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In this thread, we choose one work of Resources: Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org - A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best. SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/ - A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.  For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM the moderation team. Past Books of the Month [for BOTM before 2019, refer to archives] 2019: January: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky February: BEAR by Marian Engel March: V. by Thomas Pynchon April: The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout May: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman June: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann July: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach August: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay September: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay October: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado November: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett December: Moby Dick by Herman Melville 2020: January: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair February: WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin March: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini by Benvenuto Cellini April: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio May: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Dame Rebecca West June: The African Queen by C. S. Forester July: The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale August: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire, by Howard Pyle September: Strange Hotel, by Eimear McBride October:Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (怪談)("Ghost Stories"), by Lafcadio Hearn November: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears) , by Matthew Hongoltz Hetling December: Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Drury Clark 2021: January: The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley February: How to Read Donald Duck by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart March: Carrier Wave by Robert Brockway April: The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian May: You Can't Win by Jack Black June:Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson July:Can Such Things Be by Ambrose Bierce August: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust September:A Dreamer's Tales by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany October:We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson November:Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers December:Hogfather by Terry Pratchett 2022: January: The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway February: Les Contes Drolatiques by Honore de Balzac March: Depeche Mode by Serhiy Zhadan April: Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer (Trans. Le Guin) May:Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery June: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip July:The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler Current:  Pompeii by Mary Beard Also titled Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town by Mary Beard and The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found in America Book available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pompeii-The-Life-Roman-Town-ebook/dp/B003F5NSWO/ref=zg_bs_digital-text_95 https://www.amazon.com/Fires-Vesuvius-Pompeii-Lost-Found/dp/B08ZBM2RW6 https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/fires-of-vesuvius-pompeii-lost-and-found-0674029763 https://archive.org/details/firesofvesuviusp00mary About the Book quote:The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy...Scrutinising and animated in equal measure -- Laura Silverman Daily Mail A thoroughly worthy winner of the 2008 Wolfson History Prize, Mary Beard's bedroom-to-boardroom tour of the life of a Roman town is disgracefully enjoyable for such a deeply learned and sceptically debunking book -- Boyd Tonkin Independent This marvellous book won the Wolfson History Prize and is a model of subtle but accessible writing about the past -- Judith Rice Guardian [A] brilliant portrait...This meticulous, vivid study of life in the town, the winner of the 2008 Wolfson History Prize, rightly and resolutely focuses on the living city -- James McConnachie Sunday Times Classicist Mary Beard has had a great time rooting about that ghostly place and she has brought it quite splendidly back to life -- Nicholas Bagnall Sunday Telegraph To the vast field of Pompeiana she brings the human touch...This absorbing, inquisitive and affectionate account of Pompeii is a model of its kind. Beard has caught the quick of what was and, in our lives today, remains the same -- Ross Leckie The Times Very readable and excellently researched... Beard's clear-sighted and accessible style makes this a compelling look into history -- Alexander Larman The Observer If you want to know what really happened in the last days of the petrified city, Beard's meticulous reconstruction will fill you in, scraping away many of your preconceptions as it goes, while her evocative writing will transport you back Guardian Best Holiday Books Wonderful piece of scholarship worn lightly and wittily -- Tom Widger Sunday Tribune Wittily written...evoking in all who read it the insatiable need to see the town for themselves -- Georgie Durkheim Catholic Herald A myth-breaking expedition, grandiose in scale, vibrant in its telling -- Colin Gardiner Oxford Times Engaging and defiantly otherworldly Business Destinations A learned and fascinating book Guardian In this brilliant portrait of the "life in a Roman town", Mary Beard uses the relics buried by the eruption on AD79 to bring everyday Roman culture alive.' Sunday Times Compelling Independent --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. About the Author quote:The learned but approachable figure you see on TV translating Latin inscriptions, carving up a pizza to explain the division of the Roman empire, or arguing about public services on Question Time, is precisely the Beard you encounter in private, except that in real life, she swears magnificently and often. (“She’s always spoken fluent Anglo-Saxon,” said Woolf.) In a Greek restaurant in London one January afternoon, her long grey hair uncharacteristically glossy and fresh from the stylist, Beard talked about everything from Islamic State to academic freedom. At one point, she sketched out an argument for a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. Her case rested on the very nature of democracy, for which the presence of a ballot box was a necessary but not sufficient condition. Democracy cannot properly operate without knowledge, she said – which the entire electorate of summer 2016 lacked. (“Aristophanes knew that!”) The referendum then, should not be treated as the final word, she said, but as a straw vote. “Sure, say we want to leave, but you can only in the end say we are going to leave when we know what it means. Otherwise,” she said, “it’s just wanking in the dark.” Thinking I had misheard, I asked her to repeat. “Wanking in the dark,” repeated Beard, at volume. Later in the conversation, she told me she was planning to get a pink streak in her hair. “I’m loving well going to have one: it just feels like such fun.”” https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/30/mary-beard-the-cult-of Themes Pacing  Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law. Please post after you read! Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion. References and Further Reading There's a companion BBC series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnIY6AE4m6E And a followup series in 2016: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4cme2h She also consulted on "Plebs", a sitcom set in Ancient Rome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL3NttZR5t8 Discussion of Past Months You can still keep talking about books from prior months, too! Just keep comments for those books in their respective threads -- that's why we link them all at the top! The party doesn't have to stop just because another has started! Suggestions for Future Months These threads aren't just for discussing the current BOTM; If you have a suggestion for next month's book, please feel free to post it in the thread below also. Generally what we're looking for in a BotM are works that have 1) accessibility -- either easy to read or easy to download a free copy of, ideally both 2) novelty -- something a significant fraction of the forum hasn't already read 3) discussability -- intellectual merit, controversiality, insight -- a book people will be able to talk about. Final Note: Thanks, and we hope everyone enjoys the book! Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Aug 5, 2022 |
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Aug 4, 2022 01:25
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Realizing now that I confused this with Under the Volcano when I voted for it but I just finished a Star Trek book from 1999 which made me stupider so I'll read this book which will hopefully make me smarter
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Aug 4, 2022 03:47
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Oh, this looks good. Will get into it once I'm done with my current book.
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Aug 4, 2022 15:45
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For those who enjoy such things, I can testify that the audiobook of 'Pompeii' is really well done and easy on the ears, as in fact are all the Mary Beard books I've listened to so far.
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Aug 5, 2022 00:03
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Looks neat!
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Aug 5, 2022 18:56
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If you're having trouble finding the ebook: https://archive.org/details/inlibrary?query=mary+beard+pompeii
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Aug 8, 2022 12:06
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I was unaware it was an archive.org book and got a translated copy from my local library. Some rear end in a top hat has been making notes with pencil where the comment on how bad the translation is and what the "proper" Dutch word would be instead of using lazy anglicisms. As a result, the text is now even less readable. Good thing that I own several VERY good erasers, my revenge will be sweet. Content wise it is an interesting read so far, once you push through the somewhat meandering introduction.
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Aug 9, 2022 18:48
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I'm enjoying how fun it is. Beard often takes a conspiratorial tone, like a friend passing you notes during a stuffy lecture. And the notes have refutations or possible alternatives to the common understanding. Very enjoyable.
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Aug 10, 2022 19:43
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https://twitter.com/OptimoPrincipi/status/1558414829517422592?s=20&t=8Lr1ItQoo8hBEb06WE46NQ
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Aug 13, 2022 13:57
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apophenium posted:I'm enjoying how fun it is. Beard often takes a conspiratorial tone, like a friend passing you notes during a stuffy lecture. And the notes have refutations or possible alternatives to the common understanding. Very enjoyable. Fun and conspiratorially intimate is a good description of the mood, yeah. Also a reminder of how mind bogglingly narrow and obscured our view of the ancient and classic word is - it's bewildering the things we don't know, like how we know the city had boat anchor rings at a gate that is inarguably located well inland. Why? Why??
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Aug 16, 2022 16:35
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Jack B Nimble posted:Fun and conspiratorially intimate is a good description of the mood, yeah. Airship moorings, duh.
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Aug 16, 2022 16:47
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I thought it would be likely to be the locals trying to give their town a "nautical" look, despite being far land inwards, to attract tourists.
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Aug 16, 2022 19:53
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See, I hadn't even considered "ritual purposes"!
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Aug 16, 2022 20:00
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quote:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...se-8274093.html Clip from the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL3NttZR5t8
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Aug 17, 2022 00:16
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Keetron posted:I thought it would be likely to be the locals trying to give their town a "nautical" look, despite being far land inwards, to attract tourists. Yeah the "it was decorative" seems like the simplest answer to me.
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Aug 18, 2022 02:37
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GoutPatrol posted:Yeah the "it was decorative" seems like the simplest answer to me. Glad to hear I am not the only one who sees people from all eons having bad taste.
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Aug 18, 2022 07:24
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Keetron posted:Glad to hear I am not the only one who sees people from all eons having bad taste.
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Aug 18, 2022 14:27
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https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1560990046739652611?s=20&t=XsmOQ7X3Q3-xi8P1bkgNKA
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Aug 20, 2022 15:07
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suggestions for next month?
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Aug 22, 2022 00:03
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https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity/dp/0374157359Hieronymous Alloy posted:suggestions for next month?
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Aug 22, 2022 03:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Please post after you read! While interesting, I am glad that is over with. The copy I got from the local library was borrowed in the past by an rear end in a top hat who felt they needed to be an editor and made pencil marks to "improve" the book. Not so much on content but on wordings and translation issues. It is not so much that they were wrong, I agreed with a couple of edits, but it made for a very distracting reading experience. So after a few edits I grabbed an eraser and kept it with me while reading and now the book is clean again and the eraser a lot smaller. In total, I think there were around 40 markings in the book, it was terrible. About the book itself, I would have never picked this up if it wasn't for this thread which was kind of my point of participating. It also makes me want to visit the place. It is however a 2000K drive so that will have to wait a few years until I have the time to commit to that, my wife is interested anyway and a road trip to Italy is overdue anyway.
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Aug 22, 2022 06:44
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I'm halfway through the book and I can say that although it's a bit of a bummer that pretty much everything about Pompeii has so much uncertainty around it, it is fascinating that there is so much to say about it. The book does a great job at keeping the subject engaging while exploring different venues of speculation, which is a nice antidote to the confident statements you get from the typical tourist guide or museum label.
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Aug 22, 2022 09:31
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https://twitter.com/OptimoPrincipi/status/1561626299780710401?s=20&t=rvqKhgOExXxak-IAqRiYcw Beard has a video online that talks about this gravestone but this twitter thread goes into more depth.
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Aug 22, 2022 19:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:suggestions for next month? Here's your heavy academic non-fiction pick for this month "Fields of Gold: Financing the Global Land Rush," by Madeleine Fairbairn (easily available as an ebook for free) https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/104007
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Aug 23, 2022 04:46
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Sad I couldn't really get this to work for me.
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Aug 28, 2022 19:40
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If you liked this book great! If you're still ambling through it that's fine too! If you didn't like it at all, great news, it's time to choose the next one! https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1563976576290676736?s=20&t=ceI6bkOdR6W97uTHaXV2Bg
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Aug 28, 2022 20:50
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Working my way through the last chapter now. Very enjoyable. I didn't know much about Pompeii beforehand and now I know a good deal, so the book did its job I think. Kind of desperate to read some fiction now, though.
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Sep 1, 2022 16:06
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