Aileth’s Comments (group member since Jan 03, 2014)

Aileth’s comments from the Everything Nerdy and Anything in Between group.

Meli wrote: "I love how witty the book is compared to other books, but it's not just witty, it's got that wordplay sort of humor that isn't overdone. (Wish I had the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide *_* ...I'll prob..."

Check the post about the voting. We put out suggestions for readings in there. Honestly, right now I don't know if the next one has been chosen yet. I've been out of the loop for the past month.

Don't get me started on the prose. It laughs AT you. So depressing...

It's a really good tour of the universe, one asteroid at a time.

The poll ends today, so that we can start the new month with a new book.

Laila, this is a link for an epub version:
http://www.epubbud.com/book.php?g=79G...
It has all 5 parts in it. We're only reading the first one.

If not, torrents are good, like David suggested. I got mine from there too.

So far then the options are:
Slaughterhouse Five;
Neverwhere;
The Colour of Magic;
Red Dragon;
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy;
1984.

TL, name the day the poll ends.

I FOUND THE POLL OPTION!
Just tell me which books I add to the poll and I'll make it. And the dates for the poll to take place.

Speaking of the functions, I'm still trying to learn where did the bookshelf with all the options went. It used to be visible, but now only the current reading is being shown. And I'm on a desktop computer. I'll keep looking and see if there's any voting function.

I think it's a good idea, David. The Hannibal series was suggested before but I think it hasn't been voted yet. Would you like to cast your vote for one of them for the next reading challenge and which one?

The first person to conjure up a detective story was Edgar Allan Poe in his tale The Crimes on the Rue Morgue. He only wrote 2 stories. They became so hugely popular at the time all over that others took up the premise, most notoriously Arthur Conan Doyle. He was successful because his stories were imbued with scientific breakthroughs of the time and a more ascetic prose, like a scientific work. Apparently, that appealed to the man of the time and thus Sherlock became an instant success.

Doyle did it for money but he never really cared about his detective. When Sherlock Holmes became so prominent that papers wouldn't receive his works unless it was a Holmes story, he decided he needed to end the detective's life in order to get back his own. It didn't work, as we well know; the response was a massive outcry. His own mother wrote to him to bring the detective back! So he continued writing the detective into the eager readership's hands and eventually, after 10 years, had to bring him back. I'm guessing his mother had to do with that again. He was a big family man who had the worst luck in family survival rate: he lost his wife and son, 2 nephews, 3 brothers and his mother all in a span of 5 years.

I've been reading the Sherlock Holmes stories since I was little, and some on the life of Doyle. They were serialized in The Strand, which is why most are short stories. Doyle was good at creating a scenario and solving its puzzle. Although like you, I've often wondered about his deductive abilities being more of a parlor trick. Moffat himself has said Doyle's method was to work from the ending backwards in order to create the situation that lead to that conclusion, including the deductions themselves. But it's true that he used the latest scientific knowledge of the time to make the clues.

In this time of constant improvements and massive information onslaughter we don't realise how much impact having a character who used scientific facts to solve a crime created in the society of the time. We're so used to getting at least 20 shows a week that talk science gibberish that for us is a daily routine. In Victorian time it was a huge novelty. And thus Sherlock Holmes became the legend who paved the way for us to have at least 20 crime shows a week that talk science gibberish. That's why it's so popular and so important. And it's the character that became more prominent than the author.

I'm forgetting that the first person to use fingerprints for criminology in a story was Mark Twain's story Pudd'nhead Wilson.

I thought you had already put the one that shows up next, The Colour of Magic, in the schedule.
Btw, if we read The Colour of Magic, we must read The Light Fantastic with it as they're both part of the same story.

Gypsy wrote: "On the topic of weather here, I actually believe the earth is starting it's rainforest age phase. it happens every million years or so, there's an ice age and a rainforest age. It's completely natu..."

The problem is the ozone layer. If it weren't for that disappearing, I'd say you're right. However, if this continues, it'll go straight to desert due to lack of protection.

It's how deserts are made. And yes, that is a thing that's happening. It's the change in climate shifting the ecosystem. I'm supposed to live in a template climate zone but now it's subtropical going on tropical. That means tropical is turning desert.

This is the general link I use for Gutenberg and all public libraries in the network:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
It has all public works and then some.

What are you talking about? It's summer in my side of the world and it's positively lava hot here. We're having a great draught as well, which does not bode well for the rainforest.

All this means that both sides are having extreme weather and it's not such a good thing.

If you have itunes, all the Sherlock Holmes collection is free there as well.

The works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are free to download on the web. Try The Online Book Page, it has them all available for the public. And any other page would have them in any language.

For the moment, help me get Seraphina once it's needed. I've tried but I can't get that one. In English, because it's the original language and I can read it like that.

I've added one to learn how to do it and yes, the tag is there so I can use it.

I like your idea. That's what I've been doing with series: read the first of each to see how they are and if I want to continue with them later or not.

I'll have to get Dostoyevski's book in my own language instead of in English or it'd be a double translation for me.

I like the additions! I just need to find Catch-22 and The Idiot.
Question about THHGTTG: Do all five parts enter?