This morning on NPR, they were interviewing Cornelia Funke, author of "The Thief Lord," "Inkheart," "Dragon Rider," and a bunch of other books that sound interesting. It turns out she's German! Ah-ha! I thought... here's some books that would be pretty good to read in German (since I want practice), because they sound interesting, *and* I'll be reading the original, rather than a book translated into German. So I checked Amazon.de... I wanted to see how much it would cost to order some of her books. Ouch! It looks like they only have hardcover over there, and cost between 15-20 Euros... even before shipping! It doesn't surprise me too much... when I was over in Germany before, I remember being shocked at how much books cost over there. How do kids afford it? Is it because of smaller production runs? Do the authors earn more? Or are the publishers making a killing?
Hmmm... Paulina is over there right now. I could ask her to keep an eye out for a decent priced paperback... but it's probably hopeless... so I won't distract her from the fun stuff. ;) (I hope you're having lot of fun Paulina!)
4 comments:
I read "Thief Lord". I thought it was good. I didn't know she was German.
I hadn't really thought about it, but with her name, it does make sense. She has a whole bunch of books in German, and only a few have been translated so far. Apparently her publisher didn't think her books would sell in English. (There's a lot more books in the English market, and her publisher hadn't had success in the past.) She had to pay a cousin to translate it, and then sent it to an English publisher.
I read Inkheart (in English, of course). Wonderful story. Have been meaning to read the other two. Also, it appears that the sequel to Inkheart will be out this fall. :-)
Will try to take a look tomorrow. I have managed to find a couple of bookstores. I'm not paying €9.90 for a mass market paperback in English, though. Fortunately, I brought more than enough books with me to keep me entertained.
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