French Book Haul

Look at the books on the right - which one doesn't fit? Exactly, Steven Brusts "Jhereg", because poor Mr. Brust's novel is not French.

I bought Jhereg on a whim, and discovered something marvelous: My French is finally, finally good enough that I can not only read a novel, but also enjoy it. (Jhereg itself is all right I guess. No high literature this, but a reasonably fast read). So off I was to the local Payot to delve into the French SF/F scene: Gaborit, DuFour and of course Laurent Genefort.

Right now I am reading Mathieu Gaborit's "Les Chroniques des Crépusculaires", and I noticed at once that it was more difficult to read than Brust's translation. Not very surprising of course, and I can still read it. Very satisfying, and a far cry from my first attempts at French reading (A translation of Fritz Leiber's "Vagabond"). Back then I was stumped by a mysterious, mysterious paragraph where the protagonists where apparently climbing a hillside, getting all sweaty with ropes and hooks and whatnot, but kept popping back into a car in mid-sentence. When (after an hour or so) I finally looked up all the words in my dictionary I discovered that the guy had actually been undressing the girl in his car, and had problems with her bra - hence the hooks...