Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Hello from Germany

Don't forget to read the rules before posting!
User avatar
MLE (Emily Cotton)
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3566
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Thu May 12th, 2011, 5:28 pm

Welcome, Rissa. Plenty of native English speakers have terrible grammar online, and I would never think of correcting them. I'm more interested in what they have to say than the proper forms in which they say it.

But because you ask it as a help, if I see any repeated errors in your posting, I'll send you a private message.

So far, you don't look like you need any correction. In fact, if you are learning your English by reading and writing, you'll probably do better than most of us who learned by listening to our ungrammatical families! :)

User avatar
Rissa
Scribbler
Posts: 17
Joined: May 2011
Location: Germany

Post by Rissa » Thu May 12th, 2011, 6:00 pm

Thanks a lot! I love recommendations!

@misfit: Yeah, text messaging does that to the German language, too. Forget about capital letters, they are of no use any more :rolleyes:

@sweetpotatoboy and everyone else: As most of the names I read at the review index are totally new to me, who would you recommend to have closer look at if I want to read about medieval and early renaissance England? I already know some books by Elizabeth Chadwick, Ken Follett, Philippa Gregory, Bernard Cornwell as well as by some German authors (of course ;) ).


@boswellbaxter: As far as I know there are contracts for four of her novels to be translated into English. For one there's the semi-historical Catan-novel that an American publisher got interested in which will be released in December, then there are the three Waringham-novels (pro-Tudor, ca. 1360-1485) that a British publisher wants to have translated into English. Rebecca Gablé said that she's already reading the translation of the first novel, Das Lächeln der Fortuna. At her Facebook she says that it might be released in 2012. Hope this piece of information is of some interest for you ;)


@MLE: Thanks, I absolutely hate to make the same mistakes over and over again, so that's much appreciated.

Carla
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 965
Joined: August 2008
Contact:

Post by Carla » Thu May 12th, 2011, 6:19 pm

[quote=""Rissa""]
@sweetpotatoboy and everyone else: As most of the names I read at the review index are totally new to me, who would you recommend to have closer look at if I want to read about medieval and early renaissance England? I already know some books by Elizabeth Chadwick, Ken Follett, Philippa Gregory, Bernard Cornwell as well as by some German authors (of course ;) ).

[/quote]

Elizabeth Chadwick (who posts here as EC2) put a list of 20 medieval novels on her blog a while ago: http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwic ... r-for.html. That list might give you somewhere to start :-)
PATHS OF EXILE - love, war, honour and betrayal in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Editor's Choice, Historical Novels Review, August 2009
Now available as e-book on Amazon Kindleand in Kindle, Epub (Nook, Sony Reader), Palm and other formats on Smashwords
Website: http://www.carlanayland.org
Blog: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com

User avatar
Rissa
Scribbler
Posts: 17
Joined: May 2011
Location: Germany

Post by Rissa » Thu May 12th, 2011, 6:32 pm

[quote=""Carla""]Elizabeth Chadwick (who posts here as EC2) put a list of 20 medieval novels on her blog a while ago: http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwic ... r-for.html. That list might give you somewhere to start :-) [/quote]

Thanks a lot! A list recommended by one of my favorite authors can only be helpful! I already have two out of twenty, that's at least something ;)

User avatar
boswellbaxter
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3066
Joined: August 2008
Location: North Carolina
Contact:

Post by boswellbaxter » Thu May 12th, 2011, 7:05 pm

[quote=""Rissa""]
@boswellbaxter: As far as I know there are contracts for four of her novels to be translated into English. For one there's the semi-historical Catan-novel that an American publisher got interested in which will be released in December, then there are the three Waringham-novels (pro-Tudor, ca. 1360-1485) that a British publisher wants to have translated into English. Rebecca Gablé said that she's already reading the translation of the first novel, Das Lächeln der Fortuna. At her Facebook she says that it might be released in 2012. Hope this piece of information is of some interest for you ;) .[/quote]

Thanks, it certainly is!
Susan Higginbotham
Coming in October: The Woodvilles


http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/
http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/blog/

User avatar
fljustice
Bibliophile
Posts: 1995
Joined: March 2010
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Contact:

Post by fljustice » Thu May 12th, 2011, 8:32 pm

Hi, Rissa and welcome to the forum! As others have said, no need to apologize for your English, it's very good. I sincerely wish I was as proficient in any second language. Looking forward to meeting you in the threads.
Faith L. Justice, Author Website
Image

User avatar
donroc
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 858
Joined: August 2008
Location: Winter Haven, Florida
Contact:

Post by donroc » Thu May 12th, 2011, 8:36 pm

[quote=""Rissa""]Thank you for the welcome and the comments about my English, donroc and Vanessa! I just have the feeling that I should be a little more careful with grammar and correct spelling at a literature forum than at a gaming forum where half of the members are ESL.

@ donroc: Wow, the 1950s! I can imagine that there's not much stuck after such a long time. Did you ever come back to visit the country?[/quote]

We never make grammar or spelling errors, only typos written in haste.

I kept up some German around my wife's family who spoke the language at home in the USA and Brazil until the older generation passed away. Her father and grandfather served in the Kaiserarmee during WWI.

FYI, the MC and many supporting characters in my 9th century novel in progress are Alamannian and Saxon.
Image

Bodo the Apostate, a novel set during the reign of Louis the Pious and end of the Carolingian Empire.

http://www.donaldmichaelplatt.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXZthhY6 ... annel_page

User avatar
Rissa
Scribbler
Posts: 17
Joined: May 2011
Location: Germany

Post by Rissa » Thu May 12th, 2011, 8:58 pm

[quote=""donroc""]
FYI, the MC and many supporting characters in my 9th century novel in progress are Alamannian and Saxon.[/quote]

That's a very interesting era you're writing about! All novels I've read about Karl, Widukind and their successors are by German authors.
I've bookmarked your homepage so I hope I won't miss it if you release any more details ;)

[quote=""fljustice""]Hi, Rissa and welcome to the forum! As others have said, no need to apologize for your English, it's very good. I sincerely wish I was as proficient in any second language. Looking forward to meeting you in the threads.[/quote]

Thank you! I'm still a bit hesitant to participate in the discussions because I'm just the noob ;) I have to read a bit more to get a feeling for this forum, but then I might participate a bit more, at least in discussions about the few books I've read :D
Last edited by Rissa on Thu May 12th, 2011, 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Ariadne
Bibliophile
Posts: 1151
Joined: August 2008
Location: At the foothills of Mt. Level

Post by Ariadne » Thu May 12th, 2011, 9:02 pm

Hi Rissa, and welcome to the forum! That's excellent news about Rebecca Gable's novels. My husband and I visited Germany in 2009 (he used to live there) and I was sorry my German wasn't better - there were so many wonderful looking historical novels in the local bookstores!

User avatar
DianeL
Bibliophile
Posts: 1029
Joined: May 2011
Location: Midatlantic east coast, United States
Contact:

Post by DianeL » Thu May 12th, 2011, 9:29 pm

Hello, Rissa! As many have said, you have no need to apololgize for your English skills: the day a Frenchman told me I speak my native tongue like a European, I took it as a singular compliment to my language skills. The American reputation for linguistic slovenliness is not, unfortunately, entirely unearned; however, of course, here you will be treated to many who defy this conception - literate people are a joy that way.

My own favorite historical is Parke Godwin's "A Memory of Lions", which I love most because it is so fully realized. It includes bitterness, passion, war, politics, and humanity amid one of the best-realized settings in time and place I have ever read, and each of the characters is minutely, considerately drawn. I've loved a great deal of fiction since I discovered that book twenty-odd years ago, but it remains a very strong favorite of mine. It is set in post-Conquest Britain, and is a wonderful read: I still find it incredibly fresh every time, after more than two decades!
"To be the queen, she agreed to be the widow!"

***

The pre-modern world was willing to attribute charisma to women well before it was willing to attribute sustained rationality to them.
---Medieval Kingship, Henry A. Myers

***

http://dianelmajor.blogspot.com/
I'm a Twit: @DianeLMajor

Post Reply

Return to “Introduce Yourself”