Language & Grammar discussion

Newengland wrote: "Haven't come across those Lindgren titles in my short 33 years...."

of teaching :D

I am not sure that the titles weren't changed depending on which market they were for....must see if mum still has them in a dark corner somewhere....

One reward of insomnia is you're up with the Aussies and Kiwis.

GNF, in truth I've only taught 17 years. Did you know I started in the public sector? Marketing, of all things. Me!

Still, teaching's much the same. Marketing ideas and all...

Consumer buy-in is critical. Stakeholder alignment as well.

5 o'clock whistle -- I'm off for the morning grind of dog walk/breakfast/shower/drive/ WORK.

Have a good "evening" down there....

I finished I'm still reading
and I thing I need to brush up on for the upcoming movie.

Jana wrote: "I think I need to brush up on for the upcoming movie."
From what I understand, you may only need to read the first half...

Stephen wrote: "Jana wrote: "I think I need to brush up on for the upcoming movie."
From what I understand, you may only need to read the first half..."

but will I know where to stop?

You won't be able to. It's so compelling. Things get really Hairy in this one.

finished and loved it. Very good book club choice.

reading only about 50 pages in. will start to read

and yes semi reading on but mostly off

Ahhhhh.... Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen...an ambitious and stunning lady.
Gregory packs a punch with this novel!
Explore more mystery in the infamous Tower of London!
Enjoy...I did!

Hi Suz,

i just finished this book and really liked it too - I've had a bit of a thing for this period after seeing the Sydney Theatre Co's War of the Roses and then reading the Sun in Spendour - there are such different interpretations of her character and actions, but noone seems to dispute her beauty! PS love your name - we recently named puppy Savvy!Susanne (Savvy Suz) wrote: "

Ahhhhh.... Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen...an ambitious and stunning lady.
Gregory packs a punch with this novel!
Explore more mystery in the infamou..."

Not sure where to put this, but thought it worth posting, as Cleopatra is an eternal spring of fascinating tidbits...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-s...

The new Cleopatra bio is getting rave reviews but is not faring as well among GR's readers. Are we the Marc Anthony faction, mayhaps?

Never thought I would take to this book, but How to Live is turning into quite the read.

It's a different animal, that's for sure, starting like a biography of Montaigne (whom I've never read), then twisting into a history of 16th-century France's religious wars, then doubling back into Montaigne's personality and family, then changing to neat little lessons on Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism and how they impacted Montaigne, all while interweaving thoughtful questions on how WE should live OUR lives.

Entertaining, and if you thought making the author of the Essays
exciting would be difficult work, you're wrong. He's much more human (being a humanist) and inviting than one might expect. And what you'll learn about the Renaissance lifestyles is neat, too.

Not a fast read, but the type you want to walk through for good reason. Halfway home and thinking five stars at the moment.

I started The Good Soldier and I put it aside. Then I started Freedom I am not making headway into that one either.

I'm saving Freedom to read with the Constant Reader group.

I have to read The Good Soldier for CR so I must return it to the library soon. I will wait on Freedom a bit. I am in another group besides CR and we had read Doctor Zhivago as a side read. The book is still haunting me and I am comparing books to it .

I bought the good DOCTOR Z (new Pevear & Volokhonsky translation) and may wind up reading it in February so as to discuss in March at CR. If that happens, it will be a first (my participation in a novel book talk, that is -- I've weighed in on short stories and poems only).

For me, though, will be the problem of how the book can top the movie, which really hit me as a young man because of Julie Christie. Whew. Not many women can look sexy ironing, but THAT comrade did!

NE the book is so much more than Julie and Omar. LOL I wonder about the differences in translations. I think it is going to make an interesting discussion. I have The Brothers Karamazov to read. I ordered the P&V translation but was sent the wrong one.

Here's my review of the book I just finished, How To Live, a "biography" and more of Michel de Montaigne:


This was supposed to be boring. It's about Michel de Montaigne, after all. Michel de Who? You know, the dude who wrote yet another one of those classics we use as doorstops, in this case, The Complete Essays.

So why did I read it? One, I got an ARC, which never hurts. Two, I kept running into hosanna after hosanna in the press. And STILL I went into it with low expectations. It sure looked like the type of book where you enter at your own risk and exit at everyone else's risk (make way!).

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Sarah Bakewell's book has a unique design, for starters. The title comes at you in waves, like baroque riffs in a Bach piece, as the heading in every chapter. Each "How to Live?" is followed by a different answer. Thus you get topics like "Don't Worry About Death," "Guard Your Humanity," and "Reflect on Everything; Regret Nothing." From there, Bakewell explores not only Montaigne's thoughts on these ideas as reflected in the essays, but on a wide array of other topics.

For me, that was the book's winning ingredient. It was as much about the world around Montaigne as it was about him. It wasn't afraid to go backwards (e.g. to ancient Greece to talk about the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Skeptics) and it wasn't afraid to spring forward (e.g. to Rousseau and Voltaire and even 21st-century blogs on the Internet). For Montaigne was an Everyman if ever there was one, and his self-obsession made a thoroughly modern man, one we can recognize for selfish reasons. Why? He did not speak in abstracts; he spoke in concrete terms using himself as the medium.

In terms of history, you'll come out of this book well-versed in the Renaissance, the Catholic v. Protestant Wars in 16th-century France, and the epic battle of wits between the likes of Henri III and Henry di Navarre. In terms of literature, you'll read about the battles among Montaigne's French and British translators. And in terms of naughty, you'll learn what Montaigne thought about topics as varied as sex with handicapped women and young boys' fascination with pornographic graffiti (all of which landed him on the Catholic Church's index of banned books for a couple hundred years).

After sampling HOW TO LIVE, you may be up for the ESSAYS themselves. Conversely, you may feel, like me, that you know enough to be dangerous and move on to other things. Still, you won't regret the trip. Personally, I never thought a 16th-century man of leisure could do anything but bore. Turns out, I was wrong. He can entertain from the grave and, thanks to Bakewell, Montaigne does just that.

Good review you certainly made it sound interesting. I will give it a try if the library has the book. I promised myself no more book buying for a while.

The library had it. It will probably take several weeks there are others waiting for it. They must have liked your review also. hahahahaha

Hmm, you made me want to read a book I would normally shy away from completely. Even the title would have put me off.

I am second in line at the library Ruth better get your name on the list.

I will be looking for it......

In all honesty, it struck me as being more highbrow than I could handle during the school year, but I wound up enjoying it because it turns out Montaigne was a lot like me -- a laid-back, curious sort who preached moderation and leaned toward the Stoic in his outlook on life.

I too had always thought Montaigne wouldnt be interesting enough;we had to refer to him while studying Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales in college.Shall certainly search for the title,if i can get it here;Newengland makes it sound very interesting.

The Montaigne book was actually chosen as one of the Top Ten Non-Fiction books by the Boston Globe. Turns out, I also read another book on their NF list, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.

This is weird because I am a fiction guy, not a non-fiction guy. And yet, I haven't read ANY of the Top Ten Fiction titles!

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/galler...

And here's the NF list:

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/galler...

Just finished a classic Viking saga penned by a Swede in the 1950s. My review, for those interested in pillaging, burning, looting, wenching, and drinking (not necessarily in that order):

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Still waiting for the library to come through with this one. I don't expect it until Feb. though. I just finished The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. Three were excellent, especially "The Eyes"

I'm reading and I'm loving it.

I'm reading Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon and wondering if there's ever any flash in "flashback" ... "rambleback" may be a better word for it.

For you, pj, seeing how you're of a musical bent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Xdhf...

Newengland wrote: "For you, pj, seeing how you're of a musical bent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Xdhf..."

Nice.

Enjoyed that over my toast and coffee......

I'm working on "I'm a Sedentary Man" even as I sit.

Newengland wrote: "For you, pj, seeing how you're of a musical bent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Xdhf..."

perfect!

I'm reading In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks by Adam Carolla, and....it was funny, and now it's kinda stale.

But I'm sure you sort of saw that coming ... considering obnoxious name.

Well, my brother raved about the audiobook, and I do love Adam Carolla's stand up, and he's great when he guests on podcasts, but some of his ol' stories don't translate well onto paper.

Heehee, Richard. The Plague and the Magic Mountain have both defeated me, too.

"The Plague" is hardly worth the effort, but anything by Thomas Mann is.

L'Etranger is pretty good. I've only read Buddenbrooks by Mann, and then only because Hemingway told me to (I'm an impressionable guy).

My 'block' is Snow. I've gotten stuck twice. I may resort to an audiobook, which I've used in the past to accomplish a reading goal.

Hemingway mentions Thomas Mann? I can't think of two writers further apart in either writing style or their ultimate concerns.

Joan -- Do you mean Snow by that not-so-young Turk, Orman Pahuk (or somesuch)? It was like walking through six foot drifts. I raised the white flag after 50 pp but no one could make out the white.

John -- Yes, Hem was a fan of Mann. The old lug was a voracious reader. He loved Henry Fieldings' Tom Jones, too. Like most people, the convenient stereotypes about him don't always hold true. He was a complex guy (and don't say because he had a "complex," either!).

NE, you should give another one of Pamuk's books a try. Maybe it was the length of "Snow" did that it. Try "White Castle" or "New Life," but only if you enjoy so-called philosophical and/or literary fiction. If not, don't even bother, since that's all he writes.

Re: Hemingway: Well, I didn't really think he was simple, per se. I think a good reading of any of his novels will bear that out, even though I'm not his biggest fan. I'm just surprised that Mann is someone whose name name he mentioned, out of all the people I thought he'd have been influenced by. There's a kind of independence of spirit and sort of communion-with-nature feeling to Fielding that makes it much less surprising that he enjoyed it.

Constant Reader read My Name is Red a couple of years ago. I was underwhelmed. Here's the review I posted:

I'm not sure how to rate this book. On the one hand, Pamuk is an important writer and I should take advantage of what I can enjoy/learn from him. On the other hand, all the time I was reading I had to convince myself of this in order to keep marching on.

On the one hand, as an artist, I found the bits of information about the miniature arts and artists fascinating. On the other, would that they remained bits, instead of veering off toward treatises that interrupted the flow of the story.

On the one hand, it could have been a gripping murder mystery. On the other hand, it wasn’t. Part of the fun of a mystery is being able to guess at some of the possible solutions as you read. I was way, way, way too confused to guess.

On the one hand, it could have been an absorbing love story. On the other hand, it didn’t seem that either of the protagonists really gave a damn.

On the one hand, the multiple viewpoints thing worked brilliantly. On the other, it completely confused me in the beginning, and later I began to find it a tiresome gimmick that interrupted the flow with endless digressions.

On the one hand, I would have probably gotten more out of the book if I hadn’t skimmed in quite a few sections. On the other hand, I did skim or I’d still be bogged down in graceful if seemingly unending verbiage.

On the one hand, if I were rating on how important the book is I'd give it 4 stars. On the other, GR defines these stars as to how well one liked the book. Using that reasoning, I'll have to give it two.

I don't know that Hemingway was "influenced" by Mann, I only know that he recommended Buddenbrooks, which was a lumbering read, but it got there. He also loved Georges Simenon (on my TBR pile), Stendahl (we ALL love ole Henri), Tolstoy, Joyce, Beryl Markham, and Sinclair Lewis. In fact, he practically outlined Main Street (a book I've never even been TEMPTED to read) to learn from it. Hmn.

Orman Pamuk's getting no love on this thread!