What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

 

[Olorgando]

View attachment 6490

I like to imagine that ol' Obi-wan could have used his abilities with The Force to send all of the server farms of these governmental or private-industry snoops up in flames.

 

[Olorgando]

Back on topic, I'm now reading a German book from 2019 by archeogeneticist Johannes Krause together with scientific journalist Thomas Trappe, titled "The Journey of our Genes" (my translation; original title "Die Reise unserer Gene") dealing mainly with what (archeo-) genetics can currently tell us about the genetic pool in Europe (and western Asia), and how it developed from pre-Neanderthal times of over 400 000 years ago.

 

[TrackerOrc]

Currently re-reading the Discworld novels, plus the Jack Aubrey novels of Patrick O'Brian (which I think are often referred to as the Aubriad).

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Two great series!

I picked up a (fairly) recent edition of Horace's Odes, and am trying to read a couple every night.

 

[Barliman]

Tin Cans, about destroyers in WWII and Atlantic Nightmare: The Longest Military Campaign in WWII

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

The Shining by Stephen King. I figure we're in isolation so no better time

 

[Olorgando]

After having re-read the biographies of Einstein and Darwin by one of our better journalists-turned-authors (these people all seem to have PhDs or at least master's degrees in one of the sciences), now re-reading a book by late former Social Democratic chancellor Helmut Schmidt, from 1996, about quite a few people he had the privilege (his words) to get to know, and some that he never knew personally but still exerted an influence on him - even a couple he terms enemies, but who sharpened his thinking, sharp enough from his earliest involvement in politics in the early 1950s.

 

[Phuc Do]

The witcher book, chronicles of Amber, The burning white and re-reading Wheel of Time, currently on book 8.

 

[Starbrow]

Gifted Hands, the autobiography of Ben Carson

 

[Alice]

I read several books at the same time. Now it is 7 and 10 volumes of HoME, rereading LOTR from my new hardcover edition and Tolkien Companion also

 

[Sir Eowyn]

Lolita. Also working my way through H. P. Lovecraft, complete fiction.

 

[Alice]

Lolita. Also working my way through H. P. Lovecraft, complete fiction.

Wow. And do you like Lolita or haven't decided yet? I've read both in English and in Russian. Nabokov has an unchanging style

 

[Sir Eowyn]

Wow. And do you like Lolita or haven't decided yet? I've read both in English and in Russian. Nabokov has an unchanging style

I must confess I adore Lolita. That style he's got, and the harrowing tunnel he goes down with it...

Sadly, I can't read Russian. You're lucky.

 

[Alice]

I must confess I adore Lolita. That style he's got, and the harrowing tunnel he goes down with it...

Sadly, I can't read Russian. You're lucky.

I felt jealous of ones to whom English is the first language. But when you know two languages there are much more opportunities for reading

 

[Olorgando]

I felt jealous of ones to whom English is the first language. But when you know two languages there are much more opportunities for reading

I can second that with two languages wholeheartedly. And I was lucky to grow up speaking German and English simultaneously, as my parents and I spent the first 19 years of my life basically in English-speaking foreign countries. And I have one book by JRRT edited by Christopher, the 2007 "The Children of Húrin", in German translation and English original (after having bought the German translation at a rather run-of-the-mill bookshop, I popped over to a more specialized one across the street to order the English original). Having read these two in a short period of time, practically back-to-back, I noticed the difficulty of translating "Silmarillion stuff" into German. We do have a German translation of LoTR that I have read, which I bought for my wife over 20, perhaps over 30 years ago. But I never read the English and German versions shortly after one another, so I don't have that kind of a comparison.

Now German and English have common roots (English being more closely related to the northern German dialects than to south German Bavarian or Swabian). Of course English was polluted by that Latin-derived stuff from Normandy , but there are still many similarities. But the "Silmarillion" stuff with its almost consistently archaic language is definitely difficult to translate. Even for the less demanding LoTR, I have this general feeling that the many language subtleties that JRRT was capable of and employed (again something the obtuse among his critics failed to grasp) get "lost in translation". Words can have several meanings or, more difficult, allusions. And while the may be an overlap between the meanings of these word in both language, the crucial one might just happen to be one that does not occur in the other language - this would be German.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Tolkien tried to limit his language to "Anglo-Saxon" -- i.e., Old English-derived usages, as much as possible, over French-influenced wording.

An amusing example of his difficulties with this appears in an early draft of Chapter 1, in the scene where Bilbo leaves Bag End. The original has Gandalf saying:

'Adieu, my dear Bilbo. Or at least, Au Revoir.'

This was struck through, with a note reading: "No. Gandalf would not speak French".

 

[Alice]

I can second that with two languages wholeheartedly. And I was lucky to grow up speaking German and English simultaneously, as my parents and I spent the first 19 years of my life basically in English-speaking foreign countries. And I have one book by JRRT edited by Christopher, the 2007 "The Children of Húrin", in German translation and English original (after having bought the German translation at a rather run-of-the-mill bookshop, I popped over to a more specialized one across the street to order the English original). Having read these two in a short period of time, practically back-to-back, I noticed the difficulty of translating "Silmarillion stuff" into German. We do have a German translation of LoTR that I have read, which I bought for my wife over 20, perhaps over 30 years ago. But I never read the English and German versions shortly after one another, so I don't have that kind of a comparison.

Now German and English have common roots (English being more closely related to the northern German dialects than to south German Bavarian or Swabian). Of course English was polluted by that Latin-derived stuff from Normandy , but there are still many similarities. But the "Silmarillion" stuff with its almost consistently archaic language is definitely difficult to translate. Even for the less demanding LoTR, I have this general feeling that the many language subtleties that JRRT was capable of and employed (again something the obtuse among his critics failed to grasp) get "lost in translation". Words can have several meanings or, more difficult, allusions. And while the may be an overlap between the meanings of these word in both language, the crucial one might just happen to be one that does not occur in the other language - this would be German.

Oh, I tried to learn German in secondary school, but my effort was not successful. And I regret about that a bit. Wow, it's very nice, that you had an opportunity to learn English so effectively. It is an immeasurable pleasure, when you can read books, watch movies, listen to music and understand the original language of it. It is English in the most cases nowadays. But many people don't pay attention to it, so in real life I have no one to talk about that

And Russian is much far away from English, so it is more hopeless to translate Tolkien's books into that. I used to wish to make a translation of the Hobbit, but abandoned this idea

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I'm reading Hugo's Les Miserables in stages. I did get through the Hunchback of Notre Dame a while ago but struggled with it.
But I'm finding Les Miserables so much better - a French War and Peace. The first section about the Bishop of Digne is so well written and significant for the whole story - laying down the moral backbone as it were on which the story hangs. It's a shame the film and TV versions don't include this early section - too religious I suppose.

 

[Alice]

I'm reading Hugo's Les Miserables in stages. I did get through the Hunchback of Notre Dame a while ago but struggled with it.
But I'm finding Les Miserables so much better - a French War and Peace. The first section about the Bishop of Digne is so well written and significant for the whole story - laying down the moral backbone as it were on which the story hangs. It's a shame the film and TV versions don't include this early section - too religious I suppose.

Oh, does Les Miserables resemble War and Peace? I used to like War and Peace when was at school, and at the same time I loved Hugo's Notre Dame. So I just wonder