Booklist meme

[lost_spook]

I usually ignore these, but, oh well, why not? I'm a little bored tonight. So, in what seems to be a sort of updated version of the BBC's Big Read list (with a mystery missing no. 19. I think I shall add in something I like. *evil*). Taken from justice_turtleThere were rules, but I'm just going to bold the ones I've actually read, and make any relevant

Comments

[justice_turtle]

Ooh, you should try to get hold of "The Twelve and the Genii" sometime if you feel up to it. Hopefully our conservation-of-liking thing only applies to drama, because I love that book, and it is also really good. ;-)

On another note, unless you're actually reading Moby Dick at the same time I am, I think you missed deleting my parenthetical note on it... ;P

[lost_spook]

It was OOP for years - I only discovered what it was about when Jane Nissen books reprinted it, but I bet it's still not that easy to get hold of. Oh, I'm sure. It sounds great.

Also, The GHost of Thomas Kempe is good. I haven't read it for years, so take that as a disclaimer, but it was one of her best, I think. Other than The Driftway, which is a bit timey-wimey and dreamlike (I should probably reread that).

And, LOL. Whoops!! There's always one bit you miss when you copy and paste, isn't there? I even managed to weed out the last unwanted asterisk... (I could pretend I am freakily reading it alongside you, but it's not true.)

[john_amend_all]

If I were to do this, which I don't intend to, I'd come up against a dilemma with A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens; I haven't read the original, but surely it still counts if it's been condensed to a Ladybird book? :-)

1942 'BB' The Little Grey Men (Does anybody actually read this book? It used to sit in the library, and when I finally got rid of it, someone requested it and we had to buy another. Which sat there for years and years. So I haven't read it, but I glare at it professionally.)

I've read it. Once. Having previously read the sequel, which I chiefly remember for its protagonists' mile-wide blind spot regarding fire safety.

[lost_spook]

:loL: No, I don't think Ladybird books or other similar things count!

[daibhid_c]

It's a book I'd be interested to read, largely because Sir Pterry cites it as an influence on the Nac Mac Feegle (Sir Pterry has, of course, read everything).

[pitry]

1942 'BB' The Little Grey Men (Does anybody actually read this book? It used to sit in the library, and when I finally got rid of it, someone requested it and we had to buy another. Which sat there for years and years. So I haven't read it, but I glare at it professionally.)

which should teach you not to get rid of books! Yeah, I know, libraries have limited space and have to get rid of books. But but but but but!

(Also, they don't need to read it, they can watch the TV adaptation!)

[lost_spook]

There are copyright libraries for keeping everything. The only way a public library could keep everything they own would be to never buy any new books and for nobody to read the ones they have. Which would defeat the object.

I didn't normally persecute books like that. It was just that one got the classic exception, and I didn't feel it deserved it. (Is it Little Women, E Nesbit, Treasure Island or Alice, or something? No.) Besides, sometimes you are only removing books to send them to other libraries - many of our branches are so tiny, it's important to do that. And if people want us to keep things, they should borrow them more. And then we will. We get so tied to being judged by issue figures alone, and it really isn't the whole picture.

[pitry]

I know, I know... and everything you say makes perfect sense.... I just... it breaks my heart when I see libraries throw away books/ put them up on the "take them!!" shelf (although that way is better than throwing them away. That's what the HUJI library did. Every once in a while they'd prune out books and put them on this cart with a big sign saying gift books.). I guess I'm just worried one day I'll find in those piles something that is dear to me. ;)

It's the same with private collections, really. My parents have this huge library and at some point they ran out of space so they had to get rid of some books. I rescued a few but there were so many and the library didn't want them. :(

[lost_spook]

Well, most of the time when we weed books we are doing the following: if in good condition, transfering them to other branches, replacing with new copies if tatty, and what has to go is put for sale to earn us more pennies to buy new books

[persiflage_1]

I am really not 1005

I had to read that twice before I realised you'd meant to type "100%" instead!! o_O

I could do this list - I've read loads of them.

[lost_spook]

Well. I'm really not 1005, either, any more than I am 100%. :-)

Oh, I bet you have.

[persiflage_1]

LOL Well I know you're not 1005 - that's why I was puzzled by your assertion that you weren't - until I twigged!

:D

[scifi_mel]

What was your problem with Jude the Obscure? It was the first Hardy I read and I really loved it. I must admit I much preferred it to Tess which I didn't care for that much.

[lost_spook]

Well, Tess I studied for A-Level, so I came to love it very much (although more for being an amazingly beautiful prose poem on the metaphorical rape of the countryside than for the actual story itself, which is full of people who annoy me), but Jude? I read several Hardy novels and that was my stopping point - as it was for him with his critics back in the day. I know Hardy is depressing, but, really there are limits. [using the spoiler cut in case anyone hasn't read it]The adopted son commits suicide and kills the two children? I think I actually stopped reading it at that point. There are limits to how depressing you can get and still have me as a reader.

But, I mean, he was a very interesting writer and an amazing poet, so I don't blame people for liking Jude. It just goes down as No. 1 Most Depressing Book I Ever Read. (But I probably haven't been trying very hard to give it competition.)

[scifi_mel]

Lols I love depressing books! I just loved all the insight into his mind and the ways he was thinking about life and the way the world worked at the end of the 19th century and trying to figure out who he was and where he was going. Whereas Tess was definitely full of annoying people. I'm afraid I'm not much one for English poetry though. The meter always over rides everything else when I'm trying to read it and I find it far too distracting and artifical to actually enjoy the words.