I'm listening to The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan and Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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I’ve been reading some of the Avatar The Last Airbender comic omnibuses and I’m just starting Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik.
Ah, didn't there were Avatar comics. Are they retelling of the anime or is it some other story?
They mostly continue the story (example: The Search for Zuko and Azula’s Mom) or tell stories that happened off-screen (example: Suki at Boiling Rock).
Ahan, thanks for the info!
I've been reading very slowly Thus spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche. It is uh, quite the read. Difficult language, have to read slowly and really can only read when you can fully focus on it
Found a copy of The Echo Chamber by John Boyne
Didn't realise he was such a celebrated author, and really enjoyed it
1953 book called The Alcoholics. Sometimes it's wild reading a book from so long ago, things have certainly changed!
Yeah, specially when it's not completely ancient, so world is similar to today, but so very different.
Currently reading:
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Slewfoot by Brom. It is my first witch-kind book and so far it's really good, intriguing, good story-telling and the words just feels like flowing.
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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by illan Pappé. I'm not very far into this book but its devastating and heartbreaking to read, so I only pick it up when I'm in the right mindset for it.
On-hold:
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Harry Potter. I quit reading halfway book 3, somehow just don't enjoy it anymore, Perhaps a bit of fatigue?
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Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Put this on-hold only because I have it physical and haven't really found the time to pick it up.
Reading digitally (phone & laptop) seems to be a bit more easier for me. Reading in the bus or 15-30 minutes at internship/ university through laptop or phone is much easier than carrying a book and picking it up.
I really like Slewfoot, now I want to reread it
In terms of fiction I'm 2/3rds of the way through Free Food for Millionaires. It's all right. I found the writing in the beginning so compelling, but now I'm not sure if it's going anywhere. We'll see. I'm an inattentive reader in fiction.
I just finished The Heavens by Sandra Newman. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
It’s about a woman who lives in turn of the century New York (meaning 2000-ish. God I’m old), but when she sleeps she is transported, possibly literally into the life of Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady.”
She has a distinct and poetic voice and the book is a sad and quiet and beautiful meditation on greatness and madness and love and hope and meaning.
It’s also meandering and depressing and the 16th century stuff feels well researched but superficial, and some of the choices later in the book feel rushed and like she felt they had to be there but they don’t exactly fit the tone.
Gonna have to digest this one for a bit, which I guess means it challenged me and that’s a good thing.
Does this book require any prior knowledge of Dark Lady?
Nope. The "Dark Lady" is not a play or a poem, but rather scholars' nickname for the subject of a couple dozen Shakespearian sonnets, and one of the plausible candidates is the woman in Newman's novel, which isn't really "about" Shakespeare anyway.
Here's one, Sonnet 130, where our boy is taking the piss, trying to reframe cultural expectations around literary love, or maybe a bit of both. Poems like this show why he was both brilliant and perfectly likely to have been the educated-ish son of a provincial merchant. Christopher Marlowe didn't write shit like this.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
Finished The Fires of Heaven (Wheel of Time book 5). Put a hold on book 6 but haven't gotten it yet.
Meanwhile I've been reading The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris. It's a non-fiction about the use and advances of plastic surgery in World War 1 to reconstruct soldiers' faces. It does not hold back in describing how brutal these injuries were, making it a tough read.
I'm working my way through the Dune audiobook
How are you liking it so far? And if you have watched the movie, how will you compare it?
I have seen the latest 2 movies, and a long long time ago I did see the David Lynch version.
Overall I would say the book is great so far, though I am only about halfway through the first movie's plot. Probably the most significant difference that I'm enjoying is the added nuance to characters' internal motivations and thoughts, which generally are not present in the movies at all. Similarly, for some more specific details about how things (objects, scenery, atmosphere of a scene) are described, it may not be present in the movies - or even if they are there, in visual form they may not have attention called to them necessarily and/or a viewer may not notice them.
I'm still in my plague phase, reading the great mortality by John Kelly. Also kind of re reading Patrick O'Brian books and the new bit of the Jeff Somers Avery cates series. I do a lot of re reading.
Best plague book? 😀
I rarely do re-reads, unless it's re-reading books in a series to get ready for next book.
Probably the relevant bits of Samuel Pepys diaries. The diaries are pretty long but I'm fairly sure you can get abridged versions that cover the plague and the following great fire of London. He was living in London throughout the plague of 1665 and his diaries are a fascinating insight.
Interesting, will check them out. Thanks!