false 24 307 304 true 5649984 read 1 true 2513890 currently-reading 2 true 2513889 to-read 100 false 2586995 miscellaneous-fiction 71 false 2586843 classics 47 false 5594983 american-canadian 45 false 2586827 humour 28 false 2586946 favourites 25 false 2587044 biog-and-autobiog 23 false 2586865 children--read-with-son 21 false 2586938 sci-fi-or-futuristic 21 false 2587006 oriental 18 false 2587075 short-stories 17 false 2586941 overrated 15 false 2826800 kafka 12 false 2586940 fantasy 7 false 5519281 dystopian 4 false 2587013 language 4 false 2587016 science-ish 4 false 3816697 miscellaneous-non-fiction 3 false 2587152 ghosts-or-mysteries 3 false 4472859 poetry 2 false 2966027 family-parenting 2 false 3684227 avoid http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/73285-what-are-you-currently-reading-and-why Cecily made a comment in the You'll love this one...!! A book club & more group:

Shannon wrote: "Its been about 20 years since I read a bunch of John Wyndham books. I did the same thing, read one and got hooked ..."

I have noticed that he/his characters are quite mysoginistic; something I didn't notice in my 20s, but then that's largely a reflection of his time. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78833163 Nick's review of Dictionary Of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar
by Robert Hartwell Fiske

Ebay?

There is so much nonsense peddled, grammar and usage books are always a gamble. People get so hung up on "rules" (often spurious) that they forget that the main purpose of language is communication. If what you say or write is not understood by your audience, your usage is wrong, regardless of what the dictionaries or other "experts" say.

For a more balanced approach, check out http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/ regularly. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23479060 Nick's review of The Road
by Cormac McCarthy

I thought the book was wondeful and am surprised that the trailer for the film is promising. I'm still not sure whether to see it or not. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78781278 to: The Seeds of Time (Paperback) by John Wyndham
bookshelves: currently-reading, sci-fi-or-futuristic
Varied short stories by John Wyndham, still fresh (so far), 20 years since I last read them. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78611559 to: The Midwich Cuckoos (Mass Market Paperback) by John Wyndham
bookshelves: sci-fi-or-futuristic
Sci fi, horror, dystopian...? A bit of all of them.

This is a straightforward and somewhat leisurely story that touches on very deep and difficult themes, mostly indirectly, but explicitly in the last quarter.

Midwich is a sleepy English village in the late 1950s. One day, everyone in the village blacks out. They awake, apparently unharmed, only to discover that all the fertile women are pregnant - but the children they give birth to are not like other human children, and turn out to have extraordinary and disturbing powers.

It starts off by establishing the uneventful normality of the village. With dawning awareness of what has happened, most people indulge in denial and eventually a degree of acceptance. The abnormal becomes normal, and things get stranger still.

The big flaw of this book is its neglect of female characters, especially given that it is the women who are violated in such a profound way. More understandable is the overprotective attitudes of some of the men, exercising "benign censorship", especially for the less educated women. That may not be acceptable now, but surely typical of the period. It also oddly omits almost all mention of older and younger siblings of the Children (the capital C is used) and barely mentions the pain of the putative fathers.

The strength of the book is the way it raises so many philosophical issues in a relatively light way and barely 200 pages: fear of tabloid exploitation; the nature of self and individuality (and how it is affected by mind control and shared consciousness); whether scientific dogma overrides religious dogma; societal and biological pressures on mothers to bond with their babies; original sin; triumph over adversity and the desire to see good in situations; whether ends justify means; what it means to be human; evolution versus creationism; the nature of evil and what can be done in the name of self-preservation; the politics of colonisation and revolution. The ultimate question is whether humanitarianism trumps biological duty and hence whether civilisation could ultimately be our downfall in a hostile environment.
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/26142-what-wood-forest-and-trees-book-would-you-like-to-read-in-december Cecily made a comment on the poll What 'wood, forest and trees' book would you like to read in December?

No offence taken, at least not by me (and I was the one who nominated the Hemingway). Anyway, we have two themes for December, so even if Hemingway wins this poll, you can always read whichever wins the Christmas theme. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77020002 to: Peace Breaks Out (Paperback) by Angela Thirkell
bookshelves: miscellaneous-fiction
Angela Thirkell wrote novels set in Anthony Trollope’s fictional Barsetshire, but set ~100 years on, i.e. in her own time, and populated with descendants of Trollope’s characters. The obvious question is “why?”.

It is set just as WW2 is about to end. After six years of war, people are anxious about the upheaval and uncertainty peace will bring, exacerbated by their awareness that social norms are already beginning to change, so that they are no longer quite confident as to how to behave or address each other – interesting concepts that are repeated, but never really explored. It may capture the period and a particular set of people very well, but it is a very tedious read.

The book (I hesitate to say “story”) revolves around 19 year old Anne Fielding, who is being introduced to society, and finds it a little confusing as to who is related to whom – as did I.

The characters are like adult versions of those in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, but without the adventure. There is some witty and even quite bitchy banter, but overall NOTHING happens, and in a dull way. It is disjointed, plodding and stilted (“quite the nicest mother one could have” – eugh). There are large chunks where people discuss, at length, who will travel in which car, what the train schedule is or exactly who will play tennis with whom. The minor aristocrats and upper middle class characters also have an odd obsession with viewing each other’s homes, especially the servants’ quarters and their private rooms.

Thirkell also follows Trollope’s annoying habit of giving peripheral characters utterly ludicrous names: e.g. Mr Manhole; Mr Cornstalk who lives in Barley Street; Lord Tadpole, and a village called Little Misfit.

There were a few good snippets buried in the tedium: “the country man’s eternal job of looking at other people working”; Miss S “refused to visit the dentist owing to some religious confusion about graven images”; someone who “takes a perverse pleasure in refusing comfort”; a conversation that was “highly profitable” because it was “was based on complete ignorance or fine crusted prejudice”; “Mrs B was more or less acquainted with everyone in a vague county way” and the importance of being an “old” family, but being in the village since Waterloo was relatively recent.

However, there are also some glaring irritations: “People weren’t usually like what you thought they were like” (commentary, not direct speech of a character); Rose saying “meagre” half a dozen times in a couple of pages, but never thereafter; some missing commas; randomly mentioning irrelevant characters just because they have a Trollopian surname, and “it’s me and George”.

I think this book will only appeal to those who can personally identify with it (my mother loves Thirkell, and I now understand why), or perhaps to historians wanting a slightly different angle on the period via a contemporary fiction.
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/26142-what-wood-forest-and-trees-book-would-you-like-to-read-in-december Cecily voted on the poll: What 'wood, forest and trees' book would you like to read in December? ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78171389 to: The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market (Perfect Paperback) by John R. Kohl
bookshelves: language
Aimed at technical authors, this is an excellent guide to writing English in a way that is easy for non-native speakers to understand and for translators to translate.

However, it also reprises many rules and guidelines of English grammar that would be useful to a wider audience.

Although much of the guidance just reinforced what I already know and do, it was good to have it crystallised, aided by lots of clear practical examples and the fact it is easy to find information.

Major themes include:
* Don't make any change that would sound unnatural to a native speaker if it’s just to follow the guidelines.
* Use correct, standard grammar and punctuation.
* Consistency is essential.
* Keep related sentence components together.
* Watch for ambiguity, especially in noun phrases.
* Use syntactic cues.
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/241624-december-book-nominations-woods-forests-and-trees Cecily made a comment in the You'll love this one...!! A book club & more group:

I'm not sure how much trees actually feature in my suggestion, but I've been meaning to read some Hemingway and this seems as good a place as any to start. Also, being a classic, it ought to be quick and easy to obtain from libraries, plus, it isn't too long, which seems to be helpful for group reads.

Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway

In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess.

A poignant, bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the worldweary beauty and majesty of Venice, Across the River and into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War.


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