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I like Smollet's Don Quixote translation. It's not perfect but it comes together nicely and feels like an eighteenth-century novel.
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Jun 16, 2023 23:48
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Free versions of Count of Monte Cristo are poo poo; the only good english translation is the modern one, victorian era translations are heavily bowdlerized. Yeah, so they wouldn't be downloading the book of Project Gutenberg now would they? 
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Jun 17, 2023 00:48
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rollick posted:
yet somehow none of them are The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle smh
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Jun 17, 2023 08:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Interesting . . .compare with the top 100 free books on kindle: Yeah it definitely seems to fluctuate. Someone posted the monthly list in a reddit thread from 12 years ago. The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana (31862) The Song My Paddle Sings by E. Pauline Johnson (23683) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (22497) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18720) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (18684) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (14894) How to Analyze People on Sight by Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict (14738) Ulysses by James Joyce (13752) The Art of War by Sunzi (13543) The Bible, Old and New Testaments, King James Version (11656) Novelas Cortas by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (11538) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (11157) The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete by Leonardo da Vinci (10900) A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (10733) The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (10121) Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie (10091) Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm (9970) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (9957) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (9467) War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy (9449) There's more classics in the older list. The only three to still be in in the top 20 are Pride and Prejudice, Alice in Wonderland, and the Complete Shakespeare:
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Jun 17, 2023 22:50
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I'd assume foreign classics downloads are depressed by using bad, antique translations.
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Jun 17, 2023 23:08
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I always assumed the top download list would just reflect what just got out of (American) copyright. But then I never looked into what the list actually looked like, thus making an rear end out of u (somehow) and me.
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Jun 18, 2023 02:01
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Anyone have a link to a certain short story posted on these here forums a while ago? It's written in the form of a wikipedia article and is about the first consciousness/personality uploaded to a digital format. It's a horror story. Please and thank you!
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Jun 22, 2023 12:11
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GoodluckJonathan posted:Anyone have a link to a certain short story posted on these here forums a while ago? It's written in the form of a wikipedia article and is about the first consciousness/personality uploaded to a digital format. It's a horror story. Please and thank you! This is almost certainly "Lena" by qntm. For future reference, we also have an identify that book thread which may get more eyes on it for questions like this.
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Jun 22, 2023 15:04
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ToxicFrog posted:This is almost certainly "Lena" by qntm. This is it, perfect, thank you.
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Jun 22, 2023 15:22
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https://twitter.com/RachelConnoll14/status/1673339563756990466 Another story about the insane vitriol of book social media. The obvious fix for this specific problem is that goodreads should not, obviously, allow reviews for unreleased books but since that is the preferred usecase for much of its audience, I don't see that changing. Why is this such a big problem in the book (specifically YA writing) world? My theoryis that it's a crab bucket mentality, there are a lot of fanfic writers out there who want to be Cassandra Clare and are envious of anyone's success.
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Jun 26, 2023 15:54
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Goodreads has traditionally loved reviews for unpublished books, to give them a boost right out of the gate. They even have giveaways. I’ve gotten a couple through it. Review bombing is gonna happen no matter when you allow reviews in.
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Jun 26, 2023 17:02
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Other sites (Steam, Metacritic) have protocols for review bombing. They need one as well. Start manually deleting the motherfuckers. Also, YA Twitter is wild lol. I've read about another YA scandal recently and it was amazing how stupid it was: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/13k7z3b/books_that_time_a_popular_author_signed_other/ Megazver fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jun 26, 2023 |
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Jun 26, 2023 17:21
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ToxicFrog posted:This is almost certainly "Lena" by qntm. I highly suggest everyone reads it, it's quite good.
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Jun 26, 2023 17:52
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Megazver posted:Other sites (Steam, Metacritic) have protocols for review bombing. They need one as well. Start manually deleting the motherfuckers. lol the volunteer librarian corps is already so overworked you'd think a megarich company like Amazon could afford to hire a few hahaha sorrry sorry nm
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Jun 27, 2023 06:43
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Bad link, anyone care to paraphrase?
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Jun 27, 2023 07:49
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Bad link, anyone care to paraphrase? Which one are you blocked by, the author or the New York Times?
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Jun 27, 2023 09:36
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Ras Het posted:Which one are you blocked by, the author or the New York Times? Well it's a bad link because it's Twitter, but it's also a bad link because it won't let me read the article. It's bad bad.
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Jun 27, 2023 12:37
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Here's a direct, non-Twitter link that should work even if you're not a NYT subscriber.
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Jun 27, 2023 12:57
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quote:The occasional critical pile-on might not be a bad thing for Goodreads itself. As a social platform, part of what Goodreads is offering is conversation and user engagement, and controversies and debate can drive more comments and time spent on the platform. 
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Jun 27, 2023 13:06
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Megazver posted:Other sites (Steam, Metacritic) have protocols for review bombing. They need one as well. Start manually deleting the motherfuckers. i found the writing of that post unbearably smug and felt like i'd stepped back 20 years in internet writing style YMMV *edit* also, i though the behaviour was irritating and tacky but pretty harmless as far as things go, people bought the books and wanted them customised by their favourite (terrible) author. on par with having jeans custom distressed or a car custom wrapped. branedotorg fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 23:10
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Selachian posted:Here's a direct, non-Twitter link that should work even if you're not a NYT subscriber. Thanks. E: I think I've only ever gone to Goodreads (via a Google search, so not really gone there but ended up there) after I've read something. Can't remember why, maybe to check if I was just too stupid to "get" a book. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Jun 30, 2023 |
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Jun 30, 2023 08:16
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anyone got a good pro strat for getting through Shakespeare stuff that wasn't required reading in school? I read Romeo and Juliet as everyone does. And The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Othello. Saw bits of the Richard III Ian-McNutty movie and Pacino documentary. Watched but did not read Henry V with ken bran was curious about Tempest, Much Ado, Midsummer Nights. I know the Merchant of Venice plot and the famous shylock speech but not why say Portia is so special wondering what the best way to tackle it while still getting the context would be
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Jul 10, 2023 08:29
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Go see a production of it. And watch Throne of Blood.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:33
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Watching can be easier than trying to power through Elizabethan English on the page, yeah. There are recent-ish (well, if you count the mid-1990s-early 2000s as recent) movie versions of all of the plays you name except for The Tempest.
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Jul 10, 2023 16:08
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Yeah, the secret hack for Shakespeare, like Austen, is watching a production of the play, especially if possible one set in Shakespearean era without excessive modernizations. Past that, get an annotated edition of the play with lots of footnotes to explain as much as possible, and read the footnotes.
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Jul 10, 2023 16:13
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I liked listening to this lecture series; https://www.wondrium.com/william-shakespeare-comedies-histories-and-tragedies It’s covers fifteen plays, two or three lecture per play, half hour lectures. I like it because he uses each lecture to do a little bit of talking about the plot, and a deep dive into a theme or technique across his plays that’s exemplified here.
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Jul 10, 2023 16:56
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Alternatively, reading in good editions helps a lot. Too many people grab like a cheap public domain complete works edition that has something like the Johnson or Hazelett essays as an editorial apparatus and then die when they try to read it in a bible-style layout, or those godawful Signet ones that have like 6 pt font on what feels like rejected newsprint, or like a used Norton Complete Works which is a brick to carry around and has some pretty extreme text density. I'm a big fan of the Folger Shakespeare Library editions. They have a nice, easy-to-read page layout, with facing notes (i.e. the text is on the right and the notes are on the left) and each scene has a quick synopsis included. Plus there's good additional apparatus - explanatory essays, historical context etc. And they're not too expensive. I think new they're like $15 per. Read Cymbeline and definitely DO NOT watch the movie (Ed Harris in the title role), which is probably the worst adaptation of literally anything I have ever seen.
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Jul 11, 2023 04:25
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Jul 11, 2023 13:43
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...lark
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Jul 11, 2023 19:25
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I wanted to thank those of you here who recommended my wife read Jade City. She hasn't finished the book yet, but she's at the point where a conversation with her usually goes "and then maybe I'll squeeze in extra time to read my book." She likes it a lot. Since she's very offline, she has no idea anything about the book. Meanwhile, I can't help but compulsively learn things about it so she has someone to talk to. Two of her favorite IPs are The Godfather films and the Yakuza games, so she's feasting good. "I like Lan a lot, but Hilo is my favorite because he has Majima energy." She's about half way through the book now.
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Jul 11, 2023 22:30
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Mordiceius posted:I wanted to thank those of you here who recommended my wife read Jade City. She hasn't finished the book yet, but she's at the point where a conversation with her usually goes "and then maybe I'll squeeze in extra time to read my book." The sequels are also very good, in slightly different ways. I am holding back from saying more!
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Jul 12, 2023 03:28
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StumblyWumbly posted:Thanks! That was probably me because I will recommend Jade City at the drop of a hat. I mean, I don't mind spoilers, I've read a brief summary of all the books just so I can know what she's talking about when she wants to gush about them. She's about 40 pages out from the death of Lan. And she has no idea it is coming.
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Jul 12, 2023 06:35
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Has there even been a Let's Read of Great Expectations? I just started it and was wondering since it was originally serialised. I couldn't find one, I wonder if it'll be a good idea? I used to read a lot and I kinda fell off it a year or so ago and the only things I managed to read was with read-alongs.
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Jul 14, 2023 23:06
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Alan Smithee posted:anyone got a good pro strat for getting through Shakespeare stuff that wasn't required reading in school? You might be able to find productions on Youtube or similar. Shakespeare is very much not meant to be read - it is supposed to be heard.
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Jul 15, 2023 10:38
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I... I just learned that one of my favourite authors died nearly a year ago. Some fan I am. Hilary Mary Mantel passed away on 22 September 2022, but before she did she created a number of works that still resonate with me including Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and A Place of Greater Safety. Should you wish to honour her the first of these is a fine place to start.
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Jul 16, 2023 08:01
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Just me, or has Amazon severely limited their look inside availability?
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Jul 17, 2023 09:11
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FPyat posted:Just me, or has Amazon severely limited their look inside availability? Could be; none of the books I've looked at for like ½ a year have had anything. (I thought it was just due to what books I was looking at.)
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Jul 17, 2023 09:16
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FPyat posted:Just me, or has Amazon severely limited their look inside availability? Some of them have a read sample button underneath the image of the cover. I didn't notice it until recently because I'm so used to looking for the look inside graphic with the arrow.
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Jul 23, 2023 18:01
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This entire collection of stories in this edition of The Loneliness of the long distance runner are incredibly bleak.
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Jul 23, 2023 23:22
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The more Le Carré I read, the more I think: "this guy really wished he was Graham Greene (or, possibly, Vladimir Volkoff)". They're fine, and I could obviously be wrong, but still.
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Jul 28, 2023 06:21
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