General chit-chat and information (part 2)

[Gabriele]

This caught me by surprise.... On the news the other day I heard that the book that has sold the most copies of all time, after The Bible, is Bram Stoker's Dracula!

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof)]

Really??? Wow. I didn't know tha (and probably wouldn't have guessed it either). I can see how it has had (and will continue to have) appeal to so many though. I bet sales sky-rocket at this time of year.

[Gabriele]

I was trying to think what book I wouldn't have been surprised to hear was the second-best seller, but couldn't come up with anything.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

Twilight?

[DJ]

Frankenstein?

[Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.)]

Or, something equally inane like The Secret. Of course, my completely pejorative comment refers to the Twilight reference and not to Mary Shelley's brilliant Frankenstein. ;-)

[Everyman]

Gabriele wrote: "I was trying to think what book I wouldn't have been surprised to hear was the second-best seller, but couldn't come up with anything. "

I would not have been surprised if it had been Pilgrim's Progress.

[Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.)]

Everyman wrote: "Gabriele wrote: "I was trying to think what book I wouldn't have been surprised to hear was the second-best seller, but couldn't come up with anything. "

I would not have been surprised if it had..."

Well, Everyman, at least Bunyan would have had merit.

[Stephen]

Perhaps bestselling is not the same as most read. About three quarters of the books I read are borrowed from a Library. In english judging by the number of editions and how much it was passed around - I would agree that Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress would be the most read (after the Bible).

[Andrea]

I agree, Stephen. I work in a bookstore and lots of people regularly buy bestsellers who admit they haven't read anything lately. I suspect they won't buy the book they are currently buying, but I certainly am not going to say anything.

[DJ]

Christopher wrote: "Or, something equally inane like The Secret. Of course, my completely pejorative comment refers to the Twilight reference and not to Mary Shelley's brilliant Frankenstein. ;-)"

Thanks Christopher

[Paula]

FYI - I reorganized the folders just a tad. I added a new folder called "Specific Books; Non-Group Reads," as a place to discuss both Victorian and neo-Vic books that aren't part of our group reads.

I added one for FFtMC by Hardy, to be added to whenever people would like. I also opened one for OMF by Dickens, which Christopher graciously offered to lead when it is convenient for all.

Both of these threads will remain open indefinitely as these discussions are just too good to let them close!

The "General Book Discussions" folder can be used for any topic related to the books, such as the Victorian diction, Favorite phrases, etc.

[Paula]

Ugh! I'm normally so decisive in things, yet I can't make a decision today. I leave for the airport in 4.5 hours and cannot decide what books to bring!! It's only a 2-week trip, and I don't expect to have much time to read aside from the long flight, but my books act as a bit of a security blanket, especially since I'm very nervous about this trip.

I finished Drood so thankfully don't have to lug that book along. I'm planning on bringing my Kindle, but for real books, what to bring? I'll definitely bring the Pool book that I use for the Victorian Word of the Day section, and Barbara Prym's Excellent Women (thanks, Laurele!) but am at a loss as to what else is sharing my trip with me!! :(

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof)]

Give us some options and we'll help you decide, Paula! :O)

[Paula]

LesMis (also have on Kindle), Possession (altho I'm not that into it, just want to finish it), FFtMC, something fun... maybe Douglas Adams? Crime and Punishment, Edith Wharton, Anthony Trollope.... I can't decide!!

[Laurel]

Paula wrote: "Ugh! I'm normally so decisive in things, yet I can't make a decision today. I leave for the airport in 4.5 hours and cannot decide what books to bring!! It's only a 2-week trip, and I don't expect ..."

Download an audio book to your Kindle for the flight. You can fall asleep and read too.

[Paula]

I can download audio books onto my Kindle??? How do I do this magical trick?

[Ally]

Far From the Madding Crowd is a short read so you may be able gto do it in 2 weeks - and you can have fun trying to spot the underlying sexual references found by our good friend Freud! - kind of like a literary puzzle!

[Laurel]

Paula wrote: "I can download audio books onto my Kindle??? How do I do this magical trick?"

You probably won't have time to do it right now, but check out audible.com for all the books that are available. Information for Kindle downloads is here: http://www.audible.com/adbl/store/dev... . I have a Platinum subscription so I can build my library for the lowest cost. Audible's customer service is great, too. You can view my Audible library here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...

[[deleted user]]

Where are you going, Paula? :-)

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof)]

Ooh, no wonder you can't decide Paula. Crime and Punishment is a great book but it's pretty dark and you need to concentrate on the Russian names a lot so may not be a great one to dip in and out of easily. I would go with Edith Wharton (which one, by the way? I am planning one of hers int the next few weeks) or FftMC to get a head start.

[Paula]

Sligo, Ireland (for work, not vacation!) and I leave in two hours!!!

[[deleted user]]

I'd love a job that entailed travelling! If only you had a copy of Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture which is set in Sligo.

[Paula]

Oh - this is terrible :) I just bought FFtMC and The Secret Scripture for my Kindle :)

Boof - I have Age of Innocence on my Kindle but was thinking of bringing either that or Ethan Fromme in 'real' form.

Perhaps I'm overpacking? I have Excellent Women, The Warden and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency plus my Kindle :)

[Laurel]

Paula wrote: "Oh - this is terrible :) I just bought FFtMC and The Secret Scripture for my Kindle :)

Boof - I have Age of Innocence on my Kindle but was thinking of bringing either that or Ethan Fromme in 're..."

Back away from the bookcase, Paula.

[Paula]

Laurele wrote: "Back away from the bookcase, Paula...."

Yes, ma'am :)

[[deleted user]]

Oh good! I hope you enjoy The Secret Scripture.

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof)]

I've probably missed you now Paula, but The Age of Innocence is the one I was planning on reading too. I read Ethan Frome this year and it is now one of my all time favourties.

Enjoy whichever you decide on and hope you have a great time. Hope you manage to pop on and chat at some point ☺

[Paula]

I took Laurele's advice and backed away from the stacks but took AofI along via Kindle. In the car now but you can be sure I'll be here regularly; this site will be a welcome respite from the chaos of the next two weeks!

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof)]

Yay, we'll be able to compare notes pn AoI.

[Everyman]

Paula wrote: "LesMis (also have on Kindle), Possession (altho I'm not that into it, just want to finish it), FFtMC, something fun... maybe Douglas Adams? Crime and Punishment, Edith Wharton, Anthony Trollope......."

Trollope is great for airplane reading since he's totally enjoyable but doesn't require hard reading or deep thinking.

[Everyman]

Laurele wrote: "You can view my Audible library here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/171..."

You have 213 Audible books? Eagd! They must love you!

You must have some mighty comfortable earphones -- my ears get tired after just an hour or so of my cheapie phones. I think if I audio-read as much as you do I would probably spring for the Bose.

You must be developing a skill which many today have lost -- that of serious listening. Of course the ancients and even up to about 1600 had it in spades -- listening to recitations of epics, troubadours, etc. was basic entertainment. And for over a thousand years most Christians listened to hours of sermons and were expected to know the messages cold.

Back in the Quill pen age, recorders had to listen to court proceedings, Parliamentary debates, and the like and be able to write them down verbatim.

With our reliance to day on literacy, most of us (myself included) have lost the skill of prolonged listening memory.

[Everyman]

Paula wrote: "Sligo, Ireland (for work, not vacation!) and I leave in two hours!!!"

And you're still on the computer? I hope you're all packed! Have you double-checked to make sure you have your tickets and other essentials safely stowed?

[Paula]

Yes, at the terminal - love my new blackberry! Thanks for the concern, dad, (used affectionately) I have traveled a bit so am usually pretty prepared :)

[Laurel]

Everyman wrote: "Laurele wrote: "You can view my Audible library here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/171..."

You have 213 Audible books? Eagd! They must love you!

You must have some mighty comfortable ea..."

Well, they do treat me very well, and I have been taking advantage of some great sales that are for members only. For earphones, these cheapies work fine for me: http://www.amazon.com/JBuds-Hi-Fi-Noi... . Since it's just me and the cats, though, I take full advantage of Kindle's speaker, using the earphones only when I'm traveling.

[Laurel]

As for listening skills: I developed them years ago when I realized how much of my work and leisure was dependent on my eyes. I started out by learning how to listen to and love classical music and then started renting audiobook tapes and realized just how wonderful it is to have someone read books to you. It took me back to my childhood and all those wonderful hours listening to my father read us Kipling, Pooh, Untermeyer's anthology of English poems, etc. Since I have to rest a lot now, there's nothing better than lying back with a cat or two on top of me, listening to a good book.

[Grace Tjan]

Oh, I'd like to be able to listen to audiobooks! It would save me a lot of eyestrain. But I always feel sleepy or distracted after a while.

Have a good time in Sligo, Paula!

[Everyman]

Paula wrote: "Thanks for the concern, dad, (used affectionately)"

Yes, I am a dad (and granddad) who always worries when my children go off traveling. I'm the worry-wart type, but since they so far have always gotten home safely, it seems to work, so why change?

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof)]

Everyman, I think my parents can relate to the worry-wort thing. We were speaking about it only the other day and I realised that when I was travelling ('93 & '94) I didn't have email or a mobile phone so unless I called from a pay-phone or wrote a letter they had no way of keeping in touch with me. I am only just starting to appreciate just how frightened they must have been. Once I rang them from Cyprus after I had been there a week and they thought I was still in Egypt! I thought I was bullet-proof in those days though.

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof)]

Laurele wrote: "there's nothing better than lying back with a cat or two on top of me, listening to a good book."

Laurele, you have just described my heaven!

[Andrea]

I was in Kenya with my husband and kids in 1998, when the U.S. embassy in Nairobi was bombed and we were bumped off our flight back to U.S. The village we were staying in (we got out of Nairobi mighty fast) didn't have any working phones and no email in those days. I ended up finding a business card of an acquaintance in my wallet that included his fax number. Somebody knew of a Swedish aid agency that had a fax machine and I sent this guy a fax asking him to call my parents and tell them I was okay. It was one of the big adventures of my life, frankly, but I think my parents could have done with a little less excitement.

[Everyman]

Boof wrote: "Everyman, I think my parents can relate to the worry-wort thing. We were speaking about it only the other day and I realised that when I was travelling ('93 & '94) I didn't have email or a mobile p..."

I can relate, definitely. For the summer between my junior and senior years in high school I took the Queen Mary and my bicycle over to England (from the US) and spent the summer cycling all over England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Only communication was by airmail letters -- international phone calling was expensive back then, and we only did that in true emergencies, which fortunately I didn't have any of. I was carefree and knew I was okay (well, mostly -- there was that day when I was cycling up from Belfast to near Ballycastle across the loneliest moors outside of Dartmoor against a ferocious head wind with heavy rain -- at times I had to walk my bicycle even on the flats because the wind was so strong. But I made it, and wound up in the tiny hut of friends of some distant family members who welcomed the stranger in true Irish hospitality into a minuscule living room with a real peat fire.

[Paula]

Everyman wrote: "Yes, I am a dad (and granddad) who always worries when my children go off traveling. I'm the worry-wart type, but since they so far have always gotten home safely, it seems to work, so why change?..."

I hope you don't change! I was tickled that someone was concerned enough to point out the tips :)

[Gerald]

Everyman wrote: "Paula wrote: "LesMis (also have on Kindle), Possession (altho I'm not that into it, just want to finish it), FFtMC, something fun... maybe Douglas Adams? Crime and Punishment, Edith Wharton, Anthon..."
Hey Everyman. Just joined this group. I am ashamed to admit that in 50 plus years of reading classics, I've never read Trollope. Would you have a suggestion for where to start?
Gerry

[[deleted user]]

Hi:) Windfall here, new to the group, have to explore the concept of 'Darwinism' in the Victorian novel for an essay, any opinions most welcome! Good to be here!

[Everyman]

Gerald wrote: "Hey Everyman. Just joined this group. I am ashamed to admit that in 50 plus years of reading classics, I've never read Trollope. Would you have a suggestion for where to start?
Gerry"

Boy, are you in for a treat! Or, I should say a series of treats.

Partly depends on your interests. Trollope is a wind-ranging author, and his books can be quite different.

My favorites of all time are the Barsetshire series, which should be read in order: The Warden, Barchester Towers, Dr. Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington, and The Last Chronicle of Barset. No need to read them all at once; read the Warden (it's short and sort of introductory) and Barchester Towers, and then read the other ones over the next few years as your interest dictates. The books are mostly standalones, not real sequels, because each one deals with a quite different situation, but they do have some sustaining characters and do sometimes refer to earlier events, so it's really best, the first time, to read them in order. But if you're not really into one, it's also fine to drop it and go on to the next one; you won't miss all that much.

Of his stand-alone books, one of his very best is The Way We Live Now, which could have been written this year, the issues are so relevant! Orley Farm and He Knew He was Right are also excellent.

All of those, except The Warden, are among his longer books. He also has quite a few little gems which are much quicker reads if you want just to sample his writing without getting too committed to a longer book, though I will say he reads quickly. These shorter books aren't as "serious" as his longer works, but they're enjoyable nonetheless in their own right. For some of the shorter books, you could try Rachel Ray, The Bertrams, Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, or even Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, which is hardly more than a long short story (my edition is 125 pages).

His Palliser series, centered around politics and Parliamentary people and events, are favorites of many Trollope lovers. They're not so much favorites of mine, but don't let that turn you off of trying them. Again, should be read in order; the first book in the series is Can You Forgive Her?

Laurel is also a Trollope enthusiast, and can add her own thoughts here, which are probably somewhat different from mine. But overall, as I said, his books are often quite different from each other, much more so than with other authors, so if you don't like one, just try another.

[Everyman]

Windfall Apple wrote: "
Hi:) Windfall here, new to the group, have to explore the concept of 'Darwinism' in the Victorian novel for an essay,...!"

That's much more than an essay topic; it's a full length dissertation topic at the very least.

[SarahC]

Laurele wrote: "Paula wrote: "Oh - this is terrible :) I just bought FFtMC and The Secret Scripture for my Kindle :)

Boof - I have Age of Innocence on my Kindle but was thinking of bringing either that or Ethan F..."

You guys are hilarious! But, don't we all understand!

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

Everyman wrote: "Windfall Apple wrote: "
Hi:) Windfall here, new to the group, have to explore the concept of 'Darwinism' in the Victorian novel for an essay,...!"

That's much more than an essay topic; it's a full..."

That topic's going to need narrowing.

[Andrea]

Welcome to Gerald and Windfall Apple!
Windfall, I love your name, although I'm not sure how to apply it to a person. Are you going to focus on a specific writer or maybe one or two novels?

Gerald, I haven't read a lot of Trollope either, but would like to read more. I liked The Warden and Barchester Towers. I currently have The Eustace Diamonds in my sites, partly because I like the title, sounds like a mystery.