Hi, has anyone read Apostol by Dyfed Edwards? The June 2019 prize winning fiction book. I think itās intended for first language speakers but Iām thinking of buying it - I had a sneak look at a page or two yesterday, and the vocabulary didnāt seem to be too frightening.
@clare-6 Dymaār llyrf on iān siarad amdani. Maeān dda achos mae mynegai yn Gymraeg ac yn Saesneg, ac mae llunia yn dda iawn :)!!
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Iolo is great. Saw him speak this year
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Thank you Cetra. I shall get a copy shortly. Great to see you yesterday 
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My sister (who doesnāt speak Welsh) has kindly sent me a book that she found in a second-hand shop. The original price of 7/6 is written in the front and there are copious notes in an illegible handwriting. The book is:
āBlodeugerdd oār Ddeunawfed Ganrifā by D. Gwenallt Jones.
She has to be joking. I donāt read collections of eighteenth century poems in English, let alone in Welsh. I realise that it is a classic collection put together by an eminent poet, but oh dear! Never mind, I shall put it at the very end of the books that I might aspire to one day but canāt tackle yet.
Sue
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SGÅ“P - Lois Arnold
This is a great book by Lois Arnold that is unmistakenly aimed at learners with a small geirfa at the back and a few words translated at the bottom of each page. The story is very good and keeps your interest all the way though. Itās about a young reporter, Lowri Glyn, who works at a small, local newspaper while dreaming of making her name and writing the big stories. Making tea and typing letters is her usual day to day chores until some clues to something bigger come her way.
I will say that I felt a lot of things in this book were written purely just to broaden your vocab while reading it, which is a good thing, donāt get me wrong, but it was a bit blatent on times.
On the back cover it says that this is aimed at ālefel sylfaen dau / canolraddā. Not too much for any SSiWers having got through level 1 then I guess.
Hereās a review I found from the SSiW eisteddfod back in 2017 thatās worth a read ā¦
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Agree with you totally @gruntius. Lois Arnoldās books are great for early learners to improve vocabulary, sentence construction and pick up useful phrases to drop into conversation. Iāve recently finished Sgwp and would thoroughly recommend it.
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Seconded! Iāve just worked my way through the first chapter of Sgŵp!, on loan from @RichardBuck, and was surprised by how much I could construe (having recently finished SSiW Level 2). Looking forward to uncovering the Big Story!
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An interesting article in English about the best Welsh language novels from the past decade https://nation.cymru/culture/the-top-10-welsh-language-novels-of-the-2010s/ I donāt think my Welsh is up to reading most of these just yet but I hope to read a few of them in the coming decade.
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That was my review Thanks very much for thinking it was worth sharing! I really enjoyed Sgwp, still one of my favorite books Iāve read in Welsh (granted, the list isnāt very long - around 10, I thinkā¦) Iāve been really busy this past year with life/other projects, but am definitely going to get back to reading Welsh books soon. Iām grateful for all the contributions in this thread to help me choose the next one- thanks everyone!
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Mine too. I go back and read it again for pleasure when I find that other books are just too difficult or too much like hard work.
Sue
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More than likely itās been mentioned before in this thread but, for those lucky people who live in Wales, you can get e-books and audio books in Welsh and English via the Welsh Library service across Wales using BorrowBox: https://libraries.wales/my-digital-library/borrowbox/
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Hi everyone
A few of us have decided to start an online book group. The idea is that we agree on a novel to read, and then have a monthly hangout to talk about it. Our first hangout will take place on Monday 24 February at 7pm and we will read Sgwp! by Lois Arnold.
Full details are on Welsh Speaking Practice, and everyone is welcome!. Please contact me if you have any questions at this stage.
I look forward to seeing you on 24 February!
Pob hwyl
Neil
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Among my next 6 months goals thereās reading more. Then I did a bit of shopping. 
p.s. I also received my official Cymraeg badge in the process! 
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Thatās āCysgod yn y Coedā by Lois Arnold hiding underneath, isnāt it? I think thatās a really good collection of short stories. Gwers Mewn Cariad too. Good stuff. Trwyār ffenestri? I think thatās a lot harder but really good. I havenāt read Gangsters yn y Glaw. Any comments would be very welcome. Enjoy the reading!
Sue
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I have just sent a furious postcard to Bethan Gwanas. How could she??? The offence in question is āI Botany Bayā. I was really enjoying it - itās the imagined story of a real young woman, Ann Lewis, who was transported to Australia for stealing from the draperās shop where she worked. I know the area well, and was able to walk with her round the Dolgellau streets, and home to the family farm on her Sundays off. Her arrest and imprisonment were beautifully told. And then came the end - unforgiveable! And worse, probably true!! Donāt say you havenāt been warned.
Definitely true ā¦ a very good book all the same.
Very fortunate to pick up a signed copy of I Botany Bay for 50c last week in a charity shop, plus 3 others books for Ā£1:50. So my book pile is steadily growing and Iām now utterly intrigued by your posts @gruntius @BronwenLewis. I think it may be a while before Iām ready to read this one though.
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Iām currently a quarter of the way through Dadeni by Ifan Morgan Jones (mentioned somewhere on the fforwm by @AnthonyCusack) and hugely enjoying it. I think itās a little bit of a challenge in a couple of ways - some of the (south Welsh) colloquial language is going to be very hard to find in most dictionaries (it took @johnwilliams_6 looking in Dweud eich dweud to tell me that ta pārun 'ny on the end of a sentence just meant āanywayā), but that means most of it is exactly the kind of everyday speech SSiW covers; some of the stuff in the narratorās voice is, as youād expect, quite a bit more formal; and, since one of the characters is the severed head of Bendigeidfran, there are some definite āWherefore askāst thou questions whereof thou knowest the answer?ā touches from time to time.
But itās great: Iāve just had a Welsh archaeologist and his gay Goth son being chased through the sewers of London by undead corvids, carrying the head of Bran the blessed in a black bin bag, and Iāve realised what it reminds me of. Itās basically Ben Aaronovitchās Rivers of London meets the Mabinogi, and exactly the sort of thing Iād enjoy even were it English. I suspect Iāll be checking out what else heās written once Iāve finished this!
Level is probably for pretty confident readers, I think - itās written for native-speaking adults, but itās not trying to be overly literary.
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