have not yet seen. Plus those two red books which are part of a publishing thing called Reclam, which publishes books in the original language with footnotes in German for more difficult vocabulary words, and bilingual books in German and the original language. These two are a set of scripts from Monty Python's Flying Circus (I'm the kind of person that will probably end up memorizing some of these with my friends for fun in college), and the screenplay of La vita รจ bella, or Life is Beautiful, for which there is only a film and no book. This film inspired my interest in Italian, which I hope to further with the Italian grammar book. I may actually need Italian this summer because I am applying to participate in a Rotary-sponsored chamber music camp in the city of Cremona, home of Stradivarius, the Amati family, and other famous luthiers.
This particular book was something I found today while rummaging around the sale bins at FNAC and waiting for my next bus to arrive. It was only five francs, which is a real bargain here. I think the original price was 35. It's in French and German and is about the barrier between the francophone and germanophone regions of the country. I find this particularly interesting since I am learning both languages, and I live in the area that this book is talking about. I'll share any interesting details with you once I get around to reading it.
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