Yeh, I got my Dad a collection by her for crimbo, and have to say, none of the others came near to TWIB. They were good, but that is particularly fucking brilliant.
*What book are you reading? (part 2)
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Bajie
Registered User
Napoleon's Master: A Life of Prince Talleyrand
I am fascinated by Talleyrand and this was an enjoyable read but I it is not a definitive biography and according to some reviews it has a whole host of historical inaccuracies and the title is no where near how Napoleon's and Talleyrand's relationship actually was.
I am fascinated by Talleyrand and this was an enjoyable read but I it is not a definitive biography and according to some reviews it has a whole host of historical inaccuracies and the title is no where near how Napoleon's and Talleyrand's relationship actually was.
neonwilderness
What would Badgers do?
I recently finished The Blackhouse by Peter May
Quite grim in places, but it made me want to go and visit Lewis!
Quite grim in places, but it made me want to go and visit Lewis!
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Ooo ta for the heads up
The Book of Sand & Shakespeare's Memory - Borges
I really like 'Shakespeare's Memory' and love the final line:
'I hit at last upon the only solution that gave hope courage: strict, vast music - Bach'
I really like 'Shakespeare's Memory' and love the final line:
'I hit at last upon the only solution that gave hope courage: strict, vast music - Bach'
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Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
The Water Knife - Paolo Bacigalupi
He does grimy near-future sci-fi verge of apocalypse stuff exceptionally well.
He does grimy near-future sci-fi verge of apocalypse stuff exceptionally well.
Crystal's 'Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language' often settles questions I ask myself. I can recommend to people who like that sort of thing 'The Secret Life of Words, How English Became English' (Henry Hitchings) as well as 'Words and Rules' and anything else by Stephen Pinker.
Nothing so highbrow at the moment; I am in the middle of Ken Follet's Winter of the World. I'd read it but have no recollection of what happens next.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - Ken Kesey
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
I'm reading a book called Earthly Remains, about historical practices of preserving bodies. It's fascinating.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
little_legs
Поехали!
The Girls by Emma Cline
Man, she can write.
Man, she can write.
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ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
That looks great, grabbing a copy
. Parker Pearson was my tutor/dissertation supervisor, did loads of digs with him in the Outer Hebrides etc, very funny, drunken times. He did a great course on funerary practices comparing evidence from archaeology with current practices with Madagascan peoples etc.
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
Jealous!
innisfree
Member
Reading The City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan, as part of a dry research slew. But there's nothing dry here. Fourteenth century feminism. Wise, controlled rage - illuminating and lyrical. Down through the centuries, it speaks directly, intimately and empathetically of now. Surprisingly gripping. I'm underlining almost everything.
I love the movie very much. The book has been on the list for years...have read some of it (accidentially in an article about Daphne De Maurier) not sure I will read it though, because of what happens (in the future). No spoilers.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
One Man and his Bike - Mike Carter
Freelance Guardian type gets on a bike and cycles around the UK, not bad, fine for a tube read in the mornings.
Freelance Guardian type gets on a bike and cycles around the UK, not bad, fine for a tube read in the mornings.
Exemplary Stories - Cervantes
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Lolly Willowes; or The Loving Huntsman, by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Starts of like a very well observed, fairly genteel, faintly feminist, Edwardian novel about a youngish woman who has to go and live with her brother after the death of their father. Fairly light, perfectly enjoyable, and then...there is just one line, which you read, pause, go 'wtf?' and reread, and it realy said what you thought it did. And then it's back to very well observed, comparatively genteel, slightly less faintly feminist, Edwardian novel. Then it get's a bit weirder, and then a bit weirder still.
If you read anything about it - including the literary Introduction, or any one sentence review, or, probably, the back cover, you discover smething which is much better left undiscovered, imo. The 'wtf?' is a real doozy of a 'wtf?' in that instance.
Bloody brilliant book, a must for anyone who likes words written down on a page.
Starts of like a very well observed, fairly genteel, faintly feminist, Edwardian novel about a youngish woman who has to go and live with her brother after the death of their father. Fairly light, perfectly enjoyable, and then...there is just one line, which you read, pause, go 'wtf?' and reread, and it realy said what you thought it did. And then it's back to very well observed, comparatively genteel, slightly less faintly feminist, Edwardian novel. Then it get's a bit weirder, and then a bit weirder still.
If you read anything about it - including the literary Introduction, or any one sentence review, or, probably, the back cover, you discover smething which is much better left undiscovered, imo. The 'wtf?' is a real doozy of a 'wtf?' in that instance.
Bloody brilliant book, a must for anyone who likes words written down on a page.
Okay, so whilst working through 'Exemplary Tales' I took the opportunity to finish 'If This Is A Man' by Primo Levi. If you have never read this book please do, it is one of the few texts that demands to be read. I was especially struck by this:
'The living are more demanding; the dead can wait. We began to work as on every day'.
Echoes of Luke and Matthew being immediately apparent.
'The living are more demanding; the dead can wait. We began to work as on every day'.
Echoes of Luke and Matthew being immediately apparent.
ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
That was brilliant, I know I'm going to go back and read that opening dream sequence again and again.
BoatieBird
Well-Known Member
It's a great book isn't it?
Sneered at and dismissed as 'populist' in its day.
ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
Was it? I didn't know that, it seemed to me to be the classic of its type that a thousand other books have tried to emulate.
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