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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Mordor: twinned with Slough
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
The book about the archaeologist mentioned above is 'The Falling Woman' by Pat Murphy. I'm finding the characters a little unsympathetic at the minute, but the writing itself is enjoyable, and it's turned out to be a very quick read.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scots lass:
I've just finished Longbourn, Jo Baker's retelling of Pride & Prejudice from the point of view of the servants.
Thanks for posting about this. I'm just getting to the end and have enjoyed it enormously. There are one or two things I'm not sure I agree with, but they're interesting rather than irritating, and thinking about them has actually enhanced my enjoyment of the book.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I have just finished The Shock of the Fall and thought it was phenomenal, one of those rare books that is raved over but actually truly deserves the hype. It is a portrait of a young man with schizophrenia, written in the first person. The author, Nathan Filer, is a registered psychiatric nurse – presumably one of the ones who get referred to in the book as “Nurse Whatsit and Nurse Thing and Nurse the Third”.
It’s not a nice book, exactly, but fantastically well written and very compelling. You know that something terrible happened in the narrator’s childhood but only find out very late in the game what it was. His schizophrenic hallucinations are linked to this incident.
The narrator admits that one of the worst things about his illness is how selfish it makes him, but I found the character strangely likeable. He doesn’t turn up to appointments, goes off his meds for a while – but in a funny way you can see how it all makes sense to him. And now and then, despite claiming to be totally selfish, he does something genuinely kind.
I also found the book a real eye-opener about mental health services in the UK. The narrator ends up inside a police cell for his own safety (his first major schizophrenic episode – the emergency services have nowhere else they can take him) and his description of an acute psychiatric hospital is grim (“There is literally nothing to do.”). The book ends when his community mental health centre gets closed down.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
I read The Shock of the Fall recently too and thought it was a fantastic book. It's also written by someone who has some understanding of how crap UK mental health support can be and how much worse it is getting. I was speaking to my psychiatric nurse (a job I believe the author does or did do) today and she says her case load is now three times what it was a year ago and everyone is struggling to cope and it's become crisis management instead of support to prevent crises. Typical short term thinking.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Silver Swan
Apprentice
# 17957
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Posted
I recently read Mark Vonnegut's new memoir, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness, Only More So and would like to read his earlier one, Eden Express. He is a very honest writer as well as being insightful and witty.
Here's an excerpt - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130537541
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Christ Jesus came to be Immanuel, not a manual.
Posts: 33 | From: Australia | Registered: Jan 2014
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The Machine Elf
Irregular polytope
# 1622
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Posted
I've just finished 'The Social Amoebae: The biology of cellular slime molds' by John Tyler Bonner. It's probably the best written science book I've ever read - completely clear explanations to someone who hasn't studied biology since high school, but every fact backed with a citation to original research papers if you want to look further.
It describes cellular slime molds (the ones which live as individual amoebae, then when they run out of food gang together to form 'slugs' which crawl to the surface to form fruiting bodies to distribute spores, rather than the plasmodial ones which map subway systems) and various attempts to find the chemicals which govern the various social formations and might give clues how cells in higher animals differentiate and develop.
TME
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Elves of any kind are strange folk.
Posts: 1298 | From: the edge of the deep green sea | Registered: Oct 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
I've just finished a book about the great ideological clash of the 20th century--no, not the Cold War, John McMillian's Beatles vs. Stones. It's cultural history, not music criticism, so he doesn't take a side, and it's not as if there are a lot of new facts to be revealed, but he does have some interesting insights. Not that he's going to change anybody's mind.
[ 10. March 2014, 01:54: Message edited by: Timothy the Obscure ]
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I'm currently reading My Antonia by Willa Cather, and really enjoying it.
I have had some difficulties with my new Sony ereader and only chose to download this book at the library as part of learning to use the system, but it's a wee gem. I can see that I'm going to get more practice downloading her other books ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Nadia Bolz-Weber - worth reading? Anything similar by anyone a bit less intimidatingly cool?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith. I had read her "talented Mr. Ripley," series but not this one, probably because it was published under "Claire Morgan." I imagine, in 1952, she didn't dare write about lesbians under her own name.
It opens with our young protagonist, Therese working at a mind numbing job in a department store and dating a nice young man whose proposals she keeps refusing. Then a striking woman walks up to Therese's counter to buy a doll for her daughter and the world slips sideways. From Carol, Therese is intensely aware of the "salt" that was missing in her other relationships.
As Therese pursues Carol we worry for both of them; not just that one might hurt the other, but that the people around them might make them pay a terrible price for stepping out of the conventional line.
There were some very suspenseful parts but ultimately this is not one of Highsmith's mysteries, rather an intriguing, often lyrical love story.
What prompted me to read this was the news that Cate Blanchett and Mara Rooney are making a film of this called Carol. I can't wait.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
Some while ago somebody on these boards mentioned Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series, which I have very happily been reading through. Then I came across his new series about Doctor Dee, and I'm reading the first one, The Bones of Avalon - not only John Dee but Glastonbury, alchemy, witchcraft, murder, King Arthur.... cor! it's wonderful. I'm eagerly awaiting the next book, The Heresy of Dr Dee, to turn up through my letterbox, so thankyewverymuch whoever mentioned Phil Rickman here ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
[ 21. April 2014, 13:07: Message edited by: Pine Marten ]
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
I just finished "A Time to Keep Silence", by Patrick Leigh Fermor. This is a lovely short (less than 100 pages) account of his travels to various monasteries (two in France, Benedictine and Trappist, and the abandoned rock monasteries in Cappadocia in Turkey) and his reflections on monastic life from the perspective of an outside observer. It was a really lovely book to read over Easter, and I now really really want to go and see the Cappadocian monasteries.
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
I made the big mistake of using some of my rare spare time downloading free Nook books. Now, there are a lot of wonderful classics that are free. The ones I looked at recently are no more classic than my cat.
I don't even want to tell you their titles because they are so awful.
Just for y'all, I'll continue digging through them in case there is a gem hiding in the sewage. I'll let you know.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:
Just for y'all, I'll continue digging through them in case there is a gem hiding in the sewage. I'll let you know.
We appreciate your noble sacrifice.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Free ebooks is the great demonstration of the proverb, "You get what you pay for."
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Many years ago, I recall a talk by a editor who was not worried about the web ruining his business. One line stands out in memory;
"part of what you pay us for is not for what we publish, but for what we don't publish. You pay us to filter out the slush pile."
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I've just finished 'The Orphan Choir' by Sophie Hannah.
Wow! Although the writing style is a little annoying in places, the main storyline is quite breathtaking, combining choir interest with examination of psychological breakdown and a little injection of a ghost story for good measure. I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in Cathedral Choirs and the experience of sending a child to boarding school, in particular - although general interest as a parent and / or understanding of the Anglican church would also be relevant to an enjoyment of the story.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
I've just finished Initials Only by Anna Katharine Green, having been intrigued by a reference to it in another Whodunnit. I had not heard of the lady before but she is known as "the mother of the detective novel", was admired by Wilkie Collins and inspired Agatha Christie.
The prose style was rather startling at times (and I did not get used to the police looking for "clews") but it was certainly readable - and it made me think more about physics than I have for a while!
I have now bought a collection of 35 of her novels for 37p (aren't Kindles wonderful?).
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Now reading 'Perfect' by Rachel Joyce. Set in the 1970s, an eleven year old boy worries irrationally about the extra 2 seconds that are to be added to the year in order to balance slight discrepancies in time measurement, and what effect that will have on his family.
Wonderful detail on how a sensitive and thoughtful boy of that age views the world, sees life and interacts with family and friends.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I'm reading The Sultan of Zanibar by Martyn Downer, a life of Horace de Vere Cole, a noted Edwardian hoaxer.
Frankly I don't recommend it. It is possible that some authors could make a bit of a hoot out of this selfish and irresponsible man's high jinks (ie telegraphing the Mayor of Cambridge and visiting him as the Sultan of Zanizibar dressed up by a London theatrical costumier) but this author tries to find deep significance in this tedious stuff with a fairly superficial grasp of the background.
It is though a reminder of the deep division between late C19 and early C20 Britain for some. But I am not impressed.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Following a visit to Edinburgh I've got one of Iain Rankin's Rebus detective novels and Iain Bank's Complicity. Not my sort of thing, but I'll be interested.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Following a visit to Edinburgh I've got one of Iain Rankin's Rebus detective novels and Iain Bank's Complicity. Not my sort of thing, but I'll be interested.
Ooh, Complicity. I really enjoyed that. Like a lot of Banks books, definitely doesn't end up in the place you think it will at the beginning.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:
I made the big mistake of using some of my rare spare time downloading free Nook books....
I don't even want to tell you their titles because they are so awful.
Just for y'all, I'll continue digging through them in case there is a gem hiding in the sewage. I'll let you know.
Try Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes books: they're in the public domain!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
Would this help? Of course, there may be formatting issues. If not, that "next" button should go quite a far way, and if not, that search window works quite well with words like "Jack London", "Fyodor Dostoevsky", "Chesterton" or whatever pre-1930 you'd fancy.
(I suspect most of you already know of Project Gutenberg, but in case you don't and want something e-booky, that's a good place to go. It's legit, most of all.)
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Have finally got to the three-quarter mark in my marathon through N.T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Should hopefully complete it by the end of June.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
Try Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes books: they're in the public domain!
Ah, but I have a leather bound actual book of all the Sherlock Holmes stories! My children and I have read it many times.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I finished my re-read of Vanity Fair and enjoyed it even more than I did the first time.
Contiuing my re-reading of Victorian novels I've downloaded Anthony Trollope's Palliser series, which in my mind has never quite measured up to his Barset series (but I may change my mind of that).
Today I googled Victorian novels and discovered mention of some authors I had never read; George Gissing, ( Grubb St and An Odd Woman , Mrs Oliphant ( Hester) and Susan Ferrier.
Has anyone read any of these? What did you think of them?
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
THE book to read by Margaret Oliphant is Miss Marjoribanks. I've read it three times - at about intervals of a decade - and found new aspects in it each time.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Have you tried Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters? That's one of my favorite Victorian novels.
As far as Trollope is concerned, I prefer the Palliser series to the Barchester novels, even though the politics in the Palliser books don't interest me that much. The characters are very well-drawn.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
At the instigation of another writer friend this year I read TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, by Anne Bronte. Yes, sister of Charlotte, one of THOSE Brontes. A grand book and proto-feminist in its way; when the heroine refuses to cohabit with her dissolute and drunken husband, or let him abuse their little boy, it was a scandal in its time.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Scots lass
Shipmate
# 2699
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Posted
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is really good - I was surprised by it!
I've just finished The Luminaries. I struggled to get into it a bit, but then was really gripped by it and the action seemed to speed up towards the end - I definitely read the second half faster! It's pretty hefty, so one to read when you have a reasonable amount of time. The characters are quite well-drawn and are the types of people you might expect to find in a gold-rush town, with the exception of the fact that of the three people who are actually prospecting, one is dead and another is missing for a large proportion of the novel. But it's not really about the gold rush, so that's not a problem! She doesn't describe the town in great detail, but there's enough throughout the novel to give me a good mental image of Hokitika. And to make me think that perhaps I ought to read more about the gold rush!
It won the Booker, which doesn't always equal readable, but this is definitely worth it.
Posts: 863 | From: the diaspora | Registered: Apr 2002
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Mrs Oliphant ( Hester) and Susan Ferrier.
Has anyone read any of these? What did you think of them?
Huia [/QB]
Margaret Oliphant. Her Miss Majorbanks is in Penguin and I enjoyed it. She was very prolific.
Susan Ferrier was Regency rather than Victorian and only produced three novels. I've read one (not Marriage, but I can't remember the title). She is sometimes compared to Jane Austen, but she is far more diffuse (most novelist are).
Charlotte M Yonge was no fool, despite her reputation for in-yer-face piety. The Heir of Redclyffe might interest you.
Have you read any other Thackery? Pendennis is a good read, I seem to remember, as is The Newcomes. I've read Esmond twice and really don't appreciate it.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
Wow. Thank you all for a great list of books.
May I ask how you keep up-to-date with new releases or find out about "classics" or older books you may enjoy? I tend to either stumble across an author (at the library; through a friend; browsing my eReader's bookshop...) then devour everything by them if I enjoy it.
I did notice BBC Radio 4 has a book programme and there are columnist in newspapers, but I worry they may be a bit high-brow and intellectual for me.
Thanks.
Ian, enjoying entering the monastic world in Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time to Keep Silence currently.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Thanks for the comments. I have not read Anne Bronte at allso well keep her in mind.
Moo, I loved reading Wives and Daughters and have Elizabeth Gaskell down as an author to follow up. The BBC also produced a televised version of this which I enjoyed.
Iain your local library may have lists of books that could be of interest on their website as well as readers and staff reviews of books. Ours is a treasure trove which I haven't yet fully explored.
Regarding The Luminaries a nit picking friend said it can't really be set in Hokitika as it doesn't have any sandflies in it ![[Biased]](wink.gif) (the West Coast of the South Island is notorious for them). He did say he thought it was well written though.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
I've heard very good things about George Gissing. Apparently Grub St in particular has good women characters.
I promise I'm not being biased just because he came from the Rhubarb Triangle (there's a mini Gissing Museum in town).
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Elsewhere, a friend and I have proposed a Bronte sitcom. It should be titled something like THOSE CRAZY BRONTES, and star somebody like Michael Palin as Patrick Bronte. The absentminded vicar of a remote Yorkshire parish tries to raise a brood of four madcap teens perpetually getting into fun trouble. In episode 1, Emily and Bramwell paint the inside of the church door with modern art (= Alma-Tadema, probably), throwing Sunday's sermon completely out of whack.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
New Grub Street by Gissing is a pretty grim story of someone failing to make a living by writing. Like plays about the theater, writers writing about writing has a certain energy.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Now reading 'Perfect' by Rachel Joyce. Set in the 1970s, an eleven year old boy worries irrationally about the extra 2 seconds that are to be added to the year in order to balance slight discrepancies in time measurement, and what effect that will have on his family.
Wonderful detail on how a sensitive and thoughtful boy of that age views the world, sees life and interacts with family and friends.
What did you think of it in the end? I read it a couple of weeks ago too and found it quite moving. I semi-suspected the identity twist at the end.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Elsewhere, a friend and I have proposed a Bronte sitcom. It should be titled something like THOSE CRAZY BRONTES, and star somebody like Michael Palin as Patrick Bronte. The absentminded vicar of a remote Yorkshire parish tries to raise a brood of four madcap teens perpetually getting into fun trouble. In episode 1, Emily and Bramwell paint the inside of the church door with modern art (= Alma-Tadema, probably), throwing Sunday's sermon completely out of whack.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) I'd definitely watch that!
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
Finally finishing the Niccolo Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. The last volume is Gemini, and is set mostly in late medieval Edinburgh. I may possibly go on from this to re-read the Lymond Chronicles, so I can work out how, exactly, they are related - and to enjoy the Errol Flynn-like adventures of Lymond himself, of course.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
Mrs Oliphant ( Hester) and Susan Ferrier.
Huia
I saw Hester in a bookshop today and snapped it up. I looks interesting.
Apparently, Virago published a number of Mrs Oliphant's novels in the 70s when I bought one (The Rector?) Only Hester and Miss Majorbanks are currently in print. Her ghost story A Beleagued City was much admired by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The novel I've read by Susan Ferrier was The Inheritance. Wiki says her greatest influence was Maria Edgworth.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
Hester was Book of the Week on Radio 4 not long since. This thread's reminded me that I recorded it at the time and haven't listened to it yet. Hmm.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I am currently ploughing my way through Moby Dick. Ye gods and little fishes*, Herman Melville manages to make Charles Dickens look concise. How many ways are there to say “Captain Ahab had an implacable vendetta against the whale and lay awake all night brooding over it?”
I tried reading it years ago and never finished it (which is extremely rare for me). I’m now beginning to remember why, although I’m determined to get through it this time.
*or great big fishes, I suppose, considering the subject matter
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
True, but that's sort of the point. It's not about the plot, it's about giving him a jumping-off point for meditations on everything even vaguely related to whales, the sea, the color white... Sort of like a very long literary fugue.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
"Eight Days of Luke" by Diana Wynne Jones and "Broken Homes" by Ben Aaronovitch just arrived this morning. A hard decision which to read first, but I've gone for the DWJ - good as usual.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
MOBY DICK is a book I could only ever read once. Like WAR & PEACE. (You have the battle of Borodino and you're not going to take us there? They're just going to =talk= about it?!?) Whereas I could read PRIDE & PREJUDICE once a year.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I'm fifty pages into (Mrs)Margaret Oliphant's Hester and it seems gripping. More balls than Trollope, but then she's a woman.
I have read War and Peace twice, once within the last five months and I could consider it again.
I only read Moby Dick once a very long time ago and I mean to re-read it. But somehow, there's always something more interesting.
If I wasn't distracted by other books, I could well read the entire ouevre of Jane Austen every year.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I just finished re-reading Lady Susan and the two unfinished novels, The Watsons and Sanditon.
I enjoyed all three. The Watsons is vintage Jane Austen. Lady Susan, which is a very early work, gives a picture of a completely unscrupulous woman. I am very curious about how Sandition would have turned out. It is about the early stages of the transformation of a seaside village into a resort. Because Jane Austen never wrote anything like this, it's not clear how the novel would have ended.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Moo Reginald Hill, a British mystery writer based one of his books on Sandition which I had not read bfore. I did mean to go back and read it, but haven't yet done so.
The Odd Women is now waiting for me to collect at the library I think I'll wait until tomorrow when they have the drop-insession to help with technology as it's a biy of a challenge to get to.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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