How did you like it? If you like this style, you might like the works of Ha Jin. He’s a professor now at Emory University, at least he was.
I’ve read most of his work with Waiting probably being my favorite.
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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?
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How did you like it? If you like this style, you might like the works of Ha Jin. He’s a professor now at Emory University, at least he was.
I’ve read most of his work with Waiting probably being my favorite.
Just started "The Dreaming Void" by Peter F. Hamilton. Not sure how I feel about it, yet. Lots of small type and dense pages. Not sure my old eyes will hold up. The author kind of just dumps you into his world with it's heavy Sci Fi terminology and expects you to get it. I need a dictionary for some of his terms. I'll take a wait and see. If this first book of his trilogy doesn't do much for me I'll just mover on. My son has already read it and he said he rather enjoyed it. May end up buying the sequels for him, if I don't like it too much.
Received the omnibus edition of "The Deed of Paksenarrion" by Elizabeth Moon as a gift from a friend in the post today.
Welp. I abandoned "The Dreaming Void". Just not a good enough SF novel to pique and keep my interest. Thankfully I have lots of other books around by better authors. Started Harry Turtledove's "Over The Wine-Dark Sea". It's an historical novel set in ancient Greece and the Mediterranean. It, unlike my previous read, is interesting. Turtledove is one of my all time favourite authors and he has never written a book that has failed to please me.
Right now I'm reading Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
So far all I've read of his was Elizabeth Costello, which I enjoyed.
So far all I've read of his was Elizabeth Costello, which I enjoyed.
Welp. I abandoned "The Dreaming Void". Just not a good enough SF novel to pique and keep my interest. Thankfully I have lots of other books around by better authors. Started Harry Turtledove's "Over The Wine-Dark Sea". It's an historical novel set in ancient Greece and the Mediterranean. It, unlike my previous read, is interesting. Turtledove is one of my all time favourite authors and he has never written a book that has failed to please me.
I love Turtledove. I've read several of his books and have yet to be disappointed.
Yup I am hooked! Book 8 has been started. By the way, for those who watch the show, so far all of the books and the main plot points have been in the show in one way or another. There are differences, but the main crimes etc have all been in there and since I am in book 8, this book is also in the show.
So far, so good, although as per the suggestion of a particularly smart fella I know, I'm reading it more slowly than usual. That seems to be a good suggestion.
And here is a wonderful word I must say I have fallen completely in love with: "wyrdwrītere" meaning an historian or a chronicler. Another, almost equally divine, is "cranicwrītere", which means much the same thing.
I am sorely tempted to alter all of my online brief bios to include these terms - for, these words are just too wonderful - and exquisitely descriptive yet gloriously and authentically antique - not to be kept alive and in (constant) use.
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Lovely words indeed.
Now you've set me off trolling through Old English dictionaries online.
Lovely words indeed.
Now you've set me off trolling through Old English dictionaries online.
Brilliant fun, isn't it? A terrific way to pass an evening (as I have discovered).
One of the most charming (and well written, and informative and not at all pompous) histories of the English language that I have come across is Melvyn Bragg's delightful "The Adventure of English - The Biography of a Language".
My mum loved it, too; she read it, I gave it to her as a gift - not long before her dementia kicked in.
I'll look out for that.
I am a great fan of his BBC Radio 4, In Our Time series. Some days the subject is way over my head, but always fascinating.
Agree completely.
I get the sense that Melvyn Bragg wants to share his delight and excitement and wonder and awestruck joy at this story with the reader and have you marvel as much as he does - whereas - for example - Harry Mount (who knows a lot, and whom I love to read and wish to kick in almost equal measure) is just too smugly delighted with himself and his ample knowledge and learning for the act of reading one of his works to be an unalloyed pleasure.
Time to start reading some criticism. Been a while since I last read some of Susan Sontag's. Now going to look into Amis:
The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews: 1971-2000 by Martin Amis
The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews: 1971-2000 by Martin Amis
I have a couple of her books in ebook format and really mean to make time to enjoy them, somehow each day ends and I'm not there yet... something isn't working right with this plan! The books are Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and On Gold Mountain.
Thanks! I opened up that book on my iPad so next time I pick up the device thinking to spend some time reading, I'll not be cruising my library wondering what to select. This weekend seems ideal, since I think I may have maxed out on social media politics before the elections here.
Shakespeare was a hack. His work was wildly popular in its day and has become a curse to be inflicted upon school children everywhere, arbitrarily forcibly keeping alive an increasingly archaic and outmoded version of English for the sake of being able to read and interpret the writings of someone who, if he lived in the modern day, would be just another writer for prime time TV. It’s overrated at best.
Foresooth, yay verily must I draw thise comment to its ende, though had I my drothers, would I merry continue to scribe myne words upone thise digitile page.
That and Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, etc etc
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I'm glad you weren't my Lit prof...
Agree with both you, @pachyderm and @ucfgrad93 that some of the plays Shakespeare - (plays such as, Hamlet, MacBeth, King Lear, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, The Merchant of Venice among several others) are outstanding. There is a reason that they have influenced and informed the English language and given us some of our more memorable figures of speech, and a reason some of them are rightly considered classics.
Now, I will readily admit that Shakespeare's fidelity to history, and historical sources could not be regarded as exemplary, and he borrowed freely from others (Holinshed's Chronicles for one), and I am no great fan of his sonnets; but, his plays - some of them are magnificent.
I have seen versions of Hamlet, MacBeth and King Lear on stage that left me spellbound.