Laurel’s Comments (group member since Aug 06, 2013)

Laurel’s comments from the I Read Therefore I Am group.

The only bit of Virgil we did was the funeral games for Aeneas mother in law I think it was??? Can't remember now, we were translating it for GCSE Latin. Might have to actually read the rest of it one day.

My translations version of the entrance to hell: (view spoiler)[
I am the way into the doleful city,
I am the way into eternal grief,
I am the way to a forsaken race.

Justice it was that moved my great creator;
Divine omnipotence created me,
And highest wisdom joined with primal love.

Before me nothing but eternal things
were made, and I shall last eternally.
Abandon every hope, all you who enter (hide spoiler)]

I've read the first couple of chapters of this and am finding the writing beautiful.

Now am reading Paper Houses: A Memoir Of The 70s And Beyond which is interesting and Roberts writing is just as good in memoir form as it is in novel form.

I've got the Dumas Club to read as well - looking forward to starting it.

Thanks guys, I enjoyed my weekend, went to Bishop Auckland food festival on Saturday to try loads of freebies and get ideas ;)

Lee - I've never heard of Vietnamese Coffee - sounds nice though. Ours is more Italian style (or trying to be).

Hilary - glad you enjoyed the birthday party, not sure I would want to eat a 1Direction cake though!

Ellie - at least it as nice when you were away. Did you have fun in Norfolk?

Hi Jen, welcome to the group! Hope you enjoy it here and looking forward to chatting with you :)

Yes, I have read them both. Perdido Street Station was my favourite but the other two are also definitely worth a read if you enjoyed that one ;) Also his The City and the City is brilliant too - like noir with shades of Orwell and Kafka, loved it.

Well that's me off for the next two days (it's a lopsided weekend), I hope the sun gets out, it was so lovely last weekend when I was stuck at work and now it's forecast for rain :( Oh well, the rain can't get me in the pub!

Like it though.

So yeah, I got as far as Canto 2 and then stopped. Oh dear. It's not Dante's fault, I just haven't had a chance lately (blame the Easter hols) and I wanted to read it properly and take the time to understand rather than just skim through. So now it's nice and quiet again and all the kids have gotten the hell out of my coffee shop and gone back to school where they belong... I will get back to Inferno ;)

How is everyone else getting along?

I enjoyed Daughters of the House as well, although I liked Ignorance better. Both had endings that didn't really resolve anything - there was an element of uncertainty in both as to what would happen to the characters after the end. I didn't really mind this but I can see how it would be really annoying! Really well-written books though.

I've also got The Goldfinch sitting on the kindle - the size keeps putting me off but have heard good things.... maybe when I finish up with Dante and The Man Without qualities both of which I have totally neglected!

At the moment I'm reading Gods Without Men which is intriguing - it jumps around in time and between lots of characters quite a bit which was hard at first but now I'm past the halfway point I am not wanting to put it down. Am also reading (on my kindle during my lunch breaks) Quiet Houses which is a collection of linked ghost stories.

Yay!!! Glad you liked it Hilary! I thought it was amazing and his imagination is unbelievable. I'm all happy inside that you liked something I recommended :)

Right well.... I finished it last night. Liked it a lot, although I spent most of the book going...'what?!?' they were all so highly strung! And generally mental. Ha ha I laughed at the bit at the beginning of book 3 when he says about the Epanchin girls realising their family was a bit madder than other people lol!

Antipodes wrote: "@Angela - according to Wiki, " Tolkien describes Galadriel as "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth" (after the death of Gil-galad)[1] and the "greatest of elven women".[2]"
@Laurel - OK. Y'all get together someplace and I'll be over this Friday evening. We'll go to Dubai for cocktails. Now, let me see... keys, keys.... I know I left the keys around here somewhere's...
Actually, you know John Travolta owns his own, an older model, and is quite an accomplished pilot - I heard him on a talk show once describe an emergency landing he had to make after a total electrical failure - for you Vinny Barbarino fans in the crowd. "


Sounds like a plan! ;)

Antipodes - that plane looks amazing! If it's set a new speed record then you'll have plenty of time to come and pick us all up and take us for a spin ;)

And apparently I'm Hermione from Harry Potter...

Hope everyone's had a nice bank holiday/easter weekend! I've been stuck in my little coffee shop most of the time so although we have had sunshine - I haven't seen much of it :( Oh well, I will just have to have another crème egg to console myself lol!

Hope you enjoyed the aviation museum Ellie - it sounds great - we always used to get excited for watching the Red Arrows at the Sunderland airshow when I was little - those guys are sooooo cool!

I didn't get to this one either but will do once I can actually get my hands on a copy as it does sound really good. Hope you enjoy your other India books Anns - I really liked Midnight's Children and The God of Small Things - let us know what you think of Q&A cos the film was great!

I really liked this, it was really sweet - read it last year so haven't re-read it but remember liking seeing the island from Sophia's point of view - it's such a tiny place but it seems bigger to her. And the Grandma is pretty cool!