What are you reading on nu-ILX 3.0?

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Well?

― Casuistry, Wednesday, 21 February 2007 21:49 (eighteen years ago)

[img]http://www.schwartzbooks.com/mas_assets/full/0142004022.jpg[/img]

― milo z, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:35 (eighteen years ago)

jesus, no HTML and not even standard BBCode

http://www.schwartzbooks.com/mas_assets/full/0142004022.jpg

― milo z, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:36 (eighteen years ago)

― James Morrison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 04:11 (eighteen years ago)

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0140186212.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― James Morrison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 04:13 (eighteen years ago)

just got McSweeney's 21, haven't started it yet. a co-worker is loaning me some David Sedaris books. i have nothing to say about him that hasn't already been said, but loving it. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim was great.

― modestmickey, Thursday, 22 February 2007 05:46 (eighteen years ago)

J M Coetzee's Youth and Pauline Clarke's The Two Faces of Silenus.

― clotpoll, Thursday, 22 February 2007 07:38 (eighteen years ago)

Diderot-The Nun
Jim Thompson-Wild Town

― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 22 February 2007 08:28 (eighteen years ago)

Lots of things since I last posted.

Enemey Combatant by Moazzam Begg
Unspeak by Steven Pooley (?)
Saint Morrissey by I Don't Know Who
Positively Happy by Noel Edmonds

And some others.

I also read a bit more Proust, a bit more Beckett, a psychology book that should be called The Little Book of Extreme Anxiety, Stevie T on The Style Council in Uncut, and some other things.

― PJ Miller, Thursday, 22 February 2007 13:12 (eighteen years ago)

The Mediterranean & The Mediterranean World by Fernand Braudel - I'm slowly reading the books that Richard J. Evans mentions as exemplary in In Defense Of History.

― Eoghan, Thursday, 22 February 2007 13:26 (eighteen years ago)

Currently switching between the following:
Albert Goldman - The Lives Of John Lennon
Richard Meltzer - The Aesthetics Of Rock
David Nobbs - The Complete Reginald Perrin Novels
David Peace - GB84

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 22 February 2007 13:28 (eighteen years ago)

Currently swapping around between a book about the trial of Queen Caroline, the memoirs of Admiral Lord Cochrane (snoozy! but nice to read about real-life Jack Aubrey in action) and Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke by Rob Long.

― accentmonkey, Thursday, 22 February 2007 15:18 (eighteen years ago)

I'm halfway through Moby-Dick and about to start Didion's Salvador.

― wmlynch, Thursday, 22 February 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

I am reading my tea leaves, but they are sadly garbled by the backwash.

― Aimless, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

Finally read something not for a class -- Rob Fitterman's "Metropolis 16-29", a really fun book of poetry. I might post something from it later, should I be able to find the appropriate thread.

― Casuistry, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:11 (eighteen years ago)

I continue to "read" my physiology book. Meanwhile, I picked up Gone With the Wind again (I saw the film and it left me with some questions about supporting characters, especially Belle Watling). Also just started ]Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, which I heard of via ILX somehow.

― Sara R-C, Thursday, 22 February 2007 21:28 (eighteen years ago)

I'm halfway through Moby-Dick

I am disgusted that mere months after buying a lovely Penguin edition of Moby Dick, I spied a 150th(?) anniversary edition with an introduction by Nathaniel Philbrick. Bah. Now I want that one as well.

― accentmonkey, Thursday, 22 February 2007 21:50 (eighteen years ago)

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0316731056.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

I've long been a fan, but his non-SF stuff from 'Whit' on has been seriously flawed. I"m only 15 pages into this one, and the signs aren't great so far...

― James Morrison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 22:31 (eighteen years ago)

I'm halfway through Moby-Dick

I am disgusted that mere months after buying a lovely Penguin edition of Moby Dick, I spied a 150th(?) anniversary edition with an introduction by Nathaniel Philbrick. Bah. Now I want that one as well.

I have this awesome edition with woodcuts of whales and whaling instruments, put out by UC Press. It's a reprint of a large art book edition.

http://www.sierraclubbooks.ucpress.edu/books/pages/images/1590.jpg

You should get that one, too.

― wmlynch, Thursday, 22 February 2007 22:53 (eighteen years ago)

funnily enough i have just started (again) this:

http://www.panmacmillan.com/images/frontCovers/main/033037107X-01.jpg

― jed_, Friday, 23 February 2007 00:19 (eighteen years ago)

Well, it feels odd posting here. Something to get used to.

I finished The Italian by Radcliffe which turned out to be a lot of thrilling, cheesy fun. I've begun Artemisia by Anna Banti and may start Brian Evenson's The Open Curtain soon, if something else doesn't distract me.

― Arethusa, Friday, 23 February 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

Just started on a certain huge work by Marcel Proust.
Lots of fun so far. His aunt's a real charmer.
Furthermore:
"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P.Feynman". The personal life stuff is pretty tedious (such as the opening BBC interview), but he's v/interesting in all the science or science-related pieces.
"Guns, Germs & Steel", which I'm not exactly racing through. I'm hoping I'll find it more interesting once I get part the chapters about food.

That Arion Press edition of Moby-Dick looks great! This kind of scares me though: "Bound in full blue Moroccan goatskin, contained in blue cloth slipcase. Edition of 250 copies, $1,000.00."

― Øystein, Friday, 23 February 2007 08:43 (eighteen years ago)

the selected letters of robert louis stevenson

― jergincito, Friday, 23 February 2007 10:01 (eighteen years ago)

"the selected letters of robert louis stevenson"

Ooh, is that in print still? I've read everything of his I can find, and I need more.

120 pages into the Iain Banks and I'm still not sure...

― James Morrison, Friday, 23 February 2007 10:35 (eighteen years ago)

I gave up on Iain Banks after The Business, which was just godawful. I don't think I like books where people go to made-up Central Asian countries. I've read three now, and I didn't like any of them.

― accentmonkey, Friday, 23 February 2007 10:49 (eighteen years ago)

That Arion Press edition of Moby-Dick looks great! This kind of scares me though: "Bound in full blue Moroccan goatskin, contained in blue cloth slipcase. Edition of 250 copies, That Arion Press edition of Moby-Dick looks great! This kind of scares me though: "Bound in full blue Moroccan goatskin, contained in blue cloth slipcase. Edition of 250 copies, $1,000.00.",000.00."
The woodcuts are gorgeous. The edition I have is a reprint of the original Arion folio. I found it used for $15 several years ago.

― wmlynch, Friday, 23 February 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)

i think those rl stevenson letters are still in print. at least upon a curosry glance they looked buyable. got mine second-hand though...

― jergincito, Saturday, 24 February 2007 18:16 (eighteen years ago)

brown, wesley, 'darktown strutters'
cockrell, dave, 'demons of disorder: early blackface minstrels and their world'
lott, eric, 'love and theft'
meer, sarah, 'uncle tom mania'
stowe, h.b., 'uncle tom's cabin'

'the count of monte cristo'
'envy'

― thomp, Sunday, 25 February 2007 04:21 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.penguin.com.au/covers-jpg/9780141188362.jpg

― James Morrison, Sunday, 25 February 2007 11:15 (eighteen years ago)

I think I saw the movie of that! And I'm pretty sure I thought it was boring. Good title, at least.

― Casuistry, Sunday, 25 February 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

I cannot see the title. What does it say?

― accentmonkey, Sunday, 25 February 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.illyria.com/tob/images/czhb1.jpg

― milo z, Sunday, 25 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

It's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.

― Casuistry, Sunday, 25 February 2007 19:57 (eighteen years ago)

The book (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) is really good so far (the half-way point), but reading the Italian-proper-noun-loaded foirst 20 pages when quite tired is not recommended, as I had to start again the next morning to work out what was going on.

― James Morrison, Sunday, 25 February 2007 23:40 (eighteen years ago)

I starteed that Finzi book, and thought it was very good (DOOM-LADEN FROM THE OFF!) but I didn't finish it because I thought it might upset me in my delicate state.

I read Saint Morrissey. It was all right.

― PJ Miller, Monday, 26 February 2007 12:48 (eighteen years ago)

Why, what's your delicate state?

― accentmonkey, Monday, 26 February 2007 13:17 (eighteen years ago)

Bait and Switch, a long-ago recommendation of accentmonkey's.

― Ray, Monday, 26 February 2007 14:47 (eighteen years ago)

reed, ishmael, 'flight to canada'

― thomp, Monday, 26 February 2007 20:20 (eighteen years ago)

The doom-laden beginning refers to events which happen beyond the end of the novel, if that helps - once you've seen them referred to at the start, it never gets any more explicit.

Now I'm on
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/catalog_cover.pperl?9780812971200
(That's "Turbott Wolfe" by William Plomer, a witty 1920s anti-racist South African novella),

having finished off
http://www.simonsays.com/assets/isbn/0684825317/C_0684825317.jpg
which is relatively minor Wharton, but that means it's still great.

― James Morrison, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 00:04 (eighteen years ago)

my antonia

― jergincito, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 11:45 (eighteen years ago)

it's a semi-permanent non-specific delicate state, Monkey.

― PJ Miller, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:05 (eighteen years ago)

The Last Man Who Knew Everything, about Thomas Young who was a physician but also contributed mightily to optics (proved that light is a wave) and engineering (Young's Modulus of Elasticity) and contributed to the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone. Bores a little too deep into the technical side of things at times, and is light in biography (the guy kept his private life quite private), but still interesting.

Also The Oldways Table, an American rehash of slow-foodness, skimmed for recipes; The Support Economy, a dated treatise on "people living their authentic lives"; In The Company of Owners, a history of partnership capitalism (stock options) and tech industry.

― Jaq, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:20 (eighteen years ago)

I've been coasting, by rereading The Kingdom By the Sea by Paul Theroux. I'm about finished. He's rounded John o' Groats and has headed into the home stretch.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 17:51 (eighteen years ago)

He's always so cranky when he travels :) I think The Kingdom by the Sea was the first of his books I read.

― Jaq, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

I finished Taleb's Fooled By Randomness, which is somewhat lazy and repetitive but makes a few worthwhile points, and am now reading Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic.

― o. nate, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 21:00 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/covers/all/1/5/9780141025551H.jpg, and then http://www.hesperuspress.com/files/bbook190.jpg

― James Morrison, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 07:26 (eighteen years ago)

the cover of that wharton book is kinda hott.

― thomp, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 21:27 (eighteen years ago)

Reading the Simenon (which has great send-up scenes of posing "decadent", "Romantic" teenagers drinking cheap booze and uttering things like, "There's nothing so voulptuous as a virgin with a pus-filled navel!"). there's a bit where he mentions that in his youth he read 3 books a day. As opposed to his adulthood, when he seemed to WRITE that many a day.

― James Morrison, Thursday, 1 March 2007 02:40 (eighteen years ago)

read some matt ruff and some mexican history and not sure what next, i think some american labor history again and then maybe some auden.

― s.clover, Thursday, 1 March 2007 07:42 (eighteen years ago)

Vico, "New Science" (seemingly on hold); Bernadette Mayer, "Scarlet Tanager" (a few gems scattered amongst more run-of-the-mill poems); Norman Cantor, "Inventing the Middle Ages" (history told through minibiographies of historians: cute).

― Casuistry, Thursday, 1 March 2007 15:09 (eighteen years ago)

Skipping 15 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

"Representative Men of Japan" by... Kanzo? Shit, can't remember his name. But it was recommended by my parents (who reside in Japan and are so pro-Japan it hurts my Belgian heart at times). The book's interesting but the author can be somewhat annoying as he *disses* Western culture from time to time.

― nathalie, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 12:43 (eighteen years ago)

I lost my J$TOR privs when I gave up on graduate school

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:18 (eighteen years ago)

I've been reading essays again. The Olive Tree, by Aldous Huxley. Polymaths often make good essayists.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not going to say that I'll e-mail the pdfs to anyone who e-mails me for them, because that's totally unethical or something.

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 18:06 (eighteen years ago)

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1416901949.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V43350644_.jpg

higher power of lucky is the YA novel ubiquitous for its use of the word scrotum, btw.

― remy bean, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 18:44 (eighteen years ago)

"james morrison," are you being paid by Penguin???

>sigh< If only. No, I recently bought a big batch of their modern classics at 1/2 price, and am working my way through, with much joy.

― James Morrison, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 22:47 (eighteen years ago)

i've got an inside at penguin, but the spoils are few and far between

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 22:49 (eighteen years ago)

Actually, those quote marks are quite ironic, as I seem to be the only person on this board dumb enough to be using my real name

― James Morrison, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 23:27 (eighteen years ago)

Chris tried to hide his, and look what happened to him.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 00:07 (eighteen years ago)

I'm told that will be rectified soon.

― Casuistry, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:51 (eighteen years ago)

Depressingly true: since December 29, 2006 I have read (and finished) a grand total of 2 (two) books. And neither was particularly challenging or long. In fact, they both were more fluffy than deep. Anyway.

The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea - I think I would have really liked this had I not read it over almost a month-and-a-half. Beautiful imagery, interesting story - I like magical realism - reminded me of Allende's House of Spirits and some of Marquez's works.

Finally finished Empire Rising by Thomas Kelly - not bad, not great, kind of ho-hum.

Hell, I might very well have loved them both had I read them at a different time in my life.

Anyway, am about to start Mieville's new YA book: Un Lun Dun, which I trust will be enjoyable.

― MsLaura, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 07:59 (eighteen years ago)

Had 3 days of work (yay!) but now am back (poo!), but in that time I read:
Algis Budrys: 'Some Will Not Die' - post-apocalyptic political yarn, not as good as I'd hoped, not bad enough to give up on
Edwin Muir: 'The Marionette' - 1920s Hogarth Press German-set novella of retarded child obsessed with dolls and puppets, rather good
http://www.missioncreep.com/slackjaw/images/buzzingbig.jpg, fun novel about 'Kook Beat' reporter who may have stumbled on Godzilla-involving global conspiracy
http://www.ou.edu/cls/images/books/4253_jewett.jpg, which is just great.

― James Morrison, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 23:32 (eighteen years ago)

See, if that had said "off" work, not "of" work, it would have made sense

― James Morrison, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 23:33 (eighteen years ago)

Re earlier discussion on the new Iain Banks, it's sad to say but the Guardian Digested Read has it about right...
here

― James Morrison, Thursday, 8 March 2007 23:00 (eighteen years ago)

Read Gerard Woodward's 'A Curious Earth', final part of his trilogy, and it was really wonderful. The whole trilogy was funny, clever, bleak and enthralling. I want to read some of his poetry now.

― James Morrison, Sunday, 11 March 2007 07:44 (eighteen years ago)

Looks as though it's just me talking to myself. So, self, I'm now reading Greg Bear's 'Darwin's Radio'.

― James Morrison, Monday, 12 March 2007 23:06 (eighteen years ago)

Why won't this term END already?

― Casuistry, Monday, 12 March 2007 23:21 (eighteen years ago)

ramona's world
divine intervention
homer price

― 冷明, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 03:01 (eighteen years ago)

i mean divine invasion

― 冷明, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 06:48 (eighteen years ago)

Un Lun Dun wasn't bad - wasn't grand, either, but it made for an entertaining read. Followed that with The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson (interesting contrast, eh?).

Now I'm trudging through something by Alexander Macall Smith (is that the correct spelling?) which was a gift and which I'm seriously contemplating tossing, 'cause it's just not doing anything for me (well, besides irritating me, that is).

But Natsuo Kirino's new book, Grotesque, is being released tomorrow and that'll make me feel more cheery (at least if it's half as good as Out was.

How is Darwin's Radio, Mr. Morrison?

― MsLaura, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 07:48 (eighteen years ago)

) (Damn, I hate it when I leave off that closing parenthesis.)

― MsLaura, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 07:49 (eighteen years ago)

Darwin's Radio was very good indeed - I need to get my hands on the sequel. Those years of failing biochem at uni weren't a complete waste - I remember enough to understand what was going on. Back to you, can you tell me what was good about 'Out'? I've picked it up and put it down a few times undecided on whether it would be excellent or a bit trashy...

― James Morrison, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 10:31 (eighteen years ago)

I finished the Huxley essays. They were a motley assortment. Last night I read a book of poetry in translation, Monologue of a Dog, by Wislawa Szymborska, a Czech and a Nobel Prize winner in 1996.

I found them very Czech - wry, drily witty, somewhat bleak. If they contained any wordplay or verbal musicality in Czech, that quality had been emptied out by the translators in favor of retaining her other qualities.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)

BTW, I enjoyed her poems. They are very accesible.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:40 (eighteen years ago)

Um, Aimless, she's Polish, no?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 19:26 (eighteen years ago)

can you tell me what was good about 'Out'? I've picked it up and put it down a few times undecided on whether it would be excellent or a bit trashy...

Let's see - first, it was both excellent and a bit trashy *grinning* - not a Whodoneit, more an exploration of how people react once a murder has been committed. Psychological exploration and so forth. I think, though, and this is why I tend to like the various crime/mystery/thrillers that are being translated into English, that the greatest appeal (to me) was the glimpse in a completely foreign world - the daily routines, the social norms, the perceived roles, the expectations.

Basically (and I'm making a generalization here), mysteries/thrillers/crime books look at parts of a society that I don't otherwise have any sense about. If I recall correctly, the main characters in Out worked in a lunch box factory - that's a whole world that I have no knowledge of - they're lower-middle class workers in a culture where I'm lacking knowledge - and the story gave me some insight into their lives in a way that I'd not otherwise get.

Am I making a hash of this explanation? If so, my apologies.

― MsLaura, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 22:30 (eighteen years ago)

Polish? Polish??! Now, do you really think I'd go and make a silly, thoughtless error like that? After all, I am known to be...oh... wait a sec...Right you are. My bad. Ha ha ha!

― Aimless, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 00:09 (eighteen years ago)

Let's see - first, it was both excellent and a bit trashy *grinning* - not a Whodoneit, more an exploration of how people react once a murder has been committed

Would someone who really likes Patricia Highsmith dig it? It sounds like that sort of thing (which is a good thing!

― James Morrison, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 00:37 (eighteen years ago)

I'm currently reading A Company of Readers: the uncollected writings of WH Auden, Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling from the Readers' Subscription and Mid-Century Book Club. Essays, mostly book reviews. Pretty fantastic.

― franny glass, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 00:54 (eighteen years ago)

Let's see - first, it was both excellent and a bit trashy *grinning* - not a Whodoneit, more an exploration of how people react once a murder has been committed

Would someone who really likes Patricia Highsmith dig it? It sounds like that sort of thing (which is a good thing!

I hate to say this, but I've not actually read anything by Patricia Highsmith. That being said, the book has some moments of graphic violence and quite detailed discussion of cutting-up bodies - I wouldn't give it to my mother or grandmother (they're sensitive sorts), but I would give it to someone who doesn't get grossed-out or creeped-out too easily.

There's a book called ... hmmm ... [In the Miso Soup[/i] by Ryu Murakami which I found to be much more disturbing. (As in, I'm still upset by one sequence, several months post-read.)

So, um, yeah, it's a qualified recommendation to someone who like Patricia Highsmith, I think (sorry, feeling indecisive - and I hate giving bad recommendations!).

― MsLaura, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 04:21 (eighteen years ago)

Wait, why isn't there a March thread?

― franny glass, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

We could do a March thread, but this one has hardly spiraled out of control. Maybe do a Spring thread when the time comes?

― Casuistry, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 17:40 (eighteen years ago)

I finished The Courtier and the Heretic which covered some interesting material and did manage to revivify a dusty segment of European philosophical history, but I would have preferred something that tried a bit less hard to be a "page-turner" - ie., the "gotcha" rhetorical style, the belabored "colorful" metaphors - and that dug a bit more into the cultural context rather than trying to present Liebniz and Spinoza as moderns "avant la lettre".

I'm now reading Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which I meant to read last year.

― o. nate, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, I was just asking because there's a February one and I couldn't figure out where March's had gone. A Spring one sounds lovely.

― franny glass, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)

Well now I'm re-reading Jane Eyre and dipping back into the Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges. I feel as if I should be reading another pre-20th century classic. Maybe I'll actually try the behemoth Don Quixote...or I could chicken out and finally try a Dostoevsky.

― Arethusa, Saturday, 17 March 2007 01:36 (eighteen years ago)

Racing through Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino - not as shocking or as grabbing as Out, but enjoyable nonetheless.

― MsLaura, Saturday, 17 March 2007 08:04 (eighteen years ago)

Liked "Darwin's Radio" so much I read the sequal, "Darwin's Children".

Am now dipping into Rudyard Kipling's "Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales", a rather groovy new 700+-page collection marred by a horribly JPEGed image on the front cover: http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/graphics/covers/37108.jpg looks OK, but in the flesh that engraving is all pixelated.

And then I want to read "Amok" by Stefan Zweig, which came in the post on Friday. http://www.pushkinpress.com/images/zweig_amok01.gif

― James Morrison, Sunday, 18 March 2007 10:54 (eighteen years ago)

I am, currently, reading more Shakespeare, particularly the tragicomedies. In addition, I have been reading Phil Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" and a book on art history that is probably more interesting for the author's passion for art rather than his extremely opinionated viewpoints about the artists themselves.

― mj, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 03:49 (eighteen years ago)

I'm reading Connie Willis' "The Doomsday Book", which I'm not too fond of. I'll give it 100 pages before I throw it out the window. I may use it to try to boost my reading-speed, as there's nothing more to the book than plot.
Will try to read "King Lear" tonight, as I'm tempted to go see "Ran" tomorrow. That ol' Shak-speare fellow is rumored to be rather a decent playwright.

― Øystein, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 12:46 (eighteen years ago)

"Ran" is very nice. I'm less sure about Shakespeare.

― Casuistry, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:27 (eighteen years ago)

"Ran" is probably the the only great film that Kurosawa made after "Yojimbo," so it is very much worth seeing. I hope you enjoy it, in any case. I don't think it is a great adaptation of Lear, but Kurosawa makes up for those flaws in other ways.

― mj, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:57 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe do a Spring thread when the time comes?

Done. (Maybe that will work, despite experience to the contrary.)

― Aimless, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

i wrote an essay, once, claiming that Ran's relationship to Lear was a bit like Lear's to Leir, but it isn't really.

I am reading Watt. I'll start on my new 8/9 reading list as soon as they arrive!

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)

I failed at reading "King Lear". I got about 1/3rd of the way through it, then did the silly thing of lying down on my side while reading. Woke up at 1 AM and hobbled off to bed.

I've seen "Ran" before, but it was years ago, and I had no clue it had anything to do with Lear. I figured it would be nice to be familiar with the play before I see it again.
Started reading Ezra Pound's "The ABC of Reading" on the bus today. Bringing my huge Shakespeare-omnibus wasn't really an option.

Oh, and I'm taking a break from "The Doomsday Book". I'm pretty sure I won't bother picking it up again. It's the second time I try reading a Willis book, and the second time I fail. I have enjoyed some of her short stories though.

― Øystein, Thursday, 22 March 2007 11:31 (eighteen years ago)

As I mentioned before: Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. Fantastic.

― nathalie, Thursday, 22 March 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

Who will run the frog hospital and birds of america by lorrie moore. Absolutely sensational.

― Dy, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:38 (eighteen years ago)

Nathalie, by an odd coincidence I'm re-reading the same book at the mo.

That's when I can tear myself away from the ronaldinho bottle opener thread, anyways.

― Matt, Thursday, 22 March 2007 22:18 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

I'm not really much into science fiction, much less "hard" sci-fi (i.e. that which relies on a knowledge of actual science), but this book has some really interesting things to say about the nature of consciousness. Draws a lot on sources as diverse as current planetary physics, marine biology, John Searle, and vampires. Fun and difficult. And while it's hard to find in bookstores and I had to wait months for the library copy, the author has released it under a creative commons license for free on his website. Nice.

― J, Friday, 23 March 2007 00:49 (eighteen years ago)

guys,please participate in the poll:
"poo:yr favourite book ever" in the I Love Books board.thank you.

― Zeno, Friday, 23 March 2007 18:41 (eighteen years ago)

Matt, do you like it as much as I do? :-)

― nathalie, Saturday, 24 March 2007 10:24 (eighteen years ago)

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