Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I borrowed it from the library. I started reading, then skimming, then flipping through it just to be done. Like anything by Stephen King, Henscher could have accomplished his purpose & wrapped it up in half the space he did.Originally Posted by GING GING
It was a decent enough read but it wasn't worth the ten dollars I paid for it on the App Store.
Online arguments are a lot like the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
As soon as the audience begins to participate, any actual content is lost in the resulting chaos and cacophony.
At that point, all you can do is laugh and enjoy the descent into debasement.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I just finished "Peony" by Pearl Buck. Not my usual fare, but I loved it. So lusciously written, everything about it was breathtakingly beautiful, even the hard stuff. I'll be reading more Buck.
---
Current pen rotation: way too many!
LagNut (August 8th, 2014), tiffanyhenschel (August 5th, 2014)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Just finished The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh. It's a Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane pastiche. I liked it.
Lady Onogaro
"Be yourself--everybody else is already taken." --Oscar Wilde
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
Writer seeks to write about one of the men who designed the bomb.
Man finds tale of flawed human beings, strange religion, and discovers an impossible thing.
Reality unravels, and re-ravels itself.
Brilliant.
LagNut (August 8th, 2014)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Just finished "The Monuments Men". Now waiting for the DVD to make it through the library queue.
In the middle of " Sacre Bleu" by Christopher Moore. Enjoying that a lot. Will be picking up more Moore.
Clearly they had a higher and more comprehensive conception of the duties of society toward it's members than had the lawgivers of Europe of the time, and they imposed obligations upon it that were shirked elsewhere... But it is the provisions for public education which, from the very first, throw into the clearest relief the originality of American civilization.
Alexis de Tocqeuville "Democracy in America" (George Lawrence Translation)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Yesterday was On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner, which is very interesting in many ways. If I ever become a novelist I'll let the world know which, if any apply to me. The assumption is that people becoming novelists are young, and the psychology of the novelist as he sees it seems to me to be male, although the book does not express anything against women being novelists. I suspect it is a fairly accurate treatment of people like him who become novelists, but I am not sure to what degree it predicts for the rest of us.
Today, I am reading Beverwijk by Janny Venema. It's a dissertation about the years that Albany was a settlement under the Dutch West India Company. I'm reading it carefully and taking notes, and so far I find it very cogent, very well-supported - very well done in general (This is a relief as the last few books I've bought about fascinating topics have tneded somewhere along the line to become several hundred pages in which about ten pages of information is told, and retold, sometimes in words not particularly different from ten pages earlier.)
The author is in the perfect position to have studied this, as she was born in the Netherlands, educated there, and has worked for the New Netherlands project in Albany, NY - which deals with the Dutch records of New Amsterdam - for years. The sense I get from reading it is not that she started out with an ax to grind, but that she wanted to figure something out, and she did, in great detail, and now she's letting us know what that is. It's early days and not swift reading - I'll report back later if it turns tedious on me.
Last edited by scrivelry; August 5th, 2014 at 08:23 PM.
LagNut (August 8th, 2014)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Yes, yes, and yesI borrowed it from the library. I started reading, then skimming, then flipping through it just to be done. Like anything by Stephen King, Henscher could have accomplished his purpose & wrapped it up in half the space he did.It was a decent enough read but it wasn't worth the ten dollars I paid for it on the App Store.
Dreck (August 7th, 2014)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
What Were the Crusades? 4th Ed. by Jonathan Riley-Smith.
"Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine
LagNut (August 8th, 2014)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
How did you like it? Riley-Smith is arguably one of the top experts in Crusades-era history. When I wrote a research paper on the topic, I was hard pressed to find a contemporary source that hadn't used his work in compiling their own.
Online arguments are a lot like the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
As soon as the audience begins to participate, any actual content is lost in the resulting chaos and cacophony.
At that point, all you can do is laugh and enjoy the descent into debasement.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Mine (a kindle) now is lost amongst the flotsam left in my youngest's room after she left for college. She will be back in a few weeks and I am hoping we can find it.
Bought it a number of years back to give the new technology a try, and it just didn't make it for me. No one will steal my paperback if I leave it at a table to hit the bathroom, that had to tag along continuously. Never liked having the content not in my control. Still prefer paper books, though I do read with my phone now, if I don't have a book, and that is better than being without reading material.
My daughter, however found it very useful for school, reading assigned books. I could download the Kindle edition immediately, and cheaper than the paper book. Now it is hopefully still in the house, but even her favorite media is a paper book, probably because she's been brainwashed by Dad, as is proper.
Mike
Clearly they had a higher and more comprehensive conception of the duties of society toward it's members than had the lawgivers of Europe of the time, and they imposed obligations upon it that were shirked elsewhere... But it is the provisions for public education which, from the very first, throw into the clearest relief the originality of American civilization.
Alexis de Tocqeuville "Democracy in America" (George Lawrence Translation)
velo (August 10th, 2014)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I've read several of his books and especially appreciate his meticulous updating of the findings in this field of study. He's one of the people reshaping our understanding of that era. There is so much more data we're capable of cross-referencing now with the use of computers that central concepts of who went on crusades and why they did so are being revisited and a clearer picture reached.How did you like it? Riley-Smith is arguably one of the top experts in Crusades-era history. When I wrote a research paper on the topic, I was hard pressed to find a contemporary source that hadn't used his work in compiling their own.
Probably one of my top four non-fiction subjects!
"Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine
What Was the Last Book You Read?
Yest
Last edited by GING GING; January 5th, 2015 at 03:01 PM.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Okay I'm going to use my ereader more. About to begin this one.
Last edited by velo; August 10th, 2014 at 02:08 AM.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Hmmm, we must all be busy writing instead of reading, to judge from the date of the last post here!
I've started Anthony Esolen's translation of Dante's Inferno. At the moment, I'm visiting the third circle of Hell. Just visiting, mind you.
"Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine
Dreck (January 4th, 2015)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Beautiful Swimmer. One I return to about every decade yet still find fresh.
VertOlive (January 4th, 2015)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I have just finished Potterism by Rose Macaulay, described by the authoress as a Tragi-Farcical Tract. She wrote the book in 1920. It's jolly good and cleverly written.
Very talented was Miss Macaulay; I strongly recommend Told by an Idiot (1926) and the very lovely and moving The World my Wilderness (1950).
Cob
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Completed The Goldfinch by Tartt, started Jim Collins Good to Great, thru chapter 3. Tartt book was excellent, took several pages to get into it then I could not put it down. Where did she get the insight or the frame of reference for all this?
Sandy
We don't know what we don't know
VertOlive (January 4th, 2015)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Haven't finished yet (at least THIS time through), but I'm working through (with my students), To Kill A Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter (love, love, LOVE this book), and Hamlet. For "recreational" reading, I'm working through Rosalie David's Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt, which is far more dry, scholarly, and enjoyable than the title suggests.
Online arguments are a lot like the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
As soon as the audience begins to participate, any actual content is lost in the resulting chaos and cacophony.
At that point, all you can do is laugh and enjoy the descent into debasement.
VertOlive (January 4th, 2015)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Finished a bunch of books this last week:
Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Chief Justice by Paula Byrne
The Laws of Murder by Charles Finch
The Counterfeit Heiress by Tasha Alexander
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman (not really my thing--read for a book club).
Now reading: Sorcery and Cecilia by Patricia Wrede
Elizabeth is Missing (suggested by Ypsilanti)
Stories in The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries by Otto Penzler (started it last Christmas--I'm about halfway through).
Lady Onogaro
"Be yourself--everybody else is already taken." --Oscar Wilde
VertOlive (January 4th, 2015)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Not making much progress but have started the following:
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Likeness by Tana French
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett.
Others I am still attempting to get through:
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (translated by Henry Francis Cary)
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