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View Poll Results: How will we lose ourselves in translation in January? | |||
Embassytown by China Miéville | 3 | 33.33% | |
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada | 3 | 33.33% | |
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa | 5 | 55.56% | |
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin | 7 | 77.78% | |
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto | 3 | 33.33% | |
The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By by Georges Simenon | 6 | 66.67% | |
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 9. You may not vote on this poll |
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12-12-2018, 12:36 PM | #31 | ||
o saeclum infacetum
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Hmm. You've given me something to think about.
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I usually read a few books at the same time (well, people will know what I mean). My guess is that you read one book at a time. Quote:
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12-12-2018, 03:05 PM | #32 | |||
Grand Sorcerer
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12-12-2018, 04:44 PM | #33 |
(he/him/his)
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I confess to avoiding the Russians almost completely. I did read both Anna Karenina (in high school), and Doctor Zhivago after the movie came out. But otherwise, I'll pass.
I used to be of the "if I started it, I must finish it" school of readers. But as I've gotten older, and as my Kindle Oasis holds hundreds of books I haven't read, plus a hundred or two I have and wouldn't mind re-reading, I've gotten quite hard about reading dreck I am not enjoying. I abandon them at 25%. Unless the book is for the New Leaf Book Club, and then I give it 50%, at least. |
12-12-2018, 05:00 PM | #34 |
Snoozing in the sun
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I have slogged through Anna Karenina a couple of times. I think Tolstoy needed a good editor to tighten the whole thing up. I might join you in a War and Peace reread issybird - it’s a very long time since I read it and I’m sure I would get more out of it now.
I’m in the midst of a “finish or abandon” dilemma right now over Love in the Time of Cholera, which I’m really not enjoying. I think I’m going to give upon Latin American literature though - I have yet to read a book I have liked, so clearly my mindset is out of kilter with the LA way of thinking and doing. Queen Catlady - I like your no-nonsense approach! |
12-12-2018, 05:16 PM | #35 |
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I'm with you on Love in the Time of Cholera, Bookpossum. I could never quite get into it. OTOH, my DW loved it. We have a lot of overlap on things we like, but then a whole other layer we do NOT agree on. Cholera was in that latter category.
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12-12-2018, 06:10 PM | #36 | |
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12-12-2018, 06:41 PM | #37 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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It works ... mostly. I sit here now and can remember my last few failures and feel that "should I have kept going?" twinge. But it fades. By this time next year I'll be worrying about different books I didn't finish. |
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12-12-2018, 06:50 PM | #38 |
Wizard
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I am getting more comfortable with abandoning books I have selected than I used to be, but I still don't like to do it.
It is a totally different thing to not finish a book someone else or a group has selected for me to read. I give book club selections an honest shot (even when I'm dreading them), meaning "more of a chance than I would give a book I selected", but I don't feel (too) bad when I have done that and still end up abandoning one. |
12-12-2018, 08:33 PM | #39 |
o saeclum infacetum
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12-12-2018, 08:37 PM | #40 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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As for AK, it's appalling that the famous scene isn't the end of the novel. Talk about anti-climactic! |
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12-12-2018, 08:54 PM | #41 | |
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Paper books, whether abandoned or just ones I won't read again, go to the charity shop. I wish there was a way of doing the same with ebooks, to do someone else some good with the ones I don't want. |
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12-13-2018, 04:37 AM | #42 | |
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As to LeGuin, she is recognised as a truly great feminist science fiction writer and The Left Hand of Darkness is a trailblazer in the field. I hadn’t realised that she died only last January. Here is a brief biographical snippet from The Science Fiction Encyclopedia. (1929-2018) US author, based in Portland, Oregon, whose first novel was published in 1966; by 1970 she was already recognized as one of the most important writers within the field. Decades before her death, her reputation had extended far beyond the readership of Genre SF, while within the genre she was honoured with five Hugos and six Nebulas; as much attention has been paid to her by the academic community as to Philip K Dick. Le Guin was the daughter of Dr Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960) and Theodora Kroeber (1897-1979), the former a noted anthropologist who published much work on Native Americans, the latter a writer and anthropologist best known for Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America (1961). Le Guin was thus brought up in academic surroundings; her own education, including a master's degree from Columbia, was in Romance Literatures of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, particularly French. She wrote Poetry – collected in several volumes beginning with Wild Angels (coll 1975 chap) – and several unpublished nonfantastic novels, seemingly all set in the imaginary Central European country of Orsinia. Last edited by fantasyfan; 12-13-2018 at 08:54 AM. |
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12-13-2018, 05:02 AM | #43 | |
Nameless Being
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I look forward to being challenged by this famous work, and hope that I can finish it. I already know that like Mieville's nominated work, it is fiction that transcends the oft-held preconceptions of its genre. |
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12-13-2018, 06:24 AM | #44 |
cacoethes scribendi
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And there I was thinking that all I'd done was nominate a good book. (Or so I remember it.)
fantasyfan, Le Guin died in January. I purchased the ebook edition of this (and the Earthsea novels) back in February; news of her death being a reminder that I'd been meaning to revisit her books for a long time. When this theme came up it seemed like kismet: now was the time to start my re-reads. |
12-13-2018, 08:27 AM | #45 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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My average was previously higher because I usually re-read much more than I have in the last year (and, of course, I only re-read stuff I know I like). Stay in your safe zones and you can get a better average, but you miss out on the discoveries. I'd always told myself that reading was at least partly about opening my eyes (broadening horizons and all those other feel-good metaphors), but for the several years I doubt if that's been true for me. But now it is again and I find it very satisfying. |
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