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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Mordor: twinned with Slough
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Just finished "The Gowk Storm" by Nancy Brysson Morrison. I was crying by the end. She created an entirely believable sense of isolation, both physical and emotional. I intend to track down some of her other novels.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Not sure if this merits its own thread, or if this is quite the right place, but -
Can anyone recommend me a good, readable, 1-volume history of the USA? (Available on Kindle would be a plus.) I've decided I'm pathetically ignorant of it, and need educating.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Not sure if this merits its own thread, or if this is quite the right place, but -
Can anyone recommend me a good, readable, 1-volume history of the USA? (Available on Kindle would be a plus.) I've decided I'm pathetically ignorant of it, and need educating.
Howard Zinn's "A Peoples History of the United States" has a class struggle bias, but it will probably cover a lot of areas you didn't know. I'd suggest looking at wikipedia to see what is controversial is criticized for, but it is readable and gets away from "The great people did it all" model.
r
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Today while I was meant to be working at a school library I read Yoko's Diary which is the diary of a 12 year old schoolgirl who lived in Hiroshima and was killed by the atomic bomb dropped in August 1945.
As well as a translated transcript of the diary itself there are explanations by the editor of customs and terms used and a note about Yoko by her brother, who was out of town when the bomb was dropped. He managed to track down the woman who was with Yoko when she died.
The book is aimed at high school students, but it would be a pity if it was limited to that age group. It's an amazing book and I learnt a lot reading it.
And now for something completely different ... on my kindle I'm re-reading Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters.
I haven't read anything else she wrote. Does anyone have a particular favourite?
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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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I love Mrs Gaskell's books - do read "Cranford", it's the best known; and "Sylvia's Lovers" is a good read too.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
I second Gaskell's "Cranford." I can also recommend "North and South."
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Howard Zinn's "A Peoples History of the United States" has a class struggle bias, but it will probably cover a lot of areas you didn't know. I'd suggest looking at wikipedia to see what is controversial is criticized for, but it is readable and gets away from "The great people did it all" model.
r
I've just read the first few pages on Amazon's preview. Oh my! It's fantastic! Thank you, Palimpsest.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
I've recently started "Pink Brain Blue Brain" by Lise Eliot. She's a neuroscientist and is explaining all the various research about gender differences from conception to puberty - and basically how few significant differences there actually are. It's very interesting, although I think I need to dig out some fiction or travel writing or something to balance it.
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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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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I read Elizabeth Gaskell's (as she is known now - I've no problem with Mrs, but that's not how she's normally known now) Mary Barton - a C19 novel about the imposed squalour and bravery of the English industrial Northern working class that make Dickens' Hard Times look trite. Unfortunately, Dickens if far more readable.
I find Cranford a bit twee.
I'm re-reading the admirable Robinson Davies' The Lyre of Orpheus
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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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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Forgot that I'd read Cranford, which for some reason I keep confusing with Middlemarch . With Cranford I kept waiting for something to happen.
Thanks for the suggestion of Mary Barton venbede. I have read Hard Times so it will be interesting to compare them. Generally I don't much like Dickens, but haven't read anything by him for ages, so I might try again.
Huia
[ 14. August 2013, 02:49: Message edited by: 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
Managed to holiday read:
The postman always rings twice (James M Cain),
The householder (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala),
The haunted book (Jeremy Dyson) and
The Year of Living Dangerously (Christopher Koch).
All stunningingly good books. Holiday reading always seems more intense, especially with a good run of books.
I also tried to read The alchemist (Coelho) and gave up . Clearly a popular book, but after the first chapter I wanted to throw it across the room. Have donated it to a cousin in case she can make more of it.
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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
Reading the Sherlock Holmes novella A Study in Scarlet for the Ship's bookclub. I am leading the discussion next month.
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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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Thurible
Shipmate
# 3206
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Posted
Read John R. Oren's "Stewart Headlam's Radical Anglicanism." Incredibly badly written but very interestintg.
Re-read Helene Hanff's books this past week. Delightful.
Now onto 'Moon over Soho' by Ben Aaronovitch - the second in the series of Peter Grant books. Described as 'like Harry Potter for grown ups' and they are a bit. A Met detective solves crimes - using magic.
Thurible
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"I've been baptised not lobotomised."
Posts: 8049 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Thurible:
Now onto 'Moon over Soho' by Ben Aaronovitch - the second in the series of Peter Grant books. Described as 'like Harry Potter for grown ups' and they are a bit. A Met detective solves crimes - using magic.
Hel-lo! I like magic, I like detectives. Will check this out - thanks!
Posts: 3120 | From: Yorkshire | Registered: Nov 2006
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Thurible
Shipmate
# 3206
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Posted
I enjoyed the first one very much - the second one I'm enjoying a bit less but it's still good fun.
Thurible
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"I've been baptised not lobotomised."
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Keren-Happuch
Ship's Eyeshadow
# 9818
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Posted
I have got to the end of the Lymond series! I finally finished Checkmate a few days ago, which was quite a rollercoaster ride...
I'm now reading The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars by Maurice DeKobra and translated by Neal Wainwright, which has to win some kind of award just for the title. It's enormous fun, a 1920s spy story set in London but translated from French. Was out of print for 50 years but has been reissued recently by Melville House. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Travesty, treachery, betrayal!
EXCESS - The Art of Treason
Nea Fox
Posts: 2407 | From: A Fine City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Two very different memoirs I've recently read, both brilliant. Two Flamboyant Fathers by Nicolette Devas. She was Caitlin Thomas's sister and writes amazingly about her extraordinary childhood and young womanhood. The fathers are her own father Francis McNamara and the painter Augustus John, a father figure large in her life. She too became a painter and then later turned to writing. There's so much that is interesting, not just her background itself, but also about what drives an artist, what it's like to grow up surrounded by artists, how she discovered her own desire to paint, what made her and her (very different) sister Caitlin the way they were, etc. Fascinating and well-written-although, ni her rackety childhood, wonderful in so many ways, she didn't learn to read until she was eleven.
The other memoir is about another girl growing up with artists, Angelica Garnett's Deceived with Kindness .
As many will know, she was the daughter of the painter Vanessa Bell and niece of Virginia Woolf. Grew up thinking Clive Bell her father until in her late teens her mother told her it was Duncan Grant instead. Even if you are not interested in the whole Bloomsbury scene, it's a very interesting and well-written book about this mother-daugter relationship, growing up with artists, a fascinating look back by an adult who has, by the time of writing, been through a marriage with the friend of her parents who stood by her cradle and vowed to marry her...and birth of four daughters...is looking back and trying to understand the pattern of her life.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Has anyone else tried reading may we be forgiven by a.m. homes? It won The Women's Prize for Fiction - formerly the Orange Prize. I read the first 50 pages, then checked the Amazon reviews to see if it got better to find most reviews said the first few pages was the best bit and that I wasn't alone in not liking it. I suspect I'd like her short stories.
However, I enjoyed The Veteran by Frederick Forsyth - 5 short stories with twists - some better than others, but worth reading. They all have very different settings and Forsyth's research is, as always, detailed and fascinating. It was published in 2001, but the stories read as if they've been written over a number of years, one was dated 1977 and another was set in 1997.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Has anyone else tried reading may we be forgiven by a.m. homes? It won The Women's Prize for Fiction - formerly the Orange Prize. I read the first 50 pages, then checked the Amazon reviews to see if it got better to find most reviews said the first few pages was the best bit and that I wasn't alone in not liking it.
I gave up reading this after it gave me a nightmare. I found it to be a series of anxiety inducing situations so I stopped reading for my mental health!
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
I loved it, thought it was amazing and when I finished it immediately went on amazon to order other books by her. I loved the claustrophobia the story induced in me.
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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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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizbethean England: both fascinating and salutary.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
My Young Man's favourite comic book superhero is Captain Britain, so he's lent me the origin story and a story called Before Excalibur. So I now know how Brian Braddock, physics student and heir to an ancient manor house with a supercomputer in the cellar, gets to be Britain's very own superhero with the help of Merlin. It then gets very complicated with alternate worlds, time travel and an Elfquest-esqe mutant girl called Meggan, who he ends up living in a lighthouse with.
Fun, but aimed squarely at teenage boys in the 1970s and 80s I think.
However, he also lent me Jenny Sparks, which is about a girl superhero who is also the spirit of the 20th Century. It's written by Mark Millar and it's excellent!
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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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Haydee
Shipmate
# 14734
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Posted
Elizabeth Gaskill - North and South - a wonderful book with a believable tension of attraction/not wanting to be attracted that is most unusual in Victorian novels (the respectable ones anyway ![[Biased]](wink.gif) )
Posts: 433 | Registered: Apr 2009
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Haydee:
Elizabeth Gaskill - North and South - a wonderful book with a believable tension of attraction/not wanting to be attracted that is most unusual in Victorian novels (the respectable ones anyway )
I like Mrs Gaskell very much, at least from Mary Barton so thanks for this tip.
I have just read a wonderful book about Taizé, Taizé: a meaning to life by Olivier Clement, a French writer, now Russian Orthodox though he grew up in an atheist environment. Short but profound, it discusses the importance of religion in life, and why so many people are searching, and how and why Taizé offers spiritual nourishment to so many in such a special way.
I am reading a memoir by Lamin Sanneh, who grew up Muslim in the Gambia and is now a respected academic, has a chair in World Christianity at Yale. Summoned from the Margin: homecoming of an African is an incredible tale of a boy driven to get an education and also to find his spiritual home--he has ended up a Catholic. He is a wonderful witness to the positive aspects of Islam and indeed did much studying on a pacific tradition of Islam which rejects the imposition of Shariah law or of any sort of conversion by force--far less by the sword--a tradition which has had an important effect in West Africa. His story of trying to become a Christian and being initially rejected by churches both in Africa and in the USA is very poignant as well--though I must add that there is no whining in his memoir, he continually gives thanks and praise to all those who have helped him on his path. Fascinating.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I found a copy of Michael Palin's "Sahara" in a secondhand bookshop at the weekend, sat down to read it last night and got instantly hooked. The story unfolds with charm and humour, the photos are a real delight - it's so easy to take travel photos that look like holiday snaps but so far each one of these is a gem. Enjoying this immensely.
I also managed to get "Mayhew's London", by a Victorian doing some investigative journalism into the kinds of people he meets on the streets. I'd read extracts from this, and this is an abridged version, but it's a fascinating read. The interviews he did are reported exactly as the interviewees told their own stories, so you get a real sense of the people they were.
Many of the stories are very moving. Medical science has advanced so much since then that many of those people would never have been in that position now - there were a far higher number of disabilities and misfortunes as the legacies of illnesses in those days, but everyone still had to work to make a living somehow.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I attempted to read The Morville Hours last week - I'd wanted to read it for quite a long time - but somehow it just didn't grab me. Beautiful writing, about a part of the world I'm familiar with (Shropshire and the Welsh Borders), but it seemed very easy to skip paragraphs. Maybe if I'm in a more contemplative mood I'll try again.
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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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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I just finished reading J. K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. It was very well-written and well-crafted; otherwise I wouldn't have finished it.
The 'casual vacancy' is an empty seat on the Parish Council after a man has died unexpectedly.
What I didn't like was that almost up to the end, Rowling is very detached from her characters. Moreover, most of them are petty and not likeable. There are adults and teenagers in the book. The teenagers look better than the adults, although they do many bad things.
Right at the end of the book, I came to like some of the characters better.
I think to some extent the nature of this book is a reaction to the Harry Potter books.
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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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
I recently finished "God: the Autobiography" by Franco Ferrucci. It's a short book (luckily; I doubt I'd have finished it otherwise) which is basically set up with God reminiscing about the process of creation/evolution. There was very much a sense of him not really knowing what he was doing or thinking through the consequences, and whilst I have some sympathy with the thought of him starting things off and letting them take their course without him micro-managing every last little tweak of creation, this God just seemed so very clueless that it really didn't work for me. In parts it reminded me of Paolo Coelho (absolutely one of my least favourite authors) in that there would be odd sentences where at the time of reading I thought they were kind of profound - but I then instantly forgot them - and the overall effect was really not very satisfying. OK if you like that sort of thing, but I was glad when I finished it.
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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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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
I'm still obsessed with my novel, which I cannot tinker with until 1 November and compiling questions with vetting from my wife fore the Ship's Book Group.
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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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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Interesting, Moo, re The Casual Vacancy . I haven't read it--have been put off by some of the reviews which emphasised that it's pretty dark.
I don't at all blame JKR for wanting to write something completely different, though. She has spoken in interviews of the sense of freedom this gave her.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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listener
Apprentice
# 15770
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Posted
I can't find who mentioned Augustus Carp, Esq., Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man but want to thank them. Most enjoyable but I dare not pass it on to the humourless person I think it now describes.
Posts: 31 | From: Canada | Registered: Jul 2010
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
Currently ploughing through Margaret Thatcher's autobiography for my Newly Accredited Minister studies. Which could be subtitled "Why I was right and everyone else was wrong." And, for all the (genuinely) fascinating insights, at times it can be very,very dull, with painstaking detail about things that most people wouldn't be interested in.
Could do with something very light and funny and inconsequential to read afterwards. Any recommendations?
If you haven't read it, E.F. Bensen's Lucia series is the epitome of light and funny.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If you haven't read it, E.F. Bensen's Lucia series is the epitome of light and funny.
A lot of people love that book but i found it trivial and superficial.
Trivial and superficial seem perfect for a relaxing no stress read.
I've just read Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather which was recommended by Michael Arditti in his top 10 books about priests. I absolutely loved it. It's about two priests sent as missionaries to New Mexico just after it has become part of the USA. The descriptions of place are amazing and the characters of the priests are excellent. It's an extremely moving book and I totally recommend it.
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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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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Interesting, Moo, re The Casual Vacancy . I haven't read it--have been put off by some of the reviews which emphasised that it's pretty dark.
I don't at all blame JKR for wanting to write something completely different, though. She has spoken in interviews of the sense of freedom this gave her.
I agree with Moo that a lot of the characters weren't likeable. It was dark, and hard going in places. It was one of those books that I got a lot more out of after I finished it, rather than enjoying as I read it. It's a very observant picture of British society, crossing class boundaries and pretty unashamedly pointing out hypocrisy and tragedy. I'm very glad I read it, I've not read anything else like it.
I'm halfway through The Cuckoo's Calling, which is much more readable with really likeable characters. It somehow manages to be contemporary and proper-classic-old-style crime fiction at the same time. Very enjoyable. She's a pretty versatile author.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Currently reading House of Many Ways which has pushed down The Scarlet Fig by Avram Davidson, a collection of pieces of his Vergil Magus epic and Ship without a Sail, a new biography of Hart.
This is the peril of trying to sort out the book overflow piles to donate to the Library Sale. All sorts of unread books keep popping out. It's almost as bad as my days as a student librarian reading shelves against the card catalog and having to pass by so many interesting books...
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I agree with Moo that a lot of the characters weren't likeable. It was dark, and hard going in places. It was one of those books that I got a lot more out of after I finished it, rather than enjoying as I read it. It's a very observant picture of British society, crossing class boundaries and pretty unashamedly pointing out hypocrisy and tragedy.
It wasn't the people living in the Fields that I found so obnoxious. It was the middle-class people who plotted revenge on anyone who irritated them.
I especially disliked the relationship between Shirley Molleson and her daughter-in-law Samantha. Given the fact that they were stuck with each other, it was silly to keep feeding the flames.
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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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Someone lent me a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid but I really didn't like it. And I think that if I had read it when I was a twelve year old, I wouldn't have found these jokes funny either.
I guess my fault was also to compare it too much with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, which I did like.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
I have recently done a reread of an online author I particularly like - all 18 books - and have also been doing a reread of Harry Potter and am now halfway through Deathly Hallows - I have the new [or A new] Eoin Colfer on the stocks for next - Warp 1 - I started it at the book fair in town the other day and am now anxious to get into it. Apart from his attempted continuation of Hitchhikers Guide I have enjoyed everything I have read by him. After the Colfer I think I may go a-Delderfield-ing.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Someone lent me a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid but I really didn't like it. And I think that if I had read it when I was a twelve year old, I wouldn't have found these jokes funny either.
I guess my fault was also to compare it too much with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, which I did like.
Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and all its sequels are absolutely brilliant --funny but also tender, deep, etc etc. Great books and probably appreciated far more by adults than children, indeed not written especially for younger readers as far as I know.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Someone lent me a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid but I really didn't like it. And I think that if I had read it when I was a twelve year old, I wouldn't have found these jokes funny either.
I haven't read it, but.it was reasonably popular with the 11 -12 year olds who used the library at a school where I volunteered.
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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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
goperryrevs, re The Casual Vacancy: quote:
It's a very observant picture of British society, crossing class boundaries and pretty unashamedly pointing out hypocrisy and tragedy.
Yes, it is, and as several other people have said it's well-written. It looked to me as if she was aiming for a 21st-century equivalent of Middlemarch - but that could be because I reread Middlemarch quite recently. She obviously had far more sympathy for the teenage characters than for the adults; but honestly, is it really likely that the dead guy was the only half-decent adult in the whole town? The law of averages suggests otherwise.
I didn't like it - partly because it's not the sort of thing I usually read, I suppose, but also because I don't think she has a real talent for doing tragedy (though the funeral scene was well done). I always thought the 'whodunit' and comedy in Harry Potter were the bits that worked best. I wasn't surprised to hear that she'd written a detective/thriller story.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
goperryrevs, re The Casual Vacancy: quote:
It's a very observant picture of British society, crossing class boundaries and pretty unashamedly pointing out hypocrisy and tragedy.
Yes, it is, and as several other people have said it's well-written. It looked to me as if she was aiming for a 21st-century equivalent of Middlemarch - but that could be because I reread Middlemarch quite recently. She obviously had far more sympathy for the teenage characters than for the adults; but honestly, is it really likely that the dead guy was the only half-decent adult in the whole town? The law of averages suggests otherwise.
I didn't like it - partly because it's not the sort of thing I usually read, I suppose, but also because I don't think she has a real talent for doing tragedy (though the funeral scene was well done). I always thought the 'whodunit' and comedy in Harry Potter were the bits that worked best. I wasn't surprised to hear that she'd written a detective/thriller story.
Interesting, Jane R. This is the kind of response to the book that I've seen enough times now to put me off reading it.... especially as I thought the Harry Potter books were brilliant.Middlemarch certainly does repay re-reading. I admire it and love it so much.
I am now reading a really interesting book (I've mentioned it already in another thread) called Keeping Faith: a skeptic's journey among Christian and Buddhist monks by Fenton Johnson. Its scope is much wider than the title implies, he looks not just at monasticism but at the whole search for meaning in life, why we search, different ways of doing that; looks at the Christian and Buddhist traditions, their different approaches, what they have in common...many literary and historical references, but lightly done, and all interwoven with his own search--grew up Catholic, is a gay man, now skeptical about faith but still drawn to it, and seeking to understand why....
I am in the middle, so don't know where it's going or will end up. Has anyone read any of his other books? One of them was a memoir of his childhood and also the story of his lover and the lover's death from AIDS....( Geography of the Heart ) and there are two novels, Crossing the River and Scissors Paper Rock .
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Just finished James Shapiro's Contested Will on the various proponents of 'real' author of Shakespeare. What was so interesting was how he places them in the context of all sorts of presuppositions of their own - and our - day on what poets should be like, what authorship is, how creativity works. Plus wider currents of thought - the Higher Criticism or psychoanalytic theory.
It's one of those books that make you question assumptions, which is always a good thing. Plus a very entertaining read.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
One of my daughters gave me that a few years ago. I love it.
My favorite bit was the account of a nineteenth-century 'scholar' who was determined to find a code in the plays saying Bacon had written them. He ended up saying that Bacon had written the code first, then the plays to fit it! ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif) ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
on a slight cross domain tangent, I've finally gotten the books organized in the living room, dining room and spare bedroom so they are all on shelves. A bunch went to the basement library (stacks) and a whole bunch went to the library sale. I've found a number of books I bought that slipped aside.
I'm currently re-reading a few Rex Stout Nero Wolfe mysteries out of nostalgia for old New York.
Next I've got to start some homework for getting a new programming job. I'm still reading chunks of the final Avram Davidson Vergil Magus series; "The Scarlet Fig"
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Keren-Happuch
Ship's Eyeshadow
# 9818
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Posted
I've just finished reading The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain, translated from French by three people on behalf of Gallic Books. It is rather wonderful in a whimsical way. About President Mitterand's hat being left in a Parisian brasserie and changing the lives of all the people who come across it. Read it in an afternoon.
I'm now re-reading Lindsay Davis's The Course of Honour about the empereor Vespasian and Caenis.
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Travesty, treachery, betrayal!
EXCESS - The Art of Treason
Nea Fox
Posts: 2407 | From: A Fine City | Registered: Jul 2005
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I finished Alex Preston's 'The Revelations' today. Has anyone else tried it?
It's about a thinly disguised Alpha course in London and the clever but tortured young people who are running it. It's highly readable, but it doesn't quite ring true to me, although I've never attended an Alpha course. Why would such messed up people be given such a heavy responsibility? And why are all the Christians such unattractive characters? And despite the importance of 'the Course' being stressed at every opportunity very little is said about the reason behind it: Jesus Christ.
More than this, the novel seems slightly dated, even though it was only published last year. Alpha is presented as a being on the cusp of world domination, whereas it's already a cross-denominational, global phenomenon with a broad demographic; the characters' glorification of wealth takes no account of the financial crisis; and the ethnic and social diversity of London's Christian community is completely ignored. Yes, it's a novel not a social document, but it's clearly trying to say something timely about 'narrow evangelical Christianity'.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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