TY
Still slogging through “Moby Dick.” Did you know it was written by an actuary who only talks about whales and whaling? Well, at least for the first 400 pages. Still no sign of our titular character, and mentioned only a few times in passing.
The non-fiction stuff on whales & whaling are the best bits!
:iatp:
Except a lot of it is only what people thought back then. I get my info from “Blue Planet.”
I mean, where is the nude swimmer getting bit in half in the first chapter???
Have you no imagination?
I picked this up but it’s on my longer term list as I want to read the Aeneid and more Le Guin first (I’m roughly doing her writing chronologically so it’ll be a bit).
I should be finishing up the very last published Drizzt book this evening, which will make my 43rd Salvatore book in the last 14 months.
The Mysteries of Udolpho will likely take me much of the rest of the week (it’s a big book! I’m 25% of the way through it).
I have a fair amount of horror that I was planning on reading the past few weeks and got slowed down by fixating on the election (two T. Kingfisher novels, some Shirley Jackson, du Maurier’s Rebecca). I want to read The Stand ahead of the miniseries next month. Then I’ll probably wrap up 2020 with some light fantasy in December (the next Dragonriders of Pern trilogy, some Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana’s next), some fairy tale fantasy novels).
2021: My goals are to get back into ancient literature (read through all the ancient Greek plays, Ovid, Virgil), folk tales (Apuleius’s Golden Ass, the Mabinogion, Decameron, The Brother Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Italian and Russian collections, an African collection I picked up), read Robin’s Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings (16 books), all published Dresden Files books (17 I think?), finally re/read the Death Gate cycle (7 books).
I also have a bunch of books that have been on my want-to-read list for a long long time (Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum), some Thomas Pynchon books, W. Somerset Maugham, start Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time) and others).
I easily have a few years back log…
So I figured out one of the mysteries before it was revealed (where all the Thrints & their slaves went), barely figured out the other mystery (where the 2nd suit got to) right before it was revealed, and found the ending unsatisfying. Not one for a re-read, but I finally understand the “slaver tech” that shows up in other Known Universe stories.
Oh wow, you haven’t read those Eco books before? You’re in for a treat. I enjoyed them both.
Both are definitely better than the da Vinci Code crap.
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Yeah, “The Name of the Rose” is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve ever read.
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I was going to read all the Harry Potter books sometime last year, but it seems like if you didn’t read the entire series 10 years ago already, then the stories just don’t have as much appeal to you as an adult.
I did finish Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell this summer, which is probably my favorite book now (but my repertoire is still incredibly small).
I’m working on East of Eden at the moment.
Currently reading Wizard of Earthsea (by Le Guin) to my wife.
And the Wizard of Oz (along with Dr Seuss, Dahl, Grimm, Anderson) to my kid.
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I really enjoyed Piranesi. Apparently she should have another book coming out in 2021, also.
Get out! …I wonder if Odd knows about that? Should I tell him, or just buy it for Christmas?! WHAT SHOULD I DO?!?
Also what’s this “Ladies of Grace Adieu” all about?
It’s a series of short stories, set in the Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell ‘universe’. I enjoyed it! IIRC Jonathan Strange appears as a character in one of the stories, but otherwise it’s just unconnected stories.
Is Odd a lover? I forget. I believe in reading out loud to your lover, ideally using voices.
Adieu is a couple short stories set in the Norrell universe. You could probably think of them as footnotes.
Pirinesi is a short new novel. It’s completely different but has the same quality and care
OddSox is my husband yes. He’s very good at doing voices when he reads to me. I on the other hand, was literally born tongue-tied.
Now I’m finding out that we own that one already. Nobody tells me nuthin’.
“Actually, her new book should be out by now! I should get to buying tha… oh.” -OddSox, upon noticing my you’re-about-to-ruin-Christmas-you-FOOL face
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