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The Mirror and the Light. It's okay but it just makes me want to go back and read Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies again. I really, really wanted to get my hands on this sweet, long book about the Border Reivers but it seems to go for like $50 as a paperback. |
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Jun 2, 2020 15:23
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So I picked up a ludicrous bestseller by this guy at a nice pop-up library and got at it on a few breaks. It was nearly unreadable  Dozens of pages of just "Commander you are not cleared to land that plane in this airfield" being met with "You see the badge on that boy, sergeant?! That is given out to elite special secret operations operators. You do what this man says and then lie to the President about it! That's an order!"  e: Are the Tom Clancy novels this bad? I am here for a while longer and have limited material. Bright Bart fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 06:46
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take the moon posted:lmao Speedreading was this weird woo class at Uni. You paid some money and they did some drills. Mostly lawyers, pre-med, and politicians. But whatever that woo was it worked. And now that just means going through garbage a fast rate Once you start you might as well finish because you are 150 pages in. Have a Netflix-cover Witcher though. |
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Jun 18, 2020 08:18
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The Last Wish is not bad bedtime reading at all. Foltest is a much more reasonable character than in the television series. And I am just upset that we don't get to see a more well rounded version of Radovid given the time the novels and stories take place. Bright Bart fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jun 20, 2020 |
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Jun 20, 2020 17:17
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beer pal posted:100 yrs of solitude was good I got through Love in the Time of Cholera a few years back. It got... gross. Haven't read Lolita but I can see how a book could be disturbing even if it has strong aesthetic qualities. |
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Jun 22, 2020 17:54
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blaise rascal posted:
Want this. |
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Jul 14, 2020 07:02
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If I just read around James Joyce's Ulysses, what even is that? Like, I read the introduction and the notes and such but not the actual text of the novel itself. e: Can def. give you a barebones structure of what happpens so... it's like reading it? Bright Bart fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Aug 11, 2020 |
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Aug 11, 2020 15:43
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Okay so my reading list lately has been escapist stuff I come across at book exchange nooks and such. Most recent was King Solomon's Mines. No real comment except like John Buchan novels the setup is more fun than the payoff. Before that it was the Rising Sun. Only upside to powering through is that I now understand a BYOB in-joke during movie nights. And right before that it was Ivanhoe which was more fun than the above two but interesting in its antisemitism if that can be said without offending anyone. Like, everyone constantly talks about the Jews and how bad they are. Even the noble hero ends up with a random pretty Saxon girl simply because the Actual heroine is Jewish. I realize that the author was probably making fun of the past or even making social commentary but still... And I say "everyone" but the two characters who seem not to mind are Prince John and the bloodthirsty Templar who kidnaps the girl. Even then it's because John is a lecher and the Templar doesn't care about anything. |
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Jan 7, 2021 16:54
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Locke is nice light reading. But also I was thinking of ordering something from Danielewski's The Familiar series but I am not sure I want to read a less than 1/5Th finished story which won't be continued. Actually the last good book I read wad The Mirror & The Light which made me realize I just don't like the concluding parts of any series. So maybe The Familiar should be a go? |
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Jan 7, 2021 23:56
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Anyone remember the name of a book about an ancient Mesopotamian language that has the power of neurolinguistic programming? I thought it was Neuromancer but I'm wrong. |
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Jan 15, 2021 19:48
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I have known about Never Let Me Go for a long time but just being generally aware of the plot makes me fear the novel would mess with my precarious sanity. |
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Jan 15, 2021 19:50
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xcheopis posted:I'm just tickled at Neuromancer being confused for a book about ancient Mesopotamian language. It's not as funny as 10-year old me thinking Lord of the Flies would be a boy's adventure book (which I guess it technically is but still), though. I mean I've read both but a long while ago. And the first thing that I thought of with the keywords "neurolinguistic" and "classic of sci-fi" was Neuromancer. It's just odd because I like the book I'm referring to more and remember much more of the plot but the name escapes me while Neuromancer was right at the back of my mind despite needing to read the Wiki page to remind me of even basic details. |
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Jan 15, 2021 21:37
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Tezer posted:ou may be thinking of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Yes! Thank you. Now I am also reminded of Cryptonomicon and other works by this author. |
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Jan 15, 2021 23:02
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Tezer posted:Ya, bridging from kids books to adult books always goes sideways at some point. I was in middle school when I picked up Disclosure by Michael Crichton which... has some adult themes. I remember being proud by selecting Last of the Mohicans and Lorna Doone in sixth grade English class but the teacher was like "Yeah good choices they were actually required reading in grade four or five at the elementary school I went to!". I felt bad. In that year we read a sci-fi novel which included cryptic (to tweens) references to young teenage relationships e.g. "our lovemaking was only in the dark and only when our parents were away". Grade five the attempt to play Romeo + Juliet was aborted. So too was another film where a sex scene was prominent, even earlier. |
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Jan 15, 2021 23:07
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21 Lessons For the 21rst Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Once read it seems like kind of common knowledge but I guess the benefit to readers is stressing that these are important issues. |
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Jul 10, 2022 01:32
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Just dropping by to say I could use Hilary Mantel just now but she dropped The Mirror & The Light in 2020 so it might be a wait. Wolf Hall is still one of my favourite novels. |
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Sep 19, 2022 02:49
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Recently, non-medical: The Trumpet Major by Tom Hardy. It's good. I also re-read Sapiens and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari; I then started on Homo Deus but it seems to be the same topics and examples as the other two books. I don't know if I can recommend any of them. They're very fun. And the argument that agriculture was a mistake is very interesting. As well as the idea that rituals led to settlements rather than the other way around. But apparently there are a lot of errors and misunderstanding of scholarship. Part of Herodotus's Histories, specifically focusing on the emperor Cambyses. Very cool. Even though Herodotus implies that all his bad luck stems from how he treated a special cow in Egypt. The Dhamapada. I got the Penguin edition which is very poetic. Other translations might be more accurate but they're not beautiful. This one is embarrassing but I read one of the Sherlock Holmes anthologies. The Saga of Gunnlaugur Serpent-Tongue. Pretty okay. Some writings like Goethe. Disappointing. Like, 'we artists can learn from the rural poor because peasants are laconic and in tune with nature'. Maybe some more, I forget. |
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Nov 23, 2023 21:04
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 21:30 |
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ulvir posted:fun fact about gunnlaugr saga is that it’s in some ways a bit of an atypical saga, in that Helga is such a passive figure compared to females in a lot of other sagas. there’s some speculation that it might’ve been modelled after chivalric romances All the men suck. Some do spit hot fire bars but that's about it. Gunnlaugr's dad might be the best of the lot but only by default. The thing is... Helga sucks too. Whether she's a damsel in distress or a shield-maiden who explores far off landlord, she'd still suck if she was the same Helga. I did like the poetry. And the dig at the Irish. Their king seems to have no idea how much things are worth. He's about to give Gunnlaugr two ships for his poem until someone stops him. I think that might be especially interesting because modern Irish readers might be proud of the generosity on display. Whereas the annotations I've read say it's meant to poke fun. That king dude might be the only chill guy. Bright Bart fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Nov 24, 2023 |
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Nov 24, 2023 15:37
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