I just read a post here where someone was talking about the frustration of not being able to recommend books that haven’t been translated into English, and it made me want to write this.

I’m Mexican, and I enjoy reading books in Spanish that sometimes never get translated. Even when I can find them on this site, there’s almost no activity around them. I try to follow people who read in Spanish so we can share more literature that hasn’t been translated, and when I post about those books, I do it in Spanish so we can recognize each other.

So I’m making this post to propose creating a small community. We can follow each other, discover more books in this language, and keep those conversations alive. If you’re interested in building a community of Spanish-language readers, feel free to share your recommendations here and start following others 💜

There are so many books I want to promote and recommend to fellow Boundlings, but they simply weren't translated into English!! This frustrates me so much! If you read in multiple languages, has this happened to you? Drop those recs in the comments!

For me, it was when I was reading Chain-Gang All Stars yesterday that I realised that the premise and criticism within is similar to Les Furtifs by Alain Damasio (dystopian novel where cities are owned by brands and the daily life of citizens is completely taken over by capitalism). I love Damasio's work but I understand why it could be difficult to translate, and I also wonder if there really is a market for his type of writing outside of French speaking countries.

Well, that was my rant... Sorry about that!!

Before you come at me, I know this isn’t exactly the best place to ask this but I really don’t know where else to. I know that a lot of readers are also writers/authors. I’ve been wanting to actually get back into writing for a while now but I don’t want to use Google Docs. I’ve seen too many posts saying that they use the data to train ai so I’d rather be safe than sorry. So if there’s any writers reading this: what website/app do you use? (Preferably only free sites/apps)

Edit: Thank you so much for all the suggestions 🙏

Wondering if there are any other readers here that deal with just as the title points out - some sort of mental health situation impacting their reading for fun. So here’s a sort of transparent tangent and seeing if there’s anyone who can relate 🫶🏼

In my case it is diagnosed OCD with perfectionism and anxiety that get in the way and hinder my reading for fun. I have been in therapy working on exposure therapy but it is absolutely exhausting basically learning to read for fun again.

I half joke that higher education ruined my reading for fun since I took literature classes and dissected writing, annotated, what does it really mean, could it have been written differently or better, and so on.

I’ve been doing better and my compulsions appear in a variety of ways but still catch myself rereading the same things repeatedly to try and really understand it. To make sure I pay enough attention to the text that I am respecting the author and so on…

If anyone has either words of encouragement or dealt with something similar please lmk. Could use some encouragement right now 💝

Happy reading 📚

✨UPDATE: thank you all so much for the lovely, thoughtful, and kind comments. Not only was this my first post on PB so I wasn’t sure if anyone would respond, but I’ve never had anyone share these experiences with me. While I obviously wish all of us could exist and read uninhibited - I find comfort knowing I’m not alone. I’ve never found other people who have overlapping experiences (even on Reddit normally just crickets). And yep posting on PB is definitely another sort of exposure therapy. I absolutely love it but OCD is trying to sink its claws into my enjoyment.

So yeah wanted to say thanks and keep doing what you can everybody 🫶🏼📚

As someone with a never-ending tbr, I know there are some books on my list that I’ve been so excited to get to and they end up being absolutely amazing, and then sometimes end up being absolute duds. What are some books that you were excited to read and then ended up being disappointed by?

What’s the point of all of this suffering? The book is definitely gripping but I fear it’ll end and not say anything of value.