Book Recommendations & TBR 📚| Women in Translation

[@TheREADhead]

I'm overwhelmed by how many new amazing sounding books you've introduced me to in just one video!! My women in translation TBR is Memory Police (Yoko Ogawa), The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery), the Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (Shokoofeh Azar), Flight (Olga Tokarczuk), and Half a Life Long Romance (Eileen Chang).

[@apocalypsereading7117]

also planning to read Flights! really excited as it's my first Olga Tokarczuk and the cover is so mysteriously blue =P

[@jenvcampbell]

Two other books on my TBR I forgot to mention: The Sea Cloak and Other Stories by Nayrouz Qarmout translated from the Arabic by Perween Richards, and Flowers of Mold by Ha Seong-Nan translated from Korean by Janet Hong.

[@brush2canvas849]

What's that weird noise? Oh, it's my credit card weeping. But so many tempting recommendations.📚📚📚 Hope that we don't have to get concerned about Mr M. Like: woman snaps, murders husband, gets help from co-workers. Jen: "That sounds fun".😉 Flippancy aside. I will read Olga Tokarczuk Flights translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft. Hopefully its themes of travel will complement Wild Women and their amazing Adventures over Land, Sea & Air - the other book I'm currently dipping into. As always: Stay safe💚

[@Steffi74ify]

Lullaby is published as The Perfect Nanny in the US and Canada :)

[@chasityd6168]

This is a good list, thank you! I kind of missed out on women in translation month (because I didn't know about it) and already have two books I'm trying to finish this month. I really appreciate you including some interesting short reads because I'm going back to school full time soon and my reading time will be more limited. Also, if you don't mind me saying so, your outfit is amazing.

[@NorthCanadianGirl]

You are becoming my new idol! I definitely will use your references for my MA thesis! You are amazing! Thank you so much for all your kind help. You are a pleasure to watch :)

[@anothergreatetcetera]

Oooh so many good recommendations, Jen, thank you so much! I just splurged and bought the entire Japanese set from strangers press. Those pamphlets are so gorgeously designed!

[@encarnireadingtheworldforever]

Great books. They already are on my TBR. Next year I'd like to be more conscious about it and read some during August. A big hug.

[@apocalypsereading7117]

what a massive list. really excited to get started on my first Han Kang today!

[@TheSafxoxo]

Every time i watch one of your videos I immediately buy a minimum of three books. Such great recommendations, always 🙏🏽👌🏽

[@jenvcampbell]

♥️

[@danasadek2555]

I highly recommend Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth, which won the Man Booker International prize in 2019.

[@jenvcampbell]

I've heard great things about that! x

[@jenvcampbell]

I also do have an Arabic book on my TBR, which I missed when filming: The Sea Cloak and Other Stories by Nayrouz Qarmout. x

[@danasadek2555]

Thank you! I'll check it out ❤

[@arwamais]

Yes I was hoping to see it in this video! It won the International Booker Prize!

[@maryjohnson6296]

My August TBR doesn't have any translated works but I'm currently reading Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson, I also plan to read A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Unbought and Unbossed by Shirley Chisholm (autobiography of the first woman to run for president), and A Black Woman's History of the United States. Thanks for listing the titles in the description box I noted several to add to my TBR.

[@misskfb]

Some great books there. My Tbr is growing more and more with each video xx

[@thefrancophilereader8943]

I absolutely love "Repair the Living" but I read it in French. I really need to check out the English translations of this book and "The Nanny" to have an informed opinion about the translations. I'm glad you're making this video because people ask me all the time what the best English-language translators are for French classics or books that have recently come out and I can never recommend them any. French doesn't always translate well into English, so good translators must be exceptionally talented.

[@jenvcampbell]

Sam Taylor is (I have been told) a wonderful translator, and he translated both of those books x

[@knitsmeganb]

I have a few of those Strangers Press pamphlets and am excited to get to them! I am planning on reading Friendship for Grown-Ups this month, I read another of Yamazaki's short stories in The Book of Tokyo which is an anthology I would recommend (though not all of the stories are by women). I am also hoping to reread one of my favorite short stories, Takekurabe by Higuchi Ichiyo. I studied to be a translator for a bit so I love seeing people reading translated books.

[@paulwinchell6904]

I'm going to have watch this again with my books i need to read notebook . Have to do this a lot with your videos. You give such good reccomends.

[@lightdarkness]

Very big part of the books I read is translated because English isn't my first language (I do read in English too), so this isn't really a campaign for me BUT! I have a recommendation: Johanna Sinisalo's The Core of the Sun. It's speculative fiction, dystopian type. In the book Finland is "an eusistocracy", taken welfare to the extreme but as usual, in truth it's not an utopia. It deals with several things: women's place in society (there are two "categories" of women, submissive for procreation and independent (but sterile) for work), illegal substances (alcohol, tobacco etc. aren't used but instead there's chilli that has taken their place), free will, eugenics... There are two main characters, Vanna who's looking for a sister and needs money for it, and Jare who she starts an illegal chilli dealing business with. It's quite bizarre book but I liked it a lot. There's a loose genre we call "Finnish weird" (suomikumma in Finnish) and this is part of that.

[@jenvcampbell]

Thanks for the recommendation! x

[@RahulSingh-books]

I am sure you will love 'The Memory Police'. It is dystopian but an unconventional one. Read it on cold, foggy day. I am reading 'Chernobyl Prayer', every page is heartbreaking and makes me end up crying.

[@christinacampbellbooks]

The Memory Police sounds intriguing! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

[@joannoriol6444]

You have a great artistic sense in the way you always choose the exactly right scarf with the exactly right hat. Great eye!!!!!!🌻 this is besides all your other gifts.

[@jenvcampbell]

Haha, thank you x

[@Gagging4Lit]

Your turban is very beautiful and chic. Got a Byron biography recently, and may buy myself a Byronic turban to sport for poetry videos hehe. I picked up The Discomfort of Evening for WIT and cannot wait to dive in to it. I want to pick up Oils - Stephen Sexton's pamphlet at some point.

[@ElizabethHopkinson]

For Women in Translation Month, I am reading Lampie by Annet Schaap, translated by Laura Watkinson. It's a children's book about a girl from a lighthouse and a mer-boy.

[@TranslatorsAloud]

Brilliant list, Jen!

[@indubitablyzara]

Last week I made a little stack on my coffee table of the five translated books by women I own and haven’t read yet, and I’m hoping to get through at least three of them this month. The books are Me & Other Writing by Marguerite Duras, Shift Sleepers by Dorothee Elmiger, Optic Nerve by Maria Gainza, and The Infinite Plan and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I doubt I’m going to be in the headspace for a multigenerational story this month, so The House of the Spirits will probably have to wait for another time, but I’m excited to jump right in to the others.

[@jenvcampbell]

Happy reading! x

[@jemgem9593]

Great video as ever, thank you Jen x 🌞

[@ruthlounsbury4024]

I read OUT many years ago. I remember that it was very good.

[@jenvcampbell]

:D x

[@orthiasbooks7115]

i get a lot of new translations from fitzcarraldo, new directions, two lines, and charco - so excited to order from tilted axis and strangers !! thanks for the ever-wonderful recommendations : )

[@lauramacneil1495]

Loads of these books sound amazing! A lot of them translated from Japanese. I have Brother in Ice so should read that. I'm fascinated by Antarctica in fiction and saw Alicia Kopf at the Edinburgh Book festival last year. Her talk about the book was really interesting. I just need to make time to read it!

[@franciscajavierafernandeza8709]

lovely video Jen! hopefully, you can dip in the future to some translated Latin American authors as well. I'm currently reading Savage Theories by Pola Oloixarac from Argentina and it's strangely entertaining.

[@priscillacosta1307]

Hello, Jen! I'm from Brazil and I would like to recommend a collection of thirty-three short stories called Amora, by Brazilian author Natalia Borges Polesso and translated from Portuguese into English by Julia Sanches. This books explores love between women through very different perspectives and has won several literary prizes here in Brazil. Also, as always, thank you for all the amazing recommendations!

[@jenvcampbell]

Fabulous, thank you for the recommendation x

[@mradcaqbdb]

Whew! That was a lot of books in a short time. I will have to rewatch. I have People From My Neighbourhood already on the way across the pond (from your previous mention) with The Revolt by Clara Dupont-Monod (recommended by Eric, I think). I’ve had my eyes on Poems on the Edge of Extinction for a long time. I need to get it! I am adding Revenge to my list because I loved The Memory Police so much. I’m hoping to get to The Housekeeper and the Professor this month as well. I may need more of Yoko Ogawa’s books! Almost forgot. I loved Tokyo Euno Station by Yu Miri. You may want to check it out. Highly recommended!

[@jenvcampbell]

I‘ve had my eye on that; once I’ve read some of the Tiled Axis books on my TBR, I might pick that up :) x

[@LouiseReader]

Gosh I love your book recommendations videos- they're all extraordinary. This one was especially good. SO much here. I've just discovered Dorthe Nors this month. I'm reading the short stories by women in an anthology called Found in Translation. 20/100 stories are by women. Just by chance the first one was by Dorthe Nors, and then I listened to her most recent novel on Audible - Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, and it was fantastic. I just ordered all of her books yesterday! astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2020/08/mirror-shoulder-signal.html I'm reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 at the moment, and would love to get to Mend the Living this month. I'd love to read so many of your recommendations his month. That series of little pamphlets look especially intriguing. I didn't love Lullaby, even though I expected to, and I really didn't get along with The Vegetarian although I'd expected to love it.

[@jenvcampbell]

I have Mirror, Shoulder, Signal on my shelf, too ☺️ she’s a fun writer! Happy reading x

[@r_petes]

I want to read every single one of these!!!!

[@yasservayani7269]

Damn, thanks! I just added most of these books to my ever growing list of books to one day buy and read!

[@jenvcampbell]

You’re welcome ☺️

[@AthynVixen]

Got the Discomfort Of Evening on Borrow Box. I wouldn't normally have picked it up but really enjoyed it so was surprised to see it nominated as usually a prize nomination is a huge probability I won't.

[@ataliax95]

You should try Sofía Segovia or Fernanda Melchor, they're Mexican authors and their work is great!!

[@gregorygiannakis4140]

What a lovely selection!!! I just made a Women in Translation table at my bookshop and also included a book by Svetlana Alexievich (The Unwomanly Face of War). Oh and also, just a quick thing but I think Marieke Lucas Rijneveld identifies as non binary!

[@jenvcampbell]

Ah, I did not know that, thank you! x

[@traceyhart8914]

I was thinking about reading Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili. But feeling a little nervous because it’s so long.

[@jenvcampbell]

it's about 1000 pages, isn't it? Sometimes it's lovely to get lost inside a big book, though :) enjoy x

[@yasservayani7269]

I was scared too but once I started it I could not put it down. Its the starting it thats scary. Go for it!

[@rachelgarner4137]

Svetlana Alexievich's work is haunting.

[@jacquelinemcmenamin8204]

Best ( and only ) book so far this month House On Endless Waters by Emuna Elon. Translated from Hebrew. Britta recommended it. My next book is Cantoras.

[@bethanyseabolt9387]

So many of these sound wonderful and are new to me. I just pre-ordered Where the Wild Women Are. I guess it’s not out yet in the US. As usual, the UK cover is much better, but that’s OK!

[@jenvcampbell]

Just Googled - I prefer the UK one, too. Though that's not always the case. You win some, you lose some :) x

[@nveletkoslin33771]

does anyone happen to know of any (fiction, genre or general idc) books with a nurse/s MC that doesn't revolve around the fact? like the character just happens to be an RN/i'll take any medical professional outside of a doctor. thank you!

[@jenvcampbell]

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, Atonement by Ian McEwan, and Darling by Rachel Edwards x

[@nveletkoslin33771]

Jen Campbell oh thank you!! my library has them both☺️☺️☺️

[@amisha25211]

I have a little off topic question....your top is amazing...where did u get it from?😅🤩

[@jenvcampbell]

It’s a jumpsuit. I got it from ASOS a few years ago x

[@amisha25211]

@@jenvcampbell thanks ☺xxAmy