For me, recently it was Tender is the Flesh. That book turned me vegetarian. It also made me almost vomit at one point.

I am home sick today, so figured I'd think of a fun question to keep me entertained!

If you could have any fictional job, what would it be?

For me, I think I would be some sort of herbologist. Either a teacher or someone who runs a store! You can take me out of the real world but you cannot take me away from plants haha!

What are your favourite playlists to put on when you start reading?

Are their specific artists/songs you pair with certain books/series?

A while ago I saw someone post about how the cartoon book covers, more common in romances/romance adjacent genres, were not of their taste not necessarily because they found them ugly, even though some of them are, but because the oversaturation of them took away from some books Identity. In this person's post (that I unfortunately don't remember the username, sorry) I commented saying that my guess was that it was a tactic to sell more regardless of the book's content. This reminded me of a weird sentiment of mine that I can no longer trust the publishing industry, I know that this is a common feeling among readers, but I want to bring the perspective of someone who is not from an English-speaking country, but from one that imports and translates a lot of its books from English.

For context, I am Brazilian born and raised and here in Brazil our book industry suffers from the huge devaluation of Brazilian original stories to the point that foreigner books take up most of the mainstream, and it is way easier to find Brazilian authors being self-published or published by indie publishing houses than to see them being picked up by one of those big, established and powerful houses that dominate the market and dictate what gets seen and bought, so most of our readers only consume/consume at most non-Brazilian books. (which makes me big mad, but it is not what this post is about)

Another thing worth to mention is that only 5% of our population has knowledge of the English language, and an even smaller percentage (1%) can be considered fluent. Meaning, the majority of Brazilian readers depend on translations and adaptations made by the big publishing houses. If you read until this point, you must be asking yourself what the fuck does it have to do with my distrust in the publishing industry. Well, I have been seeing really weird decisions being made regarding the translation, adaptation and marketing of some of the books being brought to Brazil, such decisions as Titles adaptations that don't make sense or mischaracterize the book, book covers that don't match the book's tone or even translations of the text that fails to transmit the intension of a scene.

As an example, I am currently reading Nettle and Bone by T. kingfisher, and imagine my surprise when I found out It had already been published here in Brazil under the name "How to kill a prince". I can admit that the relation between the book and the name they chose to give it here it's obvious, but the names as "How to do X thing" "How to get X" or things similar, at least here, usually are put in stories that have a comedy aspect way stronger and as much as I have said the Nettle and bone does have a charming sense of humor, and I still believe in it, the sense of humor in Nettle and bone is not silly (I don't mean silly as an offense) like books with similar titles tend to be, and it has more to do with the characters personalities than to a skit characteristic of the story.

Another book that had been under my radar, had been published, but I did not notice until further investigation was Jasmin throne. That had been published with a beautiful cover, I have to say, that in my opinion does not match the tone of it (Search "O trono de Jasmin" if curious)

One of my favorite books of all time, Gideon, The ninth, Is published with a shameful translation and adaptation that includes ridicule typos that harm seriously the reading experience. I could give more examples, but I think it's enough to understand what meant to say.

To summarize, My point is: The industry is showing a huge lack of responsibility to the job of bringing a good translation of these authors work, a decent characterization of these stories and to the job of making sure these books find their intended audience, all in order to gain more money. And this lack of commitment results not only in a poor final product but also in a mass of readers that will never get to know the true quality of an authors job, might spend their money on a book they in other circumstances would never think of reading and most definitely won't enjoy or may never find the book they would be looking for.

Is it like this in any other Latin country? How is the national publish industry of your country? If you are not from an English-speaking country, are the books written in your mother language properly valued? I want to know if it is just a Brazilian problem, or it's more common than I think.

I recently picked up a book with a fantastic premise and was dismayed to find it was full of orthography and grammar mistakes 😭 Each mistake ripped me out of the story and I only finished it because the story was gripping. In the end, it did affect my rating because the enjoyment just wasn't there...

Mistakes happen, and with self-published books it doesn't bother me but in this case the book was published by one of the biggest publishing houses in the country. In my opinion, it's disrespectful to the author who was expecting editing, as well as the reader who is encouraged to buy a copy only to find it full of mistakes.

Having seen the book industry from the inside while also being a reader, I noticed the shift from 'we publish books' to 'we publish content' 🤔

Maybe I'm old for expecting correct grammar in my reads 👵 but I still think we should maybe slow down and perhaps not publish 20 books in a year that were rushed through editing, and instead focus on properly editing 10?

I'm curious, what do you do when you find yourself reading a book full of grammar mistakes? 👀 Continue or stop reading?

A while ago I saw someone post about how the cartoon book covers, more common in romances/romance adjacent genres, were not of their taste not necessarily because they found them ugly, even though some of them are, but because the oversaturation of them took away from some books Identity. In this person's post (that I unfortunately don't remember the username, sorry) I commented saying that my guess was that it was a tactic to sell more regardless of the book's content. This reminded me of a weird sentiment of mine that I can no longer trust the publishing industry, I know that this is a common feeling among readers, but I want to bring the perspective of someone who is not from an English-speaking country, but from one that imports and translates a lot of its books from English.

For context, I am Brazilian born and raised and here in Brazil our book industry suffers from the huge devaluation of Brazilian original stories to the point that foreigner books take up most of the mainstream, and it is way easier to find Brazilian authors being self-published or published by indie publishing houses than to see them being picked up by one of those big, established and powerful houses that dominate the market and dictate what gets seen and bought, so most of our readers only consume/consume at most non-Brazilian books. (which makes me big mad, but it is not what this post is about)

Another thing worth to mention is that only 5% of our population has knowledge of the English language, and an even smaller percentage (1%) can be considered fluent. Meaning, the majority of Brazilian readers depend on translations and adaptations made by the big publishing houses. If you read until this point, you must be asking yourself what the fuck does it have to do with my distrust in the publishing industry. Well, I have been seeing really weird decisions being made regarding the translation, adaptation and marketing of some of the books being brought to Brazil, such decisions as Titles adaptations that don't make sense or mischaracterize the book, book covers that don't match the book's tone or even translations of the text that fails to transmit the intension of a scene.

As an example, I am currently reading Nettle and Bone by T. kingfisher, and imagine my surprise when I found out It had already been published here in Brazil under the name "How to kill a prince". I can admit that the relation between the book and the name they chose to give it here it's obvious, but the names as "How to do X thing" "How to get X" or things similar, at least here, usually are put in stories that have a comedy aspect way stronger and as much as I have said the Nettle and bone does have a charming sense of humor, and I still believe in it, the sense of humor in Nettle and bone is not silly (I don't mean silly as an offense) like books with similar titles tend to be, and it has more to do with the characters personalities than to a skit characteristic of the story.

Another book that had been under my radar, had been published, but I did not notice until further investigation was Jasmin throne. That had been published with a beautiful cover, I have to say, that in my opinion does not match the tone of it (Search "O trono de Jasmin" if curious)

One of my favorite books of all time, Gideon, The ninth, Is published with a shameful translation and adaptation that includes ridicule typos that harm seriously the reading experience. I could give more examples, but I think it's enough to understand what meant to say.

To summarize, My point is: The industry is showing a huge lack of responsibility to the job of bringing a good translation of these authors work, a decent characterization of these stories and to the job of making sure these books find their intended audience, all in order to gain more money. And this lack of commitment results not only in a poor final product but also in a mass of readers that will never get to know the true quality of an authors job, might spend their money on a book they in other circumstances would never think of reading and most definitely won't enjoy or may never find the book they would be looking for.

Is it like this in any other Latin country? How is the national publish industry of your country? If you are not from an English-speaking country, are the books written in your mother language properly valued? I want to know if it is just a Brazilian problem, or it's more common than I think.

Are you the type of reader to DNF books easily and therefore end up with less lower star ratings, or the type of reader to always finish a book no matter what but end up with more lower star ratings?

Personally, I'm the latter, but I'm working towards DNF-ing books I'm not enjoying, bc it usually ends with a reading slump, and NOT the easy type.