My last few posts have been uncharacteristically free of any discussion about books, but there's a simple reason for that: I've been buried in mine. With a semester full of courses on International Publishing Management, Language Issues, and (gulp) my dissertation, my time is less structured than last semester but far more precious.
I was also involved in a terrific research project for my university in which I had to provide the top five publishers across various genres in a long list of countries. This included doing research on the Middle East, Africa, and continental Europe. It sounds fairly straightforward until your contacts start to email you in Cyrillic characters or, worse, Arabic. With Arabic, words are read left to right -- so was the name on the right the number one publisher, or the one on the left? How do you pronounce that? And for goodness' sake, how do you write it in an alphabet I can read?
Luckily, my fabulous sister in Morocco was able to help out, and the work was done with no further difficulty. Now I just need to find someone who knows someone in Brazil, Mexico, or Argentina, for my dissertation.
As a kid they tell you that reading can 'take you to far-off places', but I think they meant using your imagination. I seem to have taken that advice far too literally.
I was also involved in a terrific research project for my university in which I had to provide the top five publishers across various genres in a long list of countries. This included doing research on the Middle East, Africa, and continental Europe. It sounds fairly straightforward until your contacts start to email you in Cyrillic characters or, worse, Arabic. With Arabic, words are read left to right -- so was the name on the right the number one publisher, or the one on the left? How do you pronounce that? And for goodness' sake, how do you write it in an alphabet I can read?
Luckily, my fabulous sister in Morocco was able to help out, and the work was done with no further difficulty. Now I just need to find someone who knows someone in Brazil, Mexico, or Argentina, for my dissertation.
As a kid they tell you that reading can 'take you to far-off places', but I think they meant using your imagination. I seem to have taken that advice far too literally.
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