So, What's On the Bedside Table these Days? -- Part 1

[Everyman]

Christopher wrote: "I am reading the following--

"The King Must Die" Mary Renault (I last read this when I was a boy)
"The Iliad" Homer (Richmond Lattimore translation)
"The Woodlanders" Thos. Hardy (re-read)
"The Br..."

Don't forget to move Huckleberry Finn to your current reading pile!

[[deleted user]]

Everyman wrote: "Don't forget to move Huckleberry Finn to your current reading pile!"

Shameless plug! :)

[Linda2]

Kate wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Don't forget to move Huckleberry Finn to your current reading pile!"

Shameless plug! :)"

You should charge him for the free publicity, Chris.

[Linda2]

A Distant Mirror

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56...

Can read only a chapter at a time because it's so meaty. The person who consumed huge history books in college is gone. :D

[[deleted user]]

Rochelle wrote: "A Distant Mirror

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56...

Can read only a chapter at a time because it's so meaty. The person who consumed huge history books in college is gone. :D"

I abandonned that one part way through quite a while ago. Thanks for the reminder. I may give it another shot.

[Linda2]

I've had it on my list for years, but I always thought it was more readable, since it had actually been a best seller, rare for a straight history book. I think it's rather dry. If you want some excitement, read the chapter on the Black Death.

[[deleted user]]

Rochelle wrote: "I've had it on my list for years, but I always thought it was more readable, since it had actually been a best seller, rare for a straight history book. I think it's rather dry. If you want some e..."

I've found some of her other books very readable, i.e Guns of August and March of Folly. But this one just ground me down into fine powder. Maybe I'll do better knowing that I'm going to have to wrestle my way through it. I expected it to be a lot easier, too. :)

[Linda2]

You don't HAVE TO GRIND THROUGH any book. Life is too short.

Which one won her the Pulitzer Prize?

[Linda2]

Luckily, I didn't pay a lot for it. I have 10 paperbacks on paperbackbookswap.com. I sent one out for $2.40 postage, and got this in return. It's similar to the Swap here, but the postage is a bit less. GR adds a fee onto the postage to pay costs.

I think you're a more patient person than me. You're reading Brothers K, aren't you?

[[deleted user]]

Rochelle wrote: "You don't HAVE TO GRIND THROUGH any book. Life is too short.

Which one won her the Pulitzer Prize?"

She won it twice. Guns of August and Stillwell.

I've read a lot more Medieval history since I tried A Distant Mirror. I'm hoping to find it easier going this time. If it gets deadly I have no problems quitting. You're absolutely correct. Life is too short.

[Linda2]

Guns of August sounds interesting. WWI is just magnificent in its stupidity, meaninglessness, wholesale waste of human life and incompetence.

[[deleted user]]

Rochelle wrote: "Guns of August sounds interesting. WWI is just magnificent in its stupidity, meaninglessness, wholesale waste of human life and incompetence."

Perfect statement!

[Linda2]

Which I guess has a macabre fascination for me bec WWII was so necessary and righteous. You can sit in your living room in a country that's been attacked only once since 1812, and think "Omigoddess, that was so stupid!!!"

[Everyman]

Just started Jude the Obscure as my bedside book after finishing a Trollope. Reacquainting myself with Jude Fawley after way too many years away from him. But Trollope makes better bedside reading than Hardy, because he's enjoyable but not so difficult to put down.

[Linda2]

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28...

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

Rochelle wrote: "http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28..."

What a gorgeous novel, and the movie adaptation was sublime too. I hope you enjoy it, Rochelle!

[[deleted user]]

Rochelle wrote: "http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28..."

I loved the movie, don't have any idea why I didn't read the book, and just added it to the tottering TBR edifice. Thanks Rochelle!

[toria (vikz writes)]

Three books live on my bedside table. They never move. They are so precious that I always want them within reach. They are

Leaves of Grass
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
The Brontes: Selected Poems

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

Vikz wrote: "Three books live on my bedside table. They never move. They are so precious that I always want them within reach. They are

Leaves of Grass
[book:The Complete Poems of Emily Dicki..."

Three absolutely superb volumes of poetry! Some of the very best ever! Welcome to the group too, Vikz!

[Historybuff93]

Have added some more books to the pile: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Marquez; The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky; The Three Theben Plays, Sophocles; Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger; and Walden, by Thoreau.

[Linda2]

Your night table must be groaning.

[Everyman]

Historybuff93 wrote: "Have added some more books to the pile: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Marquez; The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky; The Three Theben Plays, Sophocles; Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger; and Walden, ..."

Those should take care of the rest of this week.

[Linda2]

Christopher wrote: "Rochelle wrote: "http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28..."

What a gorgeous novel, and the movie adaptation was sublime too. I hope you enjoy it, Rochelle!"

Thanks. Loved the film in 1993, and I remember it so vividly. I've sort of given up on a A Distant Mirror. Too many dates, places, names, just a blur.

[Linda2]

Kazuo Ishiguro has lived in England since he was 5, so he's not mostly Japanese culturally. He's as British as my mother was American when she immigrated at age 7. I don't get the impression he's an outsider looking in, but someone who can really clothe himself in the skin of a Brit.

http://xrl.in/6ndl

[Historybuff93]

Rochelle wrote: "Your night table must be groaning."

I think it is!:)

[Linda2]

Historybuff93 wrote: "Rochelle wrote: "Your night table must be groaning."

I think it is!:)"

If it goes, we'll start a fund to buy you a new night table.

[Linda2]

Yes, but in that book his voice is 100% British butler. He gets the culture and class system down perfectly.

What's a "pov"? A typo?

[[deleted user]]

Rochelle wrote: "Yes, but in that book his voice is 100% British butler. He gets the culture and class system down perfectly.

What's a "pov"? A typo?"

Point of view

[Linda2]

P.O.V.
:D

[Linda2]

Kate wrote: "[Re: A Distant Mirror]...I abandonned that one part way through quite a while ago. Thanks for the reminder. I may give it another shot. "

Here's a little addendum to the Black Death that I came upon serendipitously tonight:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/vid...

[Gail]

Whoa, what an amazing little bit of information! Thank you for linking it.

I too got overwhelmed eventually by "A Distant Mirror"; odd, because I know a good bit about the Middle Ages and have successfully read all of her other work, most volumes at least twice. I was about three quarters through when I just couldn't absorb any more information. I admire those with the grit to see it all the way to the end. (edit spelling)

[Linda2]

Brings 2 of your interests together. I didn't know we had been blamed for the Black Death too. :D

[Gail]

People's ignorance continues to be astounding, even with "modern scientific advances", doesn't it? I had some glimmering of this before seeing the clip, but not much.

[Linda2]

Their ignorance just moves one one field to another. Yesterday it was Jews; today it's Muslims.

I put A Distant Mirror back on the shelf after a week or so. Someday, when it's snowing and I'm stuck in the house, and the TBR shelf is empty...

The group in which I was going to discuss The Remains of the Day has died, or rather it was already dead.

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1...

[Linda2]

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and still When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote.

[John]

"Swapping" was mentioned earlier in the post. Perhaps it's not too off-topic, but I'm wondering if anyone would like to look through my list and see if they'd like to trade anything.

[John]

Oh, and in the spirit of answering the question, here are the ones on the nightstand at the moment:


Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel

Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, Reinhart Koselleck

Nothing to be Frightened of, Julian Barnes

Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England, Christopher Given-Wilson

Thucydides, Perez Zagorin

Lectures on Shakespeare, W. H. Auden

Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, Emmanuel Levinas

At Home With the Marquis de Sade: A Life, Francis de Plessix Gray

Three volumes of plays by Euripides

A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment, Philipp Blom

The Professor of Secrets: Mystery, Medicine, and Alchemy In Renaissance Italy, William Eamon

Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs

[Everyman]

John wrote: "Oh, and in the spirit of answering the question, here are the ones on the nightstand at the moment:"

And next week, when you've finished those, what's up next? [g]

[[deleted user]]

John wrote: "Oh, and in the spirit of answering the question, here are the ones on the nightstand at the moment:


Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel

Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Tim..."

Have not read it, but I saw a review a couple months back for Wicked Company and tried to take my face to face book group into reading it. But alas, we're going to read one more WWI book...as yet undetermined.

Do post after you've read it.

[John]

Everyman wrote: "John wrote: "Oh, and in the spirit of answering the question, here are the ones on the nightstand at the moment:"

And next week, when you've finished those, what's up next? [g]"

Don't tempt me, Everyman! I'm just crazy enough to to list the next dozen or so for you if you're interested.

[John]

Adelle wrote: "John wrote: "Oh, and in the spirit of answering the question, here are the ones on the nightstand at the moment:


Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel

Futures Past: On the Semantics..."

Adelle, how interesting - I have a two-person little book group with someone else I correspond with on Goodreads, and she expressed an interest in wanting to read it too. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Ivan]

I'm deep into H. G. Wells territory. I'd never read him and suddenly felt the urge. I just read The Time Machine and The Invisible Man and am well into The Island of Dr. Moreau. I've also just recntly reading Sherlock Holmes for the first time.

[Everyman]

Taking Death in Venice upstairs tonight. Have never read it, though I've read other Mann.

[Linda2]

John and HB have huge, oversized night tables.

That reminds me, we really should include the Holmes books in our Victorians group.

Eva Luna, by Isabel Allende. Allende's among my favorite writers.

[Linda2]

Eman, how did this get past the censors in 1912? Was the book ever banned?

[Everyman]

Rochelle wrote: "Eman, how did this get past the censors in 1912? Was the book ever banned?"

I have no idea. Actually, I put Death in Venice aside because I'd forgotten that I had already taken the Canterbury Tales up, so started dipping into that last night.

[John]

Rochelle, the cultural ethos of Weimar Germany was much more than liberal than other places in Europe during the same time, which is why art, literature, and music flourished there greatly before the rise of Hitler.

And before anyone points it out, yes, I realize that "Death in Venice" was published in 1911, before the technical beginning of the Weimar period. But I'd imagine that the liberal cultural atmosphere existed beforehand.

[Loretta]

I know I'm responding to something from a while back, but just wanted to mention that I read my first Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, a couple months back, and LOVED it. I've been looking forward to reading The Remains of the Day ever since.

[Linda2]

I've just read Remains of the Day.

[John]

The worst thing Anthony Hopkins ever did.