Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
Archived Chit Chat & All That
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I filled it out, but what is the purpose? Is it a Goodreads Staff survey produced to discover how much users know about the Goodreads site? Many of the answers I was unsure about and others I only knew from reading the Librarian's Manual, which most people probably have not read.
Lynn wrote: "Aubrey wrote: "If any users could take a moment to fill out this 18 question survey, that’d be great. It shouldn’t take more than 5-7 minutes of your time (not April Fools related): https://forms.g..."This was a homework assignment wherein I was instructed to assess the information literacy of a group of at least 25 people using questions structured along the lines of the Association of College and Research Libraries framework for higher education and centered around a particular info literacy theme. Standard themes include academic fields of study, but Goodreads fulfils the guidelines when treated in the manner that my assessment does. I don't know what the current Librarian Manual looks like. These questions and their answers derive from my almost decade of experience on this site.
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Very interesting. Thanks for the information.
Aubrey, thanks for the intriguing survey. I must confess that there was a bit of guessing involved! But it has inspired me to look into the topics covered.
I guessed the entire survey. I wonder how people like me affect these types of surveys.
I did that Create an Ominous-Sounding Mystery Title, and got the incredibly prosaic "The Body in the Wardrobe".Too common and also too original, since everything these days needs to be based on a franchise :P .
But with a minor tweak we get "The Body Through the Wardrobe", a follow up to Narnia in which Mr. Tumnus is found murdered! Dun.. dun... DUNNNNN!
Lucy is the main suspect but a last minute twist reveals the murderer was actually (view spoiler).
There you go hollywood, i've done all the hard work, got to be worth at least a BBC mini-series ;) .
I’m not sure if this is the right place but...Today’s Deal/Freebie US Kindle Store
Ivanhoe
ASIN: B00QR7HVD4
Whispersync audio $7.49
Audible member price $2.49
Well @~%&* , my reading is ruined for a while, my stupid ereader is frozen and the reset button stopped working some time ago so the only way to fix it is to wait for the battery to die... which unfortunately has a full charge.... so about a week? I suppose i'm lucky it isn't a new battery or it would be more like three weeks.
Wreade1872 wrote: "Well @~%&* , my reading is ruined for a while, my stupid ereader is frozen and the reset button stopped working some time ago so the only way to fix it is to wait for the battery to die... which un..."The horror! I somehow have 3 Kindles, so hopefully this never happens to me.
Wreade1872 wrote: "Well @~%&* , my reading is ruined for a while, my stupid ereader is frozen and the reset button stopped working some time ago so the only way to fix it is to wait for the battery to die... which un..."I have a different problem with my Kindle reader. The button for the home screen no longer works so I can read a book but then I have to restart to get out of the book. Your problem is way more annoying. Like Milena, I have two Kindle Fires so I can still read.
Aha! i tried leaving it charging for a good long while which i was told might work but of course if it didn't then it was going to be a truly fully charged battery and would take even longer to fix. But amazingly it did work and fixed itself so reading time is here again :D .
Hi, i don't really know in which thread to ask this question, but, which of Thomas Mann's books is a good onw to start from him? I mean, i don't even know if they are classics, but i believe so. I heard
and
are nice ones to start but i wanna know what you guys think :)
Although I enjoyed it, The Magic Mountain took a long time to read. I would probably choose something shorter to start.
Soreyo wrote: "Hi, i don't really know in which thread to ask this question, but, which of Thomas Mann's books is a good onw to start from him? I mean, i don't even know if they are classics, but i believe so. I ..."Without a doubt, Buddenbrooks. I found it to be a genuinely easy read. Then work your way up to The Magic Mountain (his masterpiece). Avoid the H.T. Lowe-Porter translations. John E. Woods is the way to go.
EDIT: And yes, both are absolute classics. The Magic Mountain is one of the greatest masterpieces of 20th century modernism. However, I should probably confess my bias, because The MM is arguably my favorite novel. But it's a serious trip.
Soreyo wrote: "Hi, i don't really know in which thread to ask this question, but, which of Thomas Mann's books is a good onw to start from him? I mean, i don't even know if they are classics, but i believe so. I ..."Soreyo, I haven't read either of those, but in case you do want to start with something shorter, I absolutely fell in love with Death in Venice, only 160 pgs.
I agree that Buddenbrooks is a good novel to start with, a family saga loosely based on Mann's own background.
Soreyo wrote: "Hi, i don't really know in which thread to ask this question, but, which of Thomas Mann's books is a good onw to start from him? I mean, i don't even know if they are classics, but i believe so. I ..."I started with 'Death in Venice' and liked it well enough myself, but if you're a 'go big or go home' type when it comes to new authors, 'The Magic Mountain' is one of my absolute favorites.
Joseph and His Brothers is my absolute favourite set of novels by Mann.
Rosemarie wrote: "Joseph and His Brothers is my absolute favourite set of novels by Mann."I love it, too. From the outset it seems so intimidating, but it's actually very funny. It's Doktor Faustus that I found the most difficult.
For a long time I struggled to understand why Mann chose music, conducting as that the allegory for the catastrophe that befell Germany. Then I reread The Magic Mountain and fairly early in the novel Settembrini (my favorite) lectures Hans about the dangers of music and how its power can override reason and the intellect. Then it all started to make more sense to me.
Mann wrote the short story "Tristan" about the dangerous power of music on an individual.I studied German literature in university, which is where I discovered my now long-standing love of his work.
Very interesting comments about music. I felt that music as a subversive element also played a role in Forster’s A Room with a View.I am not well read in Thomas Mann’s work. As previously mentioned, I did very much enjoy reading The Magic Mountain, though. Death in Venice has long been on my TBR list. And I had forgot about Buddenbrook but as a result of reading these posts, It just went on the list.
Rosemarie wrote: "Mann wrote the short story "Tristan" about the dangerous power of music on an individual.I studied German literature in university, which is where I discovered my now long-standing love of his work."
I haven't read that story, but there are thematic and artistic elements of Tristan throughout The Magic Mountain. And I can sympathize. The first time I heard the Liebestod (the 1966 Bayreuth performance conducted by Böhm) was an overwhelming, quasi-religious experience.
Has anyone read The Island of the Blue Dolphins?
Melanie wrote: "Has anyone read The Island of the Blue Dolphins?"Many years ago as a teen and I remember really liking it. My son and I will be reading it soon.
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Forever ago.
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"Yes, I read it about eight years ago. The entire Seventh grade was reading it as a cross-curriculum study between Language Arts and Science classes. I like it. There is a follow-up book Zia that I would suggest reading if you like the first.
I just realized that GR revised one of my reviews. I think it was because I reviewed a short story and the collection it is from separately, and they have taken away the story as a separate book. It looks like they put the two reviews together with "Merged review" in the middle. I guess it's nice that they didn't delete the review, but it kind of didn't make any sense so I added an explanation. Would be nice if there was some notification process or something.
Just thought I'd mention it here. It feels weird that they can just revise your review and not tell you.
I didn't realize they could do that. It does seem a bit Big Brotherish and controlling. I didn't think my reviews would hold an interest to them. Thanks for the heads up, Kathleen.
Petra wrote: "I didn't realize they could do that. It does seem a bit Big Brotherish and controlling. I didn't think my reviews would hold an interest to them. Thanks for the heads up, Kathleen."
I imagine they just merged the stories and the system took care of the rest. I doubt anyone actually looked at or edited the reviews themselves.
Once the records were merged the system just did what it could to avoid losing peoples reviews.
Petra wrote: "I didn't realize they could do that. It does seem a bit Big Brotherish and controlling. I didn't think my reviews would hold an interest to them. Thanks for the heads up, Kathleen."
They did plenty of that during the (great) censorship war of 2013 in terms of deleting reviews, so it doesn't surprise me. As long as GR is owned by Amazon, there's a chance of this sort of thing occurring.
today, in two unrelated incidents:I took delivery of a vintage (1973) paperback,
and I started reading a brand-new book.
which brings me to the burning question:
Which do you prefer:
New Book Smell or
Old Book Smell
?
it's a tricky one, isn't it?
Darren wrote: "today, in two unrelated incidents:I took delivery of a vintage (1973) paperback,
and I started reading a brand-new book.
which brings me to the burning question:
Which do you prefer:
New Book S..."
New Book Smell is reassuring because acid-free = longevity, but lignin makes Old Book Smells the queen of my heart.
Smell is so powerful. Lignin breaking down is the stuff that makes paper books loveable. I still appreciate touching and flipping pages of new books, but not quite love.
I like the smell of old books and all but every once in a while I get one that gets my allergies going and have to suffer sneezing fits the whole reading.
Old book smells win for me, as long as they’re not too musty.
I can't handle the smell, I'm a touch sensitive to various smells and this is one of them, so I like old books but prefer new covers or digi.
There is a spammer posting everywhere, including on my personal book thread. This is the second group he has hit today.
having thought about my own question(!) I realise that most of the books I read are older/second-hand, so have various levels of luvverly Old-Book-Smell
but that being a miserly old skinflint, I almost never buy brand-new books - so on the odd occasion I do (or receive one as a gift) I really do LOVE New-Book-Smell! :oD
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Bob has been on the case, thanks for mentioning it Rosemarie.
Lynn wrote: "Rosemarie wrote: "There is a spammer posting everywhere, including on my personal book thread. This is the second group he has hit today."Bob has been on the case, thanks for mentioning it Rosema..."
He's also posted under different user names but always the same message. Grrrr......
I have made my trek across state and have moved into my new place. I quit my soul-sucking job so I can now be free to start reading again.I plan to try to acquire a couple of the July reads and also Midnight's Children. I also found my copy of The Prince at my parents house while looking through my old books this weekend. I will read that to catch up with the group. I started it twenty years ago but never finished it so I have another reason to finally throw it on my done pile.
Mike wrote: "I have made my trek across state and have moved into my new place. I quit my soul-sucking job so I can now be free to start reading again.I plan to try to acquire a couple of the July reads and a..."
Congratulations! "Good riddance" to an awful job, "Hello" to more reading time! Feels good! :)
Kathleen wrote: "I just realized that GR revised one of my reviews. I think it was because I reviewed a short story and the collection it is from separately, and they have taken away the story as a separate book. I..."Hi, Kathleen and dear members of the Catching up group,
I haven't been here for a while and I just read your comment.
Indeed it's weird, I didn't know GR could do this. should we check all our reviews regularly? This is unthinkable!
Mike wrote: "I quit my soul-sucking job so I can now be free to start reading again."That's exactly what I am going to do January the 1st of 2020!
Times are going to be hard, but exciting for me!
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I plan to try to acquire a couple of the July reads and a..."
Yes Mike, congratulations and good luck on your new start.
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That's exactly what I am going to do January the 1st of 2020!
Times are going to be hard, but exciting for me!"
Gabrielle good luck to you, too! I envy you both, but I have promised myself to hang in there with my job for 5 more years.
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
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Ha ha, well, I have all the answers in my head from being on this site for almost a decade. If you still want to know after two weeks (which is when the deadline for this survey assignment is), I'll answer your questions.