Writing About Books vs. Talking About Books

I have been thinking for a while about how I write blogposts for this bookblog. More and more I am starting to think that I am better at getting my thoughts on a book across when I talk to someone than when I write them down. Sometimes I really have to force myself to write a review and that lessens my excitement for it. For a really long while I have enjoyed watching videos about books on youtube. I have always loved filming, but I was always the person behind the camera, hardly ever in front of it. At the beginning of this year I finally convinced myself to start a booktube channel myself. It was very awkward talking to the camera to make my first video, but I am starting to become more and more comfortable with it. I am not sure what will happen to this blog. From time to time I might still post a written review of a book, but I do think that I am going to focus on making videos. Perhaps I will also post them here. If you would like to check out my channel it is called: B reads Books.

Here is my latest video. It is by no means perfect, but I am pretty proud of myself for doing this and I am sure I will only continue to get better.

Reading multiple books at a time

A couple of days ago my currently reading list on Goodreads looked like this:

I don't know what happens, but somehow I always start reading a new book when I'm already reading a couple of others. Every now and then I think it gets to crazy and I try to narrow it down. Once I have reached 2 books the number of books that I'm reading slowly starts to increase again.

I know I should stop reading so many books at the same time, but somehow I never do. When the list is this long I often feel a little stress to narrow it down again, because I have a couple of unread books lying around that I'm dying to start, but I want to narrow down my list first, so I have to finish at least five books before I can start the one I really want to read. That truely is my problem, the books I like to read really depend on my mood and since my mood can change rather quickly I have sometimes already lost a little bit of my intial interest in the book I'm currently reading but I have gotten really excited about a new book, so I end up adding another book to my currently reading pile.

I did just finish Kinderen van Nederland, so I have only five more books on the list, but that still seems daunting. Genom dina Ögon (The Host in Swedish) I started reading a long time ago (almost a year!) to practice my Swedish. I can definitely read the story, but I'm still a very slow reader in Swedish. Why on earth I thought it was a good idea to have the second book I read in Swedish be a 600 page book, I have no idea. I've read about a third of the book, so at this rate it wil take me a total of three years to finish the book, haha! I think the next time I read a book in Swedish I should pick something shorter and also something easier, to keep it fun. Now it has just become a struggle.
Dark Entries I also started a while ago, but since these are short stories I don't really have such a hard time picking this book up again. I have read the majority of the stories, so it looks like I'm finally reaching the end, woohooo!
Pogingen iets van het leven te maken really grabbed me in the beginning, but after a while I was starting to feel like I was just reading more of the same. It isn't a difficult read, so I should just get on with it and finish it already.
A Feast for Crows, like any other Martin book, is taking forever to read. Somehow I find Martin's book really hard to read quickly. I am getting better though! The first book in the series took me about two years to finish, the second book took about a year and the third book I finished in about half a year, so that would mean it will take me 3 months in total to read this one! I don't think that's going to happen, but I definitely hope so!
Eragon is the newest addition to the list. It is an easy read, but because I'm not reading it for the first time I don't find it as interesting as before and it is hard to keep paying attention to this book. I wanted to reread this book so I remembered better what happened, before I would start reading the sequel. I just need to find my enthousiasm for this book again...

I do feel like it should be possible to finish one or two books pretty soon, but I fear especially Genom dina Ögon will be on my currently reading pile for a long while to come!

Do you read multiple books at the same time? How do you make sure it doesn't get too crazy?

Words that are not translatable

Once you are exposed to foreign vocabulary you start to learn words in other languages which are very useful and apt in a certain situation, but do not appear to translate very well to your native language. This is very frustrating when I’m writing. I constantly want to use a certain word, but then I realise there is not really a Dutch word for it…

While they make my writing a little more difficult, those un translatable words are also very fascinating. How come we don't have a word for it? With other un translatable words the question is more like; how on earth would you ever find a situation where you could use this word?

In Dutch there are also a couple of words that don't translate very well to English. Such as the word 'gezellig'. It can be used to describe that you had a pleasant time with a friend, but it can also be used when describing a room for example. When a room looks 'gezellig', it means something like cozy. Eventhough you can sort of describe what gezellig means, it doesn't precisely cover it's meaning. 

Another one is 'plaatsvervangende schaamte' [place-replacing shame] which is the shame you feel on behalf of someone else who does something embarrasing. The other person is usually unaware that he/she is doing something embarrasing.

This website posts words that are not translatable (at least not in one or two words) into English. 

What you should be reading

'When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret. Now that I am 50 I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness.'

- C.S. Lewis

At some point in my life I started to think that there were certain books I couldn't read anymore because I was 'to old now'. I also felt that way about some genres. Adults surely did not read fantasy? I'm glad that I finally reached that point in life where I just don't care anymore what anybody thinks of what I am reading or that I don't feel anymore like there are certain books that I should be reading. So whenever I feel like it, I just reread one of my books that I read as a child. I read books in almost every genre including childrens, teenagers or classic literature. In all the different types of books I always find something else that I can love.

How about you? Are there certain books you are afraid to read (or admit that you read them) because you feel like you are to old?