Back text: "When, one afternoon, mild-mannered and middle-aged Classics scholar Raimund Gregorius walks out of his classroom while giving a lesson, his impulsiveness surprises him as much as it does his students. This break from his hitherto predictable routine is inspired by two chance encounters - the first with a mysterious Portuguese woman, and the second with a book that he discovers in a dusty corner of an old bookshop, which contains the thoughts of an enigmatig Portuguese aristocrat. With the book as his talisman, Gregorius boards the night train to Lisbon on a journey to find out more about its author, Amadeu de Prado: who was the man whose words both haunt and compel him?"

I tried reading it, I got to chapter 12, but it just wasn't for me. Probably because to me (being Dutch) it was so clearly translated from German, to which my sister said I should've read it in German, not English. And also because I like Portugal and Portuguese, but this book does not view the country, people and language, as I do. No recognition at all.

Offering as an international ray. Takers:
Fifna (NL, ship EU)
lucy-lemon (UK, ship EU)
OnlyLiana (UK, ship int'l)
angelamurdoch (UK, UK shipping)--> Lidlekiwi
Megmac (UK, ship int'l)
mrbaggins1 (ZA, ship int'l)
babemuffin (AU, ship int'l)
okyrhoe (GR, ship int'l) <-- now here
Haugtussa (NO, ship EU)

Contacted these participants to see if they're still interested in reading along, when I receive a message back I'll add them to the list above:
MarcThomas (FR, ship EU)
Gwenindil (PT, ship EU)
soffitta1 has already read another copy


Some rules:
1. When you receive the book please ensure that you journal it.
2. Read it as soon as you can, if you take longer than 1 month, please keep us all informed by posting a new entry or sending me a PM to inform me (either way I get an e-mail and I know what's up with the book).
3. When you've finished reading it, make a journal entry and contact the next person on the list.
4. If no response is received after two attempts, contact me and then next person on the list.
5. When you send the book on please make a journal entry.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent out as a book ray to Fifna. Have a safe trip!

Arrived safely, thanks Laui!

A good read, maybe not as good I was expecting though, as it didn't really grab me. You have to be in the right frame of mind for the many philosophical sections, but it was interesting. It has also improved my Portuguese, which was non-existent :-) I wasn't that happy with the translation either, and being a translator myself, I found myself thinking of other ways to translate some of the sentences. But that does also mean that I know how difficult translating can be. It's easy to spot the mistakes, but not always so easy to come up with a better alternative. There were also quite a lot of spaces missing between the words ('promisedus', looks a bit like a Latin word till you discover it's meant to be 'promised us').
Thank you for sharing, Laui, PMing the next reader now.
edit 13/01: MarcThomas has asked to be skipped, so I'll contact the next reader.
edit 20/01: I have lucy-lemon's address, but unfortunately what I also have is a nasty bout of gastric flu, which is preventing me from getting to the post office. Sorry for the delay, will get it posted as soon as I can.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent on its way to lucy-lemon yesterday.

Thank you - can't wait to start reading this! Have a few things to read first though, so I might have to push this up the list a bit.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to Liana to continue the ring

Sorry for the delay in journaling this book, it arrived safe and sound a while back but I've been away with work. I've nearly finished my current book so will start on this in a few days!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Unfortunately I'm notgoing to have time to read this book at the moment so I'm posting it on to lidlekiwi (formerly angelamurdoch) this afternoon!

Hi, arrived today! I will get onto reading it shortly!

I thought this book would have been better. I didn't finish it as I found it a chore to read. I hope the next person has more luck.
Will post tomorrow

Received in the post yesterday, I just finished my last book so can start this straight away :-)

I had looked forward to reading this for a while but I was left a little disappointed. I found the author's tone very smug (though this may be translation issues as mentioned above) and none of it is as profound as he seems to think. A wasted opportunity I felt on many levels. Glad I read it though so thank you for sharing :-)

Have pmed mrbaggins1.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

sent on last Wednesday, very sorry for delay.

Received through the mail today.

I'll get around to it as soon as I can as I have a couple of Rings/Rays in front of it. I'm a bit swamped at the moment.

I'm struggling a bit to get into this one. Bear with me please. I'll finish it as I don't give up easily but something seems to be missing to really drag me into the story!

This is one of those books where the covers are definitely too far apart - I struggled with in and sighed in relief when I got to the last page. If it wasn't a BX book which I felt obliged to finish I would've abandoned it. The premise/plot had so much potential but it just meandered along to a whimpering end. Maybe someone should give it a "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" treatment like "The Vampire Lestat meets Mundus on the Night Train to Lisbon" to blow some life into the book. It was also very badly edited in the printing stage with many words with no spaces in between.

Thanks for sharing and I hope the others down the line find it more enjoyable than I did.

ETA Can't get hold of Babemuffin contacting MarcThomas

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Released to Babemuffin in Australia today. I could not get hold of her and then contacted Marcthomas who was next on the list. Now going to Oz by surface mail first

Update: 6/1/2010

This book was sent to Babemuffin at the end of July 2009 - see this thread note I made today: http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/20/6636644

I was really scared this book was definitely lost since it's been 5 months since this book has been sent out. According to this thread it might not be so! Apparently babemuffin did receive this book somewhere in September. She's contacted okyrhoe for an address and I'm really hopeful it is currently in 'mid-air' somewhere between Australia and Europe, let's just hope it doesn't plunge in the ocean. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

I'm giving up. I've sent numerous PM's to babemuffin and received exactly nothing. I'm considering this book lost. I'm really sorry for all of you who are still waiting for it, I'll try to find a way to revive the ray. I'll post here if I do!

Babemuffin, if you ever read this. Please send the book on, if not to any of the others still on the list, back to me. I know it's a ray and I don't exactly want the book back, but right now it's about the principle. I would much rather find a good way, time and place for this book to continue it's travels, than to have to wonder. I do still consider it my book, since I've released it in a controlled release, to share it with a number of certain people (as listed above), who probably still want to read it. If this sounds sour, I'm sorry, but I'm not exactly stoked by what happened. I'm actually quite disappointed.

Book arrived safe and sound in Athens yesterday!

Thanks Laui for organising the ring, and babemuffin for posting the book to me.

I am halfway through the book, and contrary to most of the previous journalers, I am enjoying it!

Of course Mundus is not a likeable person, and I doubt any reader would (or is meant to) identify with him. But...his character has certain obsessive traits that I recognize in an acquaintance of mine (a university professor, no less), and I am fascinated by this coincidence.

Also, the literary background (classical Greek) and the historical/political background (there was a dictatorship in Greece not too long ago as well) are elements I can identify with, and I am curious to see how these themes play out....
One could say that the book's story is a cross between the works of Alessandro Barrico (Without Blood) & Joostein Gartner. But I find Night Train more to my taste than either of these authors.

Since I am neither familiar with German or Portuguese, I haven't noticed the negative aspects of the translation.
(Recently I read Berhardt Schlink's The Reader in English, and with that novel I did feel at times that there was some loss, as if the English text couldn't quite express the full meaning of the German original.)