November 25, 2014, Tuesday evening -- Reading LaVyrle Spencer

At the food court of Westfield Center shopping mall
She is reading The Gamble, by LaVyrle Spencer.  She saw it at the Beat Museum, on Broadway Street, second hand, and bought it because she's read it before (and liked it) and needed some fluff to contrast with the political science books she's been reading.  She's a tour guide, from Norway, and will be leading a tour in Russia next, so she's been reading about Putin and Ukraine, and she needed a break.

From the top of her head, some of her favorite books are Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell; crime novels by Jo Nesbø (a Norwegian author) and Michael Connelly; and the Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling.  When I told her I was reading The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, she said to add that to the list of favorites and that that book, and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones were two books that she consumed in one sitting. 

She reads in English when the books are set in English-speaking places.  For example, she said that she threw out her Norwegian translation of Gone with the Wind because of how the translator handled dialect.  People who were harvesting cotton using the same dialect as potato farmers in Norway and she knew the story wasn't taking place in Norway, so it was too disorienting.  The English version, she said, is better.
Sorry for the blurry picture, though it sort of makes the food court look softer and cozier.  Note to self: use a flash when in doubt.  Note to blog readers:  look at how nicely a fork keeps a book open.

0 Comments: