Reading Around the Globe: Catherine in Denmark
“There is a culture of reading! There are bookstores, both used and a local chain, as well as libraries available. However, the culture is significantly smaller than in other countries.“
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Welcome to Reading Around the Globe, a series here on Reader Voracious Blog geared at fostering a culture of understanding in the bookish community about access to books in various countries around the world. Each post in the series highlights a full interview with one international reader. You can read more about this series and catch up on previous interviews on the master post.
* Note: after months of crunching data, I have decided to move Reading Around the Globe to a different day of the week as Saturdays are a low traffic day.
- What is your name? Catherine
- Blog URL? Bees and Books
- Twitter handle? @beesandbooks1
- Where do you live? Denmark
- Do you find that there is a culture of reading where you live? If not, tell us a bit how you came to be one! There is a culture of reading! There are bookstores, both used and a local chain, as well as libraries available. However, the culture is significantly smaller than in other countries. One part that seems to be thriving right now is Fantasy novels, as there is a yearly Fantasy book convention in my town!
- What kinds of books do you enjoy reading? Fantasy, historical fiction, and romance are my favorite genres. I also appreciate a lot of the “classics.”
- Have you always been a reader? Oh yes.
- Do you also read books published in your native language/published locally to you? If so, tell us a bit about what kinds of books are published in your country! I’m mostly reading my lengthy TBR so not really…
- Are there libraries where you live? If so, what kinds of books can you find there? Are you able to get the books that you want? Yes, we have a public library downtown. Unfortunately I don’t utilize it very much… When I had access to my university library I only checked out books related to my schoolwork, and I never really noticed if they had genre books either.
- How prevalent are English published books where you live in bookstores? (For example, books printed by HarperCollins.) Pretty prevalent. Most books in the bookstores are Danish, but it’s common to speak/read English from a young age and so a lot of English books, especially major publications that haven’t been translated yet are available.
- Do you use NetGalley or Edelweiss to request electronic galleys for review? If so, what kind of success rate would you estimate for you personally? No I do not.
- Do you experience hurdles or barriers to access for the kinds of books that you read? Please explain if so. Occasionally, yes. Shipping is a major problem, even through Amazon. Books can be too expensive to justify the purchase due to high shipping fees, customs fees can be charged, and ordering from some bookstores results in long waits and damage to the book while being delivered. It took us three tries to get a copy of Dracula from Barnes & Nobles’ special editions that wasn’t bent and scratched up.
- If you could make one change to the publishing landscape, what would you do? Digital libraries! Some libraries have OneDrive systems that allow you to check out ebooks, but it’s not very common yet leading to a lot of ebook readers having to resort to piracy.
- Help other international bloggers out… What resources do you use to obtain the books that you want to read? Kindle Unlimited is my largest resource, and even that can be limiting.
- Do you have any other experiences as a reader around the world that you would like to share? There are some things that are just universal! Certain books that have been translated around the world and are widespread. What really is entertaining is when those books create different reading cultures in different places, such as the effect of major books like Harry Potter or Dan Brown’s works.
Please note that all experiences reflected in the interviews are personal and are not meant to generalize what reading access is like in each country. If you are interested in participating please DM me on Twitter.
💖 If you like the work that I do here at Reader Voracious, consider fueling my pumpkin spice latte and black tie addiction by buying me a ko-fi or joining my Patreon! ☕
Let’s go on another adventure together!
TheCaffeinatedReader
September 18, 2019 at 2:32 AMKindle Unlimited is amazing and I am so glad it exists haha, and I just wish there was a solution to international shipping, it seems so unfair that shipping is so expensive :/ it keeps readers from buying more, and that means less support for the authors, and sometimes the ebook is just as expensive, loved reading about your experience!
Olivia-Savannah
September 18, 2019 at 2:33 AMIt was very cool to dip into Denmark! I have never been there before so it was nice to hear about the reading culture. It’s impressive that they have a lot of English speakers and readers, so there is a market for those books. I would love to visit the country someday and it was nice to meet Catherine 🙂
Olivia-S @ Olivia’s Catastrophe
Jennifer Pletcher
September 18, 2019 at 6:58 AMThanks for sharing as always! I really look forward to these posts.