BookJumper
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When sitting on the (rightfully mine, as I have a manky ankle and a strap to prove it) disabled seat on a chocker-full bus, having to relinquish the place because no one else will let the old lady who just got on sit down. Furthermore, not even getting a thanks from said lady
t's not like I can stand comfortably or at all, I have to keep my right leg right up like a flamingo and risk flying at every brake of the bus, so acknowledgment would be nice. -
Thank you
not that I'm not pedantic, I am and proud of it too, just I don't want to come off as such unless I know for a fact that Prof. Y in question loves ped... I mean, careful, eagle-eyed, passionate, committed students maybe I do worry too much but the universe knows I want to be able so sign off correspondence 'Dr. Giulia I. Sandelewski' in a few years' time...! -
It was driving me nuts, so I compromised - I emailed everyone back, but rather than pointing the finger towards the specific typos I told them all to 'please find attached the revised outline for my proposed project'... hopefully that should do the trick, views seem to be conflicting as some people said they'd find the correction sweet as well as promising in the academic sense, while others said they'd find it pedantic so... argh. Thanks guys, hopefully you're right and it was never a big deal in the first place but... DOUBLE-ARGH!!! [eloquent, aren't I? And I call myself a scholar...]
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Hug gratefully received
the outline still makes logical sense with the typos, it's just I'm terrified of making a bad first impression as someone who can't spell...! -
Ahem:lurker:!
Yesterday I sent out a couple of emails of the 'I'd like to do PhD X with Professor Y, please find attached a brief outline of my proposal' variety. After sending them I realised that (having edited and re-edited it a million times) my outline ended up containing two typos in the form of words which shouldn't have been there - namely "[my] Italian" and "[a] perfection".
I now don't know what to do: do I re-send it errorless, and risk coming off as nitpicky and/or pushy, or do I cross my fingers and hope that with me having two degrees it won't cross their minds to think I can't spell?
Please advise *meep*!
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I like the sound of that Kindle function because for me, the flow is broken by the very fact that I don't know a word - I am left physically unable to read onwards when it happens (there I go again with the unturnoffable Close Reading): thankfully it doesn't happen often!
You goddess *kisses hallowed feet* as anyone told you how radiant you look today in your sacred shimmering gown?the reason I don't need to look them up is because I have (oh god I'm admitting this in a public place)... read the dictionary. So also technically, I have pre-looked-up any difficult words I might come across -
I've seen the film recently and wasn't too keen, however since I know what you're looking for I'll keep and eye out for a book that's similar
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I've only encountered Shakespeare in Oxford World Classics form, the feeling I have gathered from this experience is that their introductions and notes are concisely informative, brilliant for those who've never approached a text before but maybe not enough for someone with your requirements; I don't know how many notes there actually are in their editions of prose, either, but my bet is not that many.
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Thank you, my friendI have a clinical diagnosis of libre purchasica, which basically precludes any possible idea of walking into a bookshop and leaving it weighing the same.
a diagnosis, after all these years! Not that I'm looking for a cure, you understand, but it's always good to know what one is "suffering" (notice the inverted commas) from.
Who wants to live forever? We do, so we can read every decent book ever written!I can't remember last walking into a bookshop and not coming out with a book or fourteen. I call that my method to find immortality.
Well saidYes I can, but it's not big and it's not clever. It's very disappointing behaviour.!
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... aw, that's a beautiful story Vinay
I'm sure that the old man who made you read is smiling down on you from his fluffy cloud. -
... out of interest, how can one ReaderDigesterise The Curious Incident? It's hardly War and Peace
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Steven Brust's Khaavren Romances/Vlad Taltos books? I've just picked up The Phoenix Guards (first in the KR) because reviews had said that it & its sequels could be read as a series in their own right. I thought all would be clear but well, so far it isn't
which annoys me because it's written in such a gorgeous, funny way and I really want to get stuck into it. Any chance of my understanding of Dragaera improving in the near future or do I need to read the Taltos books before the prequels? -
If you don't mind a bit (but not vast amounts) of supernatural elements with your serial killers, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series is really interesting in terms of criminal psychology.
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I thought 1408 was awesome but then I haven't read the story, is it vastly different?
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
by Mark Haddonl tend, sometimes more consciously than others, to steer clear of bestsellers, must-reads and page-turners. Occasionally though, a book will come along which will turn out to have deserved the hype surrounding it. This is one of them, even though the story's linear, as is the storytelling. Under normal circumstances, I'd fling a book across a room with great force at the umpteenth usage of 'and then he said, "...".'
However.
It is precisely thanks to a plot and devices that couldn't be more straightforward that Haddon is able to delve deep into the mind of his unusual protagonist, and provide as close a look as one is probably ever going to get into knowing what it means to have Asperger's. The narrative voice is real, vivid, instantly believable; for a short while, one gets to see and feel the world as young Christopher does, and what is fiction for but to enable one to step outside of oneself and into the mind and soul of another for a while?
Good books entertain; great books manage to simultaneously entertain and teach without preaching. This is a great book. I have edited out this last paragraph of my review prior to posting because I was unable to do the book's message justice without sounding preachy myself, so you'll just have to pick it up and experience it first-hand.
5/5
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I read all of the introductory bits + 5 pages of Steven Brusts's The Phoenix Guards at 6.30 this morning before conking out on the plane tray
I'll see if I can make it to the end of the first chapter before meeting the same fate right about now. -
The Shining is a really good film (I'll just say that it's left me terrified of the days of the week...!) Sheeta, just very very different from the book so you need to engage with it on its own terms
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Phoebe shrugged, her gaze drifting outside as the bus rolled to a stop in front of the Oakvale mobile car park, where Tommy usually waited for it.
"Probably... could not... get a word... in... edgewise," Colette said.
"Har-de-har," Margi said, "you are such the little comedienne."
The Kiss of Life (Generation Dead 2) by Daniel Waters
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There are a couple of major differences between the book and the film, but since the changes were all made by Gaiman himself because of 'x works better on the page but y would work better on screen' kinda considerations, if you loved one you should love the other - I saw the film first and love both, f'rinstanceI just bought this book (because I looove the movie) and I can't wait to get started..
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I'd say Patagonia, so you can come back and tell me what it's like, it being on my TBR also
though our tastes may differ, I tried Miller's Tropic of Cancer a few years back and couldn't finish it:lurker:! -
... now. Choices, choices, choices!
I think I might be naughty and start with The Phoenix GuardsHmmm, I think you should go with Lavinia. I love Ursula LeGuin, but that is one I haven't read. Lavinia looks like it will make me cry, while The Phoebix Guards makes me chuckle with its very chapter headings - such as, Chapter the Eleventh: In Which the Plot, Behaving in Much the Manner Of a Soup to which Corn Starch Has been Added, Begins, at Last, to Thicken 
I think I'm in the mood for some chuckles. High fantasy told in the style of Alexandre Dumas & Rafael Sabatini, praised by Neil Gaiman and Tad Williams... what could be better?
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I second Bram Stoker's Dracula - gorgeous book, though if English is not your first language you might find it a bit difficult - as well as anything by Oscar Wilde. His short stories are beautiful (quite a few made me cry) and should be a pretty safe bet if you don't want to commit to anything too long or hard to understand.
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This was my first Gaiman also and I reckon it's the pretties thing he ever wrote, his others tend to be a bit darker but the quality is consistent, I'm pleased to report
Neverwhere is particularly amazing, IMHO. -
As you can tell from my updated TBR (new additions in green, although some aren't quite so new; I've neglected to update this for a while), I have given up on this whole 'reading one book at a time' business. I seem to actually get through more pages when I indulge whatever mood I might be in at any given reading time, so back to my old ways it is
review of The Curious Incident etc. will be forthcoming.
Ulysses by James Joyce
in The Classics
Posted
I haven't read War & Peace yet but indeed I think it's just a case of it being long more than anything else; and at that, it's only about as long as Les Mis (which I know you've read and enjoyed) so I don't see us struggling to finish that one when we get to it
I get the feeling it's the kind of book where you can choose to read the footnotes to enhance your experience rather than being forced to read them to make sense of it all.