What 📔book are you reading right now?

Ithilethiel said:

Hey CL I've missed you! So glad you're discovering and loving Jane Austen. Her works are so brilliant. Her words ring so true even now. I love her. Next to JRRT and Charles Dickens she's my favorite British author. You're gonna love S&S and Emma. Don't forget Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Persausion. If you love her to the extreme and live in NA I recommend you join, JASNA, the Jane Austen Society of North America.

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I literally JUST joined them! I am very excited that you recommended it! Thank you so much!

Yes, I will read *all of those*!


I've missed you too!

CL

Reading War of the Ring again while I wait for The Fall of Gondolin to arrive.

BTW, Erestor, I'm a log-time Lovecraft fan too. I've always wanted to read some of the French translations from the 1950's, which apparently formed the basis for his reputation in France as the successor to Poe. Quite an achievement, considering the Poe translations were done by Baudelaire! I wondered how Papy dealt with Lovecraft's adjective-laden prose.

The man was, personally, a mass of contradictions: a putative anti-semite who married a Jew, a writer who could celebrate drinking wine from the skull of an enemy, but who couldn't bring himself to remove a dead mouse from a mousetrap, so threw out trap and all, a recluse who wrote reams of advice on writing to people he didn't know, for no pay.

An exasperating (and now controversial) figure. But still, there are the stories.

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

BTW, Erestor, I'm a log-time Lovecraft fan too. I've always wanted to read some of the French translations from the 1950's, which apparently formed the basis for his reputation in France as the successor to Poe. Quite an achievement, considering the Poe translations were done by Baudelaire! I wondered how Papy dealt with Lovecraft's adjective-laden prose.

The man was, personally, a mass of contradictions: a putative anti-semite who married a Jew, a writer who could celebrate drinking wine from the skull of an enemy, but who couldn't bring himself to remove a dead mouse from a mousetrap, so threw out trap and all, a recluse who wrote reams of advice on writing to people he didn't know, for no pay.

An exasperating (and now controversial) figure. But still, there are the stories.

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I'm actually just reading Lovecraft for the first time. I always liked Edgar Allen Poe and read most of his work so this has been excellent. I'm actually reading this book right now. It has a little paragraph before each story with some background and information and it's really interesting, the stories are very good.

In some of the early ones though, it's a little annoying when there's something horrific and the protagonist says they "can't describe it, it would jar the human mind, etc." So you have no idea what they're actually seeing or experiencing. An example of this is in the story, "The Statement of Randolph Carter." Harley Warren goes down into an underground cave/catacomb under a stone slab in a cemetery and you never learn what he's seeing except that, "I can't tell you, Carter! It's too utterly beyond thought - I dare not tell you - no man could know it and live - Great God! I never dreamed of THIS!"

I mean, ok great, he sees something horrific, but I feel like Lovecraft is just using his writing to put out this story without any ability to actually dream up what is so horrific. Maybe it's because this was an early story (December, 1919 according to the book) and he was still maturing as a writer, but it happens in a bunch of the stories I've read so far. I want the actual horror and want to know what's so unimaginable.

I understand if maybe in one or two stories he wants you to use your imagination but even in this example, therest no real background to even give a hint of what the horror is other than a small book that Warren won't tell Carter anything about. If there was something to help plant the seed of the horror then it'd help my imagination a lot.

Erestor Arcamen said:

I'm actually just reading Lovecraft for the first time. I always liked Edgar Allen Poe and read most of his work so this has been excellent. I'm actually reading this book right now. It has a little paragraph before each story with some background and information and it's really interesting, the stories are very good.

In some of those early ones, it's a little annoying when there's something horrific and the protagonist says they "can't describe it, it would jar the human mind, etc." so you have no idea what they're actually seeing or experiencing. An example of this is in the story, "The Statement of Randolph Carter." Harley Warren goes down into an underground cave/catacomb under a stone slab in a cemetery and you never learn what he's seeing except that, "I can't tell you, Cater! It's too utterly beyond thought - I dare not tell you - no man could know it and live - Great God! I never dreamed of THIS!"

I mean, ok great, he sees something horrific, but I feel like Lovecraft is just using his writing to put out this story without any ability to actually dream up what is so horrific. Maybe it's because this was an early story (December, 1919 according to the book) and he was still maturing as a writer, but it happens in a bunch of the stories I've read so far. I want the actual horror and want to know what's so unimaginable.

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We demand to be frozen!

It's true, some of the earlier stories show that characteristic to a greater degree than later ones; by the time we get to "The Call of Cthulhu", HPL seems to start using more concrete imagery. But it still happens, even in late stories like "The Shadow Out of Time".

It's one of the reasons Lovecraft has been considered unfilmable: for instance, how do you show a city built using "non-Euclidean geometry"? Unless you have an unlimited CGI budget, which is unlikely, you're going to be stuck with pretty cheesy effects.

BTW -- Here's a favorite Lovecraft song:


It neatly encapsulates "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" in less than two minutes (so you may want to delay watching it until after you've read the story).

I sing it every Christmas!

I am now finally reading The Hobbit. I am on the chapter Over Hill and Under Hill.

I am really enjoying it!!!




CL

CirdanLinweilin said:

I am now finally reading The Hobbit. I am on the chapter Over Hill and Under Hill.

I am really enjoying it!!!



CL

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Awesome! Is this your first time reading it?

Erestor Arcamen said:

Awesome! Is this your first time reading it?

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Yessir!



CL

I'm Currently Reading Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel It's a Prequel to the Silverwing Trilogy. It takes place many generations before the series, from the perspective of Dusk, who is the ancestor to Shade, the main protagonist of the trilogy. The book sets up forshadowing to the war that was mentioned at the beginning of the series; and explains how it started. It explains why war started,along side having themes of change, and embracing it. Darkwing explores being different, how it can suck;but it's okay because some people will accept you for who you are.

Is it completely bad form in a topic like this to confess that I have not gone back to read all previous 82 pages of replies, and just jump in with my contribution? If so, apologies in advance.

I am currently in the middle of listening to the 'Burton and Swinburne' series of steampunk sci-fi novels by Mark Hodder. Actual historic events, seen through the triple lens of speculative cause and effect, time travel paradoxes, and the impact on a society of untrammeled scientific exploration. Some may see this as a cautionary tale, but it's not all that ponderously preachy, for the most part. I especially enjoy the interweaving of historical political figures (Rasputin, Queen Victoria et al) with literary figures, real and fictional. As this is a series that I have experienced only on audiobook, I find that my mental imagery of a world (or at least of Britain and Africa) filled to the brim with steampunk devices is fascinatingly horrifying. Not even a book jacket to influence my imagination, for good or ill.

Thistle Bunce said:

Is it completely bad form in a topic like this to confess that I have not gone back to read all previous 82 pages of replies, and just jump in with my contribution?

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In a thread like this?

Nah. No debate involved -- post away.

Thistle Bunce said:

Is it completely bad form in a topic like this to confess that I have not gone back to read all previous 82 pages of replies, and just jump in with my contribution? If so, apologies in advance.

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Go Wild.







CL

I'm reading Where the Red Fern Grows. If that's not an obvious sign I teach middle school students, I don't know what is.

Rubicon by Tom Holland.

Aha! I started that one, but got sidetracked at some point. Got to dig it out again -- thanks for the reminder -- and welcome to the forum, Aithon!

Aithon said:

Rubicon by Tom Holland.

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Thank you! For some time past I've been looking for great books on Ancient Rome without much luck, since all I found were romantic novels and Quo vadis?, which turned out to be too biased to my taste. But now I have my eyes set on Rubicon.

Just keep in mind that it's history, not a novel -- though there are a number of "non-romance" historical novels around; those by Rosemary Sutcliffe come to mind -- I'd certainly recommend "Eagle of the Ninth".

I'm now reading more by my second favorite author, Brandon Sanderson. So far I've read the Mistborn Trilogy, the Alloy of Law and Elantris. Now I'm reading the novellas that go along with the novels I've read, in this collection.

His Cosmere is going to be a bigger universe than even Tolkien's when he's done and his writing is amazing. He goes into such good detail and keeps you hanging on throughout the book. I haven't read a book or novella by him I don't like so far.

I'm reading The Silmarillion having previously given up on it many years ago. This time I am really enjoying it. Also The Earth by Richard Fortey which is a kind of geology textbook as travel book; quite stretching.