What Are You Reading?

jumpguy

On a bit of a Robert Harris splurge myself, I've read Fatherland, The Ghost (which was kinda meh tbh), Imperium and Pompeii (was one of our comparative novels) and now I've gotten Enigma and Archangel...it's good shtuff, this history.

KnifeWRENCH

Woo, Joyce! I love feigning expertiese at Joycean literature.
/puts on literary snob hat

bythewoods wrote: »

I'm considering reading Dubliners, as it's been beside my bed for a while.

Yerra do. 'Tis grand, like.
It has 15 (I think) short stories and at least 10 of them are at least semi-interesting. There are a few that are utterly pointless, and you'll be thinking "Ah James. Why'd ya bother, like?" but then there are some really good ones where you'll be all "G'wan James! Class story there, bai!"

Such is the language of Joycean scholars, I do believe.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

I was lazy and opted for Dubliners and Portrait, as I'd already read them. I regret nothing.

A Portrait of the Artist.... is very much a book of two halves imo.

First half is great; the awkwardness of youth, the stream-of-conciousness rabble, good ol' Catholic Dublin in all it's glorious misery....
And then you get onto the million page religious sermon and the "OHMYGAWD Aesthetics LAWL" literary wankfest and you miss when he used be cool. So yeah, second half was a let down for me.

Still worth a read, though.

jefreywithonef wrote: »

Lord of the Flies is great, a definite must-read. Never read the whole book but I didn't like the two or three Dubliners stories that I read; I'll be honest and say that I found them incredibly dull.

Looking forward to Ulysses though, I think it comes up in college next year so I had planned to buy it and start it this summer but I dunno if I will now, already have about a dozen books on my to-read list.

I have Ulysses on my to-read list this summer.......

....as I did last summer......


.......................and the summer before.......



......SRSLY I will read it.......at some point.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

KnifeWRENCH wrote: »

Woo, Joyce! I love feigning expertiese at Joycean literature.
/puts on literary snob hat


Yerra do. 'Tis grand, like.
It has 15 (I think) short stories and at least 10 of them are at least semi-interesting. There are a few that are utterly pointless, and you'll be thinking "Ah James. Why'd ya bother, like?" but then there are some really good ones where you'll be all "G'wan James! Class story there, bai!"

Such is the language of Joycean scholars, I do believe.

What stories did you not like? I found every one of them to be brilliant. Nothing tops 'The Dead' though. Which I was amazed to discove was based on Joyce and Nor Barnacle :eek:

A Portrait of the Artist.... is very much a book of two halves imo.

First half is great; the awkwardness of youth, the stream-of-conciousness rabble, good ol' Catholic Dublin in all it's glorious misery....
And then you get onto the million page religious sermon and the "OHMYGAWD Aesthetics LAWL" literary wankfest and you miss when he used be cool. So yeah, second half was a let down for me.

Still worth a read, though.

I loved most of the second half! The religious sermon is one of my favourite parts, the way the priest so enthusiastically describes hell is really messed up and it hits me every time I read it.

Jackobyte

marko93 wrote: »

This sounds amazing.
How many pages is it?

Somewhere around 820 including appendix. I'm at 730.

KnifeWRENCH

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

What stories did you not like? I found every one of them to be brilliant. Nothing tops 'The Dead' though. Which I was amazed to discove was based on Joyce and Nor Barnacle :eek:

I found The Sisters, Araby, After The Race and Clay to be quite dull. Admittedly if I knew more about Irish history or critical study of English I'd probably read more into them, but I just found those ones a bit of a slog.

On the other hand, I loved Counterparts, A Painful Case and A Little Cloud....basically I seem to enjoy the most depressing ones. :pac: (not that the others were exactly sunshiney and happy or anything.) I also didn't know that The Dead was about Joyce and Barnacle; I might reread that one again now.

I loved most of the second half! The religious sermon is one of my favourite parts, the way the priest so enthusiastically describes hell is really messed up and it hits me every time I read it.

The religious sermon is grand, it just drags on too long.
It's the end of it I dislike more; Stephen goes from being a likeable character to an arrogant prick. But maybe that's what Joyce was like in real life.

marko93

Jackobyte wrote: »

Somewhere around 820 including appendix. I'm at 730.

MUST HAVE.
GETTING IN WORK TOMORROW.
LIFE IS COMPLETE.

Ok, on top of that seriously re-reading the The Black Magician triology.

bythewoods

Started Dubliners this morning! I have a version with a 50-page introduction by Terence Brown, so I read all of that before getting stuck in. Just read "The Sisters" thus far. I actually... LOVE Joyce. When I finish this you guys better still be willing to faf on about it at length.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

There was a thread quoting some of Joyces more... "risque" work in AH earlier. His letters to Nora Barnacle aren't suitable to be linked to here.

Bigtoe107

I'm re-reading 1984 and homage to catalonia now, I'm going on a bit of an orwell trip but it's ok because I actually love the guy

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

I absolutely love Orwell, I really must read Homage to Catalonia (Writes it down on enormous list of books I plan to read).

Here are all articles of his newspaper column for anyone whos interested..... http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/asiplease.htm

Bigtoe107

Damn u well that's anything I planed to do today pushed to tomorrow ha. Homage to catalonia is good it's dark in an orwellian style but compared to 1984 you might even call it happy although he does spend a lot of time describing trench warfare so I dunno

Slow Show

I've read one book so far in my two weeks of freedom, my ambitious plan of reading twenty books for this summer isn't looking very likely. At the moment I'm trying (again) to read Catch 22, but like last time, I'm struggling to get past the beginning. I've heard it's meant to be well worth it by the end, and I do appreciate the humour, but meh, I may discard it for another day.

Skintwin

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

What stories did you not like? I found every one of them to be brilliant. Nothing tops 'The Dead' though.

The Dead was my favourite too...and it was very handy when it turned out that I had to read it for college before christmas. I'd already read it, so i had an easy week! :cool:

musical.x

starting lords and ladies by terry pratchett

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

'A Painful Case' was another one of my favourite's from Dubliners.

Jackobyte

So I finished A Game of Thrones. Now to decide whether to change to an e-book copy of A Clash of Kings, or wait until I can get my hands on a paper copy. It seems wrong to break stride in the series.

whadabouchasir

Just finished East of Eden by John Steinbeck today.Probably the best novel I've ever read.If you don't read it you'd better have a very good reason!

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

There was a thread quoting some of Joyces more... "risque" work in AH earlier. His letters to Nora Barnacle aren't suitable to be linked to here.

They're not allowed to be published until next year, though, surely?

Fad

Trying to read it again, gotten further in the last few days than I ever have before though. I really really like it, but it can be heavy enough at times.

Finally finished The Bell Jar, which I loved, just wasn't finding the time to read. Picked up a book of some of Plath's poems the other day, a nice little hardback (The one below), really pretty and I'm looking forward to try and actually enjoy some poetry for once:



Also bought Batman Dark Victory the same day, sequel to the excellent The Long Halloween.

Craguls

Via Kindle:

Otherwise/IRL:

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Deleted User wrote: »

They're not allowed to be published until next year, though, surely?

I severely doubt he copyrighted anything as posthumously embarrassing as these letters.

Corkfeen

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

I severely doubt he copyrighted anything as posthumously embarrassing as these letters.

I'm fairly certain a publisher published them back in the 70s. A classy read I can imagine.

Pygmalion

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

I severely doubt he copyrighted anything as posthumously embarrassing as these letters.

Copyright is automatic, you don't have to "copyright" something.
If you make something you own the copyright to it and no-one else can publish it without your permission, whether or not you specifically claim it.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Maybe the Joyce family just don't bother enforcing the copyright on the letters so.

RolandIRL

finished Tau Zero last night...interesting enough sci-fi book, bit boring at times though onto a collection of BSG novels now.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Maybe the Joyce family just don't bother enforcing the copyright on the letters so.

No, the the Joyce family are famously strict on copyrighting everything. In fact, they'll only allow public readings of his work one day a year in one place.

Their control over the copyright of his works ends next year though, which is brilliant.

As for his dorrty letters, they've only been published once I think, with the estate's permission, but the anthology was only published in America.

I see a lot of them floating about the internet. I think this is because slightly different laws apply, it's harder to police, and there's a strong case that including one or two of his letters on a website is "Fair Use" in copyright terms.

KnifeWRENCH

Read this recently:


Brilliant book that I'd recommend everyone read. The author is a bit arrogant (and is a typical "humanities degree? LOL" academic snob) but other than that minor gripe it's an excellent read. More often than not, his acerbic comments are hilarious.

Now onto this:


Have only read one chapter so far and already having the same problem with Du Sautoy that I did with Goldacre and Dawkins as regards arrogance. Only within the first chapter he's said that whoever solves the Riemann hypothesis would be remembered "long after Edmund Hillary and William Shakespeare are forgotten" or something to that effect. Like I'm a pure science/maths fanboy nerd but this "my discipline is superior to your discipline" bugs the shít out of me. I'm gonna keep reading but I hope he sticks to facts rather than throwing in those stupid kind of comments.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Deleted User wrote: »

No, the the Joyce family are famously strict on copyrighting everything. In fact, they'll only allow public readings of his work one day a year in one place.

Their control over the copyright of his works ends next year though, which is brilliant.

Yeah, I read about that, the Bloomsday organizers are delighted.

Fad

C&H seems to have a fairly large chunk of fantasy fans....

I've always thought of fantasy as a bit naff, but in reality, I've never given it much of a chance, A Song of Ice and Fire seems to be incredibly popular, any other recommendations?

I'm planning on reading Infinite Jest at some point in the near future, so something that's not horrifically dense, relatively easy reading that's still quite engaging?

Aoibheann

Well, I tend to recommend Jim Butcher to everyone. He has two series - the Codex Alera (which is proper old-school fantasy, but is verrrry cool) and the Dresden Files (modern fantasy, it's probably my favourite series and the only one I can think of in which the standard of writing improves with every book. It's decent to start with, but I've read all 12 that are currently out, and the last few have been unreal). The Dresden Files can be very sarky in its humour, so you might enjoy that!