More than you ever wanted to hear from Bestselling Author Jenny Crusie.
Jul312010
I have a foreign cover here and I have no idea what country it’s from. I’m guessing Greece, but that’s a shot in the dark. Anybody here read . . . whatever this is?
Here’s the inside stuff if that helps (click to enlarge):
Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author of twenty-one novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives on the Ohio River where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.
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37 Comments to 'It’s Greek to Me: Name That Book'
On July 31, 2010 at 7:23 am Sure thing said...
It is the funniest thing that you posted this today. Yesterday I was ranting about text speak – I also said to a friend that reading text speak is worse than reading Greek or Russian – the letters look familiar enough that I feel that they should make sense but then they don’t!
Hope you figure it out. Purty flowers. In a “Ooh, white, pretty” sort of way.
On July 31, 2010 at 7:39 am Stephanie said...
well, it’s not russian. that much i can figure out.
On July 31, 2010 at 7:35 am Zeborah said...
It’s Greek. With the aid of Google to check my transliteration, the title looks like “gyrismata tis tyxis”, which Google translates as something like “shooting luck”. I’ve no idea how accurate that is, my Greek really is limited to a dodgy comprehension of the alphabet.
On July 31, 2010 at 7:53 am Ingrid said...
It’s Greek all right, but I don’t know modern Greek. And the classical Greek I learned at school has sunk down very deep. But consulting my old dictionary I come to a tentative translation of “Circles of luck”. A translation of Bet Me, maybe?
On July 31, 2010 at 8:08 am AgTigress said...
Ingrid has got as far as I have, and on the same basis — some Classical Greek. ‘Tyche’ is undoubtedly ‘luck’ or ‘good fortune’, and ‘gyrismata’ has to be a plural of something that turns. But as translations of titles are rarely close or literal, it is still uncertain which book it is!
On July 31, 2010 at 8:28 am Jenny said...
Well, the fact that we’re sure it’s Greek is a step forward.
Sometimes I can figure out what the book is because the heroine’s name is in there. But with the Greek alphabet . . .
On July 31, 2010 at 8:29 am BJ said...
Google has a free translation tool, but as pointed out above – that would only be a literal translation. Jenny, can you tell by the copyright date which book it is?
On July 31, 2010 at 8:32 am BJ said...
Jenny, if you do want to look for first words in the book, or names, the link for translation is:
http://www.google.com/ig
- in the upper left of the webpage.
On July 31, 2010 at 8:43 am flea said...
I’m pretty sure it’s Welcome to Temptation. The tagline on the cover translates (EXTREMELY roughly) to “in a small town with big grape [??? - this is "moustika"] shooting a single video can have complex hidden dangers.”
On July 31, 2010 at 8:45 am Allie said...
Another Classical Greek student who agrees with what everyone else says (turn/circle, luck/fortune) and is guessing on Bet Me.
On July 31, 2010 at 8:49 am Donna said...
Since I happen to be at work today (I’m on break) it was easy for me to check OCLC. It says that this is the Greek translation of Welcome to Temptation.
On July 31, 2010 at 12:19 pm Jenny said...
Okay, I’m impressed with all of you, but Donna, you’re amazing.
On July 31, 2010 at 12:27 pm Donna said...
You’re welcome! My source, btw, was the same source Cathy quoted below; I’ve just been in the library biz long enough that I still think of it as OCLC.
On July 31, 2010 at 8:59 am BJ said...
@Donna – Nice work!
On July 31, 2010 at 9:01 am Allie said...
Huh, but if you go here it has Bet Me along side of it for sale… http://www.books.gr/ViewAuthor.aspx?AuthorId=31418 Too bad there aren’t covers to compare.
On July 31, 2010 at 9:02 am Allie said...
Hey Donna, great job! What an…adapted title.
On July 31, 2010 at 9:47 am flea said...
Okay, It’s really “In a small town with a big secret…” Much more sensible than “grape.” Ha!
On July 31, 2010 at 10:02 am Donna said...
OCLC also says that the book came out in 2003 (in Greek, I mean) so you may want to check and see if you have an earlier hardback . . .
On July 31, 2010 at 10:06 am McB said...
I’m going to side with the Welcome To Temptation possibility, for no better reason than they are both 3 words.
On July 31, 2010 at 10:24 am colognegrrl said...
It sure is Greek to me. I studied modern Greek for a few semesters because we used to have a house there. So, if you could show the synopsis (hoping this is not a completely different text) on the page before, it might be possible to find out what it is about.
On July 31, 2010 at 11:33 am Sierra said...
There’s a tiny bit of text on the cover when you enlarge the picture, maybe a blurb? Would that be enough?
On July 31, 2010 at 4:35 pm colognegrrl said...
Even if it’s already sure that it’s Welcome to Temptation, I wanted to see whether I can still do it… so the blurb says something like “In a small town with a big secret, the filming of a simple video must include dangerous complications”. If I didn’t get it all wrong. But it matches the content, right?
On July 31, 2010 at 4:54 pm colognegrrl said...
Sorry, I didn’t realize in time that flea had already done it.
On July 31, 2010 at 11:57 am Cathy said...
It’s definitely “Welcome to Temptation”. Go to worldcat.org. Use Advanced Search to find books by Jennifer Crusie in Greek and then click on “Gyrismata tēs tychēs”. Scroll down a bit and you get:
Genre/Form: Humorous stories., Love stories.
Material Type: Fiction
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Jennifer Crusie
OCLC Number: 224215628
Language Note: Text in Greek.
Notes: Translation of: Welcome to temptation.
Description: 508 p. ; 18 cm.
Series Title: Plaza, 358
Other Titles: Welcome to temptation.
Responsibility: Jennifer Crusie ; metaphrasē Bessy Plakoula.
Interestingly (well, to me at least), “Tēs tychēs ta paichnidia” means “Getting Rid of Bradley”.
On July 31, 2010 at 12:22 pm Jenny said...
I knew the Argh people would come through. Look at all this great info. Thank you!
On July 31, 2010 at 12:23 pm Jenny said...
In case you’re wondering, as part of the revamp of the website, we’re redoing the foreign covers page. I’ll probably be back later, looking for translations. Because I’m exploitive like that.
On July 31, 2010 at 12:39 pm Ingrid said...
Maybe the title with good fortune coming round is the Greek way of saying “Nothing but good times ahead”. That would make sense as a title for Welcome to Temptation.
On July 31, 2010 at 1:56 pm Jenna said...
As a former sorority girl (and former Catholic school girl), I’m almost certain that is Greek.
On July 31, 2010 at 3:08 pm Jane said...
Definitely Greek…yay for having to learn (sorority – sorry, not classicial) Greek and a shout out to good old OCLC! Jane (retired librarian – which tis obvious to the lib people because not many of us know what OCLC is – I forgot out Worldcat – that’s what happens when get off the floor and into management..sigh)
On July 31, 2010 at 3:34 pm Becke Davis (Becke Martin) said...
It’s Greek, but it looks as if the publisher is Plaza y Janes, a division of Random House. I found some of Jenny’s books listed there, but not this one.
On July 31, 2010 at 3:35 pm Becke Davis (Becke Martin) said...
I say “it’s Greek” but when I put all Jenny’s titles in a free translation site, none of the Greek translations looked remotely like this. But it could be idiomatic, which would change things considerably.
On July 31, 2010 at 3:38 pm Becke Davis (Becke Martin) said...
And now I see that the mystery has already been solved. Should have scrolled through the responses before I posted!
On July 31, 2010 at 10:24 pm Mary Stella said...
This has nothing to do with today’s blog topic, but I recently re-read Faking It. Amid all the reading entertainment, the pillows/dust mites discussion hit me. I realized how old my pillows are and decided those suckers were getting replaced today!
I was going to Key West anyway and stopped at Sears optical. Happily, Sears was also holding a buy one-get one free sale on all pillows.
See the ripple effects your books create all over the world?
On July 31, 2010 at 11:08 pm Jenny said...
Yes, but there are a lot of bitter dust mites in Key West now.
On August 1, 2010 at 9:27 am colognegrrl said...
Sure, but as the unforgettable Ricky Nelson used to sing, “if you can’t please everybody, you better please yourself”.
On August 1, 2010 at 5:26 pm Mary Stella said...
Those dust mites can join the bar crawl down Duval and drink their bitterness away. They’ll be wasted away again in Margaritaville and claiming it’s all Crusie’s fault.
Might be giving dust mites too much cognitive credit.
On August 2, 2010 at 6:07 pm Kay T said...
I always buy new pillows after re-reading Faking It!!!!