BookJumper
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Thanks for that Pixie, you have clinched a deal many years in the considering...!
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I did that onceStill, it's not as bad as the time I accidentally listened to an audiobook on shuffle - now that was confusing!
I was ill all I could do was lie in bed listening to stuff I already knew, so I stuck on Martin Freeman reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part Three of Five: Mostly Harmless; in such a state was I, it took me two entire CDs to figure out the chapters were playing at random...!
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Why, hello 2011!
The cards have told me you're going to be a good year, one in which non-bookish methods of coursework procrastination will be banished, and close reading of books read for pleasure become a thing of times past. A year in which I'll rid myself of the title of fraud by reading & reviewing a bare minimum of a book a month. In short, nothing like 2009 and 2010, which for all the good intentions with which they were paved, were two definite cases of smoke minus the fire.
Stay, therefore, tuned for my adventures into the hopeful and glorious land of word (& sorcery if I have anything to do with it, which I sure hope I do. Where would one be if one couldn't even choose one's own reading matter?)!
Currently Reading
Jasper Fforde, The Last Dragonslayer (started November 2010) [122/181]
February Challenge: BookJumper's Jumps Across BookWorld
- Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy
- Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear
- Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair (re-read)
- Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book (re-read)
- Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots (partial re-read)
- Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten (partial re-read)
- Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels
- Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays is Missing
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For me it was probably Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation by Yvonne Fern... Also, on a lesser scale, classic novels. Like, The Female Quixote as a good example.
The Last Conversation has been shortlisted subitaneously - you're bad for my wallet, girl. The Female Quixote is already on my wishlist, so it's good to have it authoritatively backed.
I must say that Star Trek had a strong influence on my moral compass when I was growing up, but I've found Roddenberry quite often didn't live up to the ideals of the society he created. There are a lot of people who will tell you what a great man he was, and I'm not really trying to knock him here, but they tend to leave out the womanising and gloss over how difficult he was to work with. He did though, create a series with a unique and positive view of the future, and it is one that has inspired and entertained a great many people down the years.[/quote]At the end of the day, it's an artist's creative legacy that truly matters I think. Greats from Marlowe to Johnny Cash have led... interesting lives, yet what they've meant to people over the years ultimately exceeds any lifestyle choice.
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All this talk of Little, Big has made me want to read it again.
So you should
in fact, mereckons me, you & Kylie should conspire and read it simultaneously. What say you girls?Late last night I finished The Tsarina's daughter - Carolly Erickson. All I can say is I'm glad it's over and now I can move on!Oh dear. What was wrong with it?
That's excellent to hear! I can't wait to read it myself.Let me just say this: The Last Dragonslayer is the kind of book that makes me wish I had kids so I could read it with them. It's THAT good.
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Michael Ball - Show Me from My Fair Lady (even better than the original, methinks).
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a short story by H H Munro "Saki" called "The Storyteller". Reading it I realised how much fun a non-conventional story could be and I began writing around the same time so it was a huge inspiration that dictated what I'd be writing in my life.
What did that for me was Bianca Pitzorno's Ascolta il Mio Cuore (Listen to My Heart). It was about three best friends rebelling against the reign of a tyrannical new teacher, and one of them - Prisca Puntoni - was a crazily creative little thing who would always fill up diaries and school essays with short stories. She wanted to be a writer when she grew up, and I realised as I read about her that 'writer' was what I wanted to be when I grew up also. I wouldn't say that it changed my life though, because it just gave me a name for something I knew already was inside me.
No, the book that actually changed my life is Victor Hugo's Les Miserablés - I read it between the ages of 14 and 15 and it's instilled in me most of the ideas I still hold about justice, friendship and love. I always say it's the book that turned me from a child into a young adult, as nothing I've read before or since has influenced my way of thinking or feeling more.
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These days, I tend to be out between classes, extracurricular stuff etc. until 10-12 at night every day. By the time I crawl home I am starving but too knackered to even think about cooking, so what usually happens is a frozen pizza gets put in the oven / a Rustler's Rib gets put in the microwave and I munch on that. Now, I realise this isn't the healthiest regime but I just don't have the energy to cook up something from scratch. So what I'm asking you lovely, creative people with taste is: what are some things which are super-duper quick to prepare but are actually sort of good for me? Thank you
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I do a bit of both. I read extensively in the sense that I keep an open mind and will try any subject/genre/author once; I am however selective in the sense that if I'm not enjoying a book, it will get cast aside and marked with a big 'Do Not Go There' sign. Life's too short to read books which you do not enjoy, and besides the books that are meant to enrich you are the ones you enjoy: find out why you enjoy a book, and you've got your enrichment.
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Definitely pick up a copy of The Children's Book when you can. It was a bit confusing at first for me as there were so many characters to get straight in my wee brain, but now that I know who is who, I am fascinated by these people. Plus, there are enchanting fairy tales within that move the story along. I am so looking forward to when you start reading Little, Big. It is my favorite. The book evoked such emotions in me it was almost a spiritual experience. Such is the power of language and prose and story when it is done well.
You're definitely making both sound extremely appealing, so yes m'am!
Now my uni deadlines have relaxed a wee bit I can actually pick Fforde's The Last Dragonslayer back up, hopefully I can finish that in a couple of sittings so I can start on Little, Big soon. And yes, The Last Dragonslayer is so awesome I could have actually read it all in a handful of sittings - me of all people! - 'tis just the homework which forced me to take a vacation from reading for pleasure
evil homework.And Kylie, you're most welcome
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dante's inferno has been amazing. the other two books don't hold my attention like all the fire and brimstone that is inferno. can't wait to start "paradise lost"
Problem is, all the interesting (cool/beautifully sad/love to hate...) characters were the ones poor 14th century Dante would have been excommunicated for putting anywhere except in Hell, thus accounting for the mind-numbing dullness of Purgatory and Paradise. I mean, Dante is a supreme poet is a supreme poet is a supreme poet, but there's only so much you can do if you've used all the best characters in Book 1.
I think you'll love Paradise Lost if you liked Inferno by the way, it's just so stunning and flows so skillfully it could have been written yesterday. One of the few poems out there I actually wish I'd written (a girl can dream).
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Hamlet is a really funny play I must say. I can see why it is so popular. Shakespeare had humor, that's for sure.
It does have some really funny bits (thinking particularly of the way Tennant did the 'antic disposition' for the RSC, just hilarious), however - is it just me who actually finds it a very moving play at times? I once wrote an essay about this which was shot down, so probably it is just me
!I have also seen The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon... I hope that I will be able to see more performances in the future as I really enjoyed the experiances.Now is perhaps a good time to announce to the forum that I've actually just moved to Stratford-U-Avon and will be living here for the next four years, therefore anyone who needs help planning a theatre trip in Shakespeareland should just let me know & I'll see what I can do
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... what Kylie The Wise said.
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I promised myself only two new books for every ten I read, but does it count when my sister sends me books in the mail without consulting me?
Of course it doesn't count, special rules apply all the way
so, good haul (let me know what you think about What Dreams May Come, I adore the film but I've been told the book is very different so I don't know if I should read it - counting on a killer review now, you see! Really glad you're liking The Children's Book, it keeps calling out to me in shops so I might have to appropriate it soon.& oooh, so Little, Big is your favourite book like ever? I'm even more excited now, will do my best to finish my current book (long story) a.sa.p. so I can start it...!
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if it is going to be given to young children to read, then maybe the sanitised version is better?I can see the sense in changing the text for school versions; I don't suppose that this is a new thing.
I personally would advocate not changing it, especially for younger readers. Rather than sheltering them from words they hear every day on the street and on the telly anyway, editors/teachers/parents/etc. could if anything use the book to talk to children about the issues a word can raise. The only protected child, I feel, is an informed child. Besides, when I was little and I realised that a lot of the books I was borrowing from the library had been altered, I felt offended and patronised - I would have rather the books hadn't been available at all, and do unto others and all that.
In general, if one were to edit out the potentially offensive in literature,* we'd be chucking most of the canon out with the bathwater.
* Or literary criticsm for that matter. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for instance, comes out with some truly cringeworthily racist/sexist comments in his Shakespearean criticism (often in the same sentence), but I find it better to contextualise Coleridge in his century and move past it to the commentary itself, which is for the most part still brilliant and relevant.
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Got given John Crowley's Little, Big by a wonderful uni friend as a belated Christmas present today, really chuffed 'cos I can tell from the texture of the cover alone that I'll love it to bits.
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I tried listening to audiobooks on my mpman mp3 player once upon a time but no matter how sensibly I named files and folders they would not play in order of track or even CD - any idea what might have been causing this? I have since lost that player, now I use my Sony Walkman phone as an mp3 player but as it plays songs in anything but the right order, I'm assuming it will do the same for audiobook files... halp? I would love to be able to listen to books on my walk to and from uni as comulatively it's nearly an hour a day, it'd be a nice way to put that time to some use
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W00t w00t - way to go, Kell!
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Cranberry & raspberry juice carton end mixed with apple and blackberry.
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There was worse in my own school library to be honest (such as the infamous copy of Stephen King's IT I never got to finish). I'd let my child read pretty much anything I think, how else could I expect them to grow as human beings of their own?, the important thing would be to be there to talk about what they've read should they want to.
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Loving your colonialist enterprise Frankie!!!
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People who ask polite questions and then betray their lack of interest by not listening to the answer. For instance:
Housemate: 'Hey, how are you?'
Me [pretty much in tears]: *shrug* 'Been better. You?'
Housemate: 'I'm good thanks' *walks out of front door*
... just don't ask, it's simpler and more honest.
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I would love to read some classics that will change my life!! I would love to read some modern books that might make me think....I want to read....I am unhappy when I don't read.....do you ever feel like this?...all those books out there and yet I can't find any for me. Can someone rescue me from this great book void I am sinking into, I love to read and I want to rediscover the great joy of reading all over again.....
I know precisely how you feel, so let's see if I can help.
Classics to change your life
- I second Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Actually quite a sad book but so beautifully written, so full of important things to say about the things that matter in life that it gives one a sense of purpose in spite of all the sadness
- [let me sleep on it. I know I know others...]
Modern books to make you think
- I third The Book Thief by Markus Suzak. Beneath the wit, charm and easy readability lies a very positive message pitched against a very serious background - funny how a book narrated by Death can make one feel so full of life
- Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. After I'd bought this intrigued by the title, it lay unread for about four years, until something inspired me to pick it up just at the moment when my existence seemed to make the least sense. I exaggerate not when I say it saved me. Stunning stuff
- The Horrific Sufferings of Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot, His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred by Carl-Johan Vallgren. The best book to enter my life since Frankenstein, which has been close to my heart for the past ten years. The title says all you need to know, really
- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (& sequels, Book II of The Wicked Years, Son of a Witch, is even better in my opinion) by Gregory Maguire. Everything you wanted to know about the baddest baddie ever... or was she?
- The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde, starting with the Eyre Affair. Detective story meets literary parody meets dystopian science fiction. Good mysteries, amazing characters and - wait for it - more recommendations for classics to change your life than you could actually read in several lifetimes.
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First off, let me start by saying how incredibly pleased I am to return from my little adventure to find you all discussing amongst yourselves
good circlers o' mine.Pontalba - so glad that I'd misunderstood your meaning, you'd alarmed me rather! It is true that it'd make for excellent discussion for someone to come along and say, 'What a positively ghastly book, I hated it. Discuss,' but for the life of me I can't conceive why anyone would say anything of the sort.
You make a good point about Julian's 'dwelling' on what must have been the most extraordinarily different day of his life. I agree that readers can act in very much the same way, and being a particularly pernickety close reader I must say I enjoyed Julian's constant poking at the same important questions with more than a twinkle of recognition.
The mother we know to have been very beautiful, which in gothic novels does tend to go hand in hand with insane unfortunately. Another tendency is to have madness be inheritable along the female line, and if she'd been as unhinged as her daughter, that would explain why she'd have opposed her husband in his plans (conjectured by us, but feasibly I think) to send Merricat away. Also - and I realise this now this very instant, how epiphanic - there must have been a reason for her family to lawfully be able to take away from her the Rochester House, which both Merricat and Constance seem to think should have been rigthfully hers.
Ethan - what kind of Reading Circle would this be if each of us thought too little of their opinions to share them
? Do come join in, that's what it's all about.I found interesting that you called Merricat Mirabell - I think your name might have suited the book better in truth, there is after all a Mirabell castle in Salzburg, Austria (definitely a fairy-tale city, that).
Now, I haven't seen Psycho* except from its most celebrated scene (to my eternal shame), but one difference that springs to mind is that in said film one actually gets to see the horrified face of the violently murdered: I think the main reasons it's easy to forget Merricat's a killer is because we're told about the murder (by poison, we should remember; she might not have had the cold blood to literally shed that of her family) in retrospective wide circles, always focusing on the "before" and "after" as opposed to the actual moment of death. While I think Pontalba's right in saying she had the psychological potential to kill Cousin Charles, I believe Jackson might have avoided going down that route because being presented with another murder, one impossible to safely ignore as 'backstory', the reader might have empathised with Merricat less.
* I have also never felt the need to read/watch Lolita. Does that make me a terrible person?
Thanks for that quote from Jackson, it definitely does help put the book in context.
I'd like to hear more about why you think Moore's definition fits WHALITC
I am not disagreeing with you by any means, just curious.
Chrysalis' reading habits 2011
in Past Book Logs
Posted
So glad you guys like Cabal
do make sure you catch the film with some urgency, it's absolutely magnificent. En par with Lost Boys, my favourite left field horror movie of all time.