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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 18, 2017 0:33:42 GMT
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Post by whatagain on Oct 18, 2017 16:18:14 GMT
Found an old book at home. By Yesbutno - the first novels are about commissaire maigret. Really nice to read old well written stories. I found myself yesterday cycling on rue Antoine then place des Vosges - an itinerary the commissaire was doing in the book.
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Post by bjd on Oct 18, 2017 16:52:17 GMT
Found an old book at home. By Yesbutno - the first novels are about commissaire maigret. Really nice to read old well written stories. I found myself yesterday cycling on rue Antoine then place des Vosges - an itinerary the commissaire was doing in the book. Our daughter used to live on Fbg St Antoine and whenever I went to Paris and walked towards the centre, past Bastille and Blvd Richard Lenoir, Maigret always came to my mind. In the old stories, the Marais was a cut-throat area filled with poor immigrants. Now it's tourist central.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 18, 2017 19:13:58 GMT
Just picked up at my local library “The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac” which I was encouraged to read by people who saw my Facebook photo of the Sasquatch I spotted through the trees in Wisconsin last week...
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Post by whatagain on Oct 19, 2017 7:36:47 GMT
I managed to discard the last book of the Bones series - Patricia Cornwell, Dr Scarpetta... Boring like hell. I reached page 95 and she was still debating about the potentiality of a possible hypothetical suspect doing but maybe it is not him or ... etc. I hate to not finish a book, but it is the second time with this author. Last I ever buy !
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Post by bjd on Oct 19, 2017 10:43:11 GMT
I gave up on Patricia Cornwell several books ago. I found it was always the same thing and more and more gruesome. I liked the first books well enough but haven't read any for a long time now.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 19, 2017 15:25:51 GMT
Bjd, that is word for word my experience with reading Patricia Cornwell. Someone once told me she had severely conservative political views, which prompted me to google her. Her real life is more interesting than her novels: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Cornwell
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Post by bjd on Oct 19, 2017 18:08:36 GMT
Thanks, Bixa. Indeed a strange mixture of sort of conservative politics with a less conservative life style.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 22, 2017 17:45:15 GMT
I’m reading THE GENIUS PLAGUE, about a mycologist who picks up a fungal pneumonia in Brazil that alters his mental abilities, and threatens the human race.
The author, David Walton, dedicated the book as follows: “For Ruth WIKYS HBFFV RDHFF BUUYE PLVKR HWPQC MVSHB”
No clue what this means, and googling brings up nothing. Anyone have an idea?
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 22, 2017 20:45:37 GMT
It's a standard format for a code. Used extensively in WWII. It needs some looking at to decode it. It could be as simple as a three or four letter progression to a substitution to an Enigma type scrambling.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 22, 2017 21:08:50 GMT
Thanks, Mark. Let me know when you’ve solved it! ;-)
But seriously, how can all the words have 5 letters?
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 22, 2017 21:25:18 GMT
They don't necessarily. Imagine a sentence written without spaces and then cut up into 5 letter blocks. Something is then done with the letters to scramble them into other letters. If you have a sentence that doesn't have a multiple of 5 letters then just add a couple of random ones to make up the numbers. If it is decrypted by the right person in the right way they'll see the last two or three or so make no sense and will discard them - depending on the method of encryption.
As for me decrypting it, the first stumbling block I come against is the letter frequency. Normally the letter E is the most used. Then the letter T followed by the letter A. In your text the letters F and H are used the most, I think. So naturally you'd expect one of those to be actually the letter E or maybe T. I've started you off, so you can now finish it. Ok? Note - it isn't a code called Caesar cipher.
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Post by tod2 on Nov 7, 2017 12:54:08 GMT
If one is able to find a copy on the internet as I have done - one can read the nauseating account of how South Africa is being run by gangsters. If you ever thought Robert Mugabe was a bad egg, this will make you think again. Naturally most know nothing of SA politics except when Mandela was alive. This tells you what has happened to our country and why we are worried sick about our future here.
Veteran journalist, Jacques Pauw, in his bestselling book, The President’s Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma in Power. Pauw makes several revelations about how President Jacob Zuma has been propped up for years by people protecting him in the Hawks, National Prosecuting Authority, Crime Intelligence, police and State Security Agency, thereby creating a “state within a state”. The claims are so explosive that the State Security Agency is attempting to have the book banned.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2017 16:39:47 GMT
Well, that one did remain on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, so it would appear to validate that he is a writer of interest. PEE ESS ~ the fact that I said I liked it validates him as a writer of interest. I would take Bixa's recommendation any day over a book being on The NYT bestseller list for 5 years let alone more than one year!!!!
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 7, 2017 16:44:50 GMT
Do I feel validated now or what?! Thank you SO much, Casimira!
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Post by Kimby on Nov 7, 2017 22:13:31 GMT
They don't necessarily. Imagine a sentence written without spaces and then cut up into 5 letter blocks. Something is then done with the letters to scramble them into other letters. If you have a sentence that doesn't have a multiple of 5 letters then just add a couple of random ones to make up the numbers. If it is decrypted by the right person in the right way they'll see the last two or three or so make no sense and will discard them - depending on the method of encryption. As for me decrypting it, the first stumbling block I come against is the letter frequency. Normally the letter E is the most used. Then the letter T followed by the letter A. In your text the letters F and H are used the most, I think. So naturally you'd expect one of those to be actually the letter E or maybe T. I've started you off, so you can now finish it. Ok? Note - it isn't a code called Caesar cipher. Thanks for the start, Mark. But, ask Bixa, she’ll verify: I like to have people do things for me! Especially confusing tech things. BTW, I finished the book and the mystery was not alluded to, nor a code for solving it. Sigh.
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Post by mossie on Nov 8, 2017 19:18:46 GMT
Currently half way through a book which arrived yesterday, one of the reviews said unputdownable. And it is "Paris Reborn" by Stephane Kirkland, subtitled, Napoleon III, Baron Haussman, and the quest to build a modern city. I would imagine that something like this would not be possible today, except perhaps in a dictatorship, thankfully for me, and people like me, Paris was remodelled into the city we know and love.
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Post by bjd on Nov 8, 2017 19:32:15 GMT
I found a couple of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael books at the local junk store so am reading the second one already. There was also a more contemporary one but less interesting.
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Post by bjd on Dec 10, 2017 15:11:56 GMT
I am re-reading Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. I also re-read The Woman in White this year.
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 10, 2017 16:06:36 GMT
You’ve gone for all the cheerful ones then...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2017 19:10:03 GMT
I am re-reading Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. I also re-read The Woman in White this year. The Woman in White is one of my favorite reads. I have not read Moonstone but will surely seek it out. I am currently reading A Very Dangerous Woman, the Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy by Deborah McDonald and Jeremy Dronfield. Based on the life of Russian aristocrat Baroness Moura Budberg. Thoroughly intriguing and riveting.
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Post by breeze on Dec 10, 2017 20:36:06 GMT
I re-read the Moonstone not long ago. It's known as the first detective novel and I think it has held up very well over the past 149 years.
The Woman in White is one of my favorites too, casimira. Usually E and I will talk about what we're reading, but with this book I had to tell him--too much is going on right now for me to summarize; you can read it yourself when I'm finished!
I'm reading the latest Donna Leon, just finished the new Colin Cotterill, the latest Sharyn McCrumb, and the new Joe Ide (all mysteries). We went to a library we don't get to very often and made a haul.
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Post by whatagain on Dec 11, 2017 7:50:01 GMT
I am halfway through the last Donna Leon. I finished a book about a sniper. Written by one of the guy who wrote American sniper. On one side the good guys : the sniper and his navy Seals friends. On the other side the bad guys. Taliban Pashtuns wahhabis some CIA glory seekers and POTUS who thinks more of his reelection than of protecting his dedicated soldiers. You got the idea ... half way through the Churchill factor. Forgot the name of the author. Always good to read about Churchill but it is really well written ... I guess there must be better books on the subject. And I started Stasi wolf by d young. Looks promising.
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Post by bjd on Dec 11, 2017 7:52:11 GMT
Casi, you might like to read about a real Polish spy: The Spy Who Loved by Clare Mulley. Of course, on the cover they call her a "British heroine" although she wasn't British at all. Sort of a hokey title but an interesting story.
I finished The Moonstone last nght. Quite modern too for the narration by different characters.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2017 17:24:09 GMT
Casi, you might like to read about a real Polish spy: The Spy Who Loved by Clare Mulley. Of course, on the cover they call her a "British heroine" although she wasn't British at all. Sort of a hokey title but an interesting story. I finished The Moonstone last nght. Quite modern too for the narration by different characters. Thank you BJD. I will keep an eye out for it. Breeze, isn't that so annoying? T. used to do it but doesn't anymore . 32 years of marriage solved that one.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2017 14:03:50 GMT
I am currently reading The Sunlight Dialogues by John Gardner. This is one of the books mentioned in a previous post and it piqued my interest. Quite a lengthy tome...
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 20, 2017 16:09:15 GMT
Oh goody! Casimira, I set the book aside when I went on my trip, but the fact that you're now reading it will spur me to pick it back up. I do think you will enjoy it and am eager to know what you think. I want to report on two books, one which I neglected to praise to the skies when I read it a few months ago, & one that I finished night before last. The recently finished one was "Exit West", by an author lauded by Bjd: Mohsin Hamid. It's a lovely, unputdownable book, with a single magic realism conceit that is totally acceptable in the way it moves the book along by skipping what would have otherwise been details that would have pushed it in an entirely different direction. I feel the review here is a perfect summation: themillions.com/2017/12/a-year-in-reading-michael-david-lukas.html The other book is an astoundingly good collection of short stories by Yiyun Li, "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers", which rocked me back on my heels with its sheer overall perfection. Not since I read William Trevor's "After Rain" have I been so stunned with almost unbelieving admiration for a collection of stories. Just now I looked up a little about Yiyun Li, and will share with you all a couple of things I found: www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/24/yiyun-li-interview-dear-friend-from-my-life-i-write-to-you-in-your-lifeand www.newyorker.com/contributors/yiyun-li <-- stories!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2017 16:40:32 GMT
Perusing 56 pages in here and that's all you've got? I will keep you posted on the Gardner book. Thanks.
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Post by bjd on Dec 22, 2017 6:39:28 GMT
I'm not sure whether this should go here or elsewhere but. Yesterday in the local junk shop I found a book by Andrea Camilleri, of the Montalbano policeman series set in Sicily. I have read most of them in French and know that they are rather special because Camilleri's books are set in Sicily and he uses local turns of phrase and vocabulary to make them stand out from standard Italian. Friends in Rome told me that they are appreciated in Italy even though most people don't speak Sicilian.
The French translator, Serge Quadruppani (who has also written some novels), does a good job, leaving the Sicilian word if really necessary and adapting the language to reflect the various speakers. To my horror, the English translator has made the main characters sound like contemporary Brits (one person even says, "That was amazing!") and the most colourful cop at the station like some stereotypical Cockney, with dropped h's. It's really strange and annoying to read. With the French version, I don't have the impression that I am reading a translation, but this English one is really terrible.
And they raised the prices of their secondhad books a few months ago. Grumble.
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Post by bjd on Dec 22, 2017 12:45:47 GMT
Thanks, Huckle. Of course, if you can read the originals, then that's the best.
I don't have the impression that Quadruppani uses a dialect version of French. It's just his way of adapting the language to be the most faithful to the original. And of course, some of the words in the Sicilian come from French, like armuar, from armoire. After all, the island was run by the French for 200 years -- many years ago.
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