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Just finished Reading (2015)
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Jason
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May 14, 2015 05:11AM
I been reading game of thrones first book for about 4 years on and off. On page 198.
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I've been reading Les Mis for the past two and a half years, I'm half way. Jason, I'm yet to start GOT...I'm always delaying until next month. Haven't even watched the new series.
Jason wrote: "I been reading game of thrones first book for about 4 years on and off. On page 198."You're not selling it to me. ;)
Jason wrote: "I been reading game of thrones first book for about 4 years on and off. On page 198."How can you even remember it after that much time?:/
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Jason, I'm yet to start GOT...I'm always delaying until next month. Haven't even watched the new series."
Pink and Jason - I feel that I ought to have a go with GOT, but am just daunted at the size of it, and the brain strain of remembering all the ins and outs of the characters.... but everyone (other than Jason!) who does read it says it is utterly brilliant. So perhaps we are missing something....
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I think having watched Game of Thrones (apart from this new series) has made me reluctant to actually read it, as I already know what happens. I love the series, but it does drag on at times, hence the reluctance to watch the new episodes.
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and The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs, a useful guide to discovering much more than the views when walking outside. Review
here
And my book of the week, A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction. A collection of Pratchett's articles of all manner of subjects. Superb book, and made me sad to think that he has gone now. Review here
Paul wrote: "Managed to finish three books this week, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections, another good solid book in the Sandman series. Review here and [book:The Walker's Guide to O..."
I'm putting that last one on my list for sure.
Boy, you guys, I though I was the slowest reader on the planet.
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Just finished A Colder War which I found very gripping, though I did wish I'd read the earlier one featuring Thomas Kell first as his previous history is referred to in this book.
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I've just read Trains and Lovers by Alexander McCall Smith, which is a short stand-alone novel, not part of any of his series. The best word to describe it is 'charming' I think - the life stories of a set of four characters on a train, not especially dramatic but told with a simple and engaging style.
Just finished Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami, a collection of 24 short stories. Not my favorite by him by far, mainly because here we see the ideas for some of his novels, and having read many of his works, I felt it to be redundant. Now if you haven't read Murakami, this is a good place to start to get a feel for his tone.
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Just finished Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Here's my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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I finally finished The Lover by Duras. It's a short book but very intense, I find. The top shelf is "erotica"... yeah right. There might have been a couple of slightly erotic scenes but not worth reading the whole book just because of them.
Finished Candlemoth by R.J. Ellory. Was totally absorbed by it - Gave it 5 stars.
Finished The Orchard Keeper. Anyone else read it? It's my second time, because the first time I had a bit of trouble following the story line. I think it's an early work by McCarthy; the imagery is so dense you (or I, at least) tended to get lost in it. But, my God, can that guy turn a phrase!
Just finished The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan. 4 stars. My review is here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I finished Parade by Shūichi Yoshida. A lot like Murakami but the characters were very ordinary. A story about what we hide from others and what we allow/accept from those close to us.
Just finished a delightful and insightful read Letter to My Daughter Whole-heartedly recommend. My review is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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Finished THe Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek and down the home stretch on Madhouse Fog. The first is a must-read if you care anything about economics and the cost of liberty. The second is a pretty good story about a grant writer for an asylum who finds a way into "Mindland". Sort of quasi magical realism.
Jan wrote: "Finished THe Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek --- The first is a must-read if you care anything about economics and the cost of liberty."Funny, I can imagine most Finns' response if that book had been published here in 1944. "Well duh!" (At least when it comes to central planning.)
I finished The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery today. It came out in April and this is the first time it is being translated into German. I was super excited for it. It was kitschy, but in an adorable way. I love Montgomery's protagonists and her stories always leave me in a happy mood.
Sam wrote: "I finished The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery today. It came out in April and this is the first time it is being translated into German. I was super excited for it. It wa..."How interesting- I didn't know she'd written anything except the Anne of Green Gables series. I think I'll see if I can get it at the library.
Edited to say ive just bought it for kindle, only 99p!
Just read The Dispossessed which i think is the first book I've read by Ursula Le Guin. Its a story of twin planets, one a capitalist regime and the other a communist / socialist society, inhabited by rebels from the other planet. I found it very convincing until the end, when everything was resolved too quickly and easily (and by an outside agency).
Tytti wrote: "Jan wrote: "Finished THe Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek --- The first is a must-read if you care anything about economics and the cost of liberty."Funny, I can imagine most Finns' response if that..."
Good point.
Jan wrote: "Good point."I just know what my grandfather had apparently said (when he debated with the local Communists), that he had seen enough Russian shoes to know how poorly they live. (He was a shoemaker.) Others might have met Ingrians who had escaped the famine or maybe Estonians, both of whom often knew what collectivisation felt like. And of course a lot of men had seen the standard of living in the Soviet Karelia. So even though many of them were relatively uneducated and wouldn't have cared about any theories, they could still see that it didn't work, and the farmers among them wouldn't have wanted to give up their farms, either.
It worked the other way around, too. The Soviet soldiers had reportedly wondered why they were liberating Finns when they were clearly enjoying a better life than they themselves had ever had. And also when the Finnish TV started showing in the Soviet Estonia in the 1970's. Even the children were watching political debates then and of course wondering who shot J.R.. There's actually a humoristic documentary about those times.
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Tytti wrote: "Jan wrote: "Good point."I just know what my grandfather had apparently said (when he debated with the local Communists), that he had seen enough Russian shoes to know how poorly they live. (He wa..."
Tytti: Thank you very much for the history/sociology lesson. I've read some about WWI, its causes and aftermath, about Nazi Germany and WWII, but not much beyond that. You've got me interested in the Russian Revolution, Whites vs. Bolsheviks and its absorbtion of Eastern Europe. Any suggestions?
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Jan wrote: "Any suggestions?"Well, you mentioned quite a lot of subjects there. I can't really think of any books about that era in English, most of the books I know are about specific topics that have been written in Finnish or translated from languages other than English, in fact I just added two new biographies but they are about Finns, and last year I read about this guy. Maybe The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine by Conquest? And of course there is Ten Days that Shook the World. The movie Reds, btw, was filmed partly in Finland, Helsinki played the role of Petrograd, some outdoor scenes shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c13q2.... The statue in the middle of the square is Tsar Alexander II and it's still there. For Finns he was "the good Tsar" but the Poles hated and murdered him... And frankly the Russian revolutions and the Civil War are such complicated topics that I know only the basics of them, mainly from school.
For example I know that the British organised the "Murmansk Legion" that was composed of Finnish Red Guards, and they fought together against the White Finns in White Karelia in 1918. I suppose they had a reason for it because they were at war against Germany, but then again, the closest German was probably hundreds of kilometres away and... It makes my head hurt to try to figure that one out, as I'm not quite sure on whose side they were because I guess elsewhere they were supporting the Whites.
But those books... If you can find something about Mannerheim, as he was the only general who served in both world wars and who was (IIRC) also the only one to be decorated by both sides in both wars (or all sides, there were some neutral countries, too). The most recent biography is probably Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy. As a former tsarist general he (with White Finns) probably could have taken Petrograd for the White forces in 1918-19 but didn't try it because the White Russia and the Western Powers wouldn't recognise the Finnish independence, which Lenin had already granted (though probably hoping for a Bolshevik revolution and voluntary joining back to the USSR). According to Lenin that would have changed the fate of the revolution. He had spent some time in Warsaw, as well, and knew a lot of White Russians and corresbonded with them but I don't know how much of that is in the book. He was also probably the only person that both Hitler and Stalin respected, the one man neither could walk over. Of course he despised them both. The Finnish Communists were quite surprised when after WWII Stalin praised him in Kreml and Hitler made his only foreign trip to meet him on his birthday. It wasn't a pleasant surprise for Mannerheim, as you can see from his expressions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw9wK....
There is also a fictional novel called Under the North Star trilogy, it's historically accurate but set in Finland. But the second volume is about the Finnish civil war, mainly from the Red side, so it might explain some things. Other border countries have probably their own stories from those years, as well, I mainly know Estonia's. There is a documentary by an Estonian writer Imbi Paju here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP9p9... about the women and girls in the women's voluntary auxiliary paramilitary organisations in Estonia and Finland and what happened to them during the war.
Actually in a way it's funny to think that almost at the same time during the 1950's when a small and poor country of 4 million next to the USSR started to breathe a bit easier after fighting against Communism in one way or another (including several "hot" wars) for over 35 years since 1918 (and against Russification for almost 20 years before that), the rich superpower on the other side of the ocean(s) started worrying about it. Yeah I know it's not that simple but still, it was Khrushchev, not Stalin, in power. And again I wrote an essay, sigh... Sorry all...
Please don't apologize on my account. This is all very fascinating to me. Is Estonia the Baltic state whose language is similar to Finnish? I've been told one is.
Just finished How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran and Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. Moran's book, while funny at times, was just too rant filled for me. Kurkov's book though, oh how it made me want a penguin for a pet! It's cute but still serious. I'm reading the sequel now.
Jan wrote: "Is Estonia the Baltic state whose language is similar to Finnish?"Yes, that's why it feels closest for us, we even have the same national anthem (almost?). They are not us close as Swedish and Norwegian are to each other but one can understand something in the other language.
Finished This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash. Didn't think it as good as his other book but I still enjoyed it. Gave it 3.5 stars.
Tytti wrote: "Jan wrote: "Is Estonia the Baltic state whose language is similar to Finnish?"Yes, that's why it feels closest for us, we even have the same national anthem (almost?). They are not us close as Sw..."
Is that "Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius? I truly love that piece.
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