New Mandarin Companion Graded Reader just out 《卷发公司的案子》based on "Sherlock Holmes and the Red-Headed League"

[Rufus]

I had so much interest with our first book we released (The Secret Garden - 秘密花园) I want to share with you guys our newest book, a Sherlock Holmes story. This is our 5th book and I didn't want to spam you guys with numbers 2, 3, and 4.

 

It's currently only available on ebook and we will be releasing print editions in 2014. It's currently only available in simplified characters but we are looking into releasing it in traditional characters soon. We have our 5 titles out now and we will begin working on more to be released in 2014. This is a big accomplishment for us and we are excited to see where this will go. Thanks for everyone's support!

 

Here are our books. Visit any of the stores for more details and samples. You can also visit our website for more fun info: www.MandarinCompanion.com.

 

Sherlock Holmes and the Red-Headed League 《卷发公司的案子》: Amazon and Kobo

The Secret Garden 《秘密花园》: Amazon, iBooks, and Kobo 

The Country of the Blind 《盲人国》: Amazon, iBooks, and Kobo

The Monkey's Paw 《后爪》: Amazon, iBooks, and Kobo

The Sixty Year Dream 《六十年的梦》: Amazon, iBooks, and Kobo

 

 

 

[querido]

I'm excited too, Rufus!

I have them all, as it feels so good to read them.

I would *not* rush you, but I look forward to seeing how far you go with it.

[deathtrap]

I'd love to buy these books but I have a couple questions:

1. I live in the Middle East but have a Kobo and iPad registered to Canadian addresses/stores, which way would be the best to buy them? I don't think Amazon is going to work...

2. Do I get any DRM-free text files so I can copy/paste into Anki easily as well as use pop-up dictionaries with them or am I stuck to the ecosystem that I purchase them with?

[Ania]

Thanks so much for letting us know!! I'm so glad that this one is available in Poland Looking forward to reading it once I'm done with the previous ones and I'm looking forard to more books from you!! 

[lechuan]

Great! Downloading to my Kindle now...

 

Are 2014's releases going to be level 2?

[Rufus]

Thanks guys! To answer some of the questions....

 

@deathtrap - I recommend purchasing them through the Canadian websites. What matters if where your address is registered with your account. If you use Amazon, you should specifically go to the Canadian website (http://www.amazon.ca/) and buy from there or make your purchase through the device. I think if you go to the websites through the links on our webpage, it should get  you to the American website and you can go from there (http://mandarincompanion.com/products/)

 

Also, we don't have any DRM free material at this stage. However, we are talking to Pleco about offering our books through their platform which would enable you to use the built in reader where you can click on words and characters for definitions. Apple and the kindle app on apple devices have a built in dictionary that you can use to look up characters. We are also working with Skritter to provide them word lists for each book that should allow you to study. 

 

As for 2014, it's a bag of surprises. We plan on producing higher level content. I'd love to hear what you guys would like to see! 

[taijidan]

Hi The Country of the Blind 《盲人国》 - says "This title is not currently available for purchase" on amazon.com, I also get the same for monkeys paw. Is there some problem? will they be available on Kindle soon?

[Ania]

@taijidan, there are some copyright issues with the two books you mentioned (i.e. the original stories are not public domain in some countries), so depending on where you live, they might not be available. If you're in Europe, The Monkey's Paw should be made available this year, but The Country of the Blind will need a few more years. 

[Rufus]

Good news Gentlemen, the Monkey's Paw is now available for sale Worldwide (except for Mexico and Spain, darn those crazy copyright laws!). Get it while it's hot!

www.mandarincompanion.com

[imron]

Presumably the ladies will find it good news too :-)

[roddy]

"This is our 5th book and I didn't want to spam you guys with numbers 2, 3, and 4."

I don't think we'd regard it as spam - people are interested. If you posted a whole bunch and nobody responded we might ask you to slow down, but as it stands you're welcome to post at will. 

[freipole]

Eagerly awaiting the traditional edition!

[sburkle]

I read the sample of this book, and it seems like a pretty decent story! I'm just a little disappointed that it costs $10 compared to the Chinese Breeze readers which are of similar length and cost $4 for the eBook.

[alanmd]

I took the Skritter vocab lists that were published and did some set operations on them to see which words were common to all books, unique to each book, etc. - I thought some people reading the series might find this useful and/or interesting: http://hskhsk.pythonanywhere.com/mandcomp

[sburkle]

That's pretty impressive, I do find it pretty interesting. Would love to see similar for some of the Chinese Breeze books as I've read quite a few of those already.

[pprendeville]

When will the Level 2 books be available? Emailed John Pasden but got no reply. These are great books and would love to see the next version.

[Lemmih]

I have your Sherlock Holmes story on my kindle and I like it very much. I'm a beginner so I decided to create a spaced-repetition deck to help me study the vocabulary.

 

The vocabulary is arranged by chapter (1 through 10) and each word is shown in the context of a sentence.

 

SRS Deck is here: http://talentsrs.com/courses/AnNfmNXad7DK8XMxb/sherlock_holmes_and_the_case_of_the_curly_haired_company

 

You can browse the sentences that cover the vocabulary on GitHub: https://github.com/TalentSRS/cn-sherlock/blob/master/cn_story.sherlock_holmes.01.txt.yaml

 

Thanks for the great book. I hope to read the rest soon.

 

~David.

 

[alanmd]

On the Mandarin Companion Facebook page in December there was an estimate of "a couple of months" for Great Expectations, so probably still a couple of months...

[Lemmih]

sburkle: Where can I find ebooks by Chinese Breeze? They don't seem to be at their website nor at Amazon.

[sburkle]

Lemmih: They sure are on Amazon, right here. I usually buy the Kindle edition because it's quite a bit cheaper but they paperback version does come with a CD.