This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

Paddy Samurai

Its a long time since I last read Sci-fi and I am enjoying this book a lot more than I expected.About 20% read so far.It's looking like I have a new series to read.:(
To many books................so little time.

With his wife dead and buried, and life nearly over at 75, John Perry takes the only logical course of action left: he joins the army. Now better known as the Colonial Defense Force (CDF), Perry's service-of-choice has extended its reach into interstellar space to pave the way for human colonization of other planets while fending off marauding aliens.

The CDF has a trick up its sleeve that makes enlistment especially enticing for seniors: the promise of restoring their youth. After bonding with a group of fellow recruits who dub their clique the Old Farts, Perry finds himself in a new body crafted from his original DNA and upgraded for battle, including a brain-implanted computer. But all too quickly the Old Farts are separated, and Perry must fight for his life on various alien-infested battlegrounds.

Callan57

Finished The Railway Station Man by Jennifer Johnston .... Beautiful read

Next is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Callan57 wrote: »

Next is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

I've read that. Quite liked it, it's a bit like an old fashioned fairy tale.

Dibble

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Swiper the fox

Dibble wrote: »

Atonement by Ian McEwan

That is an outstanding book, one of my favourite ever probably.
Picked up the new Ben Elton book this morning, time travel caper where he tries to stop world war 1 from happening it seems. Looking forward to it.

catallus

"Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?" by Dave Eggers.

I thought this was a fun little read, it is only 207 pages of pure dialogue, entertaining enough.

kimmykins

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote:

I've read that. Quite liked it, it's a bit like an old fashioned fairy tale.

read this one too, very good book. you should also try the bellwether revivals and the night circus ... Both fairytale type books.

eire4

Finished a re read of Declan Hughes debut novel The Wrong Kind of Blood.

SarahBM

Finallly finished Middlesex. A Monster Calls is next. Also reading My husband's sin but it's on my phone so it's slow going for me.

fruvai

Just started Graham Greene's Brighton Rock

Tom Joad

Thankfully finished Moby Dick - it was pure torture and an awful slog. Happily went with Rebecca after a few recommendations here and really enjoyed it - beautifully written and very easy to read.

Started on Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and really enjoying it - I read seabiscuit a good few years ago and loved it and Unbroken is definitely as good.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Making slow progress with Frankenstein due to busy times but I'm surprised it's nothing like I imagined. Or it's not so far anyway.

Aenaes

The American West by Dee Brown. It centers on three subjects: Native Americans, settlers, and ranchers during the Western expansion of settlers in the United States.

crustybla

Finished The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey last night. Really enjoyed it, was still thinking about it today. I'll have to scroll back through this thread for inspiration as I haven't a clue what to read next.

ivytwine

My obsession with WWII continues apace.

Making my way slowly through HhHH. Author's style is annoying me occasionally and I find I'm sticking with it because the real life plot to assassinate Heydrich is so interesting (and an aspect of the war I knew little about- which is, as an aside, part of why I find WWII so fascinating. Apart from the absolute horrors seen in humanity during this period there are millions of individual stories and incidents all worth their own books) it seems to override this rather precious, self-pitying narrator.

ShivaDark

I'm currently reading 'Prince Lestat' by Anne Rice. It's been quite enjoyable so far and I'm glad she's decided to return to writing the Vampire Chronicles once again. How I missed that vain brat prince.

Callan57

Finished The Snow Child - beautiful retelling of an old Russian folktale

Now is on to Lamentation by C J Sansom ... I love his Shardlake character

Gamayun

*Apologies for the long post, probably better suited to a reading log but I don't post here very often. I just started typing and this came out:

Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World by Benny Lewis

The polyglot Benny Lewis, from Cavan, gives his tips for learning languages quickly.

As you can see, the title uses the terms ‘Fluent’ and ‘to speak’ and how you interpret this is is key to how you will feel about his approach and this book in general.

Benny uses the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) as the yardstick of fluency. It is a six step system, that runs from A1 and A2 (beginner and functional tourist), B1 and B2 (regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party) to C1 and C2 (mastery, native-like). He regards B2 as fluency.

The main gist is to start speaking as soon as possible, not worrying about grammar too much (‘Tarzan speaking’), and build confidence and language skills from there.

There’s also lots of advice on how to get practice with native speakers and how to use various online resources for to do so.

I don’t think there is any bad advice here really and it is written in a breezy, casual style.

It’s worth noting that this book is based upon his blog posts which are freely available online.

Babel No More by Michael Erard

Michael Erard explores the world of hyper-polyglots, concentrating on the nineteenth-century Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages.

He also meets with several modern day polyglots claiming such abilities.

Again, as with the Benny Lewis book, what is meant by the words ‘fluent’ and ‘speaks’ is shown to be entirely subjective.

There was interesting parts regarding how these polyglots cannot keep all of the languages at the same level all of the time and must put some languages ‘on-ice’, refreshing them with study if they need to use them soon. Also many were able to read certain languages perfectly, but did not speak them.

Also mentioned was the technique used to steer the conversation towards subjects the polyglot is comfortable speaking about.

There’s an insane chapter where Erard tries to get the reader to picture the locations of parts of the brain by imagining holding a globe with a specific hand position and then basing the area of the brain in question on world locations. Here is an example:

“This means that when I place my hands at the equator on opposite sides of the globe and hold it front of me (the prime meridian in line with my nose)—my left hand on the brain’s right hemisphere, my right hand on the left—the edge of my right thumb will be right next to the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabian Sea. This is the area of the brain that Broca associated with speech control.”

Why not just add a diagram? There are lots of other graphs\charts etc. in the book anyway?

Parts are interesting but overall this is overlong. It could have been half the length really.

Fluent Forever : How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It by Gabriel Wyner

Opera singer Wyner had to learn German, Italian, French, and Russian for his job, with pronunciation being key.

His three steps are:

1. Learn pronunciation first.
2. Don’t translate.
3. Use spaced repetition systems.

This book outlines how to do this using various resources and techniques. There are some nice personal anecdotes scattered throughout this but it is mainly an instructional book.

The Last Speakers by K. David Harrison

Harrison is part of Nation Geographic’s Enduring Voices project working to document vanishing languages and cultures.

In this book he documents his travels to several areas with endangered languages, how he meets with the speakers and provides an insight into why these languages are dying. He is clearly very passionate about this and it comes through in his writing.

Part travel log, part linguistics book, very enjoyable.

Lingo by Gaston Dorren

Originally published in Dutch, this pop-linguistics book is a guide to European languages their various differences and eccentricities.

Comprised of short chapters this is a quite uneven read. Some chapters are quite matter-of-fact and concentrated on the interesting aspects of whatever language is in question, others are more like little comedy sketches and dialogues that for me don’t quite work.

There is some really interesting stuff here about language reform, language shift and regional dialects. However there is also chapters espousing Dorrens personal opinions that are at odds with the other, more objective, chapters ; they really stick out and seem rant-like. For example he does a real hatchet job on Esperanto. Given that this book is supposed to be about the different aspects and workings of a language, simply savaging Esperanto doesn’t seem fair. Also, he at one point refers to lenition (the changing of the start of the word) in Welsh and Irish as logical, then later on complains of how they do this ‘For no reason whatsoever’.

Very patchy indeed.

Currently reading Is That a Fish in Your Ear? by David Bellos, about translation. Good so far...

crustybla

I've gone on to Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. Enjoying it so far though not far in yet.

Wyldwood

Finished Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn and it was very good but not as good as Rebecca. The writing was very atmospheric and Du Maurier caught the threatening Cornwall environment of the era very well but there were times when I felt like giving Mary Yellan a good shake to wake her up from her stupor and the inevitable falling for a bad guy thing.

Must read My Cousin Rachel soon.

Started The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure. Set in the 1940s during the occupation by the Germans, Lucien Bernard is asked by a wealthy businessman to design a space in an Apartment where a Jew could remain hidden if the Nazis came looking for him. He gets involved very reluctantly as he is anti-Semite. Promising to be good so far.

boobar

The snowman by Jo Nesbo

Great crime thriller very enjoyable

Swiper the fox

Really enjoying Ben Elton's new book Time and Time Again. Excellent time travel world war one romp. Hero returns to 1914 to prevent the war from happening.

ivytwine

Finished HHhH. Verdict still the same. Postmodern guff which was saved greatly by the powerful story I wish he'd shut up and tell. Made me want to go to Prague tho, which is always a good thing.

Onto Gillian Flynn now, Dark Places. I dunno what it is about her, she's a very prosaic writer, and her characters are all dreadful people, but I cannot put her books down!

SarahBM

ivytwine wrote: »

Onto Gillian Flynn now, Dark Places. I dunno what it is about her, she's a very prosaic writer, and her characters are all dreadful people, but I cannot put her books down!

I hated this book. couldn't stand any of the characters, or the style. I dont ming books that jump back and forward in time, but this was ridiculous. Such a chore to read it. I won't read Gone Girl.

I started A Monster Calls. Haven't had a chance to get stuck into it yet. Hopefully will tonight and tomorrow.

ivytwine

The characters are really nasty people but it seems to hold my interest. I don't feel the time jumps are excessive at the moment.

Gone Girl is definitely worth a read but again, zero in the way of pleasant characters. I don't know what it says about me that they keep me reading :O

eire4

Finished a re read of Mick McCarthy's Captain Fantastic. I particuarly enjoyed his chapter on playing for Celtic during the 1988 centenary season and for Ireland during the European Championship Finals in 1988 and the World Cup Finals in 1990. Some great memories there.

Paddy Samurai

About 20% read so far, and finding it to be a interesting and addictive read from the POV of the germans in WW1.

Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) the son of a wealthy chemist, ran away from home to join the Foreign Legion. His father dragged him back, but he returned to military service when he joined the German army on the outbreak of the First World War. Storm of Steel (Stahlgewittern) was Jünger's first book, published in 1920. Greatly admired by the Nazis, Jünger remained at a distance from the regime, with books such as his allegorical work On the Marble Cliffs (1939) functioning as a covert criticism of Nazi ideology and methods

'Hofmann's interpretation is superb'
The Times


'Unique in the literature of this or any other war is its brilliantly vivid conjuration of the immediacy and intensity of battle'
Telegraph


'Storm of Steel is what so many books claim to be but are not: a classic account of war'
Evening Standard

Wyldwood

Finished Belfoure's The Paris Architect and really enjoyed it. If you enjoyed The Book Thief and Sarah's Key then you'll love this also.

Next up is The Letter by Kathryn Hughes and then a reread of A Christmas Carol just in time for the festivities

Birneybau

On to '2001' by Arthur C. Clarke, enjoyable, very accessible, picked up the whole collection, seems short enough, makes a change from having read 'Song of Ice and Fire' collection over the Summer. ; )

Also, re-reading 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bryson on the side. Love it.

Spanish Eyes

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Amazing read. Look it up..

And of course Jane Eyre again.

And.... The Spinning Heart, by Donal Ryan.

All amazing books. Three on the go, I love that!