Language & Grammar discussion

I know I'll regret saying this, but Byatt is a girly-writer if ever there was one (notice he won't go over there and say such things).

Is she a feminist?

I liked Possession.

Then you're a girly girl. ;-)

Beats being a boily boy I guess!

Can't argue with that!

I'm presently reading Annexed, a fictional account of life in Anne Frank's annex from Peter's POV (he appears in the real Diary). Peter is a bit horny and fantasizes about some fictional girl that was carried off in Ch. 1 (the author's conceit). I'm not sure this angle works for this subject.

I gave up on Kelly Link's Pretty Monsters a month ago (new on goodreads - have been a member for a while but inactive). I had come off reading Robert Shearman's excellent Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical and was looking for a book of short stories on a par with this but Link's stories were trying too hard to fit in this sub-genre of pie in the sky fancifulness. I believe this would work for a teenager at the younger end of the scale, though.

I've been reading I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN, by Hannah Green. I've heard (and read on GoodReads) both positive and negative about this one due to new understandings reagrding Schizophrenia. Personally, I am enjoying it quite a bit, but then I'm not reading it for current medical accuracy. Anyway, this ones god some good verbiage in it for sure. There are plenty of words I've either had to look up, try to figure out through usage, or just skip past so I don't interrupt the flow of the story. Good stuff!

Never read it either, is it pronounced eeither or iither, never could figure that one, Ii guess I am back on the wrong thread. Why don't you condense all the threads, for language and grammar so people don't have to go back and forth to the menu of Gr, just a suggestion, and then it would really be a stream of consciousness thing.

Dudley! I've seen your pic in other ads on the Net! Welkommen, as they say in Bonn.

Dudley wrote: "I've been reading I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN, by Hannah Green. ..."

Read it in middle school and really disliked it. While it was gripping, my mother suffered from what's now known as manic depression and I just wasn't in the right place to be reading about someone else with these kinds of problems.

I really should give it another read, now that some perspective is possible.

Dudley wrote: "I've been reading I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN, by Hannah Green. I've heard (and read on GoodReads) both positive and negative about this one due to new understandings reagrding Schizophrenia..."

I just got this book from Paperback Swap on someone else's recommendation!
Good to hear it's full of challenging words...right up my alley! :-)

What's paperback swap?

It's a free on-line site where you can get books for free.
Don't count on the new releases, but there are plenty of others,
You join, post books and then for every book of yours requested that you mail, you get 1 credit. It can be Hardback, paperback, or audio book (audios get 2 credits)
The only cost is in the mailing...but it's minimal, as they go media mail.
Likewise, there is a Swap DVD sister site which works basically the same way.

It has worked very well for me!
Also, if you are willing to wait for it, you put it on your "wish" list and as they become available, you move up the list.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/home.php

Thanks for the lowdown!

I can't join:-( Wrong piece of earth......

Newengland wrote: "Thanks for the lowdown!"

....good spot for "Highbrows" as well!

Help! I've gone on an expensive (oh, aren't they all?) NYRB books tear! I now have SIX in the pipelines headed to a mailbox near me.

They are as follows:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

And where to begin when they arrive? I have both short works and long ones. And I think there are fans of Tove Jansson's kids' books on L&G, but did you know about these books for adults she wrote? From what I read, they're supposed to be gems, praised by some heavyweight writers of the adult trade.

I'll let you know. I am watching my mailbox with NYRBated breath.*

According to Garner, many writers use "baited breath" where "bated breath" is the proper expression. It is from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice:

"Or shall I bend low and in a bondsman's key, with bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness, say this:..." (1.2. 122-125).

"The idea is that breath is abated, or stopped," says the Gospel according to Garner.

I remember I read A High Wind in Jamaica about 40 years ago and loved it. The others I don't know about.

NYRB books tear???

Can you enlighten me?

Expression == "on a tear," meaning a crazy NYRB buying spree. NYRB is putting out worthy but often now out-of-print works, ones that are often loads better than the MFA Gristmill we have for so-called modern literature these days.

Is the light on, or do I need to go on a tear and explain more?

oh...no....on a tear I understand!....it's the NYRB that has me in the dark!

Oh, sorry. It's the NEW YORK REVIEW of BOOKS series, all with very stylish covers. It's a lot of fun browsing the titles!

Here's a link with more links on the top of the page:

http://www.nybooks.com/books/

Thanks!....I guess this is why I was still in the dark!...I need to hang out with the literati more often! :-)

from the site...

"NYRB Collections
The New York Times has called The New York Review of Books “the country’s most successful intellectual journal.”

I am many things, but literati? I don't think I rate.

If you are literate you qualify as literati around here! I didn't know that Tove Jansson wrote for adults!I will be very interested to hear what you think NE....I love her Moomintroll books.

I think there are a lot of literati and also some glitterati hanging around L & G! :-)

I'm reading "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann and it is a love/ hate relationship, but I have only 100 pages or so before I'm done. I will not give up. Last time I felt like love/ hate relationship with a book was "Frog" by Stephen Dixon.
I have few other big book in a line but I think I will read something lighter before I get into them.

I've tried Magic Mountain twice and never made it to the top.

I read and finished Buddenbrooks long ago because Hemingway told me to.

I have now 70 pages left on The Magic Mountain. I am also reading Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn. It's about man who dies and goes to heaven and finds out the only difference is that in heaven you can fly but nobody bothers to do so. He ends up working designing Alps. The book is strange and funny. I have about 30 pages left to go. And for ower a year now I'm reading on and off Pippi Longstocking.

Pippi Longstocking? For over a year? Your reading is longer than her stocking! Never read a word of it.

Finished a Tove Jansson book yesterday, THE SUMMER BOOK. It was one of those such, such were the days books about summering on Finnish islands in the 1920s (when I was but a wee lad).

Now I'm continuing my geographical trip around the world by starting

Newengland wrote: "Pippi Longstocking? For over a year? Your reading is longer than her stocking! Never read a word of it.

yes, I pick the book up every few months and read few pages. I use to watch the TV series growing up.

Wha--? There was a TV series, too? Maybe in Slovakia (or Czechoslovakia, then), but not in New England.

yes, it was Swedish series. I use to love it but never read the book until now.

My favorite Swedish writer was Elsa Beskow.

I also loved her bestselling classics

and

and

and

.

They just don't write them like THAT anymore. And they don't take years to read, either. Fifteen minutes each, tops!

things I missed not reading as a child.

I missed them as a child, too, but made up for it by reading them to my children as an adult. My faves by far.

We use to get the movie on Sunday afternoons.

I remember Pippi Longstocking on TV Jana....we got it in NZ. There was a Scandinavian writer I loved as a kid, but can't remember her name....off to find it....

Astrid Lindgren?

Debbie wrote: "I remember Pippi Longstocking on TV Jana....we got it in NZ. There was a Scandinavian writer I loved as a kid, but can't remember her name....off to find it...."

yes, it was all over, maybe in the States too, I remmemer seeing VHS of it at the Blockbuster few years back. I wish I had them at home so I can watch them again.

Ruth wrote: "I've tried Magic Mountain twice and never made it to the top."

It is not a easy read to stick with. I do love it most of the time. I have 60 more pages to go. I have a very good translation by John E. Woods and that makes a huge difference.

I finished Sweet Dreams and now I'm starting new book Astrid @ Veronika by yes a Swedish author Linda Olsson.

Not Astrid Lindgren....another one....

Maybe a name here? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_...

Spoooooky! I was browsing that very page in another window when you posted the link!

Found them....and it was Astrid Lindgren!....here is a link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_...

Yeah, woke up at 3:30 WIDE AWAKE even though I got to bed late (for me) at 10:30. I'll be dragging by supper hour, for sure.

Haven't come across those Lindgren titles in my short 33 years....