If matriky are the bare bones structure of the lives of your ancestors (information about birth, marriage, and death), and other records (like land records) are like the flesh and muscles, then literature would be the spirit breathing life into the person of the past. Very few of us have the luxury of having ancestors who were authors, let alone protagonists in a novel, but yet, literature allows us to view the world of the past from a more human perspective.
I spent all of 2017 studying Czech intensively partially so I could be able to read Czech literature in its original form.
The Czech Book Club on Facebook is to help give me some positive peer pressure and motivate me to read. It is a low pressure environment and we will not be meeting in real time this year, however if you would like to participate, please read the book and join the discussion! The questions will be in both Czech and English and will be posted together in a *document* to the group on the first of the month. The same day, I will start the discussion by picking my favorite question and posting it as a new thread. We will continue the discussion by posting questions as new threads throughout the month. You may use my questions or come up with your own!
If I feel like it, I will use my discussion questions as fodder for my blog.
This year, 2017-2018, we will be reading the following books. If you follow the link it should take you to couple places where you can purchase or listen to these books online.
Questions
| Month |
Title |
My Progress |
Thoughts |
| December |
English: 95% Czech audio: 100% Czech text: 75% Serial: 100% |
Book: 9/10 Serial: 10/10 |
|
| January | Dobrý voják Švejk/The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek
By the way, this year we are only reading the first book. There are like 3 or 4 books together that make up Švejk, and I only want to read the first one for now. |
English: 100%
Czech audio: 60% Czech: 0% Film: |
|
| February | Dětem by Josef Lada, František Hrubín, and Jaroslav Seifert | Czech: 75% | |
| March | Saturnin by Zdeněk Jirotka | ||
| April | Babička by Božena Němcová | English: 40% | |
| May | Žert/The Joke by Milan Kundera | ||
| June | Zbabělci/The Cowards by Josef Škvorecký | ||
| July | The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History by Derek Sayer | English: 30% | |
| August | Kosmonaut z Čech/Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař | ||
| September | Pohádky by Erben and Němcová | English: 20%
Czech: 10% |
|
| October | Besedy na staré valše | ||
| November | TBA: a Jára Cimrman play | ||
| December | POPULAR CHOICE |
I hope you join in the fun!