Book Nerd Book Nerd’s Comments (group member since Dec 20, 2018)



Showing 141-160 of 1,086

Mar 11, 2025 07:55AM

153021 The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
138 pages

Group Total: 92,882
153021 Okay, sounds like there's some other stuff for me to read.

Jen wrote: "Ali Smith is an author I've been wanting to read. Did you like the intro? Any worthwhile thoughts from it?"
I usually just kind of gloss over the intro. I'll take a better look at it.
Mar 10, 2025 04:01AM

153021 Welcome Silvia.
153021 Jen wrote: "Also, I'd been wondering where it takes place and now I saw a book description that says it's in Mexico, so I guess when Carrington uses the term Indian, she means the indigenous
people of that region and not something/someone of India?"

At first I thought europe somewhere but yeah, I'm pretty sure it takes place in Mexico. And I'd assume the "indian" was from Mexico

Jen wrote: "I'm also looking forward to Olga Tokarczuk's thoughts in the afterword. I personally loved her Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, though GR reviews indicate it's polarizing."
I've heard that's a good book. I'd like to read it sometime soon.
My copy only has an introduction by an Ali Smith.
153021 Well I enjoyed that. Now I wish I could read more of Leonora Carrington but a lot of her books seem difficult to get. So I've been looking at her art.
This is the second book in a row I've read with some really sketchy nuns lol.

There were a lot of great lines. I only underlined a few.

I am never lonely, Galahad. Or rather I never suffer from loneliness. I suffer much from the idea that my loneliness might be taken away from me by a lot of mercilessly well meaning people.

I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever.

Afterall no human beings are ever as nice as animals. For real understanding one can only depend on dogs.
Mar 07, 2025 07:48PM

153021 The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis
The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis
367 pages

Group total: 88,923
Mar 07, 2025 02:31AM

153021 I enjoyed this. It reminded me a lot of Faust(part one), which I see was published twelve years later.

(view spoiler)
Mar 05, 2025 07:00PM

153021 Welcome Milja and Ben.
Mar 04, 2025 09:45PM

153021 I finished the story of the bloody nun. That was a long diversion but a pretty good story on it's own.
Mar 04, 2025 09:43PM

153021 Glad you liked it.

If anybody wants to really get into King, Father Callahan shows up again in the fifth Dark Tower book Wolves of the Calla.
153021 I thought it had a great female character.(view spoiler)

Yeah, there were always stereotypes and like I said this is an old series for boys.
But I thought there were some good female characters in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, and even The Puppet Masters.
Mar 03, 2025 05:45AM

153021 I finished Volume 1.
(view spoiler)
Mar 01, 2025 11:37PM

153021 Rosemarie wrote: "The author was only nineteen years old when he wrote this. It's a really good gothic novel and reads quickly, even though it's long."
Yeah, that's impressive.

Jen wrote: "This one is appealing but I won't have time to add it in this month. Glad to have learned of it though"
There are always too many books. Hopefully you can get to it later.
Feb 28, 2025 11:27PM

153021 The story revolves around a devoted monk, Ambrosio, who is tempted to break his sacred vows when a young man, Rosario, reveals that he is a woman, also known as "Matilda," and comes to the monastery and disguises himself as a nun to become closer to him. Caught between two strong plotlines—one being a struggle between sexual desire and religious integrity—Ambrosio soon succumbs to the temptations he has sought his entire life to shun. It is one of the most important Gothic novels of its time, often imitated and adapted for stage and the screen.
153021 Leonora Carrington (1917–2011), the distinguished British-born Surrealist painter who made her home in Mexico City, was also a writer of extraordinary imagination and charm, and The Hearing Trumpet is perhaps her best loved book. It tells the story of 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, who is given the gift of a hearing trumpet only to discover that her family has been plotting to have her committed to an institution. But this is an institution where the buildings are shaped like birthday cakes and igloos, where the Winking Abbess and the Queen Bee reign, and where the gateway to the underworld is wide open. It is also the scene of a mysterious murder. Occult twin to Alice in Wonderland,
Feb 27, 2025 12:29AM

153021 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

935 pages

Group Total: 76,270
153021 There are thirteen of them so I put one up every four week. I'm weird.
153021 Hope you like it. These juveniles keep getting better.
Feb 22, 2025 04:03AM

153021 Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein
Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein

196 pages

Group Total: 72,836
153021 I'm really enjoying this. I actually read it as a kid so some things are familiar. I'm pretty sure these are the same Martians from Stranger in a Strange Land.

I love the line "Every law that was ever written opens up a new way to graft." lol.
Heinlein was really antiauthority. The more I think about it the more I think Starship Troopers was satire.