Today I began Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas.
Btw, did you read Zafon in the original? I did not. :)
currently reading Dean Koontz's Brother Odd
I read anything and everything. And I take issue with the dismissal of Stephen King. I once thought that he was just another pulp novelist and, thus, not deserving of respect. Then somebody gave me a copy of Pet Sematary. I was surprised. He is a gifted writer. His descriptions and plots are quite skillful, even if they are executed in a limited genre. Is it high art? No. But his books are entertaining and well-crafted.
Discover, those mysteries sound intriguing. Are you reading them to improve your Spanish?
I started reading Maigret novels in French to improve my reading and vocabulary. They're not so hard and really fun. It would be great to find more titles for the same purpose in Spanish. I read some short stories by Borges and a good deal of poetry, but mystery novels would be easier and less work than trying to decipher idiomatic language that you'd find in poetry.
People also tend to talk in conversational language in mystery novels and that also helps when you actually talk to people. Four years of spanish and I sound like a twit when I speak to people around here, primarily because, although I've read all kinds of technical stuff, I have had very limited experience in conversation.
So I confess, my knowledge of Stephen King is limited to one novel and one short story. Everything else has been movies or tv miniseries.
I like stories, I hate "literature". I really dislike books that include sentences that you have to read twelve times before you begin to understand what was intended, let alone books that are nothing but.
I don't know the Fantasy genre and think it might be hard for me to like it, but if anyone has some good suggestions, I'm game.
Language is such a nuanced thing and it's so hard to use it skillfully. Writing is a craft. Storytelling, doing that well, is a hard task. Still, there are so many ways to get it right. I agree with Chris's take on King. He does have the skill to create an atmosphere and to create interesting plots, but often, probably too often, he opts for doom and gloom when it is all too predictable. Not every book is the Castle of Otranto (the mother of all gothick novels), but you know things aren't going to go well from page 1, pretty much any time you pick him up. Defeating or making that expectation irrelevant is what would redeem any writer in that genre and I suspect it's a great deal harder than it might sound on its face.
I read everything from Island of the Blue Dolphins to JR (Wm. Gaddis). Children's books can be wonderful, even in their simplicity. Sometimes, you can tell a story with only pictures, as in Edward (the vain donkey). Or you can be sarcastic or perverse as in Harry the Poisonous Centipede, or Fables you shouldn't pay any attention to. autumn, Bea, I envy you the many years of pleasurable mutual exploration of children's books with your kids. How fun to read with children. They have their own take on the books.
I love Philip K. D-ick. I really like good science fiction. I don't know the Fantasy genre and think it might be hard for me to like it, but if anyone has some good suggestions, I'm game.
I like stories, I hate "literature". I really dislike books that include sentences that you have to read twelve times before you begin to understand what was intended, let alone books that are nothing but.
Don't diss the Hungry Caterpillar, ma'am.
This:
Led me to this:
"This chaotic writing style may, some critics argue, reflect Gaddis' preoccupation with entropy and with the 20th century's rejection of Newtonian physics, the narrative style thus reflecting a quantum and Heisenbergian world of "waste, flux and chaos.""
Gakk.
Don't diss the Hungry Caterpillar, ma'am.I read that to my kids. And The Tiny Seed, The Mixed-Up Chameleon, and my favorite, The Very Quiet Cricket.
I am currently ploughing through Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time", a thoroughly misogynistic shelf-yard of sub-Tolkein "fantasy", because I got hooked half a lifetime ago.That series started so well, I just couldn't wait for the next book.Got to The Crown of Thorns and I thought what the hell is happening, so many tangents in a single book.
Don't confuse what a critic writes with the novel itself.Well said. Critics are paid to talk shite. ;D
...
Here's the plot: a fifth grader buying penny stocks builds up an enormous financial empire using his substitute teacher as a front man. It's wickedly funny and sad at the same time.
Pratchett is a complete unknown. I'll check him out.A total genius, the more you read the discworld series, the cleverer it gets.
I always enjoyed "The Stinky Cheese Man".
autumn, as for Beatrix Potter, children like repetition, even though it often makes for dull reading. (And to be fair, Peter Rabbit is hardly what I'd call "plotless." There's quite the drama there.) My bird loves the afternoon children's programming on pbs so I put on the tv for him. He loves the Cat in the Hat even though the same damned songs play over and over every day. The little boy across the street used to come and watch tv with the bird. His mother said the kids really like the repetition and structure. Maybe it has something to do with the maturation of the brain at that age.
How is it that everybody else's days are far longer than mine?
Don't fret, dear, size isn't everything.
Don't fret, dear, size isn't everything.
chrisT. you are so naughty, even though that's true.
I have a bet that "We need to talk about Kevin" is a good read.
I've got a copy of Perdido Street Station. Do you have an opinion on that--is it worth reading? I'm unfamiliar with this author.
Next: return to Merleau-Ponty and the Cogito chapter of Phenomenology of Perception. This book is like calasthenics for your brain. It was one of two PhD dissertations he wrote back in 1945. I feel like a drooling idiot compared to people like that who think so deeply about the nature of the world. If only I had that kind of sustained and disciplined ability to analyze things...
I have a bet that "We need to talk about Kevin" is a good read.The movie was INCREDIBLE so the book most likely adds several stars to that.
Jasper Fforde does something similar in "Shades of Grey". (The real one, not the pr0n one)
pr0n
That's th' first time I ran across that term--hadda look it up.
n00bs.
n00bs.;D ;D everyone was once.
Quote from: christn00bs.;D ;D everyone was once.
Not so.
n00bs are a special class of users: you can be a new user without being a n00b, and you can most definitely be a n00b a long time after you cease to be a new user..
I dunno. You moderators really should at least try and keep the delinquent users approximately on topic.
Tsk.
That's cool. We just finished watching all the BBC miniseries from those books. I've never read anything by Le Carrée. Let us know what you think.
I'm still slogging through Perdido Street Station. nearly 500 pages in and waiting for them to kill off those pests already. sheesh. talk about milking it. Don't they use editors any more?
I am going to try and complete
le morte d'arthur soon.
Yes, and yes.
... on that subject, I enjoyed "Stardust" too.Didnt realise he wrote the book, love the movie :)
It does come across as a Gaiman book with bits by Pratchett, as well.
... on that subject, I enjoyed "Stardust" too.
There is a zombie in Dante and I will share where if anyone wants to know.
I want to know since I won't read the Divina Commedia in a close future. :D
This is an older translation--not as fluid or beautiful as the Hollander translation.
The gist of it is, is that for those who betray guests (as d' Oria did) the soul is immediately taken down to Hell while their (empty) bodies stay above on earth... eating, walking until the body decays and dies (a second time). If that's not a description of a zombie, I don't know what is. :o
I'd say that was a fair assessment. He-he.
It's important to get away from the older translations (like the one I posted above). They're too stiff, too formal... you want something that flows and isn't a chore.
Next i was going to read A Tale of Two Cities, but I am open to suggestions.
I did enjoy the "Roadside Picnic" recommendation.
At the moment I'm reading The Once and Future King by Mr. White. It's unique and I can't believe I didn't read this sooner--maybe it was the association with the Disney flick.I have tried and tried to read, but all I get is
I Hate Disney
-1
Wicked started out well, but ultimately it disappointed me.
(http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/oo51/dw33z/Smileys/185248_10150348916921729_20531316728_9500420_1221014_n-300x233-150x150_zpsbc3b9354.jpg)creep ;D
Learn to love Dizz-nee guys they now own all of our fav franchises. all they did was borrow and and sugar coat them
Your avvy's hairdo reminds me of a hedgehog. Sorry, I had to say it.
Does anyone buy newspapers anymore?I read the whole series, I agree he can get a little dry at times. It's probably better in Swedish
I finally finished Män som hatar kvinnor (aka The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). The first part is dense (not to say boring). It picks up speed in the middle (mostly bc the girl is a compelling character) and the ending is meh... Has anybody read the other parts?
I quite enjoyed them. They require quite a high level of suspension of disbelief though.
The Martian by Andy Weir.
Brilliant.
The Martian first line:
I read Jane Eyre to my daughter recently which was... interesting.
Although I was already familiar with the story (seen the film), I'm not sure I actually liked it. I mean, there are so many chance coincidences that happen to her it's like there were only 10 people living in the entire country.
1. Situation: Documents of Contemporary Art, ed. C. Doherty
2. William Tyndale: A Biography by D. Daniel
3. Trozas by B. Traven
4. The Cheese and the Worms by C. Ginzberg
I'm about half way through Divine Invasion. guess I should read VALIS next.
Well, I've read The Man in the High Castle (which is currently the subject of a brilliant Amazon.com production, to my amazement)...
His death from stroke at an early age was a real loss to literature in my opinion. He's always been one of my favorite sci-fi authors. It is strange to live where he once did and to pick up on so many local references in his books.
... and next plan to reread The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles by Ronald Hutton which I first read back in the 90's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pagan_Religions_of_the_Ancient_British_Isles
Currently reading KP: The Autobiography by Kevin Pietersen MBE
....Geoff Boycott to name one after reading his Autobiography I thought what a selfish scallywag you were.
Have listen to HP.Lovecraft audiobooks. Dark
What is the stainless steel rat like ?
Anyone know a book about the hierarchy of angels ????
Anyone know a book about the hierarchy of angels ????
So heaven is an inverted pyramid scheme?!?!
Thanks for the snow storm, Smokes. I just noticed it at the top of the page.
I loved that rotten review.
I don't often read book reviews, but this one tickled me:Quote from: Jack Poling (A random reviewer on GoodReads)Where to begin? Have you ever read a book so awful that you hated it? A book that despite being only 300 some odd pages took you weeks to read? A book that, after a while, made you hate not only this book, but the act of reading itself? After 300 pages of this garbage I think I not only hate reading, but have been rendered illiterate. Thanks Thomas Ligotti! Now I can't read! I'm only able to type this by using rage telepathy. Now I'm going to saw off my own head with the plastic cutlery from my KFC dinner and kick my own head off my back porch like a soccer ball. I hope you are happy Mr. Ligotti, you scallywag! I hope somebody kicks you square in the balls.
I guess that not everyone is enamoured of Mr Ligotti!
I knew I've heard Thomas Ligotti's name before! Some people say his work has been plagiarized in True Detective (http://lovecraftzine.com/2014/08/04/did-the-writer-of-true-detective-plagiarize-thomas-ligotti-and-others/).
Basic Instinct is probably best watched with the sound off anyway, so you wouldn't have missed much.Having seen it in English on my return, I tend to concur with your assessment.
That, and the nightly telenovelas, kept me occupied.
The Girl With All The Gifts - M R Careyany good ?
Working my way through the Iliad. Agamemnon seems like an bottom and Achilles is still really pissed (in the American sense).
Your conclusions were all wrong, 8ullfrog.welcome back, I thought you had vanished into the Matrix
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice was good, and it's the first book in a trilogy, so I'm on to book 2: Ancillary Sword.
welcome back, I thought you had vanished into the Matrix
Thanks goldie. I tried taking the blue pill but got kicked out of Matrix for mocking Mr. Anderson.;D ;D ;D ;D
Just wing it - how hard can it be?
You can get in trouble for that if they are dead though.
So far, they've not taxed the air, but one thing you'll enjoy is the "soda tax" on carbonated beverages here ....
In Alabama they are all "cola". Regardless of flavour. "Want a cola?" - "Yup" - "RC, Mountain Dew, A&W or ...?"
I haven't read Wheel of Time or anything in that series.I gave up after book 5 ish.
The Boy Who Drew Cats
A LONG, long time ago, in a small country-village in Japan, there lived a poor farmer and his wife, who were very good people. They had a number of children, and found it very hard to feed them all. The elder son was strong enough when only fourteen years old to help his father; and the little girls learned to help their; mother almost as soon as they could walk.
But the youngest child, a little boy, did not seem to be fit for hard work. He was very clever,-cleverer than all his brothers and sisters; but he was quite weak and small, and people said he could never grow very big. So his parents thought it would be better for him to become a priest than to become a farmer. They took him with them to the village-temple one day, and asked the good old priest who lived there, if he would have their little boy for his acolyte, and teach him all that a priest ought to know.
The old man spoke kindly to the lad, and asked him some hard questions. So clever were the answers that the priest agreed to take the little fellow into the temple as an acolyte, and to educate him for the priest hood.
The boy learned quickly what the old priest taught him, and was very obedient in most things. But he had one fault. He liked to draw cats during study-hours, and to draw cats even where cats ought not to have been drawn at all.
Whenever he found himself alone, he drew cats. He drew them on the margins of the priest's books, and on all the screens of the temple, and on the walls, and on the pillars. Several times the priest told him this was not right; but he did not stop drawing cats. He drew them because he could not really help it. He had what is called "the genius of an artist," and just for that reason he was not quite fit to be an acolyte;-a good acolyte should study books.
One day after he had drawn some very clever pictures of cats upon a paper screen, the old priest said to him severely: "My boy, you must go away from this temple at once. You will never make a good priest, but per haps you will become a great artist. Now let me give you a last piece of advice, and be sure you never forget it. Avoid large places at night;-keep to small!"
The boy did not know what the priest meant by saying, "Avoid large places;-keep to small." He thought and thought, while he was tying up his little bundle of clothes to go away; but he could not understand those words, and he was afraid to speak to the priest any more, except to say good-by.
He left the temple very sorrowfully, and began to wonder what he should do. If he went straight home he felt sure his father would punish him for having been disobedient to the priest: so he was afraid to go home. All at once he remembered that at the next village, twelve miles away, there was a very big temple. He had heard there were several priests at that temple; and he made up his mind to go to them and ask them to take him for their acolyte.
Now that big temple was closed up but the boy did not know this fact. The reason it had been closed up was that a goblin had frightened the priests away, and had taken possession of the place. Some brave warriors had afterward gone to the temple at night to kill the goblin; but they had never been seen alive again. Nobody had ever told these things to the boy;-so he walked all the way to the village hoping to be kindly treated by the priests!
When he got to the village it was already dark, and all the people were in bed, but he saw the big temple on a hill at the other end of the principal street, and he saw there was a light in the temple. People who tell the story say the goblin used to make that light, in order to tempt lonely travelers to ask for shelter. The boy went at once to the temple, and knocked. There was no sound inside. He knocked and knocked again; but still nobody came. At last he pushed gently at the door, and was quite glad to find that it had not been fastened. So he went in, and saw a lamp burning,-but no priest.
He thought some priest would be sure to come very soon, and he sat down and waited. Then he noticed that everything in the temple was gray with dust, and thickly spun over with cobwebs. So he thought to him self that the priests would certainly like to have an acolyte, to keep the place clean. He wondered why they had allowed everything to get so dusty. What most pleased him, however, were some big white screens, good to paint cats upon. Though he was tired, he looked at once for a writing-box, and found one, and ground some ink, and began to paint cats.
He painted a great many cats upon the screens; and then he began to feel very, very sleepy. He was just on the point of lying down to sleep beside one of the screens, when he suddenly remembered the words, "Avoid large places;-keep to small!"
The temple was very large; he was all alone; and as he thought of these words,-though he could not quite understand them-he began to feel for the first time a little afraid; and he resolved to look for a small place in which to sleep. He found a little cabinet, with a sliding door, and went into it, and shut himself up. Then he lay down and fell fast asleep.
Very late in the night he was awakened by a most terrible noise,-a noise of fighting and screaming. It was so dreadful that he was afraid even to look through a chink of the little cabinet: he lay very still, holding his breath for fright.
The light that had been in the temple went out; but the awful sounds continued, and became more awful, and all the temple shook. After a long time silence came; but the boy was still afraid to move. He did not move until the light of the morning sun shone into the cabinet through the chinks of the little door.
Then he got out of his hiding-place very cautiously, and looked about. The first thing he saw was that all the floor of the temple was covered with blood. And then he saw, lying dead in the middle of it, an enormous, monstrous rat,-a goblin-rat,-bigger than a cow!
But who or what could have killed it? There was no man or other creature to be seen. Suddenly the boy observed that the mouths of all the cats he had drawn the night before, were red and wet with blood. Then he knew that the goblin had been killed by the cats which he had drawn. And then also, for the first time, he understood why the wise old priest had said to him, "Avoid large places at night;-keep to small."
Afterward that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the cats which he drew are still shown to travelers in Japan.
At least you have a cheese you can be proud of...Only the farm raised one ;D ;D (vintage Ivanhoe is WoW) , rest are just commercial rubber
John Scalzi wrote "Old Man's War" which is quite entertaining (and the amusing Redshirts, too).
He also has a blog (do we still call them blogs?) at https://whatever.scalzi.com. First a warning: he is sort of the anti-OSC: he is a bit (well a lot) of a Social Justice Warrior (he carries a lot of guilt about being a rich middle aged white man with privilege), which leads to a lot of ignorable drivel. Then the point: he has two regular posts, one is "New Books and ARCs (Advanced Readers Copies)", which does what it says on the tin, and the other is "The Big Idea", in which he posts an essay by a book author on their motivation in writing the book. This can lead to some good stuff (and also some rubbish). Because of his political leanings these authors tend toward the female/ LBQTQBTLQWTBI, but that probably isn't altogether a bad thing.
I am Spartacus!
I am Spartacus!;D ;D
We don't all have experience of being on crosses, though.
christ, what's your safe word?
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
I’ll let you know, if I ever have to use it.
Anyone that says POINH if you do, is banned.
Spoilsport.
have just received
The Elements of Eloquence: How To Turn the Perfect English Phrase to go with
The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language
both by by Mark Forsyth, just awaiting
The Etymologicon: a circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language to make the set
With great power comes great responsibility
Right now I have Ivanhoe in the queue,Its a good yarn
I enjoyed Ivanhoe, and kept stopping every page or so to look something up. I ended up writing a dictionary of the oddball terms I kept encountering. Great for Scrabble words.
I've never read anything by Len Deighton, so maybe I'll pick up SS-GB, but I get the impression that the book leaves you hanging as much as the tv series did. I'm reading Get Shorty now as I've never read any Elmore Leonard books (or at least I think I haven't). The movie follows the book much more closely than the tv series did, but both are very good.
Homeschooling my daughter, we are reading Alice in Wonderland, very interesting comparisons from the Disney in my head to the material in the book.
Homeschooling my daughter, we are reading Alice in Wonderland, very interesting comparisons from the Disney in my head to the material in the book.I personally have found that anything that Disney has made into a film Alice in wonderland, Sword in the stone - I just cannot then read the book :o
Whether God is great or not isn't at all relevant. I think that Mr Hitchens makes the fundamental error of assuming that (organised) religion has anything to do with God(s) other than strictly nominally. Religion is another of those things like FaceBook and Reddit (and gangs, and abusive marriages etc.) that allow people to cluster together for shelter, preferably with someone to tell them how to live. Some (quite a lot, to be honest) people desperately need someone else to tell them what they should think and do, and throughout history "religions" have been a very common way of fulfilling that need. What this means is that people "on the inside" are immune to "logic", no matter how much people on the outside think it will help. Something exactly similar happens with the most dedicated adherents of political parties - particularly the extreme ones.
I have not read the book, but recall an article by him lambasting Mother Theresa. It's been years since I read it. I do recall that he was a bit extreme in his criticisms in that case.
That said, I saw him speak several years ago at a local law school and he was delightful as an orator -- quick on his feet. He was wonderfully smart and I miss the level of debate that he fostered, given the focus of specialized media that offers multiple talking heads who offer "contrasting points of view" but who are in fundamental agreement.
I write this instead of watching the Republican presidential debate.
I have not read the book, but recall an article by him lambasting Mother Theresa. It's been years since I read it. I do recall that he was a bit extreme in his criticisms in that case.
I'm always open to suggestions for new sci fi novels. I occasionally comb the Hugo winners and other lists to find things. The Martine book was sitting around in my ebooks waiting for me to get around to it. I guess it was from the last time I went looking for something light to read.
Having said that, I read all of his stuff avidly until I got to The Last Chronicles, and I couldn't get into them at all.
Let the Light Pour In?
Hardly what one might call "reading a book" ..., but I treated myself to Lemn Sissay's Let The Love Pour In when it came out.
Must have thumbed through it at least a dozen times so far.
Without internet,