(no subject)
Slowly wilting in the heat :-/ at least my office has windows at both sides so we've got a bit of airflow but my brain is definitely working more slowly than usual. Meanwhile the photocopier has started throwing up errors and I've been in one meeting after another most of the morning.
Happy Wednesday everybody *g*
Anyway apparently it's somehow July now!
June reviews
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality- Less Wrong (Eliezer Yudkowsky) I don't usually count fanfiction, even the novel length stuff, but I've been reading this on my kindle for MONTHS and it's both very very long and very very good. If you're a Harry Potter fanfiction type person and haven't read it then give it a try. It's quite pretentious of course because it's sort of trying to teach you about rational thought and philosophy and science at the same time as telling a story but I thought it was really interesting.
Poems (1976-1986)- Margaret Atwood I do like Margaret Atwood but I've definitely read less of her poetry than her prose so it was nice to redress the balance a little. I liked the earlier part of this book better than the later part. There were some wonderful poems about aging that I'll definitely come back to and some very angry poems about oppression. A really interesting selection.
A Time of Gifts- Patrick Leigh Fermor This is the sort of travel book that makes you long to experience time travel. It's about a walking tour he took aged 19 from Rotterdam to Istanbul (though this is only book one, as far as the edge of Hungary) during the 1930s so it's full of places you'd never dare walk now and situations where he ends up staying with a Count in a castle and then the next night in a hostel and the next night free accommodation because some town's have a tradition of offering it to young travellers. Plus he sees so many things that were destroyed such a short time later (and as the book was written long after the fact he points them out as well as pointing out battles he was in where he knows old friends were on the opposite side). I absolutely adored this book and very much want to read part two!
Louise de la Vallière- Alexandre Dumas One of the things that's particularly amusing about this book is the way Dumas describes the scenes between Louis & Louise all sweet and blushing and very honourable... the real Louise had 5 children by Louis so I don't think it's entirely accurate :-P I am increasingly becoming convinced that Athos & D'Artagnan would both be happy if they could have just retired to the countryside and brought up Raoul together. Also Raoul would have probably been happier because D'Artagnan wouldn't have given in and let him get engaged to Louise. Porthos is still a darling and Aramis is far too meddling for his own good.
Raising Steam- Terry Pratchett I think one of my favourite things about Raising Steam was reading Vimes' actions from Moist's POV because he never quite gets Blackboard Monitor Vimes and we know so much more about what's going on inside his head. It's unlikely to ever be my favourite Discworld book but I did enjoy spotting bits of our real life railways in the book and I loved that Drumknott finally found himself a hobby. Felt a little bit in places like PTerry had more to say than could really be said in one book with the railway and the dwarves and the Patrician etc. which, I suppose, was probably true :-/
Shadow Web- N.M. Browne Thank you to temaris for this book! It's a new take on alternate realities and might have put me off googling myself permanently! Jess is a really interesting character because she makes a lot of stupid mistakes but she's pretty self aware about the fact and she learns which isn't always true of protagonists. My only complaint is I wanted to know so much more about the reality she ended up in, i need history books and other characters POVs and I'd love to know what the other Jessica actually thought/felt.
The Man in the Iron Mask- Alexandre Dumas I repeat my comments from Louise de Valliere, Athos & D'Artagnan should have just taken Raoul away and maybe visited Porthos sometimes and this would have a much happier ending. Aramis finally tangles himself up so much in plots that everything goes wrong which is FINE except he also lies to Porthos and embroils him too and I can't forgive that :-( By the end of this book there's only one Musketeer left standing so it's rather sad for quite a lot of the time but it is interesting to see a, not entirely unlikely, vision of what happens to heroes as the next generation comes through and the politics around them change. Seeing as you can download them for free I'd recommend the D'Artagnan Romances as a whole to anyone who likes a bit of swashbuckling.
Hieroglyphic Tales- Horace Walpole Really short & very funny these short stories are some of the earliest surrealist writings in English. Walpole is mocking all the conventions of storytelling in the late 18th century and there were only actually 7 copies printed originally because they were so weird but they're very silly (any Monty Python fans or Princess Bride fans would probably enjoy this!) I read the whole thing a couple of short train journeys but again it's free and well worth a peek.
I took so many photos in Sicily... I might try and share a few at some point but I need to trim them a LOT first.
Happy Wednesday everybody *g*
Anyway apparently it's somehow July now!
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality- Less Wrong (Eliezer Yudkowsky)♣
- Poems (1976-1986)- Margaret Atwood
- A Time of Gifts- Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Louise de la Vallière- Alexandre Dumas♣
- Raising Steam- Terry Pratchett
- Shadow Web- N.M. Browne
- The Man in the Iron Mask- Alexandre Dumas♣
- Hieroglyphic Talkes- Horace Walpole♣
June reviews
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality- Less Wrong (Eliezer Yudkowsky) I don't usually count fanfiction, even the novel length stuff, but I've been reading this on my kindle for MONTHS and it's both very very long and very very good. If you're a Harry Potter fanfiction type person and haven't read it then give it a try. It's quite pretentious of course because it's sort of trying to teach you about rational thought and philosophy and science at the same time as telling a story but I thought it was really interesting.
Poems (1976-1986)- Margaret Atwood I do like Margaret Atwood but I've definitely read less of her poetry than her prose so it was nice to redress the balance a little. I liked the earlier part of this book better than the later part. There were some wonderful poems about aging that I'll definitely come back to and some very angry poems about oppression. A really interesting selection.
A Time of Gifts- Patrick Leigh Fermor This is the sort of travel book that makes you long to experience time travel. It's about a walking tour he took aged 19 from Rotterdam to Istanbul (though this is only book one, as far as the edge of Hungary) during the 1930s so it's full of places you'd never dare walk now and situations where he ends up staying with a Count in a castle and then the next night in a hostel and the next night free accommodation because some town's have a tradition of offering it to young travellers. Plus he sees so many things that were destroyed such a short time later (and as the book was written long after the fact he points them out as well as pointing out battles he was in where he knows old friends were on the opposite side). I absolutely adored this book and very much want to read part two!
Louise de la Vallière- Alexandre Dumas One of the things that's particularly amusing about this book is the way Dumas describes the scenes between Louis & Louise all sweet and blushing and very honourable... the real Louise had 5 children by Louis so I don't think it's entirely accurate :-P I am increasingly becoming convinced that Athos & D'Artagnan would both be happy if they could have just retired to the countryside and brought up Raoul together. Also Raoul would have probably been happier because D'Artagnan wouldn't have given in and let him get engaged to Louise. Porthos is still a darling and Aramis is far too meddling for his own good.
Raising Steam- Terry Pratchett I think one of my favourite things about Raising Steam was reading Vimes' actions from Moist's POV because he never quite gets Blackboard Monitor Vimes and we know so much more about what's going on inside his head. It's unlikely to ever be my favourite Discworld book but I did enjoy spotting bits of our real life railways in the book and I loved that Drumknott finally found himself a hobby. Felt a little bit in places like PTerry had more to say than could really be said in one book with the railway and the dwarves and the Patrician etc. which, I suppose, was probably true :-/
Shadow Web- N.M. Browne Thank you to temaris for this book! It's a new take on alternate realities and might have put me off googling myself permanently! Jess is a really interesting character because she makes a lot of stupid mistakes but she's pretty self aware about the fact and she learns which isn't always true of protagonists. My only complaint is I wanted to know so much more about the reality she ended up in, i need history books and other characters POVs and I'd love to know what the other Jessica actually thought/felt.
The Man in the Iron Mask- Alexandre Dumas I repeat my comments from Louise de Valliere, Athos & D'Artagnan should have just taken Raoul away and maybe visited Porthos sometimes and this would have a much happier ending. Aramis finally tangles himself up so much in plots that everything goes wrong which is FINE except he also lies to Porthos and embroils him too and I can't forgive that :-( By the end of this book there's only one Musketeer left standing so it's rather sad for quite a lot of the time but it is interesting to see a, not entirely unlikely, vision of what happens to heroes as the next generation comes through and the politics around them change. Seeing as you can download them for free I'd recommend the D'Artagnan Romances as a whole to anyone who likes a bit of swashbuckling.
Hieroglyphic Tales- Horace Walpole Really short & very funny these short stories are some of the earliest surrealist writings in English. Walpole is mocking all the conventions of storytelling in the late 18th century and there were only actually 7 copies printed originally because they were so weird but they're very silly (any Monty Python fans or Princess Bride fans would probably enjoy this!) I read the whole thing a couple of short train journeys but again it's free and well worth a peek.
I took so many photos in Sicily... I might try and share a few at some point but I need to trim them a LOT first.