Bitchery reader Vicki writes:
I was wondering if you guys know any websites that sell romance novels in Greek?
My mum is desperate for more Harlequin (or Arlekin as they are known) and other romance books. Winter is fast approaching here in Australia, and she’s threatening to go (more) insane with no books to tide her over on those long cold(ish) nights; one can only knit so many scarves.
She’s cleaned out the local libraries, and the foreign language bookshop sells those Harlequins for around 25-30 bucks each. Seeing as she reads one of these suckers a day, that just aint gonna happen.
Anyone got any ideas? And I have a question, too: do Greek language readers want to read about the Greek Tycoon’s Secret Baby or the Greek’s Virgin Mistress? Or does the nationality change? Maybe it’s The Canadian’s Frosty Virgin?
Hey Vicki—Have you tried to call or email Harlequin directly? They probably know exactly how to help you! Good luck.
I believe the translated Harlequins are handled in the country where the rights were bought, not in-house in Toronto (the Spanish lines might be an exception, as you can buy those at the E-Harlequin website. The site for Australia is here:
http://www.eharlequin.com.au/
Hopefully a marketing person will be able to at least point you in the right direction.
Have you looked into exchanges with other readers? There are all kinds of book trading sites, and perhaps shipping books back and forth to Greece might end up being cheaper than buying imports, particularly if you could locate someone else who reads in bulk.
When I had a Polish aupair living with us, I wanted to get her a few romance novels printed in Polish for her to enjoy.
I e-mailed my favorite author (Julia Quinn) and explained my situation. I knew Julia had books printed in the Polish language, I just didn’t know how to obtain them. I figured the author would definitely steer me in the right direction.
Julia Quinn was such a sweetheart! She mailed me an autographed copy of “An Offer from a Gentleman” in Polish for my aupair!
My aupair was thrilled!
So that is my only experience in trying to obtain books printed in another language.
But thought I’d pass it along, since it pertains to the blogging subject.
I can’t help with Greek, but I’ve got Estonian editions of my books available.
I usually bother all my friends (and their friends) who go to Greece to pick up some novels for me. Well, there is a site called e-arlekin.gr, but that is under reconstruction.
Now, in the book I have here, there is a sheet at the back where you can order books, in all kind of foreign money – including AUS and such – so I gather it’s possible to have it sent.
In the book they also gve +30 210 3609 438 as phone number and 30 210 3614 846 as fax number (which is an Athens number). There is an email adress too; syndormes @ harlenic.gr (and yes, it says harlenic) (In fact there no less than three differnt transcriptions of Harlekin on the page I’m looking at.
And sadly I haven’t gotten any books about Greek tycoons yet, so I guess they just gloss over that… (But I’ll look extra carefully next time I go.)
Ooops, syndromes @ harlenic.gr, I got so caught up in the spelling mistakes I made my own…
If she wants to move on to bigger, better knitting projects, she can always get a Ravelry account and knit a Fabio doll. 😀
Seriously? A Fabio doll? I’ll have to look that one up! I’ve seen Buffy stakes, the Serenity ship, and stuffed bacteria, but a Fabio doll would just be faboo!
Ask your librarians! If the local library has some Greek titles, ask them to get more. Especially with foreign language collections librarians need to know that the materials are in demand. If you can find a nice romance loving librarian, together, you should be able to keep your mother supplied all winter.
I can’t imagine what it would cost to order from Greece, but should you want to go that route, Eleytheroudakis is a pretty good bookstore with a wide collection of books in all genres (their website:
http://www.books.gr/).
This brings back a strange, but I swear true, memory: I was walking through a large park in Greece with a bunch of fellow students (we were heading to some obscure ruins) and we came across this hill covered in old Greek Harlequins. Thousands of them, like fallen leaves. It was surreal. A debate ensued as to whether reading them would be a good way to work on our modern Greek—but how often would you need to say “Oh Stavros, you are so strong/big/powerful/sensitive etc.”
From what romances have taught me? All the freakin’ time!
Well, I do have it on good authority that the best way to learn the local language is to date a native (and do have a number of friends now happily married in foreign countries).
I have seen stacks of foreign-language Harlequins in the “clearing-out” table in the foreign language department of one of my local colleges. The teachers leave old books out there for people to take for free—also sometimes departments have book sales (to get rid of old books and to raise money for French Club or whatever).
You might check with your local university foreign lang. dept.—they get book samples of all types all the time.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Keep ‘em coming, I’ll be checking them out, and I’m sharing the information with my sister, who’s trying to help too. She contacted harlequin in Australia, who referred her to someone else, who then referred her back to Harlequin.
I feel really sorry for mum, she walks past the book exchange looking longingly at all the cheap romance books that she can’t read. Last time she came back from Greece, she had to pay 600 euros excess baggage, most of it on books!
A couple years ago hubby and I were in Greece and we went into a shop on a small island that sold inexpensive tourist stuff but also had reading material for the locals.
Including a shelf of Harlequin books in Greek. I found one by an author I recognized and bought it just for fun. Then I had great fun taking it to the RWA booksigning and asking her to sign it for me. She was thrilled and had her table mate take pictures of me and the book and her signing it.
So yes they do read those Harlequin books in Greek. This one I think was American based.
I’m not sure where you could get them here though.
I thought I had found something useful, a Greek bookshop in Aelaide (http://www.greekbookshop.com.au/index.php?history), but then saw what they are charging for the Greek books! $65 for the Greek version of the Da Vinci Code (in any dollar currency) is painful to say the least!
I have three ideas:
1) http://www.bookfinder.com – it metacrawls various used & new bookselling sites and digests the information into an easy list. I haven’t used them for non-English books, but I know they handle them.
2) http://www.bookcrossing.com – the main attraction of this site for me was releasing books into the world with tracking numbers, but they also have many organised book swaps. I’m not sure about Greek romance, but give it a try!
3) http://www.librarything.com – a website for people to catalogue, review and swap their books. If your mom can hook into some sort of international Greek-Harlequin-fancier’s group (or start one there?) then she’s set, presuming the mailing isn’t prohibitive.
My library’s there too, under username Cynara.
dammit – scratch Bookfinder, I don’t think they do Greek books.
I sent this link to Tori Carrington (HQ author and alter ego of Lori and Tony Karayianni)
On the subject of LibraryThing – try http://www.gr.librarything.com – it’s their Greek site.
A nice lady in the Amazon forum informed me that you have trouble finding Harlequins in Greek for your mom, so here goes. Have someone who is fluent in Greek with you (if you don’t feel confident yourself) and look up either
http://www.eleftheroudakis.gr/Publishers.aspx
and then search for the publisher option whose first word is ΑΡΛΕΚΙΠ(should be in page 2 of the Greek A selection). This is the largest bookstore in Greece and they charge a very reasonable rate for the books. I don’t know about the shipping though. Since you’re in Australia it might be dear
or go to http://www.bell.gr and try to get them straight from the publisher
Hope you make it
Thanks to Jen for cluing us in on this discussion. (Hey, sweet thang! You still belly dancing? How much you want to give a demo at Lori’s to-do in June? We hear Kathy Andrico is going to be teaching Greek line dancing and Tony’s going to be providing the baklava. Hmm…maybe a little ouzo would help lubricate those hip joints.)
Of course, I (L) came over here prepared to speak with authority…and ended up learning more than I knew. Gawd, I hate when that happens.
Tell you what, Vicki. Send us your snail mail addy at toricarrington @ aol.com. We’d love to send your mom at least a week’s supply of Greek copies of our many titles (over 35 – unfortunately we don’t have Greek versions of all of them). Um, they are of the steamier variety, if that’s okay? Blaze. No Greek Tycoon’s Baby Mamas in the bunch. Bleech. But we do have several hyphenated Greek characters. And a couple/few Silhouette Special Editions, although even those are hotter than normal SSE fare.
We used to have a foreign language section on our site offering up free copies of the foreign titles we have. Maybe we should consider reinstating it. Our younger son Tim may not use his old bedroom anymore (except during the holidays), but he’d still like to get into it without worry of bodily harm from teetering box piles. Hell, I would!
Cheers!
L&T;:> ;>
Dear Vicky !!
I found an old Arlekin book in Greek Language
Their address
HARLENIK ELLAS EKDOTIKI ABEE
Ippokratous 57
Athens 10680
Greece
Phone # 3609438 or 3629723
I hope this is helpful information
Let me know how it is working.