Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

MK wrote: "I want to hear how you like it, if you do choose it! :)"

If you missed it I did finish the book. My review can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A question for you all: What do you call books that were written ages ago but at the time were contemporary? At the moment I am reading Austen and then another book written and set in the 1920s and would like to call them both contemporary historical fiction... Also my "new" book about bohemians is something like that. :-P

Though I in general hate labels (and strict genre limits) and prefer not to choose books based on them, I do like to see afterwards what kind of books I have read during the past year.

Not trying to be difficult :p ... but, I just call those 'classics' :D

What we call classics today weren't called classics then. They were just sold to find readers, and to make money.

Yep, that's what I have been calling them. But they just look so "empty" when others have "mysteries" or "contempory" labels and they are just "fiction", even some classics probably. I feel sorry for them. ;-(

Again, it's just mainly for me, I like to know what I have read. Maybe I have redefine the classics for myself, or something...

Austen was mostly romances, wasn't she? That's how I think of her. Not sure if that's right or not.

(lol on feeling sorry for the lonely unlabeled books! :p)

MK wrote: "Austen was mostly romances, wasn't she? That's how I think of her. Not sure if that's right or not."

Maybe, but I don't really think of them as romances... or I don't read that many of them anyway for them to have their own shelf. All "romance novels" have to have something else to interest me. I even learned recently that to be categorized as 'romance' they should have a HEA (happily ever after) ending and I certainly don't want that. I think the reason why I liked GWTW even as a kid was that it wasn't a happy ending. (But I don't like people dying in the end, either, like it seems to happen in so many novels... It feels too dramatic, or too easy and convenient.)

Besides, it doesn't solve my "time aspect" problem. 'Detective stories' are the only one I use "genre wise", though I added 'spefi' for all kinds of speculative fiction. The rest are just 'fiction' which for me is the most important "genre". But in a way I think those "old contemporary novels" are sometimes the most interesting ones and that's why I'd like to separate them. Maybe I'll manage...

What about naming it for the era? Regency era, versus Victorian era, versus Depression era, versus WWII era, etc? That has the added benefit of suggesting a bit about the writing style and likely content.

I've also seen people with lots of classics shelve by the author's country or original language.

Melanti wrote: "Regency era, versus Victorian era, versus Depression era, versus WWII era"

Those are very English (American/British) labels, they (or others for that matter) don't come naturally for me. I would probably end up with one book per one shelf because there are so many different eras in different countries. And I already have shelves for different continents/countries/languages, very basic, though.

Bah. I couldn't tell you the last time I returned a book - if I ever have at all - but now I've returned my second in two days.

The first was The Annotated Lolita with it's badly formatted footnotes, and now I just returned Lagoon because the narrators' accents were too strong in the dialog and I couldn't understand what they were saying.

I feel like such a grouch at the moment!

Well, good on ya! No need to keep crap :).

I was tempted to set my Paperwhite to the text and my Fire to the footnotes and just glance back and forth between the two - but I didn't want to reward the publishers by paying them for crap. That would just make them think they could keep doing crappy jobs in the future!

I am sorry about Lagoon though. It's not released in the US yet, (I have no idea why Audible can sell it when other retailers can't) so I will have to wait for who knows how long to get my hands on a print copy.

Melanti wrote: "I was tempted to set my Paperwhite to the text and my Fire to the footnotes and just glance back and forth between the two - but I didn't want to reward the publishers by paying them for crap. Tha..."

That book does sound good. Someone almost nominated it in my sci fi/fantasy group last month, or the one before, but had to withdraw the nom b/c it wasn't out yet.

I think I'd like to check it out when it comes to the US.

It's weird... She lives here in the US, so why is it being released in the UK before here? And I couldn't find any set date (or even publisher!) named when I looked for one. These days most publishers try to keep UK and US release dates within a couple months of each other.

Have you read any of her other books? I've read Who Fears Death and liked it -- though it is more agenda-laden than Lagoon seemed to be from the bit I did listen to.

Melanti wrote: "It's weird... She lives here in the US, so why is it being released in the UK before here? And I couldn't find any set date (or even publisher!) named when I looked for one. These days most publi..."

No, I haven't read any of them. When it was nom'd in the SFF group was the first time I'd heard of her. Seems like an author I would like very much, tho.

Just got back from Helsinki this morning. Beautiful city and such friendly people. Loved it.

Kathy wrote: "Just got back from Helsinki this morning. Beautiful city and such friendly people. Loved it."

How fun! Welcome home :)

(eta - Did you look up Tytti!!? :D)

I should have, didn't even think of that before I left.

Kathy wrote: "I should have, didn't even think of that before I left."

ahhh, too bad.

Can't help but chuckle at how today's publishers would probably not let Tolstoy publish War and Peace as one novel. I think they would have him break it into a series. The novel costs $37... If they broke it into three and charged $20 each they would be living up to today's standards.... Lol. Would Tolstoy have revolted at the thought of W and P being 'broken up'?

It's great that you enjoyed our little capital, Kathy, I hope the weather was fine (I have already forgotten it). How did you find the light nights? I of course live a bit further to the north so it's even more lighter here. Did you visit anyplace special?

I am looking for a site that is similar to bookdepository that just sells DVDs. I have tried amazon but the problem is that half the retailers don't ship to Australia. Where do other people buy their DVDs online from?

Amazon, mostly. We used to buy alot of dvds, but not too many over the last year. I didn't notice that until you'd asked. I guess it's been shifting, without my noticing, to digital. Either via On Demand from my cable service, or Amazon, via streaming.

I'm preparing myself for sitting in a train for around six hours tomorrow and another 8+ hours on Friday (around 2 hours in the morning and around 7 hours in the evening). It's just a fast trip to a job interview in Eastern Finland and then back in here and I'm glad I didn't have to take a night train, because I can sleep in my sister's place in Helsinki.

So lot's of sitting coming up for me, but now I have a chance to finish some of the books that have been in my currenly-reading shelf for a long time. And maybe get a job as well, but we'll see that later.

Wow long train ride - Lots of reading time :). Good luck on job interview, Maarit!

Good luck on the job interview.

Thanks :). I hope it went well, but we'll see. I will hear the results next week and see if I got hired.

Maarit wrote: "Thanks :). I hope it went well, but we'll see. I will hear the results next week and see if I got hired."

ooo, exciting! I will keep fingers crossed for you :)

Best of luck Maarit!

A Clockwork Orange would be on tv tonight, and also a documentary about it. Unfortunately it has some tough competition: World Cup football and the Jukola relay (the biggest relay event in the world, this year 16,324 competitors has signed up and that would mean over 1,200 women's and over 1,600 men's teams). The name of course comes from Seven Brothers. Venlas, the women's race, was run earlier.

But the start is always great, as you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r27NJ... (I believe the start was at 11 pm. Yes, it's light.) The stream is available all over the world here: http://areena.yle.fi/tv/2300504

Today is Father's Day in the US, and some other countries:

Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, People's Republic of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, Greece, Guyana, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Myanmar, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe
http://www.holidays.net/father/father...


Happy Father's Day to all the Dads today :).

@MK

Thanks for sharing this interesting information!

Andrea (Catsos Person) wrote: "@MK

Thanks for sharing this interesting information!"

welcs :)

Hello everyone!
I hope you are having a good weekend.

Laila (AKA LunaBelle) wrote: "Hello everyone!
I hope you are having a good weekend."

Hi LunaBelle! Right back atcha :)
Long time no see. Hope you are well.

So many countries having Father's day in summer. In Finland Father's day is in the middle of winter, solid day being the second Sunday of November, which dates in 9th of November this year.

Missed talking to all of you. Been camping last week. Ready to do some reading now.

Happy Bloomsday, Joycean fans!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday

Maarit wrote: "So many countries having Father's day in summer. In Finland Father's day is in the middle of winter, solid day being the second Sunday of November, which dates in 9th of November this year."

I noticed Finland's was so late in the year. No tradition of barbecuing for Father's Day in Finland, I suppose ;-).


Kathy wrote: "Missed talking to all of you. Been camping last week. Ready to do some reading now."

Welcome home, Kathy!

MK wrote: " No tradition of barbecuing for Father's Day in Finland"

No tradition of barbecuing in Finland, period...

Tytti wrote: "MK wrote: " No tradition of barbecuing for Father's Day in Finland"

No tradition of barbecuing in Finland, period..."

Interesting!

Well of course some/many people do barbecue but I wouldn't call that a tradition, they do it through the summer. There are many ways to cook on a fire anyway, and smoked fish is great.

Oh, how much I love Finnish summer. This is what it looked like in here this morning: http://www.kaleva.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/... and more: http://www.kaleva.fi/uutiset/galleria...

It was only the early morning, though, it was already gone when I woke up after nine o'clock.

Maarit wrote: "Oh, how much I love Finnish summer. This is what it looked like in here this morning: http://www.kaleva.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/... and more: htt..."

That's ... summer??????

:-O

Yes, Finnish summer at it's finest ;) Though usually, if it rains snow in June, it happens very early (like in first few days) of June and is not that common thing. And in Lapland it was -6 degrees Celcius (21,2 Fahrenheit) last night, which was very close to all time June record of -7 degrees Celcius (19,4 Fahrenheit), from 3rd of June 1962. So it's basically very rare that it snows in this time of June. But it has happened a few times before in history.

And that's mainly in Northern Finland, which actually IS at North. Though we had some hails/snow here in the South, too. (But still, it's quite North compared to other countries.) I should have guessed; usually a warm winter means cold summer, and vice versa...

Some Finnish humour:

"We are ready. #weather #Helsinki #Midsummer"
https://twitter.com/Rakennusvirasto/s...

But on the other hand, it was very good biking weather in January. And people were able to do garden work after Christmas. Yep, Mother Nature has been a bit confused this year...

Tytti ... lol on snowplows!!

Maarit,laughing ... and WOW!! THAT'S cold for June!

I feel like a wimp now, that I complained so hard about Maine's (Northeast US state on Canadian border) winter this year. (Which I thought went on endlessly. I can see, I was wrong, it could have lasted until JUNE :p)

Well except our winter didn't last until June, never had a proper one really. I think it was sometimes almost as warm as it is now, in January... But I guess it is the climate change, we'll have more weird weather more often.

And we had a heatwave already, I even went swimming. A couple of weeks ago the water was pretty warm already.

I had a nice day today. It started with a trip to Rovaniemi (another job interview) and then after that we went to Tornio and a little trip to Sweden's side of the border to Haaparanta to get some cheap soda and candies, but no Ikea trip this time :P They don't have a "sweets tax" in Sweden so it's a lot cheaper to buy soda (and candies and almost everything else as well) in there than here in Finland, if you happen to be in the area.

That does sound like a nice day! (Best of luck on other interview!).

I had a nice few days too. Got swept up in houseguests visiting, and then took yesterday to just recharge. I haven't had reading OR online time for a few days! Weird :p