Do you read?

[useless]

Only book I've read in one sitting was Nineteen Eighty-Four, I kept reading and reading and then I think I got to the point where I just though I might as well read it until the end even though I really wanted to put it down. Didn't really enjoy it and haven't read a book like that since, usually I'm a slow reader anyway, I couldn't read 50 or 100 novels in a year like some can for example.

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, useless said:

Only book I've read in one sitting was Nineteen Eighty-Four, I kept reading and reading and then I think I got to the point where I just though I might as well read it until the end even though I really wanted to put it down. Didn't really enjoy it and haven't read a book like that since, usually I'm a slow reader anyway, I couldn't read 50 or 100 novels in a year like some can for example.

Not sure about in one sitting, but when we did Thomas Hardy's 'Far From the Madding Crowd' for English O-level (that's GCSE to you kids), we kept being given one chapter a week to read, and I was hating it. After the first couple of chapters, I decided to get ahead of the game and read several chapters ahead. Ended up reading the whole book over a weekend and really enjoyed it. 

[Sam-AVFC]

1 hour ago, useless said:

Only book I've read in one sitting was Nineteen Eighty-Four, I kept reading and reading and then I think I got to the point where I just though I might as well read it until the end even though I really wanted to put it down. Didn't really enjoy it and haven't read a book like that since, usually I'm a slow reader anyway, I couldn't read 50 or 100 novels in a year like some can for example.

Do you retain most of what you read?

I'm one of those people that goes through at least 1 book a week, but I do find myself rereading loads of stuff. I'd probably struggle to recount a lot from most books just from a title although I find I remember stuff as I start reading. Thankfully I normally forget enough to surprise me a bit (unless I've reread more than once).

I remember when I was younger my mum was one of those parents that went to the bookshop at 11pm to get the new Harry Potter for me as early as possible. At breakfast the next day I'd already finished it, so from then on for new releases we used to go together at 9am the next day!

Edited June 8, 2020 by Sam-AVFC

[Xela]

5 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Do you retain most of what you read?

I'm one of those people that goes through at least 1 book a week, but I do find myself rereading loads of stuff. I'd probably struggle to recount a lot from most books just from a title although I find I remember stuff as I start reading. Thankfully I normally forget enough to surprise me a bit (unless I've reread more than once).

I look at my bookcase and the books I have read and I can't remember a single thing about any of them bar a handful

I must skim read and it only stays in my short memory.

[useless]

I don't think that I retain a lot of what I read, I guess the one plus of that is that you can read a book again and there's still an element of newness to it. I saw somewhere the once that the average person retains about ten percent of a book, if there's something I want recorded in memory I have to read it over several times.

[Follyfoot]

Reading the 5th book in the Orphan X series, fantastic book as are the others, very much recommended

[choffer]

I’m really enjoying the extra time this lockdown is providing. Four hours a day not commuting means I’m reading a lot more. 
This is my current to-do list. 

[mjmooney]

22 minutes ago, choffer said:

I’m really enjoying the extra time this lockdown is providing. Four hours a day not commuting means I’m reading a lot more. 
This is my current to-do list. 

You're going to need that Arthur Smith to cheer you up after that lot. 

[choffer]

10 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

You're going to need that Arthur Smith to cheer you up after that lot. 

That’s exactly the thinking. I intersperse a chapter of Smith every once in a while to take the edge off. 

[Rodders]

Still progressing with Shantaram but my word it's an odd book, it oscillates between a compelling travel-guide like picture building of 1980s Bombay / Mumbai which is colourfully drawn and the authenticity of personal experience is undeniable, but it is always undercut by his attempts at reaching for grand metaphors all the damn time. It is ridiculous, and some of them are laughable, the kinds of trite lines considered too cheesy even for a hallmark card, so I have to periodically vomit before continuing. I've seen reviews of people who loved and loathed this book and I can see both perspectives. it is a fast paced story that is rammed with detail and adventurous escapades that are frankly ludicrous and implausible but has enough charm to bring you along with it, but then the passages of nonsense, teenage poet ideas of love and philosophy which are borderline unreadable. 

looking forward to finishing it though to move on to the next fiction book. Non fiction wise I've decided to read Paine's Rights of Man. His rebuke of Burke's nonsensical defense of monarchy is very witty, but there are also spells of book which are a bit impenetrable to me. 

[mjmooney]

42 minutes ago, Rodders said:

it is always undercut by his attempts at reaching for grand metaphors all the damn time. It is ridiculous, and some of them are laughable, the kinds of trite lines considered too cheesy even for a hallmark card

It's a shame when an otherwise good book is ruined by an annoying writing style. A couple of examples from my recent reading: 

"The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology" by Simon Winchester. Interesting subject, but he tries too hard to make the subject racier, and litters it with cliches, like trying to end each chapter as a corny cliffhanger, with something like: "The map was now ready for publication... or WAS it?" 

"Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World" by Prof. Roy Porter. A fairly intellectual study, but he writes like a third-former who's just been told about alliteration. Every single page is littered with it. Superb Scottish surgeons. Angry animal activists. Wild wet weather. He just couldn't stop doing it. It eventually annoyed me so much I had to abandon the book. 

[mikeyp102]

1 hour ago, Phil Silvers said:

It really is a brilliant film, I was a Steve McQueen fan back in the day and still am. His films were probably classed as main stream action/thrillers etc and he never was really challenged as an actor, so to see him hold his own against probably the best actor in the world giving arguably his greatest performance was amazing to see.

I watched the remake out of curiosity and it was ok, If you've seen the original its a 5/10, if you haven't then its a 7/10 if that makes sense.

I've never read the book and have been looking for something so I've ordered it, cheers.

It’s one of those book that I’ve read over and over again, starting at about 13. First couple of chapters can be hard work, but once get into it, it’s great. You can really picture yourself there “in his shoes”. It’s meant to be a true story, but I can’t help but think he’s embellished it somewhat. There is also a follow up, Banco. It’s not as good but certainly helps to finish the story.

[useless]

Have read a few short stories and essays by Robert Musil recently, the talk of statues made me think of this one called Monuments.

'Aside from the fact that you never know whether to refer to them as
monuments or memorials, monuments do have all kinds of other
characteristics. The most salient of these is a bit contradictory, namely,
that monuments are so conspicuously inconspicuous. There is noth-
ing in this world as invisible as a monument. They are no doubt
erected to be seen – indeed to attract attention. But at the same time
they are impregnated with something that repels attention, causing
the glance to roll right off, like water droplets off an oilcloth, with-
out even pausing for a moment. You can walk down the same street
for months, know every address, every show window, every police-
man along the way, and you won’t even miss a dime that someone
dropped on the sidewalk; but you are very surprised when one day,
staring up at a pretty chambermaid on the first floor of a building,
you notice a not-at-all-tiny metal plaque on which, engraved in indel-
ible letters, you read that from eighteen hundred and such and such
to eighteen hundred and a little more the unforgettable So-and-so
lived and created here.

Many people have this same experience even with larger-than-life-
sized statues. Every day you have to walk around them, or use their
pedestal as a haven of rest, you employ them as a compass or a dis-
tance marker; when you happen upon the well-known square, you
sense them as you would a tree, as part of the street scenery, and you
would be momentarily stunned were they to be missing one morning:
But you never look at them, and do not generally have the slightest
notion of whom they are supposed to represent, except that maybe
you know if it’s a man or a woman.'

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by useless

[mjmooney]

Only thing I've read by Robert Musil is "The Man Without Qualities" which is a MAHOOSIVE novel. I'm thinking of re-reading it, in fact. 

[useless]

I haven't read 'Man Without Qualtiies' yet but would like to try and read it one day.

[mjmooney]

1 minute ago, useless said:

I haven't read 'Man Without Qualtiies' yet but would like to try and read it one day.

It's very modernist. Like Proust, nothing really happens. You just need to wallow in endless fin-de-siecle Viennese ennui. 

[useless]

I did read a few pages from it (The Man Without Qualitiies) at one time, and liked what I read, and seem to like modernist authors in general, so am anticipating that I'd enjoy it.

Edited June 10, 2020 by useless

[mjmooney]

Just now, useless said:

I did read a few pages from it at one time, and liked what I read, and seem to like modernist authors in general, so am anticipating that I'd enjoy it.

Modernism is totally my 'thing' - literature, art, film, music. 

[AVFC_Hitz]

12 hours ago, mjmooney said:

fin-de-siecle Viennese ennui. 

Saw them last year at the Old Crown.

Jeffrey Timpletonmouse was on triangle and he signed my mousepad.

[Rodders]

On 09/06/2020 at 11:23, mjmooney said:

It's a shame when an otherwise good book is ruined by an annoying writing style. A couple of examples from my recent reading: 

"The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology" by Simon Winchester. Interesting subject, but he tries too hard to make the subject racier, and litters it with cliches, like trying to end each chapter as a corny cliffhanger, with something like: "The map was now ready for publication... or WAS it?" 

"Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World" by Prof. Roy Porter. A fairly intellectual study, but he writes like a third-former who's just been told about alliteration. Every single page is littered with it. Superb Scottish surgeons. Angry animal activists. Wild wet weather. He just couldn't stop doing it. It eventually annoyed me so much I had to abandon the book. 

Yep, it's infuriating. Shantaram is over 900 pages and I'm at 700 odd in so, not going to abandon now. With this one, I can see part of his problems being that if this is as based on his experiences as apparently it was, he's obviously tried to jam pack every single experience he's had, earnestly wanting you to share in it and not miss anything out, and thus there is little finesse for saying more with less; hints of ambiguity of meaning / the ability to draw your own mental picture are ( occasionally ) smashed out with an added explanatory sentence or three to ensure you share his exact picture of events. But when he's good, it's really compelling and fascinating and I love it and he can go chapters with comparatively little nonsense. But hey ho! 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Rodders