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I was a little meh on Twenty Days of Turin in general (not a criticism, just didnt do it for me) but goddamn if there isnt one scene in the book that I still think about monthly.
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Aug 9, 2018 05:50
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Can someone give me some good goth/gothic book reccomendations? The most Sisters of Mercy, Interview with a Vampire type stuff out there. Any time period is fine. No YA fiction please.
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Aug 9, 2018 20:11
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Lost Souls and Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite
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Aug 9, 2018 20:55
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Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (or any of her St. Germaine series)
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Aug 9, 2018 23:07
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What are the best books to learn about Greek/Norse/Whatever myths that we didn't learn as children? Not in a factual way, but the actual legends and stories. Like, my only exposure to Hercules is the Disney movie, and a Yotube video explaining all the bit's the movie got wrong. I know he had 12 labours but I don't know anything about the stories of those labours. I've heard mention that Norse Mythology by Neil Gaimen is a good introduction for Norse stuff, but what do people here think?
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Aug 11, 2018 08:17
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OscarDiggs posted:What are the best books to learn about Greek/Norse/Whatever myths that we didn't learn as children? Not in a factual way, but the actual legends and stories. Like, my only exposure to Hercules is the Disney movie, and a Yotube video explaining all the bit's the movie got wrong. I know he had 12 labours but I don't know anything about the stories of those labours. There aren't always definitive versions of many myths depending on what culture you're looking at, but for the Norse stuff you probably want the Eddas since that's where all the stories about the gods that you hear about come from. Neil gaiman is dumb so i don't think you should read him.
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Aug 11, 2018 10:21
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A lot of the Greek stuff was only passed on by Romans, specifically Ovid in his Metamorphoses.
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Aug 11, 2018 11:27
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OscarDiggs posted:What are the best books to learn about Greek/Norse/Whatever myths that we didn't learn as children? Not in a factual way, but the actual legends and stories. Like, my only exposure to Hercules is the Disney movie, and a Yotube video explaining all the bit's the movie got wrong. I know he had 12 labours but I don't know anything about the stories of those labours. D'Aularies' Book of Greek Myths and D'Aularies' Book of Norse Myths are both good one-stop volumes of mythology, great for reading to kids. If you want something more adult (you probably do), Gaiman's version of Norse mythology isn't bad -- I own it but I haven't read it in depth, it's pretty similar to D'Aularies but with more words and fewer pictures. Similarly, Edith Hamilton's Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes is a good version of Greek myths without pictures. Ovid's Metamorphoses was intended as a one-stop summary of all Greek mythology for literate Romans; it's good, but I'd suggest an annotated edition, because you probably aren't a literate Roman. Bullfinch's Mythology is a good summary if you're a British Victorian. The Poetic and Prose Eddas are worth attempting but they are not popular-audience -- they're the only real sources for Norse mythology, so everything else is an attempt to make them more accessible, but if you like your whisky straight, jump in. I'd also suggest Complete Irish Mythology by Lady Gregory (get the version with an introduction by Yeats) and Evangeline Walton's novel version of The Mabinogion (welsh mythology).
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Aug 11, 2018 13:33
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Alrighty. Thank you all. I'll start having a looksie.
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Aug 11, 2018 20:28
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Here's a tricky one! I'm looking for novels inspired by or similar to The Travels of Ibn Battuta! If you don't know, Batutta was a 14th century merchant who traveled the Muslim world via caravan, and The Travels is his personal memoir of his encounters and discoveries. This book can be fantasy, but ideally it would be well-researched and historically accurate. So far, The Salt Road by Jane Johnson looks interesting.
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Aug 13, 2018 23:43
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pospysyl posted:Here's a tricky one! I'm looking for novels inspired by or similar to The Travels of Ibn Battuta! If you don't know, Batutta was a 14th century merchant who traveled the Muslim world via caravan, and The Travels is his personal memoir of his encounters and discoveries. This book can be fantasy, but ideally it would be well-researched and historically accurate. So far, The Salt Road by Jane Johnson looks interesting. Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North e: the Book of John Mandeville is a weird 14th century book by a guy who says hes an Englishman named John Mandeville who claims to have gone on pilgrimage to the holy land and then traveled around the world afterwards, and is now writing a travel guide. it's actually a synthesis of a few different real travel guides, plus a bunch of other medieval sources, plus probably a bunch of oral lore, sprinkled liberally with stuff the dude made up out of whole cloth. its hallucinatory and weird and fun. also, Herodotus' Histories chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Aug 14, 2018 |
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Aug 14, 2018 03:44
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This is the complete opposite of a book, but if you liked Ibn Battuta, you might want to check out a project foreign policy and Mid Eastern analyst Derek Davison is doing. He's tweeting Ibn Battuta's journey and providing commentary. There may be resources on the site as well. https://mobile.twitter.com/therihlah I second Herodotus's Histories. They're a really entertaining read.
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Aug 14, 2018 05:16
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Nikita Khrushchev posted:This is the complete opposite of a book, but if you liked Ibn Battuta, you might want to check out a project foreign policy and Mid Eastern analyst Derek Davison is doing. He's tweeting Ibn Battuta's journey and providing commentary. There may be resources on the site as well. https://mobile.twitter.com/therihlah ooooooooooh neat I get the sense that the guy was requesting modern books but I don't have anything to suggest in that vein so instead I'll suggest A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah by Sir Richard Francis Burton. quote:Impelled by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure and aided by an extraordinary facility in Eastern languages, Sir Richard Burton (1821-90) was one of the great traveler-explorers of history. He was the first European to enter the capital of Somaliland and the first to discover the Great Lakes of Central Africa. He was also an Orientalist of the first rank.
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Aug 14, 2018 13:39
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pospysyl posted:Here's a tricky one! I'm looking for novels inspired by or similar to The Travels of Ibn Battuta! If you don't know, Batutta was a 14th century merchant who traveled the Muslim world via caravan, and The Travels is his personal memoir of his encounters and discoveries. This book can be fantasy, but ideally it would be well-researched and historically accurate. So far, The Salt Road by Jane Johnson looks interesting. Not a novel but crazy enough that it could be, The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton. 19th century explorer, swordsman, linguist, and...cocksman? who explored the Congo, snuck into Mecca and Medina, and translated the Arabian Nights along with copius notes about how to gently caress. Fascinating guy and well written book. Out of print, unfortunately, but there appear to be some reasonably priced copies on ebay. I found a hardback cheap in a used book store. E: wow I didn't even see the above reply. Best friends?
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Aug 14, 2018 18:12
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chernobyl kinsman posted:Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North Histories is very good, and the Ibn Fadlan book looks to be exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks! Nikita Khrushchev posted:This is the complete opposite of a book, but if you liked Ibn Battuta, you might want to check out a project foreign policy and Mid Eastern analyst Derek Davison is doing. He's tweeting Ibn Battuta's journey and providing commentary. There may be resources on the site as well. https://mobile.twitter.com/therihlah This is actually how I learned about it. pospysyl fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Aug 14, 2018 |
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Aug 14, 2018 22:56
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Lawen posted:Not a novel but crazy enough that it could be, The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton. 19th century explorer, swordsman, linguist, and...cocksman? who explored the Congo, snuck into Mecca and Medina, and translated the Arabian Nights along with copius notes about how to gently caress. Fascinating guy and well written book. Out of print, unfortunately, but there appear to be some reasonably priced copies on ebay. I found a hardback cheap in a used book store. Burton Buddies! The Burton biography I read/ have is the one by Edward Rice and it was a good read but I can't speak to how authoritative or accurate it is -- I just inherited it in a big pile of books. https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Sir-Richard-Francis-Burton/dp/030681028X
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Aug 15, 2018 02:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If you want something more adult (you probably do), Gaiman's version of Norse mythology isn't bad -- I own it but I haven't read it in depth, it's pretty similar to D'Aularies but with more words and fewer pictures. I just started this tonight and have been tearing through it. Its pretty good
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Aug 15, 2018 04:31
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just read the eddas ffs
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Aug 15, 2018 04:35
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chernobyl kinsman posted:just read the eddas ffs Unless you have a particular edition / translation with solid and in-depth annotations to recommend, I think this is an exceptionally bad idea for someone who's completely new to the stories; there's a real risk they'll just bounce hard off of the long lists of random Norse names or whatever and never manage to reach the actual stories. That said, there is a decent version of the Poetic Edda online for free here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/index.htm And it is worth attempting, but reading a more accessible version of the tales first will probably be helpful for most readers, if only because 1) The Eddas are imperfectly preserved and there are lots of gaps in the text and lost passages that have to be filled in by deduction, and 2) Each individual poem in the Edda assumes you already know all the basic stories so doesn't necessarily bother to explain things that the Norse contemporaries would have known (i.e., who Sleipnir is, etc.) Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 04:53
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What's a good start for Samuel Beckett's fiction (plays or novels)?
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Aug 15, 2018 05:50
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Unless you have a particular edition / translation with solid and in-depth annotations to recommend, I think this is an exceptionally bad idea for someone who's completely new to the stories; there's a real risk they'll just bounce hard off of the long lists of random Norse names or whatever and never manage to reach the actual stories. One wonders why someone would be interested in reading old texts at all if they don't want to actually engage with things like unusual names or different styles or scholarly introductions, but hell, let's continue to indulge the simpletons in this forum who want to just read neil gaiman all the drat time
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Aug 15, 2018 06:01
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snoremac posted:What's a good start for Samuel Beckett's fiction (plays or novels)? Molloy and Malone Dies.
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Aug 15, 2018 06:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Unless you have a particular edition / translation with solid and in-depth annotations to recommend, I think this is an exceptionally bad idea for someone who's completely new to the stories; there's a real risk they'll just bounce hard off of the long lists of random Norse names or whatever and never manage to reach the actual stories. Looking through the Oxford's World Classic of the Poetic Edda, each poem gets an introduction that breaks down what's going on in each verse and gives a greater context for the unfamiliar reader. There's also parts of the introduction that address the issues you brought up, elaborates on the process of translation, and has charted genealogies of the gods and heroes for quick reference. It is not written by Neil Gaiman.
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Aug 15, 2018 12:36
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A human heart posted:One wonders why someone would be interested in reading old texts at all if they don't want to actually engage with things like unusual names or different styles or scholarly introductions, but hell, let's continue to indulge the simpletons in this forum who want to just read neil gaiman all the drat time People read books for different reasons; not everyone is trying to to prep for a GRE in Old Norse. Dude might be looking for a book to read to his kids, or just trying to get a general sense of the stories so he can better understand references in other media (maybe he's taking a course in Art History and wants some general background on greek mythology, etc.) Maybe he only has an hour a day to read, instead of four hours a day to do a deep dive into a book with heavy annotations, and wants something light. Maybe he just liked the Thor movies, and we're lucky he's asking in here at all instead of in the comics subforum. Maybe he's actually literally ten years old and reading a book without pictures is an accomplishment. There are definitely some people for whom "try reading the Eddas" is a good response and he might be one of those people, but if he isn't, it isn't. There are some works I'd always encourage people to read in the original -- for example, if you want to read Chaucer, you shouldn't read anything but the original ME with some annotations -- but there's basically one reason people ever read Chaucer (academic interest) and there are lots of different reasons people might want to read some mythology. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 13:45
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i read the penguin edition of the prose edda for the first time when i was like 14 and had no real issue understanding it but then i'm not a subliterate morlock so ymmv my point is i think you're vastly overstating how difficult the eddas are
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Aug 15, 2018 15:25
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Jesus Christ* (*sorry that wasn't spelled in the original Aramaic you loving  )
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Aug 15, 2018 17:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:but there's basically one reason people ever read Chaucer (academic interest) Chaucer loving rules, what the gently caress is this poo poo
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Aug 15, 2018 17:05
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Chaucer told the greatest fart joke of all time and that alone seals his place in history
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Aug 15, 2018 17:06
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TIL the only reason to read one of the two or three greatest writers in the history of english literature is "academic interest" e: also the penguin edition of the prose edda, with (god help us) annotations, is 180 pages. the neil gaiman text (god help us, but unironically) is 304. so its not like youre saving yourself time here anyway even if you did want a different introduction to norse myth than the eddas, the answer is still not neil gaiman, it's carolyne larrington's The Norse Myths: A Guide to the Gods and Heroes. it even has pictures chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 17:19
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 y'all need to unwet your pants. If the word "academic" twists your cock too hard substitute "intellectual" for it in the above post. If you're reading Chaucer you're doing it because you want to expand your horizons by reading great classic English poetry, not because you just watched the Avengers and there was a character in it based on The Miller's Tale. chernobyl kinsman posted:
I don't want to defend the Gaiman version specifically because I've only flipped through my copy but the pages are small and the print is large, so I'm not sure how that would actually compare. It looks like it's about fourth grade reading level (which is not necessarily bad --- newspaper writers are taught to aim for that for clarity). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 17:26
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oh yeah i just generally operate on the assumption that we're talking about non-total dumbasses
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Aug 15, 2018 17:27
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chernobyl kinsman posted:oh yeah i just generally operate on the assumption that we're talking about non-total dumbasses  My operating principle here is basically the old Dorothy Parker quote about horticultures. There's a place for challenging people to expand their horizons but for a lot of people "expand their horizons" means "read an actual book for a change" and I don't want to stomp on people's throats because their first step toward reading was somehow too small.
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Aug 15, 2018 17:31
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i do
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Aug 15, 2018 17:32
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make me mod
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Aug 15, 2018 17:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I don't want to defend the Gaiman version specifically because I've only flipped through my copy but the pages are small and the print is large, so I'm not sure how that would actually compare. It doesn't. What Gaiman has done is basically edit the somewhat disjuncted nature of the Eddas (and it has been decades since I last read them, so my most immediate reference to Sleipnir is a T2 recon ship in loving EVE:Online  ) to have more smooth flow, cut out fragments, and updated the language. (I laughed when Freyja said to Loki "I hate you so much"; pretty sure Snorri didn't use the same words.) And as you say, typeset is large and pages small.edit: he also I think captures the sense that the stories are being told aurally. (And just as an aside: these stories make me very sad, we are missing so much since most were never written down and were lost when christianity came to scandinavia well over a millenia ago) And for Franchescanado's side swipe at Gaiman, I recall he got me a book by him back in the Secret Santa so Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 17:46
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Bilirubin posted:And for Franchescanado's side swipe at Gaiman, I recall he got me a book by him back in the Secret Santa so It wasn't much of a side-swipe, just a knowingly-snide mention that there was a perfectly reasonable non-Gaiman recommendation with an accessible edition. I don't dislike Gaiman--I just read Good Omens two months ago, Coraline is really good--but I certainly suffer from Gaiman fatigue. He's recommended far too often (especially this Norse mythology book; it's everywhere) and he's praised more than he deserves. I have to actively fight against my own book club, because if they had their way we'd only read Gaiman books every month. Every book store I go to the cashier tries to get me to read more Gaiman. His book is the first result if you search "Norse", so I don't feel bad about dog-piling with others in trying to push something more intellectual and (to me) worthwhile. It's like someone asking "Hey, I'm interested in reading horror. What should I read?" and someone recommends Stephen King, as if that wasn't already an obvious answer. And the book I gifted you was an anthology edited by Gaiman! He only contributed one story. I like Gaiman's reading tastes. He's not self-serious; he's open about liking silly terrible authors like Guy N. Smith.
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Aug 15, 2018 18:29
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Im looking for more books like the Wind in the Willows or Watership Down where the main characters are all animals and its all about animals Not Animal Farm please.
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Aug 15, 2018 18:32
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Franchescanado posted:It wasn't much of a side-swipe, just a knowingly-snide mention that there was a perfectly reasonable non-Gaiman recommendation with an accessible edition. Fair enough but it read like the typical goony you can't like things that are popular theme you see here far too often IMO OP read what you want don't worry about the opinions of noted goodposters Chernobyl Kinsman or a human heart
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Aug 15, 2018 18:35
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Kvlt! posted:Im looking for more books like the Wind in the Willows or Watership Down where the main characters are all animals and its all about animals Peter Rabbit Tank Killer: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/11899792/1-peter-rabbit-tank-killer-once-upon-a-time-there-were-four-rabbits- Richard Adams wrote several other animal viewpoint books after WD but they're mostly interesting rather than good. The Redwall books might fit your bill but are aimed at kids. If you don't mind branching out a bit, the current Book of the Month , All Creatures Great and Small, is about a veterinarian and hence all about animals, and the recent pick The Peregrine is all about a guy constantly watching falcons. A quick Google search turned up a book called Tarka the Otter that sounded interesting but I haven't read it Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 18:43
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Kvlt! posted:Im looking for more books like the Wind in the Willows or Watership Down where the main characters are all animals and its all about animals Walter Wangerin, Jr.'s The Book of the Dun Cow is quite good, although grim -- but then, you did cite Watership Down.
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Aug 15, 2018 18:46
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