I will probably be reading the original in the near future, having reached a fairly high level of reading comprehension now. I read the English translation last year and I think I still have it around somewhere. So I'll get back to you on that one...

I keep being really annoyed by the way the books are talked about the in English-language media - most of all US media stuff that I've seen, but I think UK media as well (lost track a bit at this stage). The Tiger Beatdown article was no exception at all, and I'm moderately fond of them a lot of the time. It felt as though about a dozen points had been missed by a wide margin...