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The original book thread

Enter here to talk about books, art, literature, film, TV and anything else to do with popular culture.
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Laurence
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Re: The original book thread

#381 Post by Laurence » July 22nd, 2011, 10:30 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

Athena wrote:I don't often read novels these days but I've just completed Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, whose debut novel The Time Traveler's Wife was one of my favourite reads of recent years but then I have a weakness for time-shift stories.

This is a ghost story and, like all ghost stories, it'is ridiculous but at the same time original and compelling. Not a patch on the earlier book, IMO, but still recommended and I hope they make a movie out of it. It's set partly in Highgate Cemetery - as part of her research the author spent some time working there as a guide - and it has inspired me to want to visit that place which, I am ashamed to admit is only a few miles away from where I've lived most of my life but I've never been to.

Nice to see a humanist funeral get a mention even if it was arranged through the "Humanist Society" rather than the BHA. Here's what she says:
"The officiant stood at the front of the room holding a clipboard and watching as people took their seats. She wore something red draped over her shoulders. Jane wondered what was about to happen. They had asked for a non-religious ceremony. Ron had arranged everything through the Humanist Society.....

The red-shawled officiant spoke. She welcomed them and said some non-religious things that were meant to be comforting to non-religious people. She invited people who had known Jean to speak about her."
Clip-board? Red shawl? WTF?

(I've changed the characters names so as not to spoil it for anyone who fancies reading the book).
I hadnt realised that the humanist soc and the bha were different.

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animist
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Re: The original book thread

#382 Post by animist » October 11th, 2011, 8:02 pm

just read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett; it has just been made into a film, I think. It's a wonderful alternative take on "Gone With the Wind" - racism in the US south from the "colored" maid's point of view. I won't go into the story - definitely worth a read, and not all gloom, because of the humour and resilience of the women concerned

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animist
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Re: The original book thread

#383 Post by animist » October 14th, 2011, 8:06 am

I should have added that "The Help" does make one think twice about eating chocolate cake! A case of Mississippi Mud Pie that is worse than mud....

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getreal
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Re: The original book thread

#384 Post by getreal » October 14th, 2011, 10:32 pm

I'm currently wadeing through reading Jane Ayre. Although I'm vaugelt familiar with the plot, I don't think I've read it before because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have attempted it twice.

Charlotte Bronte sure didn't subscribe to George Orwell's rules for effective writing .
"It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on his head"-Tyrion Lannister.

Fia
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Re: The original book thread

#385 Post by Fia » October 14th, 2011, 11:00 pm

I remember a not so good English teacher taking me to task on an essay I'd written about Jane Eyre. I was not in the slightest impressed by her running away and not eating anything for 24 hrs or so, and expecting the reader to feel sorry for her. The phrase 'she needed to wise up rather than flounce' was certainly there. I was told I had no soul. So be it.

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animist
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Re: The original book thread

#386 Post by animist » October 15th, 2011, 8:17 am

getreal wrote:I'm currently wadeing through reading Jane Ayre. Although I'm vaugelt familiar with the plot, I don't think I've read it before because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have attempted it twice.

Charlotte Bronte sure didn't subscribe to George Orwell's rules for effective writing .
I only read "Jane Eyre" for the first time about 6 months ago, and did actually find it moving (I got soul, Fia :laughter: ). But, it's true, all these books from way back feature a lot of what seems like stilted language and repetition, and of course they can't mention the "baser" aspects of life. One classic I really did find disappointing was "Wuthering Heights" by Charlotte's sister, Emily Bronte. Re the guide to writing, I would quibble about avoiding the phrases, even though they are cliches: maybe they have become popular for a reason, ie that it is hard to think of an alternative way of saying what you mean. Maybe that's a lead-in to a new thread: thinking up new phrases to replace old ones - eg putting the cart before the horse (given that we don't have many horses and carts anymore) could be ? er, any ideas? None from me, but it reminds me that I read the novel "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys, years ago; it is a sort of prequel to "Jane Eyre" in which the madwoman Bella is the main character. So maybe "putting the Eyre before the Sargasso" could be a new way of saying "putting the cart before the horse"?

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Dave B
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Re: The original book thread

#387 Post by Dave B » October 15th, 2011, 10:57 pm

I never really got into literature from the 19thC, though I enjoyed (the TV version of) Pride and Prejudice and a couple of other dramatisations of the genre.

But on the uni course we had to read Silas Marner. There are sentences in that longer than other writers' paragraphs. My memory is probably not correct but I think one of them lasted almost the whole page! I can only believe that this was to teach us how not to write.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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animist
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Re: The original book thread

#388 Post by animist » October 16th, 2011, 8:19 am

Dave B wrote:I never really got into literature from the 19thC, though I enjoyed (the TV version of) Pride and Prejudice and a couple of other dramatisations of the genre.

But on the uni course we had to read Silas Marner. There are sentences in that longer than other writers' paragraphs. My memory is probably not correct but I think one of them lasted almost the whole page! I can only believe that this was to teach us how not to write.
agree - must check this up, ie why was "rolling rhetoric", which you get in the "nonfiction" of the period, eg philosophy, so different from the modern style? When did it change? I love George Eliot's books, eg "Middlemarch" (which features an obscurantist Bible scholar - husband of the main character and a proto-Theologica member!) tho' I have not yet read "Silas Marner"

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Dave B
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Re: The original book thread

#389 Post by Dave B » October 16th, 2011, 12:26 pm

Silas Marner is 71p on Kindle!

Later: Just taken a "look inside" one edition and soon found a single sentence 26 page lines long. At the other extreme if the local paper who's house style is one sentence of 26 words per column paragraph!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Sel
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Re: The original book thread

#390 Post by Sel » October 17th, 2011, 1:25 am

animist wrote:just read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett; it has just been made into a film, I think. It's a wonderful alternative take on "Gone With the Wind" - racism in the US south from the "colored" maid's point of view. I won't go into the story - definitely worth a read, and not all gloom, because of the humour and resilience of the women concerned
I,too, just recently read "The Help". Loved it. A great read.
"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge." Bertrand Russell

Skyfrog
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Re: The original book thread

#391 Post by Skyfrog » October 17th, 2011, 1:43 am

Does anyone read C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series? I'm reading them at the moment, and they're great.

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Val
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Re: The original book thread

#392 Post by Val » October 17th, 2011, 7:07 pm

Loved The Help but did not like Shardlake. I hate xxxx scenes. which I cannot name for fear of spoiling the book for anyone who fancies it.

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Dave B
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Re: The original book thread

#393 Post by Dave B » October 17th, 2011, 8:22 pm

[Bugger, might have to read that book now just find out the nature of the the mysterious xxxx scene!]
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Val
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Re: The original book thread

#394 Post by Val » October 21st, 2011, 7:07 pm

I will tell you in a pm if you want.

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Dave B
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Re: The original book thread

#395 Post by Dave B » October 21st, 2011, 7:22 pm

Thought the title rang a bell, it was an "Afternoon Play" on radio 4 some yonks ago. There was something about it that disturbed me, perhaps (or so it seemed to me) the acceptance of The Help to the attitudes of the white people ('cept for Minny maybe). Thanks for the offer, Val, I take a pass on that.

Actually was this any different than the attitude of middle class people up to the 50s, as portrayed in fiction at least, towards any person, cleaner, cook etc., working for them in this country?
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Dave B
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Re: The original book thread

#396 Post by Dave B » December 22nd, 2011, 1:35 pm

I have been listening to the "Book of the Week" (0945 R4) which is "The Etymologicon" by Mark Forsyth (and read by Hugh Dennis) and can recommend this really humorous look at the origin of some English words - the chapter entitled, "The Old and New Testicles" had me spluttering toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror. I will never look at an avocado quite the same again . . .

Nice find was that as a Kindle ebook it is only £1-99 instead of £6-58 (which is still a bargain).
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

Marian
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Re: The original book thread

#397 Post by Marian » January 1st, 2012, 9:30 pm

Currently reading: Stranger from Abroad. It's about Hannah Arendt and her relationship with Martin Heidegger. Only about a 1/4 way through. I am enjoying it so far. Will try to remember to update this when finished. I tend to read non-fiction much more than fiction.
Transformative fire...

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Alan C.
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Re: The original book thread

#398 Post by Alan C. » January 1st, 2012, 10:07 pm

I've just finished Marcus Brigstock' book "God collar" I must say he comes across (in the book) as a very wishy washy Atheist compared to what he says
here.
Shortish audio clip.
Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

Nick
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Re: The original book thread

#399 Post by Nick » January 2nd, 2012, 12:27 am

Most of the reviews on Amazon aren't too impressed either....

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Alan H
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Re: The original book thread

#400 Post by Alan H » January 12th, 2012, 2:53 pm

Reading The Lady Tasting Tea by David Salsburg. It's not some novel about genteel ladies drinking afternoon tea on the lawn, but, essentially, the history of statistics. Not boring in the slightest!

One snippet...

R A Fisher (he virtually invented stats) worked at Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station early last century. He was given the task of wading through decades of poorly gathered measurements of crop varieties, grown with different nutrients and exposed to different weather. He invented the methods to analyse much of these data. He noticed that in 1876 that production decreased and became more rapid in 1880. It then picked up in 1894, but fell again in 1901. He discovered that the opposite happened to weed infestation. That sounds like a good causal relationship: more weeds; less crops.

However, he wondered what caused the weeds to fluctuate and tied it down to - you guessed it - the Education Act of 1876! Up till then, children were used in the fields to do the weeding. The 1876 Act made school compulsory, so many children were not available to weed. In 1880, penalties were imposed for non-attendance so the number of weeders fell again.

In 1894, the new master of a local girls boarding school believed that hard work was good for the girls...you can see where this is going...and he died in 1901 and was replaced by someone with different ideas!

Fisher also mapped out how to randomise so that other variables that might skew results would average out.

Fascinating stuff.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Dave B
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Re: The original book thread

#401 Post by Dave B » January 12th, 2012, 5:22 pm

I have seen some strange links, but that has to be close to the top of the list!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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