Will finish today or tomoz. Will come back to you, by all means.
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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Huntn
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Once you get into Shakespeare, there's no going back. I did an MA in Bibliography and Textual Criticism many years ago. That's to study of the transmission of texts – such things as how printing house practices affected the texts that have come down to us. It was a fascinating course but you can't imagine how time-consuming it is; you could spend your whole life on one Shakespeare play. I came to the conclusion that Shakespeare's plays were almost the only texts which warranted the effort.
When you've finished the version of Hamlet you're reading, you might be interested to take a look at the Q1 (so-called Bad Quarto). It is believed to have been based on a member of the audience trying to recall the text, which is why it's so bad.
Istanbul Passage (Joseph Kanon, 2012)
The perils of slicing and dicing moralities. Once you cross a line it’s not that there’s no going back, it’s that there’s no telling how many more lines you’ll cross trying to regroup from not being sure you wanted to go there in the first place. A fine thriller about amateur espionage in a post WWII Turkey teeming with professional spies.
The perils of slicing and dicing moralities. Once you cross a line it’s not that there’s no going back, it’s that there’s no telling how many more lines you’ll cross trying to regroup from not being sure you wanted to go there in the first place. A fine thriller about amateur espionage in a post WWII Turkey teeming with professional spies.
Sounds fascinating.
Have you read anything by Orhan Pamuk in your journeys through literature? I was rather taken with some of his work.
Pamuk’s memoir “Istanbul: Memories and the City” has been on my list since summer a year ago when I was deep into Alexandria and the memoirs of Jews who spent off seasons in Istanbul or Paris before having to flee North Africa for good after Farouk was overthrown.
I had thought to make this season one focused on Turkey (and the news certainly did that) but lately I only seem to get into one of those deep dives every two years instead of each summer.
So Pamuk and his country and the Black Sea... and edging farther east... are still enqueued. All things current considered, it has occurred to me to wonder once in awhile whether he will be able to remain in Turkey.
Anyway I’ve had Kanon’s “Passage to Istanbul” waiting far too long and it seemed like a good first move towards hanging out in a hammock with a few more books over the holiday.
Maybe I’ll edge into that deep dive on Turkey from the literary side instead of my usual starting w/ memoirs and history; not in the mood for that at summer’s end. If you’ve read fiction by Pamuk and can recommend particular works, please do. Have you read either “Snow” or “My Name is Red”? I got a sample of the latter and found the very idea of what he was doing there amazing, if not dangerously provocative. Maybe less so at the time he wrote it.
I have read "My Name Is Red", thought it superb, and recommend it highly.
Partly because I thought it excellent, partly because, at the time I read it, I hadn't visited Istanbul (which I have done on a few occasions since then), and partly because of recent events in Turkey, I have been meaning to read more of his stuff, and - when I return home - must set about doing so.
Partly because I thought it excellent, partly because, at the time I read it, I hadn't visited Istanbul (which I have done on a few occasions since then), and partly because of recent events in Turkey, I have been meaning to read more of his stuff, and - when I return home - must set about doing so.
I recall playing the roll playing game of this title as a young teenager. That takes me back.
Reading 'Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration' by David Roberts. It is amazing what people can endure.
Yes, it is.
I remember having the exact same thought when I read some of Primo Levi's haunting, exquisitely written and rather brilliant books.
Just finished a re-reading of both...
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1818)
Dracula - Bram Stoker (1897)
Frankenstein
The hollywood portrayal of these characters and themes bears only a cursory resemblance to Mary Shelley's work
As a fan of the horror movies growing up, the first time I read it, I was astounded at the differences in the written story
The discourses between Victor Frankenstein and his creation are some excellent prose and interesting philosophy
Dracula
Hollywood has done a better job in capturing the Dracula story over the years
The exclusive use of journals and letters only to tell the story can take some getting used to, especially at first
Both novels created hugely iconic characters that have chilled and thrilled readers and audiences since the 1800's
I highly recommend both books for casual reading
That said, one of my favorite all time movies is Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1818)
Dracula - Bram Stoker (1897)
Frankenstein
The hollywood portrayal of these characters and themes bears only a cursory resemblance to Mary Shelley's work
As a fan of the horror movies growing up, the first time I read it, I was astounded at the differences in the written story
The discourses between Victor Frankenstein and his creation are some excellent prose and interesting philosophy
Dracula
Hollywood has done a better job in capturing the Dracula story over the years
The exclusive use of journals and letters only to tell the story can take some getting used to, especially at first
Both novels created hugely iconic characters that have chilled and thrilled readers and audiences since the 1800's
I highly recommend both books for casual reading
That said, one of my favorite all time movies is Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
I thought the same when he was alive but I think his experiences might well have got him in the end.
Agreed.
But his body of work is utterly compelling, historically and philosophically commanding and yet beautifully written in a spare, but exquisitely elegant prose.
I finished the Star Trek book I was reading last week (The Shock's of Adversity) and today I finished the 7th book of the Honor Harrington series "In Enemy Hands". I've also purchased and downloaded to my Kindle the 8th book of the series "Echoes of Honor".
I'll be starting a new Star Trek book today, in good old fashioned paperback.
"Devil's Bargain"
I'll be starting a new Star Trek book today, in good old fashioned paperback.
"Devil's Bargain"
I finished the above posted book in two days and ordered another Star Trek paperback. In the meantime I've started the 8th book in the Honor Harrington series, "Echoes of Honor" and have gotten about 10% through it already. It's quite a long book at over 700 pages, and makes me think I'm reading a Peter F. Hamilton book!
I have just read the iBooks sample from Zalmay Khalilzad’s memoir "The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, My Journey Through a Turbulent World". A complete page turner, and I had to quit out of iBooks to keep from pressing the Buy button right now. I’m afraid I would not get anything done for however long it took to finish reading it
Just in the preview, which includes a bit from a chapter on Khalilzad's early life in Afghanistan, there is everything I love about a memoir --locations, family, food, culture-- plus the kite fighting traditions of Afghanistan, with detailed descriptions of technique that shed new light for anyone who read Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner”, and on and on.
Not to mention in the preface some interesting tidbits about why Bush put Bremer into Iraq alone after initially thinking to send Khalilzad as well; it came down to their respective principals (Rumsfeld and Rice) not getting along and so a desire to minimize potential conflict in the field. Well not to get too political here but we saw how well it worked out sending the unsupervised monarch Mr. Bremer to convert an initial idea for immediate coalition government into an occupation and reconstruction.
Anyway I am excited about reading this book, even though I realize fully that Mr. Khalilzad is not without a number of views that don’t coincide with my own. I do still appreciate his years of public service for the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and at the UN (and there may I say especially in contrast to the manner of John Bolton), as well as his contributions to American universities and other institutions in the USA. Reading "The Envoy" will represent to me another experience that encountering someone else’s ideas does not mean they are engraved on my tombstone by nightfall.
Just in the preview, which includes a bit from a chapter on Khalilzad's early life in Afghanistan, there is everything I love about a memoir --locations, family, food, culture-- plus the kite fighting traditions of Afghanistan, with detailed descriptions of technique that shed new light for anyone who read Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner”, and on and on.
Not to mention in the preface some interesting tidbits about why Bush put Bremer into Iraq alone after initially thinking to send Khalilzad as well; it came down to their respective principals (Rumsfeld and Rice) not getting along and so a desire to minimize potential conflict in the field. Well not to get too political here but we saw how well it worked out sending the unsupervised monarch Mr. Bremer to convert an initial idea for immediate coalition government into an occupation and reconstruction.
Anyway I am excited about reading this book, even though I realize fully that Mr. Khalilzad is not without a number of views that don’t coincide with my own. I do still appreciate his years of public service for the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and at the UN (and there may I say especially in contrast to the manner of John Bolton), as well as his contributions to American universities and other institutions in the USA. Reading "The Envoy" will represent to me another experience that encountering someone else’s ideas does not mean they are engraved on my tombstone by nightfall.
Fascinating.
That is, the books cited, and the context are both fascinating.
Will return to this presently.
@Scepticalscribe, they say you're an historian. Do you have statesmen's autobiographies to suggest? (Except Churchill's)
jack london "sea wolf"
and "The Call of Cthulhu" (your know)
[doublepost=1474533204][/doublepost]
and "The Call of Cthulhu" (your know)
[doublepost=1474533204][/doublepost]
good luck, nice literatureIm gonna start reading Iain M. Banks "Culture" novels soon
No.
In general, I try not to read autobiographies, as I find I prefer (well written) biographies to autobiographies.
The latter are almost invariably self-serving (which is entirely understandable), a bit free with facts, but are also usually (having been ghost written) excruciatingly poorly written, too. Or else - worse again - they are tedious in the extreme.
That combination of poor prose and horrible history is usually too much for me.