h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...by Lierre Keith.

I'll write more about it once I've finished it. It's taking me much longer to get through than any other books I've read, because the so called 'translator' seems to have simply put the script through Google Translate and then made some lame efforts to correct the worst mistakes. He's still left in hundreds of errors (grammatical, spelling, missing words/incomplete sentences, direct translations into Swedish expressions that don't even exit etc.) in the Swedish version. And the spelling errors would be detected simply by running a spell check, something which they must have forgotten to do.

And every time I come across an error, my brain stops reading to correct it. I should have become a proof reader, really I should.

Even the Internet site of the publishing company has been misspelled.

This is the first time I've actually sent off an e-mail to the publisher complaining about the translation of a book, that's how bad it is.

Latest example:
In the chapter that mentions 'Dietary Goals for Americans', it's abbreviated, in one place, to just the first two words. Which would be 'Dietary Goals', right?

But in the book it says, and I quote 'Dietetiska Goals' which is neither Swedish nor English.

Translated into Swedish it would be 'Dietistiska Mål'. However, there is no such Swedish word as 'Dietetisk', that's just plain rubbish.

And it's a pity, because all the frustration I feel over the poor translation makes it harder for me to focus on the actual contents.

Gngngngngn

When it comes to the contents, I'm a little bit disappointed that the author allows her emotions to get involved in her writing, making it seem autobiographical in parts, and frankly I think she should completely have left out her ultrafeminist views, it's not the main theme of the book.

The main theme, as I see it, is explaining why a vegetarian/vegan diet isn't healthy in the long run, and how the growing of vegetarian foods isn't ecologically sound in the long run either. I would have wanted facts, studies and references presented early on, but they don't really appear until the second half of the book.

Demand your money back from the publishers, *and* the original English version. Sounds like it's completely unreadable!

The topic intrigues me, though, vegetarianism vs health and environment.

In my e-mail I wrote 'my only comfort is that I didn't buy the book, in which case I would have returned it and asked for my money back, but borrowed it from my local library'.

I have not been offered any compensation for my mental suffering though

Oh, and I've already had to renew my loan once, because four weeks is obviously not enough time for my brain to cope with a text so full of errors.

Soy

I've had my doubts about soy and soy products for several years, reading articles and hearing stories.

And after getting through about 80% of The Vegetarian Myth, all I can say is that I'll do my very best to stay as far away as possible from soy and soy products. The stuff just doesn't seem to be fit for human consumption, at least not in the very excessive amounts the so called 'Western' world use it. It would seem that most Asian countries where soy or soy products are used, they're used very sparingly and only as addition to otherwise complete meals.

Might need to read 'The Whole Soy Story' by Kaayla Daniel. Too bad her internet site seems overly commercial, as do many other US sites. Sell, sell, sell, buy, buy, buy!