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therattle posted:The New Yorker, The Guardian (https://www.guardian.co.uk), used to get NY Review of Books and London Review of Books, but cancelled them - only reason I used to get LRB was to read the hilarious personals. John Crace's Digested Read is one of my favourite things. His breakdown of Amis's Pregnant Widow was great. To the person who asked about reviews, he's doing "classics" now too; as long as you don't mind having a classic spoiled for you--and you'll probably have an idea of the plot going in anyway--it's a entertaining way to get an overview. My dad saves me the books supplements from the New York Times since I'm too cheap to subscribe. They're probably available online and are often good. Also, I just ordered this http://www.amazon.com/Power-Delight-Lifetime-Literature-1962-2002/dp/0393058409/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267556304&sr=8-2 after having wanted it for a few years. I've read a few of Bayley's essays and he just comes across as a very nice, very clever man who genuinely loved books. Irisi posted:On an entirely unrelated topic, I would like to know why recommended texts for university/college are so expensive. I just bought two midwifery textbooks and paid £70 quid in total. I felt a bit sick handing over all that money, especially when I know that in 4 years time they'll bring out new editions & I might have to get them too. Why can't they make them available in e-book format & charge us poor students less? Can you bring back your books to the university bookstore when you're finished with them and get some of the money back? I can, but it drives me crazy not to be able to highlight and dog-ear and otherwise abuse the books as I usually would. I've got a bunch of Canadian history texts that I never want to see again for the rest of my life but I hate to refrain from scribbling in the margins and stuff.
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Mar 2, 2010 20:06
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There are a number of independent bookstores in my neighbourhood (which is in Canada) that sell both used and new books, usually with the new displayed near the front and the used filling the remaining space. They tend to buy their used books selectively, so there are lots of little-worn student cast-offs etc. I imagine they do well because people like me come in to browse the used books and end up buying a new one or two while we're there. Do your chain bookstores in England at least mainly stock books? The last large chain store I went to had at least 20-30% of its floor space devoted to gift-wrap, plush toys, chocolates, plant pots, I don't know what else. I suppose I deserved what I got for going into a bookstore across the parking lot from a mall-sized Walmart, but still.
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Mar 23, 2010 04:16
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Every single one of my books is spine-broken and dog-eared. Several have lost their dust covers, a few are held together by tape. There are relevant notes in some and phone numbers or similar in the backs of others. I've torn the pages-intentionally-left-blank out of books to use if I've had no other paper handy. I envy people who own Author X's entire catalogue all in hardcovers from the same publisher, but I don't understand people who have book museums rather than just, you know, books--unless they happen to own exclusively centuries' old signed manuscripts. That said, I have friends who won't lend me books because they have this (apparently prevalent) curatorial view of the issue and I am a defacer of fine literatyoore.
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Mar 26, 2010 23:31
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Rison posted:Shakespeare I've got a bunch of different editions and I'd open them up and offer some useful advice, but my books are boxed up right now. I think I liked Arden best; I believe they use marginal glosses (which I prefer to footnotes/endnotes if I'm going to be referring to them often) and have updated spelling. The notes are good, but I don't know if they explain vocabulary stuff. And I've got the Norton Tragedies; it's really good and cheaper than buying the plays individually. The Norton things are based on the Oxford texts, I think? A good edition, if it contains contentious emendations, should provide explanatory notes. I'm not sure you'll benefit greatly from reading the edition most representative of original idiosyncrasies of spelling etc. Some people might have good reasons for resisting the modernization of spelling but I don't think it "cheapens" the reading experience (at least for your first read-through of a play) to the same degree as would reading a "translation" of the Canterbury Tales.
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Apr 6, 2010 17:22
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I have this stuff-- http://www.magicamerican.com/googone.aspx --because I did some roofing and the man at the hardware store said it would get tar off my hands. It did, and it also removes pretty much any adhesive stuff from any surface. Failing that kind of specialty purchase, a dab of dish detergent and a fingernail or butterknife should get it off.
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Apr 21, 2010 03:45
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When I clicked on the Let's Read Star Wars Books thread I felt a brief suicidal pang. But I think it was sort of like sympathetic labour pains; it was not my suicidal hopelessness I felt but an uncontrollable response to such a vast, depressing wall of text.
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May 10, 2010 03:58
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Um, it's nice to see real lit getting a mention here but this is just turning into a classic R.L. Stine circle-jerk. Even within the gothic-nostalgic YA genre, Bunnicula is clearly a novel superior to anything within the Stine oeuvre. Ever heard of Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher? Pretty sure the plot about keeping that dragon hidden is a commentary on adolescent boner-shame. Didn't see your precious R.L. Stine dealing with that sort of gritty, real world issue. This Stine bullshit is just the Philip Roth/Norman Mailer phenomenon all over again: North American subservience to a liberal-Judaic cultural agenda. Read some Howe or Coville, you sheep.
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May 22, 2010 03:23
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Hey, 7 y.o. bitch: I started Frye's Anatomy of Criticism last night and I've only got through the polemical introduction but it's really cool and he's very clear and pretty enjoyable to read so far. I've also got his Fables of Identity, but I'll see how much of Anatomy goes over my head before starting on it. You mentioned Frye a while ago and made him sound interesting, so thanks for that!
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Jun 27, 2010 20:09
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I'm into the first essay now. Not being very familiar with more than the reputations of the basic schools within lit crit, it's really interesting for me to see a bunch of stuff that I've dimly identified or seen mentioned kinda opaquely elsewhere set forth systematically and clearly. I'm keeping notes of stuff he refers to that I haven't read and also feeling a bit guilty for having avoided Aristotle's Poetics. 7 y.o. bitch posted:Also, I'm considering starting a poetry discussion thread in TBB. In a typical TBB poetry thread you'd post some Donne and watch the scintillating discussions beginning with "does _____ mean his weiner?" take off like wildfire, then someone would follow that up with Siegfried Sassoon; sex and violence having been covered, the thread would die. It would be nice to see a different kind of poetry thread.
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Jun 28, 2010 23:23
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DirtyRobot posted:The New Yorker has a pretty good piece on the topic of "histories" and the novel. I wanted to enjoy that article because the subject is interesting but I just found it frustrating. I don't get why Lepore does seemingly sloppy stuff like naming Richardson's novels right before dropping the “Novel Reading, a Cause of Female Depravity” quotation; those novels were practically prescriptive antidotes to that "depravity," so contrasting them with the morals-improving "real histories" is kind of weird--especially when she's brought up the more subversive Fielding and Defoe stuff earlier. And by the end of the piece there's an unanticipated emphasis on the way the role of female writers connected to the history/fiction schism, an idea that is explored without much focus or conclusion--largely within an 18th/19th century bubble--and which is badly incorporated and appears out of nowhere 3/4s of the way into the article. Also, I find this sort of thing obnoxious: "...as if Robinson Crusoe’s journal were as much a gimmick as Esquire’s “diary” of Heath Ledger."
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Aug 18, 2010 04:05
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7 y.o. bitch posted:I don't know, the article seemed like a very good introduction to the discourse in 18th-century literature for a popular audience, and as a phd student with that specific field focus, I would hope I'd be able to judge. WRT Pamela and Clarissa, you should remember that a lot of critics denounced the books as essentially pornography, especially Pamella, with it's lurid plot. Just because a book proclaims it's morality, even sincerely, doesn't mean it always shuns the prurient interests - lots of films, news, and magaine articles do this now, and back then, a lot of the daily and weekly papers did it as well. I thought the article was interesting but it seemed a bit disorganized and I wasn't totally sure on what overall point(s) Lepore was trying to make. It seems like maybe she was constrained by a directive to be "topical" (hence the kinda awkwardly-inserted references to the Esquire fake diary and the fake gangland memoir), and also by the length of the article (it was a short space in which to provide a history of the issue, give an informed go-along history of women's roles in it, and plug in very recent points of reference). Every time she introduced an idea or an example she didn't seem to have the room to say much about it, and then it was (sometimes abruptly, like with the gender stuff) on to the next thing. That was frustrating. I didn't know that Richardson's stuff was denounced as pornography when it was written though, so I take back my criticism of what I thought was an iffy comparison. Everything I've read (which mostly comprises introductions to the novels and similar stuff from period anthologies--not scholarly stuff) has focused mainly on contrasting Richardson's harping on chastity with Fielding's "bawdy" satires. So the sense I've got of its reception has definitely been coloured by that.
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Aug 19, 2010 22:07
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Novels, plays, and poetry alphabetically by author. Anthologies of similar types together. Books in other languages grouped with relevant dictionaries/grammar books. Non-fic by planet in ascendant at moment of author's birth.
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Aug 22, 2010 03:23
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Used shelves are good if they're solid wood. And if you've got a place to refinish them, 'cause if they're solid wood and they're cheap, they're probably ugly. Most cheap used shelves are particle board, and your chance of finding a few in the same style are slim. Ikea is useful for bookshelves. I'm ashamed to say I once bought cookies at an Ikea and they were surprisingly good.
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Aug 23, 2010 03:13
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7 y.o. bitch posted:Were they the thin orange flavored ones? I almost picked those up, kinda wish I had now. The ones I got were thin lemon flavoured gingersnap-type things. These: http://www.nyakers.com/English/export.htm I've since seen them in Euro-food stores here, which I think legitimizes them as edible goods. rasser posted:I'll stop derailing and ask a question instead: How do you BB goons deal with the loneliness of your literaty taste, which I believe must be common for most of us? I really need that someone to share my interests with - and my beloved girlfriend just reads chick lit and Stieg Larsen while I'm keen on discussing Arendt, Levi, Calvino, Miller etc etc. My best friend reads romance novels she buys at yard sales so I post here, I guess. Facial Fracture fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Aug 23, 2010 |
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Aug 23, 2010 23:41
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Encryptic posted:It might also help if there was just a sticky thread at the top that lists the most frequently recommended fantasy/sci-fi series with a brief synopsis. Didn't there used to be something like this, only not sci-fi specific? It was a list of goon-beloved stuff--Borges, Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, etc. Couldn't we do something like that again? Maybe have one by/for sci-fi people and one for others?
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Sep 17, 2010 21:16
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Dr Scoofles posted:Its a thread I've been hesitantly reading and feel stupider and stupider every time I open it. I think once I actually get into my course and start actively learning and advancing I'll be sure to jump back in I post in that thread and I've got a 10th grade education. Believe in yourself 
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Sep 21, 2010 20:27
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Can the videogame nerdfaces in that "books that define a generation" thread be probated or something?
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Oct 4, 2010 04:10
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"Reading time" was pretty much the best part of elementary school. I ran out of classroom books in 5th grade and my teacher handed me a dictionary, which had way more dirty words than Bunnicula did.
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Nov 11, 2010 00:59
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Byron was pretty high-functioning. Poe was fairly sane. He didn't buy into the "dark and stormy night" mindset; he wrote it because it sold Amyway, there are a bunch institutionalized or suicidal poets. Ezra Pound is a given. And Christopher Smart. Thomas Lovell Beddoes was really crazy but not very fun. I'm going to suggest that if you want to honour forums poster hewaY it would probably be better to go for Christian-visionary poets/poems that are interesting and great than to read some stuff and say "Hey, whoa, this poet was so miserable he killed himself!" Aside from anything else, I'd like to request that we please don't read Sylvia Plath.
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Dec 14, 2010 01:35
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I don't know about manic depression, but Byron supposedly had an eating disorder, I think? Possibly related to his messed up foot. He was really keen on vinegar and having an occasional puke. I look forward to Hart Crane if The Bridge gets chosen. I've read about him, but nothing by him.
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Dec 14, 2010 03:00
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Dr Scoofles posted:I noticed midway through the High Level Lit Chat thread some discussion on Medieval literatre and Old English, with some mention on how it is possible to learn enough in a month to read Beowulf comfortably. Yeah, you could easily pick up an edition of Canterbury Tales with a good glossary and be reading comfortably within 10 pages. If you know any German, French, or Latin, it'll be even quicker. Plus, there are useful online resources like this Middle-Modern English dictionary-- http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/ --which can be a bit annoying because of variable spellings, but isn't bad if you're stumped by something not explained in notes. Old English stuff like Beowulf doesn't look nearly as much like our English. Knowing some German is supposed to help with it, but I can't attest to recognizing much outside of maybe every twelfth word and the occasional verb tense. Here's a poem in Old English with a Modern English translation: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/369.html. It looks pretty alien, but you could probably get enough basic facility to read a short piece like that within a month. If you're determined to give it a whirl, my university uses this book: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Old-English-Bruce-Mitchell/dp/1405146907/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293056692&sr=8-1 , but this one -- http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Old-English-Peter-Baker/dp/1405152729/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293056759&sr=1-1 -- has a better reputation. And I know Seamus Heaney's Beowulf presents the Old English and his translation side-by-side; there are probably other translations that also do this.
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Dec 22, 2010 23:33
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barkingclam posted:How do you feel about Penguin's original-spelling edition of Canterbury Tales? It's one I've been thinking about picking up in the new year. The version I read is old and has no "translation notes" at all so I'm going by the amazon preview just as you are, but it looks fine to me. The Norton edition has the translation-type notes in the margins and the content-type notes as footers, which I prefer to the Penguin tendency to put all the content stuff at the back of the book; note placement is a matter of personal preference though. Either seems like a good choice.
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Dec 24, 2010 01:00
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Hey, Loosechanj: Could we start doing a poem of the month as well as a book? Starting with shorter poems, I guess?
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Jan 8, 2011 05:17
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knees of putty posted:Maybe even consider doing it...where someone chooses rather than a vote, and provides some background/analysis? Yeah, that would be a nice way of doing it. And I'd hope we might end up with a good, diverse range of poems that way.
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Jan 8, 2011 22:03
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Okay, I'll start a discussion thread and if we can get, like, at least 10 people interested--which might not happen based on TBB's unfortunate history with high-participation/low-Orc-content threads--then I think it's worth a try. I want to find a few online resources for people to use and stuff like that. It's my first week of classes so I'm kind of busy but I'll post something in the next few days. I don't pretend to have any expert or advanced knowledge of poetry, so if someone else wants to start things off before I get around to it, I won't be mad.
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Jan 9, 2011 21:47
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Literally anything other than Dune or The Princess Bride.
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Jan 22, 2011 01:06
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IRQ posted:What the hell is wrong with you?
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Jan 23, 2011 18:02
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