mjmooney Posted November 24, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted November 24, 2021 21 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: I would not recommend it to a man of your tastes. I understand that you would find the fate of the character Tony Last in A Handful of Dust, to be horror beyond horror. Let me guess - he becomes a rural vicar, and goes to a lot of tea mornings with spinster ladies? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 6 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Let me guess - he becomes a rural vicar, and goes to a lot of tea mornings with spinster ladies? No, much worse than that! He is held prisoner and forced to read Dickens to his host. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted December 31, 2021 Share Posted December 31, 2021 This year read: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater - Thomas De Quincey Nightwood - Djuna Barnes Three Sisters - May Sinclair Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf (reread) Under Milk Wood - Dylan Thomas Short Stories - Virginia Woolf Moby Dick, or The Whale - Herman Melville The Invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares Silas Marner - George Eliot A Nocturnal Expedition Round My Room - Xavier de Maistre Dream Story - Arthur Schnitzler A Little Guide to the Fifteenth Arrondissement for the Use of Phantoms - Roger Caillois No Exit - Jean-Paul Sartre Death in Venice - Thomas Mann Moby Dick and Under Milk Wood were the standouts, both of which I now consider favorites, Mrs Dalloway was already a favorite and I liked it even better after rereading it. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted December 31, 2021 Share Posted December 31, 2021 I recently reread The Great Gatsby and although it is beautifully written, I was left wondering why it is so highly regarded. It always seems to be the go-to text for English literature courses but I can't see why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StewieGriffin Posted January 6, 2022 Share Posted January 6, 2022 Just started The Wheel Of Time series Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted January 6, 2022 Share Posted January 6, 2022 Christmas mode on so it's been biography and memoir time for a bit. Bob Mortimer's 'And Away...!' was charming, very self-deprecating as well as playful, with a few of those WILTY tales getting fuller detail. by contrast... Miriam Margolyes' 'This Much is True' is mental. Can tell she didn't lack for parental support as an only child, brimming with self confidence, and reads with plenty of theatrical airs to it, in a mischievous way. Quite a surprising amount of 'sucking off' mentioned I'll say that But nevertheless charming in a very different way. She is very self-aware of her attributes in all senses of the word. And enjoys a gossip. I imagine she makes for idiosyncratically extraordinary company. Got Brian Cox ( actor ) and John Bew's biography of Clement Atlee ' Citizen Clem' to come, suspect that will involve far less instances of farting and sucking off. Also got through another Shakespeare play - 'Two Gentlemen of Verona'... erm... one of his earlier works with a very WTF ending. Can see why this one doesn't get much repeat performance / adaptations. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rds1983 Posted January 6, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted January 6, 2022 Have read several of the Saxon series by Bernard Cornwall and just picked up the others. Very enjoyable book series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted January 6, 2022 Share Posted January 6, 2022 18 minutes ago, Rds1983 said: Have read several of the Saxon series by Bernard Cornwall and just picked up the others. Very enjoyable book series. If you like them and looking for similar try some Conn Iggulden. Ive read his Conqueror series on Genghis Khan which was a great informative read but know he’s done other factually based fiction series such as Roman/Greek times etc too 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robby b Posted January 6, 2022 Share Posted January 6, 2022 (edited) The last book I read was The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. I read it for the second time, it's a great ghost story. The scariest page for me is near the end just after the main character, Arthur Kipp, decides to smash the nursery room door open because it's somehow locked even though it doesn't have a keyhole. (Bizarre). :s It's such a brilliant page. I won't spoil it with any of the details ! Edited January 6, 2022 by robby b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PussEKatt Posted January 22, 2022 Share Posted January 22, 2022 I have just finished reading "Soul Survivor" by Bruce and Andrea Leininger and Ken Gross.It is a book about a small boy that lived a past life as a WW II fighter piolt.There are pictures and a lot of stuff you could check.A very convincing book about re-incarnation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 This thread feels more suitable than the Russia one for this: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Follyfoot Posted March 9, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9, 2022 Just started the Gabriel Allon series of books. Very good so far and excellent supporting characters who I think will be in the majority of the books to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 Anyone read 'The Three Body Problem' by Cixin Liu? Think I'm going to try and find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lichfield Dean Posted March 27, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 27, 2022 Currently reading the Pratchett/Baxter Long Earth series. Very very cleverly though through, lots of interesting and insightful science and social concepts in the books. I can't really detect a lot of Pratchett in there other than the odd slightly jarring jokey turn of phrase occasionally. But the pragmatic tone kind of suits the series really. And of course Pratchett isn't entirely defined by Discworld. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 On 31/12/2021 at 18:20, MakemineVanilla said: I recently reread The Great Gatsby and although it is beautifully written, I was left wondering why it is so highly regarded. It always seems to be the go-to text for English literature courses but I can't see why? I love it, even went to see that Gatz play where the main character recites the whole book from memory. Partly it’s just a very easy read, but layered with enough subtext to be worth rereading and discussing. Regardless of what you think about the wider story, the opening page is such an insightful observation on growing up: Quote In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. “for the intimate revelations of young men are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions” What a line 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 27, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 27, 2022 2 hours ago, Lichfield Dean said: Currently reading the Pratchett/Baxter Long Earth series. Very very cleverly though through, lots of interesting and insightful science and social concepts in the books. I can't really detect a lot of Pratchett in there other than the odd slightly jarring jokey turn of phrase occasionally. But the pragmatic tone kind of suits the series really. And of course Pratchett isn't entirely defined by Discworld. I have to say I got bored after the first 2 books. Agree very little classic Pratchett in them. It is a clever concept though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 4 hours ago, KentVillan said: I love it, even went to see that Gatz play where the main character recites the whole book from memory. Partly it’s just a very easy read, but layered with enough subtext to be worth rereading and discussing. Regardless of what you think about the wider story, the opening page is such an insightful observation on growing up: “for the intimate revelations of young men are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions” What a line On the subject of F Scott Fitzgerald, I can remember Tom Conti's character in the film Reuben, Reuben arguing with a dinner guest, who was talking about the benefits of speed-reading, and Conti says, that he would actually pay someone to teach him to read more slowly, so he could enjoy the opening of Tender Is The Night, even more. That's the only thing I can remember about the film, but it definitely piqued my interest. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 29, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 29, 2022 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted March 30, 2022 Share Posted March 30, 2022 Finished Crime and Punishment at last. Surprisingly easy to read. Enjoyed it, though he does like a digression here and there. Now on to following along with the Friends of Shakespeare Company reading of Ulyssess. Started it last night. I've never listened to audiobooks before, but realising it might be much easier to follow it 2nd time round listening to how other people read it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 30, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted March 30, 2022 52 minutes ago, Rodders said: Finished Crime and Punishment at last. Surprisingly easy to read. Enjoyed it, though he does like a digression here and there. By coincidence I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov last week. Not an easy read, but glad I did. Ulysses I found much easier than I'd been expecting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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