How to choose a good English book

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Dave, I'm Rebecca and I'm Birgit and welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hi everybody and welcome to this episode. Today it's all about good books, what we are reading, what are you reading, how to find maybe some good books and also of course the odd vocab here and there to describe your reading activities, to describe the books, to describe the plot, the storyline and maybe some of the characteristics and what you think and what others think, reviews of the books that you may read online or in newspapers or wherever you find out about your books which we'll also talk a little bit about further forward. So who'd like to kick us off with their book recommendation? Birgit, what about you? Do you have a book to recommend to us to kick off? Of course I have, yes. My first book pick would be Bill Bryson, That's a Good Reading, A Walk in the Woods. I don't know how I came across this. I think a lot of people know this. There's also been a film starring Robert Redford and this is about the storey, the storyline of a travelling writer. I think he's retired and then he comes across this Appalachian trail in the USA where you walk, you go into the woods, you sleep outside, so you need full equipment. And I think there are storeys that you might run into a bear, frightening storeys. And that's very fascinating. I found that fascinating on the one hand to learn about this trip, which I think is really interesting what there is involved. I think you can stay overnight at some kind of hostels on the way. It's a really long trail. I've forgotten how long it is now. But some just do parts of it or they do it like one part this year, the other part next year. And you need to put a lot of thinking into it. What I really liked about this book, and that was kind of a page turner so I couldn't stop reading, easy reading, the language and funny, ever so funny. MS. So you read it in English then? You didn't read it in… MR. Yeah. So we're talking about English book reading, I think today. Sorry, I didn't mention that. But yes, I read it in English and I was a little bit disappointed when I watched the movie afterwards because I didn't laugh as much. It wasn't so funny. And I think the book was really entertaining. I have recommended it to learners also because I thought it wasn't too difficult to read. I think he's a well-known writer, fantastic writer. And yeah, I really, really liked it. I can highly recommend it. Bill Bryson, Walk in the Woods. MR. Yeah, Birgit, I can really recommend Bill Bryson. I think he's a fantastic author. I've read many of his books. In particular, The Notes on a Small Island, I think, is also by him where he talks about Britain and his adventures in Britain. I believe he lived in Britain for about 20 years, although he's originally American. And in actual fact, I see him as a little bit of kind of a mentor or something. But I love the way he writes. It's often he sets up these situations and you're writing and you're reading along with him and you think, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden, it sort of gets more and more weird. And then you realise he's taking you on a bit of a joke journey and he's going over the top about things. And it's totally unreal, but it's funny. I love the way he writes. And actual fact, when I wrote my Tea Time Tidbits a lot more in the past, my blog, I tried to base myself a lot on his writing because I think it's just so nice to read, so enjoyable, so fun. And I tried to bring that humour also where I could into my blog post. And so I totally recommend any book that he writes. It's a cool one. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Maybe I should buy another one and read another one for my holiday, next holiday, because that was really enjoyable. Thank you. Yeah. So reminding me. Try the one about Europe. That's also good. Yeah. It also talks about Cologne, I think. Wow. Super. I like the Europe one. Maybe Frankfurt. I don't know if Frankfurt was in. I can't remember. I can't remember. It's a long time since I read that, but the European one is funny. If you know Europe well and you've travelled a lot in Europe, it's actually very entertaining. Yeah, I would agree with that. And it's easy. I think, Birgit, you're right. It's pretty easy reading. It's not too complicated. So for English learners, I think, yeah, it's a good option. So I'm giving a tip now and I'm getting a tip. Thank you. Wonderful. You're welcome. Rebecca. Yeah, I'm going to go down a totally different direction now from funny and easy reading to Stephen King is actually one of my absolute all time favourite writers. That's what I'm reading at the moment. I actually sat in bed last night. I said to my husband, I'm going to bed, pop us 10. I was like, I'm so tired. I'm going to bed. I might read for a bit. He came in at midnight and I was still sitting there reading. I cannot put it down. Absolute page turner. As we said, it's a real page turner. I think the problem with Stephen King is people always associate him with horror. You know, it's all scary, horror. And that's really not true. So the one I'm reading the moment, it is it's about serial killers. Yes, it's kind of creepy, but it's not horror. It's not, you know, supernatural horror things. And a lot of his books are not like that, actually. They're really kind of thrillers or detective storeys or, you know, crime storeys. They're not all horror. And I think people think, oh, but isn't it really gruesome? And I think, well, no, I read sometimes when you read like detective books, like thrillers, you know, and they're really bloody and they talk about the autopsies. And so I think people think, oh, you know, and I read these other books and they're really bloody and really gruesome. And Stephen King is actually not like that. There's often not a lot of blood or, you know, it's all just building the tension and building the sort of atmosphere. And he's an absolute amazing writer for character building. You know, you really get into these characters. Love. I mean, some of my favourite books probably are Stephen King. So something like It or Misery or the one I'm reading at the moment is called Holly. It's about a detective called Holly, and it's one of his newest, latest books. And he's written unbelievable amount of books over the years and he's still writing, which is just fantastic. So I would and I think it's not difficult reading. I would say it's generally sometimes there's some cultural things that they talk about, some American things where I'm also like not quite sure what they mean. Like they talk about local stuff that you just wouldn't know as a non kind of American maybe. And this one set during the COVID pandemic. But yeah, it's a good read. I would recommend. And would you write a review on it because you're so positively touched? Maybe I generally I don't write reviews. I do. No, but I do. I read. So when I'm choosing books, we're going to talk about this later. But I go to Goodreads. If you've ever heard of goodreads.com. A fantastic. It's basically like an online book club where people put their reviews. I don't do that. I just think, you know, time is too short sometimes, but people write extensive reviews about these books. And then it will recommend, OK, so if you liked this book, so I give them stars. I would give it a star, for example, and then it will say, well, if you like this book, maybe you would also like this book. And then you get ideas of other things to read, which is really nice. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. I've also had recommendations and I've read them and thought, I know that's not me. But then when you give that less stars, then it will recommend something that's more like what you like reading. So, yeah. Dave? Yeah, there are also good ways like goodreads .com and good ways just firstly, to find out a book that you'd like to read next, but also vocabulary for reading about books and how people give reviews and review kind of vocabulary, because that's a list of vocabulary in itself. If you've ever taken the time to read some of these things. For me, I'm as I've mentioned before, probably a gazillion times, I'm a big Audible fan. I love Audible because it gives you the opportunity to listen to the book. And if you're on the move, or if you're in the gym, or wherever it might be, it gives me the chance to listen to it. And for me, that's my filter. So if I hear about a book on YouTube, somebody mentions a book when I'm watching a video, or I hear about it wherever, or I use something like Blinkist or Shortform, which are also places to find out about books, then I would then choose it and read the book or listen to the book. And then if it's really, really good, and I know Birgit will agree with me on one of them, is the culture map, I actually buy the physical book. Tell us more about the culture map, maybe Birgit, and then I'll come back to some of my other ideas. The culture map was recommended to me by a learner actually. And this is about really decoding, that's what it says on the title, how people around the world communicate from a cultural point of view. For example, we all know about the reluctance or the politeness of the Japanese people. And in this book, we can read about how and why they wouldn't even speak up in a conference physically or in a call, unless there was a really long break. I think they are waiting for a longer break than we Europeans are used to. Europeans, maybe they tend to even interrupt each other, that would never happen. So it's about these cultural things, which are really interesting, and people who worked around the globe talk about it. And of course, for me as a teacher, that's really interesting. And to see where we are located in terms of politeness, correctness, whatever, and where the other states, countries are located, even the Netherlands might be far apart from us in some respect. That was really, really interesting, I thought. So now we're talking about nonfiction, right? So just to clarify, yeah, obviously, I was talking about fiction, Stephen King. So this is another word that people don't always know. So it's fiction, obviously, and then we've got nonfiction, so Sachbücher. People often ask, how do I translate Sachbücher? So it's nonfiction, right? Just to bring that in. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, sorry, nonfiction. I do read more nonfiction usually than fiction. Yeah. Okay. And I would agree with that, what Birgit said about CultureMap. And it was quite amazing that we both chose that book, because we decided for this podcast that we would try and choose two to three books that we're looking at or reading at the moment, or which we find particularly good. And we both had the idea of CultureMap, so that's great. Is it a new book? Is it relatively new, or when was it written? No, I don't think so. Let me have a look. I've never read it, so it'll go on my list now, but yeah. Let me have a look. But the lady author, Erin Meyer, also has a website. We can maybe leave that in the show notes. And in there, she has kind of like a membership site where you could find out about the different cultures. So let's say, for example, you're going to France on your holiday, Rebecca, in theory, if you wanted to, you could compare the British and the French when it comes to, I think it was seven or eight different kind of scales, different aspects. And I think it's one of the best, if not the best cultural reference for international business. And that's why, yeah, I put that on my list as something that I use daily and advise people, my clients, if they're going to different countries to maybe go to her website and check that out. It's really a good place to go. Had a look, she wrote it 10 years ago, 2014. Okay, good to know. All right. So I've got a couple of other, maybe non-fiction and then one fiction book. So very quickly, my first top at the moment is The Diary of a CEO, which is a book by Stephen Bartlett. If you've ever heard of him as a British entrepreneur, and he also does a podcast on YouTube called Diary of a CEO, which I can also recommend. It's a long form interview with famous people in the English speaking world. And the second one is The Art of Focus by a guy called Dan Coe, which is also about the future of work, how to work, the importance of focus in the modern day, and also how it will be in the future. And it's really very deep. And I was astounded at how deep the guy is for such an age and how he writes. It really is. You mean because he's young or what do you mean? Yeah, because he's young, but he speaks as if he's lived for centuries. It's absolutely amazing. I really highly recommend reading that book, The Art of Focus by Dan Coe. So I just have one other bit of vocabulary. So would you say it was heavy going? So that's a good word, I think, when a book is a little bit anstrengling and it's like, it's interesting, but it's not an easy read. We would call it heavy going. Is it heavy going? Absolutely. But that's why I've got it on audibles. So you don't have to read it. Just listen. Yeah, but you could say heavy going, but the fact that it's on audible, I listen to it, but it's really, really intriguing. And also to see where the future of work is going. And in a way, where future is going, where are we going, especially now with AI and everything else, it's really intriguing and really interesting. We're getting very deep now. Where are we going? I can't say page turner. I can't say page turner because it isn't because I listen to it. Yeah, but that's good. It's good to know the difference. There's a difference between a page turner and heavy going, but heavy going doesn't mean bad. That's the point. Heavy going doesn't mean you shouldn't read it. There are books that are heavy going, but absolutely worthwhile. So yeah. Okay. Birgit, do you have another recommendation? I do. Yes. I ran across or I came across this book in a very nice bookshop in Cheltenham. Last time I was there last year in April, wonderful bookshop. And that was really lying in the front area, like a bestseller, Stanley Tucci. And I don't know why that attracted me. I mean, I think he is and was an actor. He's known, well-known when you see him, glasses, dark glasses. And it's called Taste My Life Through Food. And I do like reading biographies. So in this book, it's not too many pages, maybe 280 or something. He talks about his life, how he was raised in the circle of an Italian family. I think he grew up in the States, I believe, and where they all moved and how it went with the family. So and food was always so important in his family. And then he brings up recipes in the book, which is brilliant. So I have tried some of them. They were really good, because it's yeah, going down to real Italian mama cooking recipes. He's written down here. And then he talks about his illness. So I think he had cancer at some stage. So it's interesting. It's very honest. It's nice. I do like this sort of reading. And I enjoyed it. I don't think it's too complicated to read. Maybe not for beginners, obviously. But yeah, not heavy. No, no heavy, heavy going, heavy going. No, okay. No, I have another I mean, another fiction, because we've had a lot of nonfiction. So go back to fiction, again, a book that I recommend to a lot of my clients, actually. And it's a book I read, I don't know, three or four years ago, by one of our Sheffield, famous Sheffield writers, guy called Matt Hague. I don't know if you've heard of him, Dave. Matt Hague. I haven't. I will write it down. I will write it down. Matt Hague, and he had a bestseller a few years ago. He's had a few bestsellers, but this one was called The Midnight Library. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. Very nice book, quite easy reading. And it's also a little bit deep. It's about life choices. So we had the if sentences last time. So if I had studied French, maybe I would have lived in Paris and met a French man and I would have done this. And it's basically it's a storey, it's fiction, but it's about a girl who's a bit struggling in her life. And then she ends up in this library where she can open a book and see how her life would have been if she had taken a different path and not all the paths that she thinks might have been better turn out to be better. And it's really, really interesting. It's a nice kind of yeah, a nice, nice sort of moral to the storey. And it's pretty easy reading. And so Matt Hague, I haven't read any of his other books. He's sort of on my list of other ones I want to read, but he is from Sheffield. So there we go. Sheffield recommendation and easy fiction, easy summer, you know, on the beach kind of reading. Because of the word Hague, I know myself how many different ways there are. Yes, I will spell it. This one is H-A-I-G. I would have gone for H-A-G -U-E. It's more like a bit German sounding H -A-I-G, Hague. Yeah. Matt Hague. Yeah. Very good book. And we recently watched, I don't think, well, there might be some more episodes coming, which we watched a series on this similar subject where the Dark Matter, I think that might be a book also, where you get different options of life. So you can find out. Oh, yes. I think, yes. Netflix, I think. Yeah. Similar plot, isn't it? And then you can meet or go out into the world, other option you might have lived. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. No, very good. Very good book. And like I said, pretty, pretty easy to read. It's, yeah, what would you classify it? It's just fiction. It's sort of, yeah, it's not crime or anything like that. It's just a nice, nice storey, nice plot. And sort of, there's a kind of moral behind it. Yeah. Dave, you were going to talk about, or we talked about Audible already. Were you going to talk about how to find books as well? Yeah. I mean, I mentioned briefly this idea of going online and maybe having Blinkist as a way to filter books, to decide. So what is Blinkist exactly? Blinkist is where you can actually listen and read, I think, short forms of books, like summaries, similar to the website shortform.com. Both of them seem quite good. I don't actually use them because as I said, I always just basically go straight to Audible, but it would be interesting maybe to, for people to check out if they don't want to read the whole book, maybe to try this. I think for Blinkist, it costs, it says here after seven day free trial, it costs around seven euros a month. Short form, I found it very difficult to get prices and everything because, or also they're very aggressive with the signup policy. So I'm not sure if that's necessarily the best route, but I've heard a lot of good stuff about Blinkist. Or I've tried recently going to my favourite place, ChatGPT, for summaries. And it's amazing that ChatGPT is also able to give summaries. So that might be a very cheap way, if you found out a book, maybe one of ours that we've suggested today, or maybe one that you've heard, or you've found from some way, go on to ChatGPT and just see if it will give you a brief summary of it. And again, it can be in English. So you're learning the words that goes with summarising a book, a fantastic way to learn, I think. Yes. And I wanted to mention that all the books I have recommended were paperbacks. So no hard copies. Hardbacks. Yeah. Yeah. Hardbacks. And you mentioned before that one of the books you were talking about, you got in a charity shop for a quid for just one pound. And that's a fantastic place. Whenever I go to England, I go straight into the next charity shops to find good books in English. Yeah, we don't have that culture here so much. We do have some shops. There is actually Oxfam shops in Frankfurt, which is also in the UK. And we have an Oxfam bookshop. And I drop off all my secondhand books there and then always end up picking something up. Do you ever use this online? There's some online, is it Momox or something where you can like buy secondhand books? I do that often. I have to buy secondhand books online even. Yeah, I think I got one of the English terrible mistakes. That was from Modimap or very old copies. You can't get old copies. Yeah. Sometimes they have books that are not available. And obviously they're much cheaper. Always. Yeah. Out of print is the phrase. Out of print. Yeah. But secondhand books, I mean, why not? You know? Absolutely. Yeah. Instead of spending too much money on them. Yeah. Any more books to recommend? There was one that you mentioned, I think, before we came on, Birgit, about a lady with a grammar. Because we love grammar, right? Right. Yeah. I do like this a lot. And that's a hardback, actually, because I bought it straight after it had come out. And that's usually when you only get hardbacks. Before you get a paperback. Rebel with a Clause. And that's from Ellen Joving, the grammar table lady in New York. And she said outside in the streets in America, starting off in New York and then travelling all around all the states, answering questions, grammar questions to the people, English grammar question. And I think that's so wonderful because I obviously like that. So there's a native speaker talking about asking questions about English. So that would be if I sat outside answering German grammar questions, which I couldn't. Are you going to set up a table? A folding table, yeah. And I think the idea is just so brilliant. And I think there will be a film or it's just been released because her husband has got something to do with filming. He filmed the conversations with the people. Oh, I love this book. I really enjoyed reading it. For a bit of grammar entertainment. Yeah. Well, exactly. Whoever enjoys that too. So that will be a good read. I think it's also quite important to realise that often as natives, we don't, unless we train ourselves or are trained to become teachers of English, we don't necessarily know the grammar very well. It's all very instinctive as, for example, maybe German is for majority of the listeners that they it's all intuitive because it's your native language. So you don't often know the grammar. And so you can't explain it. You know what to say, but you can't explain why you're saying that. Yeah. And that's why I actually came into the job because often I got, when I was younger, did my foreign exchanges with Germany or France, people said, they said to me, Dave, why do you say that in English? I said, I don't know. No idea. So I think it's not, you know, you seem, why would, why would the Americans want to know things about grammar? Why would they need that? But I think it's quite common that you're not necessarily an expert in your own language because it's, it comes intuitively. Yeah, for sure. And, and now could you answer the importance or the issue of the Oxford comma? Would you know anything about the Oxford comma? Oh, I see both with question marks about that. Big question mark. Okay. Do you want to explain the Oxford comma? The Oxford comma. Yes. It's like if you do a listing. So I bought milk, apples, Marmite or whatever. You can put a comma in front of the end. Okay. And that's called the, I didn't know. I mean, I know that rule, but I didn't know it was called the Oxford comma. That's the Oxford comma. Very good. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know that. No, that's okay. You could ask me something about German grammar. But this is funny. We're from the North of England. How can we know the Oxford comma? We're from Sheffield. We still know how to write though. We did go to school. But I think it's funny when I say to, for example, Germans and they say, you know, English is so hard, you know, and I'm like, der, die, das. Get over it, you know, get over it. Three words. Der, die, das is one of the most complicated things for people who don't have genders for nouns. So, you know, how do you know it's dertisch, it's die Tür and it's das Fenster? You know, how do you know that? It's obvious, isn't it? It's dertisch, yes. And what's funny is when I tell them, you know, that there are lists for us foreigners, so that, you know, anything with height is always die, so die Freiheit, die Kindheit. Yeah, you see? And they're like, wow, there are like lists. I'm like, yeah, there are lists. We have systems to learn this. Again, as a German, you don't think about that because you learn just intuitively and you grow up listening to these words, but we actually have to have lists, so. Height also, I think. Height, ung, bildung, verbung, anything with ung is also die. And the strange thing is, explain why a Mädchen is neutral. I know why, because I had to learn it, but it doesn't really make sense. It should be die Mädchen, why is it das? But it's because of the shin at the end, with the shin makes it, it's always, it's the ending for das or neutral. So you two know a lot more about German grammar than I do. So you can forgive us for not knowing the Oxford promise. Oh, definitely, definitely, yeah. So it's just showing how interesting this is and why people do stop and ask other questions. Yeah, it's fascinating. Well, in our next episode, we are going to talk about food. So that will be the main subject. Talk about restaurants, vocabulary that is involved when we talk about going out for meal, maybe laying the table, different food in Britain, in Germany, around the world. We will see. Hopefully you will join us and take care for now. Thanks for listening. Bye. Take care. Bye. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website 3englishexperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.