Although I’ve changed careers, I still put in an hour or two a week reading Greek for fun. My current project is working (very, very slowly) through the Odyssey. The vocabulary is still slowing me down quite a bit. It’s wonderful when I breeze through an entire sentence without having to look up any words, though. A recent triumph was the sentence: “For I am ashamed to be naked in the presence of fair-tressed maidens.”

Thanks, Anne. I felt embarrassed to be saying so little about such a big book, so it’s nice that you liked the post.

Also, try something like Murder on the Orient Express to pick up your French. That’s what S did when he had to get working French for his exams.

That’s a pretty random list of recommendations derived from the all-too-brief mental file entitled “books I have genuinely enjoyed reading in French”. But anything non-fiction is usually pretty easy, I find, so long as it’s not too antiquated.

As with a lot of great French works, I fear that my French is good enough to read it but not good enough to really enjoy or truly appreciate it (or not to end up wondering whether I would have enjoyed it more if I’d read the translation). Also, my pride is great enough that I would be reluctant to read the English version.