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Post by lola on Feb 8, 2010 19:54:45 GMT
My daughter has only ever studied French, bixa, and isn't really the Classics type. The book made me want to study Greek, too.
My older brother was a little bit of the Henry type, and studied ancient Greek at college. We'd hear him upstairs declaiming away when home on breaks; he claimed it was necessary to recite loudly to get the spirit of the language. Probably did it in the dorm, too, much to the general annoyance. He would stop in delight when he heard a word like "eucalyptus" and give us the etymology.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 8, 2010 20:08:47 GMT
Your older brother ~~ "A Character"! No doubt the declaiming could be annoying, but his pure delight in word origins is charming.
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Post by tillystar on Feb 9, 2010 9:59:07 GMT
I am still reading The Children’s Book. I really love it but it is hardback and the main time read much it on the tube to and from work. Its too damned heavy to hold up standing squashed in a corner.
I have had a break from it and I am reading The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff which I am enjoying immensely. It’s about polygamy and the Latter Day Saints and it 2 stories interwoven: one from the 21st century and one from early 19th century. The early 19th century story is based on a book also called The 19th Wife – the memoirs of Ann Eliza Young a woman who was bought up a Latter day saint and later crusaded against polygamy.
Really hoping for a long rainy weekend soon so I can go back to the heavy book though!!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2010 10:38:49 GMT
I am thrilled,I really am,that you are enjoying The Children's Book,Tilly.I haven't quite gotten it out of my head since completing. It is quite a hefty tome,cannot quite imagine schlepping it about on the tube let alone trying to read....could always be used as a weapon! ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 10, 2010 6:11:05 GMT
Well, I finished reading The Cellist of Sarajevo today. (semi-reviewed here, #175). The book is now on my list of all-time favorites. If I could, I'd have it placed tomorrow on the reading list of every English-speaking school in the world, plus figure out a way to have it translated into many languages. Although it covers the lives of four main characters, it is really an extended and beautifully wrought exposition on human nature.
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Post by BigIain on Feb 10, 2010 8:05:51 GMT
Due to short funds I have started reading my James Lee Burke books again. Currently on "In the Moon of Red Ponies" which is a truly wonderful read. It is not a Dave Robichoux novel but is set in rural Montana and is the usual descriptive style of Burke's. He paints such wonderful pictures in the mind.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2010 8:22:53 GMT
I just started reading Douglas Coupland's Microserfs and am wondering how dated I am going to find it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 10, 2010 18:21:38 GMT
James Lee Burke does write some of the finest landscape description and "feel" to be found anywhere, doesn't he Iain? I have gone off him for other reasons, but when he's good, he's good.
I didn't know Douglas Coupland had another book out. I always read his books when I find them, because I have the feeling he has at least one great book in him that he's not yet written.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2010 20:05:08 GMT
This one is really old apparently, from the previous century.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 10, 2010 20:49:11 GMT
Well, he is gen-x! I have started the most recent Paul Auster book, Invisible. After the crushing disappointment of Ann Patchett's Run, and the feeling of reading Jim Harrison Lite with English Major, I'm getting a little twitchy about my favorite authors. Probably I'm being more resistant than usual because I recently re-read Auster's Brooklyn Follies with very little satisfaction. The main reason I re-read it was because I was already into it when I realized I'd read it before, but had retained almost nothing. The picture of the front cover was far more familiar than most of the book. That said, I feel that Paul Auster is overall an excellent writer who must be read by anyone who cares about contemporary literature. Because I've read most, if not all of his books, I am picking up on his Austerisms, which perhaps is not fair to the writer. Still, the reviews I've looked at -- not read, as I don't want the plot revealed to me -- seem to have the same gripe about seeing the stagehand behind the scenery. He is such a good storyteller, though, that I know the book will be satisfying on that level. More comments when I've finished it. www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/14/invisible-paul-auster-book-review
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Post by gusm on Feb 11, 2010 4:07:59 GMT
I have just started Lawrence Stalling's Doughboys and Alistair Horne's La Belle France: A Short History in preparation for my trip to France this summer, a book for my camera and in the wings is Paris under Water (the 1910 flood; thanks K for the photos) and a short history of Champagne.
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Post by cristina on Feb 11, 2010 5:03:13 GMT
I have started this week reading Nam Le's short story anthology, The Boat. 3rd story in and I have formed an opinion, but I am trying to get a bit further on before I articulate said opinion.
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Post by spindrift on Feb 11, 2010 15:03:27 GMT
I am slowly reading The Tragic, The Comic and The Personal - selected letters of Nanavira Thera - an English Buddhist bikkhu (monk) and scholar who lived in seclusion in Sri Lanka and died in 1965. If anyone's interested - you can access his writings on www.nanavira.org
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Post by traveler63 on Feb 11, 2010 17:52:02 GMT
I just started "The Girl Who Played with Fire" not realizing that this is the 2nd in the series. So far it is very good. Are these stand along or should I read the first one before I get too engulfed in this one?
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 12, 2010 6:12:12 GMT
Absolutely start with the first one. In fact, instead of a trilogy, the books should be thought of as one book in three volumes.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 12, 2010 13:53:23 GMT
Just finished The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. Loved it. And I'm not even a dog person. Here is a video trailer for the book (no there isn't a movie yet, though I hear it's been optioned):
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Post by traveler63 on Feb 15, 2010 1:29:41 GMT
Thanks Bixa. I will do them in sequence. has anyone read The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova? On the Are You Well Read thread someone suggested a book club for APIAS and I think that is a great idea, but shouldn't it be a separate thread?
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Post by tillystar on Feb 15, 2010 9:41:37 GMT
I saw The Cellist of Sarajevo on my friend's bookshelf on Friday evening and borrowed it after all the mentions here. I started it as I fell asleep last night and then couldn't sleep this morning, so ended up getting up at 5 and reading for an hour before officially getting up.
I didn't want to stop reading, so gentle and so powerful at the same time. Thank you for pointing me in the direction of this one Bixa!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2010 4:47:27 GMT
I will be doing my annual reread of T.S. Eliot's ASH WEDNESDAY, yes,on Ash Wednesday. Have been doing it now for 18 years. Just dusted it off for the ready.
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Post by spindrift on Feb 16, 2010 22:52:32 GMT
Casimira - that's an excellent idea. I'll do the same.
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Post by Jazz on Feb 18, 2010 22:28:51 GMT
One book that I read recently is Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. Oh my god. I lay on my couch, laughing uproariously...my stomach kept hurting and tears of laughter streamed down my face. My absolute favorite essay was 'The Learning Curve', the story of his one and only year as the teacher of a creative writing class. (all teachers and writers should read this). The essay of his first year in a French village with his partner and his taking a french course in Paris are also not to be missed. ;D I 'get' Sedaris and he could be my brother.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2010 22:41:25 GMT
David Sedaris can be very,very,funny. When I was working in the used book store I would pick up and read some of his stuff sometimes. The one you mention Jazz does have some hilarious chapters,have not read the whole thing.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 19, 2010 2:25:40 GMT
I would never read David Sedaris in public! I well know Jazz's reaction, and Sedaris can blindside you that way. The story where he's got the scary-creeps in his house in France and the Dutch(?) tourist come through looking for directions to the "willage" makes me almost sick with laughter. "Me Talk Pretty One Day" might be overall his funniest book.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 19, 2010 15:04:42 GMT
I'm thinking about finding a copy of The Elegance of the Hedgehog by (French author) Muriel Barbery, but the reviews are SO mixed. Has anyone here read it? Recommend it?
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Post by Jazz on Feb 19, 2010 17:22:08 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 19, 2010 17:28:21 GMT
Aaaack ~~ I rummaged until I found that, copied the url, then came back to find that Jazz was ahead of me. Thanks, Jazz. (I think ;D)
Kimby, do follow that link to see what your little library cohorts here think of the book.
Jazz, why did you dislike Gourmet Rhapsody so much?
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Post by bjd on Feb 19, 2010 17:33:40 GMT
I haven't read Gourmet Rhapsody (never heard of it in fact), but I think that is often the case when we really like an author's first book. The second one is bound to be a disappointment.
It happened to me with Zadie Smith's White Teeth. I bought her next book The Autograph Man and struggled to read it. Another example is Jonathan Lethem's Motherless in Brooklyn, which I thought great. I ddin't like his second book at all.
It looks as though I should stick to one book per author!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 19, 2010 17:48:11 GMT
Hmm -- I think I should check with you before I try to read something, Bjd. I had the identical reactions to the two authors you mention. Well, it wasn't The Autograph Man that turned me off Zadie Smith, but her third book, Beauty, that made me decide never to read her again.
I assume the book of Lethem's to which you refer was The Fortress of Solitude. "Fortress of Pointless and Boring Going-Nowhere Crap" was more like it.
Incidentally, I just looked him up and Motherless Brooklyn was his fifth book! (Fortress was the sixth.) Now I'll have to dither about reading him again or not.
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Post by Jazz on Feb 19, 2010 18:02:21 GMT
Aaaack ~~ I rummaged until I found that, copied the url, then came back to find that Jazz was ahead of me. Thanks, Jazz. (I think ;D Jazz, why did you dislike Gourmet Rhapsody so much? Bixa, for god's sake, get it out of the library before you invest your money! While her writing is technically very good, there wasn't a single character in Gourmet Rhapsody that I liked or could identify with, however remotely. I utterly disliked the gourmet himself. In Elegance of the Hedgehog, I identified powerfully with the concierge and difficult as she may have been perceived, I loved her. Bjd, too often, I have suffered from 'the first is the best'. This is why I have begun to use the library once again.
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Post by bjd on Feb 19, 2010 18:06:27 GMT
Well, Motherless Brooklyn was his first book for me.
I would prefer to use the library -- I spend far too much on books and my shelves are collapsing, but I do like to read in English rather than translations. One thing I rarely buy though is detective stories. Only occasionally to read on a trip, for example.
Has anyone read any of Elizabeth George's detective stories? I find them very good.
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