Ersatz TLS discussion

I'm feeling a little irked (understatement) about the non-appearance of the end of August fine weather we were promised (it was winter here yesterday), so please indulge me while I return to those opening passages of books – much discussed already – and copy two that really put a smile on my face:

The wind howled. Lightning stabbed at the earth erratically like an inneficient assassin, Thunder rolled back and forth across the dark, rain- lashed hills.
The night was as black as the inside of a cat It was the kind of night, you could believe,on which gods moved men as though they were pawns on the chessboard of fate. In the middle of this elemental storm a fire gleamed among the dripping furze bushes likes the madness in a weasels eye. It illuminated three hunched figures. As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked ,"When shall we three meet again?"
There was a pause.
Finally another voice said in far more ordinary tones: "Well, I can do next Tuesday." [Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett]

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new". [Murphy by Samuel Beckett]

Thank you to @Greenfairy and @SydneyH for those. @Greenfairy's reminded me that I haven't read any Pratchett for ages so I went to my online library catalogues to borrow some Terry Pratchett, but there was surprising little choice in ebook form. Do people here have any favourite Pratchetts which they can recommend?

I've had to put my more demanding reading aside for a bit, so being temporarily without books I turned, of course, to eTLS for advice. On @scarletnoir's recommendation I went for Jonathan Coe's Mr Wilder & Me. It's a tricky job writing fiction about real life characters and there's a fair chunk of contrivance in Coe's book to get the story to where he needs it to be. This may not suit all readers, but I found the novel (novella?) utterly delightful. I've now started Bear by Marian Engel, following @Andy's recommendation.

@Gpfr has also been reading fiction with real life characters:

I've been reading two novels with leading characters who are real people and much as I enjoyed them both, they left me feeling vaguely uneasy. I need to think some more about this.
The first was The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey. ... The Narrow Land is about Edward Hopper and his wife Jo during a summer on Cape Cod. There have been various articles lately about the wives of famous painters who although artists themselves don't get recognition, for example Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock's wife, and here Jo Hopper is bitterly resentful of her lack of success compared with her husband.
The second is A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson, set on Hydra at the beginning of the sixties, focusing on the couple of writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston. Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen are there too ... And the women have the role of looking after the men and enabling them to write. I read this book through a sort of golden haze: I went to Hydra a few years later, after hitchhiking to Greece as a student, and it took me back there so vividly. I can't really judge it dispassionately.
I've read Charmian Clift's Mermaid Singing about their experiences on Kalymnos before they moved to Hydra and I have Peel Me A Lotus waiting to be read.

For those who have run out of Victorians to read, @Berkley has mentioned a couple of books I suspect most of us haven't heard of:

I can recommend two other Thackerays from my own reading experience: Pendennis and The Newcomes - both very popular and highly rated in their day but relatively neglected in ours.

Pendennis was often compared to David Copperfield in Thackeray's and Dickens's time as it is Thackeray's autobiographical novel, with many close parallels to his life and career. It was also cited by many authors of the next generation or two as the book that made them want to become writers - specifically the chapters on Pendennis's early years as a journalist.

The Newcomes is something of a sequel, narrated by Pendennis, who also appears as a supporting character, but telling the story of the extended family of a friend of his, Clive Newcome, an artist. If you like Pendennis, you'll definitely want to read The Newcomes at some point.

... I found them both first rate ...

@Fuzzywuzz has been reading the new Stephen King, Billy Summers:

What started out with great promise - a hired gun who writes his life story has descended into a story that is both farcical and boring.

I am going to be stubborn and finish the book because King had just about managed to create characters I have an interest in.

By the end she hasn't changed her mind much, but does concede:

Billy's reflections on his time in Fallujah as a soldier and his early life were were very well recounted and lay the foundations for his development into a hired gun.

@Veufveuve has been reading:

Iris Origo's The Merchant of Prato: Daily Life in a Medieval Italian City, based on the remarkable archives of Francesco di Marco Datini - 500 ledgers and account books, 140,000 letters (11,000 of them personal correspondence).

.... what a very fine book it turned out to be. Not a biography, and with a thematic rather than a chronological structure. Nonetheless, the picture of Francesco the man, which is so painstakingly built, is wonderfully full, rich, and rounded. Irascible, vain, contradictory, stubborn; an unlikeable man, in many ways, and yet one who was clearly loved, including, perhaps, by the author.

Iris Origo was not a trained historian, but fully deserves the title. She led a seemingly fascinating life. Wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Origo

From @Andy, a review of Once Upon the River Love by Andrei Makine:

A coming of age story that ranks up with the very best, of three friends growing up together in the village of Svetlaya in eastern Siberia in the 1960s. Dimitri, a dreamy and romantic adolescent, who will leave the frozen tundra for Cinema School in Leningrad, narrates, telling lovingly of his close companions, Samurai and Utkin. Samurai has become obsessed by strength after he was sexually assaulted at ten years old, and Utkin, a much weaker boy with a limp after his leg was crushed by an ice flow, but the brains of the trio.
Though their locality might seem lacking in inspiration for youths of their age, they are between 14 and 16, their escapades are full of hope and dare; whether it is Dimitri sexual initiation with a red-haired prostitute, the many miles they travel on skis to the Red October cinema to watch the films of their idol, Jean-Paul Belmondo, (sixteen times for one film alone), to their trip on the nearby Trans-Siberian railway to the east coast, and a brush with the 'Western World'.
It is refreshing to read, humorous regularly, and generally, quite wonderful.

And finally, please be upstanding for @SydneyH, who has reached a milestone:

I’ve finished Martin Chuzzlewit ...

This was the last work of fiction I had to read of the great novelist. There may be some obscure stories I haven’t encountered, but otherwise all that is left is the non-fiction, of which there is a sizable quantity. I feel a sense of terrible sadness about becoming a Dickens completist, yet one positive is that I will have the headspace to read some other doorstoppers.

I'm sure I'm not the only person here who has derived much pleasure from Sydney's loving reviews of Dickens's work over the years. A round of applause, please.

Finally, finally (yes, I cheated) a tiny bit of normality has returned to this crazy time we're living in with the news that @Lass has made it to a real life book festival:

Fun, interesting, highly enjoyable event with Francis Spufford at the Ed Bookfest yesterday. Loved Golden Hill, and looking forward to reading Light Perpetual.

It may be winter in August here, but if @Lass is back to her beloved book festivals then things may be going in the right direction after all.

[Edit: I've added Andy's review of Once Upon the River Love which for some reason fell out of my original post. Weird. ]

Anne wrote: "It may be winter in August here, but if @Lass is back to her beloved book festivals then things may be going in the right direction after all. ..."

And not books, but I've been to the cinema! To one of my favourite salles art et essai, Le Nouvel Odéon, to see Nomadland with the wonderful Frances McDormand. So just for the moment, all is right in my world.
Thank you, Anne, for these great introductions.

Cool and cloudy in the shires, with the following books being read:

She by H Rider Haggard (1887)
Between East and West by Anne Applebaum(1992-3) (Non fiction)
Journals of Travel In Iceland 1871 by WIlliam Morris (Non fiction)
A Kindness Cup by Thea Astley (1974)

Not sure where all this winter weather is, are you in the UK Anne? Its been 18c for a week here in the south...

AB76 wrote: "Not sure where all this winter weather is, are you in the UK Anne? Its been 18c for a week here in the south....."

South east England. I reckon it was 16C or 17C here yesterday. That is winter for the August bank holiday weekend!

Anne wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Not sure where all this winter weather is, are you in the UK Anne? Its been 18c for a week here in the south....."

South east England. I reckon it was 16C or 17C here yesterday. That ..."

Oh dear, i think summer is deffo over, i prefer colder weather but sympathise with people who dont

Re-posted as requested by Anne - Gpfr wrote: "I've just read the Observer article about people living and trading on canals. The book I'm reading at the moment is a murder mystery linked to canals, Steven Booth's Drowned Lives...."

Oh dear - it doesn't look as if Stephen Booth has made a successful Atlantic crossing as far as libraries are concerned. (Time is edging towards the end of the year and, because I bought a new-to-me car this year, I am feeling a bit pinched until January 2022.) I am in miser mode.

But since Drowned Lives can be bought (and shipped free) from Book Depository, I have put it on one of my ever expanding wish lists there in hopes they will dangle a sale which will lower my resistance.

Canals do have an aura about them. Seattle has one. It's only 8 miles long, but it does have 4 draw bridges. Much to the consternation of some - especially newer arrivals - ship traffic gets priority over vehicles. Only during rush hours are there any kind of restrictions on shipping.

A local mystery author ought to set a book on the Canal as there is much going on out of the public's eye.

In other news, it looks as if we may have entered Autumn already with this week's projected high of 71° on Friday. Quite a shift. And the prospect of a La Nina winter may be in the cards - more than usual precipitation (along with our grossly short days) for the PNW, but less precipitation for California.

I continue through my stack of British Library Crime Classics from the library. Currently it's The Long Arm of the Law: Classic Police Stories.

And something additional - about driving in and around Seattle - The US Coast Guard does strictly enforce boat rights of way during non-rush hours. (I haven't a clue what the rush hour rules/times are since I no longer 'rush' anywhere.) But I did make the mistake of driving to Tacoma (Washington State History Museum) a week ago. Believe me, it will be a cold day in hell before I try that again, as I may have averaged 20-25 MPH on the Interstate (I5) while going south. Coming back (north) I just zipped along. Go figure!

Paul and MK, can you please repost your reviews/updates from the previous thread? They were so close to the cut-off that I'd hate for you to miss any responses they might elicit.

Great start to the "What are we reading" week again, thank you. I am still interested in the beginnings of novels as well!

This post is just to say that, as promised, I have completed the still missing answers to the quiz on opening passages. All of the answers are in spoilers, so feel free to take a more or less cautious look here at: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Anne wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Not sure where all this winter weather is, are you in the UK Anne? Its been 18c for a week here in the south....."

South east England. I reckon it was 16C or 17C here yesterday. That ..."

Carmen says hello to you, Anne, and AB and hello to anyone else who would welcome her greeting. She has recovered from the recent operation on her leg but found the heatwaves difficult.

CCCubbon wrote: "Anne wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Not sure where all this winter weather is, are you in the UK Anne? Its been 18c for a week here in the south....."

South east England. I reckon it was 16C or 17C here yes..."

lovely to hear she is ok CCC, please pass on my best wishes and that i miss her input in here...

Just a few comments taking up some of yesterday's posts:

@Sandya: The Case of the Married Woman: Caroline Norton: A 19th Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women. Great review, thank you!

@scarlet: Glad you liked the quotes! Oh dear, I did not know it is out of print. I think your approach is right: I would not recommend spending so much money to get hold of it either. :whisper: You can take a - thorough - look at the publication via this link (including illustrations): https://issuu.com/hiennguyenngoc76/do...
That's strange with the different / double titles, but I had this happen recently regarding a German title here on GR. I do not spot the difference here, either. (And I am even less knowledgeable as I read this book in German, as I tend to do with books not written in English originally, but I searched all these quotes to give bookworms here an adequate impression.)

Mach: That is a wonderful, wonderful stamp. Also love how you described getting hold of it.

gpfr: Keun is a good writer. I don't have very strong memories of this book though... maybe I am confusing something here. Sorry I can't be of help. Looking forward to reading your impressions, though!


Best wishes to Carmen from me, too!

Gpfr wrote: "Anne wrote: "It may be winter in August here, but if @Lass is back to her beloved book festivals then things may be going in the right direction after all. ..."

And not books, but I've been to the..."

Ha, beat you. went to see The Trufflehunters on 9 August and going again tomorrow to watch The Courier. The story of the latter I can actually remember happening during the Cold War.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394318/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8368512/

On the literary front I am on page 53 of The Merchant of Prato , so thank you Veufveuve for the recommendation, so far so good

The Red Pony / John Steinbeck.

I read John Steinbeck's sequence of three stories comprising The Red Pony. This pastoral shot through with sombre realism is set on a farm in the Salinas valley in California - a landscape that has a deep personal significance for Steinbeck. It is like Mont Sainte-Victoire for Cezanne, somewhere to rehearse his sense of himself - to illumine his hidden consciousness buried deep within. All the characters in the little dramas that play out here, whether it be the ranch hand Billy, Jody, the young child, a returning paisano, looking for the vanished past or the mother and father working the land and the animals, dependent on the vagaries of weather, are given a depth that resonates behind their outward actions, the play of their physical beings in tune with the quiet murmur of their lives. The dogs and horses that share this domain have a presence and personality - they are characters themselves, much as the humans that share in their destiny. What we see in young Jody who forms a sometimes still but quietly changing centre of the sequence, is a keenly drawn young child taking tentative steps into the worlds and thoughts of the adults he moves amongst. There is a quietness and stillness over the whole arch of the piece, such sounds as we hear, more sharply defined, such sights more clearly and fully seen. Jody's is a harsh world but rooted firmly in these seemingly timeless landscapes. Although in some sense as luminous as the child in the great Stevens Western Shane - the romantic feel of that work - the radiant music score - has become a silent backdrop for portraits and evocations that give us a heightened awareness of nature's immensity and indifference. This is a home for these people but one wrested from lands that move away for miles - and only the ocean lies beyond the furthest horizon. Birth and death bring this sequence to an ending but we know there is a promise in this way of living.

Great intro!
When I was much younger, I would read highly praised books, read reviews and think, wow! I never saw any of that. I felt I was missing something that I should be seeing or picking up on. That is how I felt when I finished Per Pettersen’s latest novel, Men in My Situation.
Semi-autobiographical, it is a study in grief and the toll it takes on a writer, his marriage and family. Like the character Arvid, Pettersen’s parents and two brothers died in a ferry accident. Arvid drifts through the next year or so unable to function normally, to process his grief, unable to sleep properly, and ends up spending a lot of time driving at night, and sleeping in his car. Nothing major happens. Really. Arvid has loads of one night stands, drives hours to Sweden to eat cake and read a book, drinks too much, and worries his young daughters till they no longer want to spend their weekends with him. A lot that is depressing but shot through with humour. And yet I couldn’t NOT finish the book.
It is the cumulative effect of the spare prose that hooked me, drew me in. I cared about Arvid and his family. I was kept off balance, not sure what was going on, sure I was missing some clues, but unable to look away. Everything is seen through Arvid’s eyes, so only seeing through his perspective we are not necessarily getting the full picture. And that is always unsettling. Not an easy read but I liked it and it will stay with me.

You wait ages for a comment and two come along at once….
I highly recommend Men who hate Women, by Laura Bates. Non fiction, she details her in and offline research into the murkiest corners of the internet, into the rising tide of misogynistic communities of men who hate women. And it is horrifying. Incels (a shooting by an incel only about three weeks ago), the creepy world of Pick Up Artists who make fortunes online telling men how to score, basically advocate force, if not rape, against women, Men’s Rights Activists, and Men Going their Own Way (MGTOWs). A few pimply teens in their Star Wars boxers in smelly bedrooms? Wrong. Much more widespread than that. (10,000 in these groups in the UK alone) Worse, she details how the ideology of these bitter denizens of the manosphere has seeped into mainstream culture and in talks in schools, she sees young schoolboys voicing some of these same sick ideas.
Her main point is that we as a society do not take these ideas seriously enough. The subtitle is The extremism nobody is talking about. Her point is that if the chats, the grooming, the recruitment and radicalisation of men on the “manosphere” were directed from or by groups such as Muslims or other, the police would long since have shut these websites down and come knocking on doors. But it is being treated as simply a few nutters while the evidence piles up that it is way more widespread and serious than that. The anger and hatred towards women of a large minority of men needs to be addressed and taken seriously.

Anne wrote: "I'm sure I'm not the only person here who has derived much pleasure from Sydney's loving reviews of Dickens's work over the years."

Thank you Anne :)

@Paul, glad you liked The Invention of Morel. When I read it I compared it to Pedro Paramo meets the Time Machine.

Finished the 1871 journal of William Morris in Iceland and it feels rather sad to leave the book behind!. The journal is a witty and curious depiction of the great man pluckily traversing that wild land on rugged iceland ponies, warm cosy homesteads offered in the evenings and musings on the icelandic sagas and the splendour of the sights

The only negative was a cheap and awful POD edition with two dreadful, tiny maps that were unreadable. I know Iceland quite well, especially Snaefellness and the capital area but some of the anglicisations of Icelandic names confused me when googling.

SydneyH wrote: "@Paul, glad you liked The Invention of Morel. When I read it I compared it to Pedro Paramo meets the Time Machine."

Havent read the novel yet Paul but you have heightened my interest in it as i'm a fan of latin-american fiction

As requested, Here are my last minute reviews re-posted from the tail end of the previous session

Howdy neighbors, I'm back from avoiding the sun in the mountains of Trentino where I got a pretty decent amount of reading done.

The first was an odd little book, by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Weird, a little wobbly and difficult to pin down, but enjoyable likely due to the unconventional nature of the narrative. Bioy Casares was clearly an acolyte of Borges, because the formlessness and indefinition of his book most closely harkens to Borges.

It details the lone inhabitant of an off-limits island who has escaped a death sentence in Venezuela, apparently having canoed to the French Pacific. The unrealness of the very premise spins out from there as the fugitive finds a pool, a church and a museum as the lone structures. Only 150 pages, it's hard to feel how long time has unspun, how much is fever dream, how survival would even be possible on such a place, why the tides are so erratic... When tourists show up on the island, reality becomes fluxional.
Led by Morel, a mad-scientist type, and Faustine, a willowy, pining type with whom the the fugitive falls in love, the implausibility and untouchability of the tourists becomes increasingly pronounced. It's never quite clear upon which side of the mirror the fugitive lies and how much is projection and how much parallelity.

Weird, very, but enjoyable.

Afterwards, I galloped lovingly through Kevin Barry's .

Right off the top, let's say that 1) Kevin Barry may not be for everyone and 2) If you think Sally Rooney is Ireland's best living author, you won;t likely get Barry and 3) are you friggin kidding me? Barry is a lyrical genius.

I LOVE the craft of Barry's writing, he is so clearly a craftsman, whose every word, comma or space is conscientiously suffered over. He writes with a beauty that is difficult to contextualize or compare. Perhaps the author whose writing feels so similarly artisanal would be James Salter.

Somewhat off-putting at first, Barry drops you mid-conversation between two ailing Irish smugglers and career criminals as they show up to the port of Algeciras to search for someone. Their conversation is sufficiently oblique to catch your interest, but also sufficiently unreal as to be off-putting. Barry's characters inhabit a reality all their own, and speak a language unique to their partnership. It reads like a David Mamet or an early David O Russell script.
It can easily buck an untrusting reader in those first few pages, but the gradual peeling back of onionskin by Barry to reveal the wounded, bleeding heart/kneecap at the center of Charlie and Moss' relationship.

I thought it brilliant, poetic, shimmery and lovely. Barry writes with that rhythm unique to Irish-spoken english, it almost rings of Italian opera in its melodic chime, and I can't imagine him creating anything inanimate or dull.

Ciao Hushpuppy! I'd gladly switch places with you, if gawd had intended for me to sweat, I would have been born more pleasantly odiferous.

SydneyH wrote: "@Paul, glad you liked The Invention of Morel. When I read it I compared it to Pedro Paramo meets the Time Machine."

Ah, that's a very good comparison. It is absolutely a near cousin to Pedro Paramo, particularly in the hazy uncertainty between reality and hallucination.

Thanks to @Georg and @Hushpuppy for your comments on the Vargas rat book, which was Have Mercy on Us All (I checked).

As you both think it's one of her best, and as I thought it was 'bof' at best, it may be that Vargas isn't for me... or not in English, anyway (no humour was discernible in translation). If I ever try another, it'll be in French, just to see.

Gpfr wrote: "And not books, but I've been to the cinema! To one of my favourite salles art et essai, Le Nouvel Odéon."

Lucky you! I won't be risking it just yet... that looks like a nice cinema, one I must have missed during the 'Paris years', despite frequent attendance at many other art et essai locations.

Anne wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Not sure where all this winter weather is, are you in the UK Anne? Its been 18c for a week here in the south....."

South east England. I reckon it was 16C or 17C here yesterday. That ..."

Bank Holiday Monday was cool and cloudy in west Wales, too, and we've had the heating on once or twice.

On the other hand, any remaining tourists were rewarded with an absolutely stunning sunset, with the sun a deep rusty red as it appeared beneath grey clouds a bit at a time, then could be seen dropping gradually into the sea. I tried to photograph it, but of course without pro. equipment the result was inaccurate and uninspiring. This is roughly the colour:
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-ph...

We also saw another strange phenomenon - the sea directly beneath the sun also showed a flash of that red colour - presumably a reflection of some sort (?) though I couldn't figure out the geometry of the rays. Very odd and unusual.

We're well used to great sunsets on our west-facing coast, but even for locals this was exceptional - many were out looking towards the sea.

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "You can take a - thorough - look at the publication via this link (including illustrations): https://issuu.com/hiennguyenngoc76/do..."

Thank you for that - it's pretty crafty!

scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: " I've been to the cinema! To one of my favourite salles art et essai, Le Nouvel Odéon."

" that looks like a nice cinema, one I must have missed during the 'Paris years'..."

It is nice - small and comfortable. It used to be called Le Racine Odéon. The name was changed when it was renovated some years ago.

What do you think about this as punishment?

A young Nazi sympathizer who downloaded bomb-making instructions has been sentenced to read classic novels including Pride and Prejudice instead.

Judge Timothy Spencer QC told Ben John, 21, he could stay out of prison as long as he steered clear of white-supremacy literature and read books and plays by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.

The former De Montfort University student will have to return to court every four months to be tested on his reading by the judge after avoiding jail "by the skin of his teeth",

I don’t know what he read at university but I wondered about this sentence. Is it more likely to put him off reading literature if he is forced to do so or, of course, he could become a bookworm. He had downloaded almost 12,000 ultra right wing, white supremacist pages onto his computer including some bomb making material.
He was sentenced to two years prison suspended as long as he reads the classic books plus an extra year reporting to the police.
It might work.

CCCubbon wrote: "read books and plays by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens."

Very good. He might like Barnaby Rudge.

Machenbach wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "as long as he steered clear of white-supremacy literature and read books and plays by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.."

All good. But all white..."

I agree, it might have been useful to include a few classic works of Islamic literature, some Douglass and more modern contemporary fiction but i like the approach. The judge has gone for rehab/reform rather than punitive measures but this is not always popular sadly.

In my experience though, interpretation of books remains deeply personal, hence so many authors have been held up as inspirations to many deeply dubious groups, despite their works being far more complex and nuanced.

AB76 wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "as long as he steered clear of white-supremacy literature and read books and plays by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.."

All ..."
This case was heard at Leicester Crown Court although the young man comes from Lincoln. Here’s a little more from the judge

‘ The judge then asked him: "Have you read Dickens? Austen? Start with Pride and Prejudice and Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

"Think about Hardy. Think about Trollope.

"On January 4 you will tell me what you have read and I will test you on it.

"I will test you and if I think you are [lying to] me you will suffer.

Seeing as he'd downloaded bombmaking manuals I think he should be made to read "The Secret Agent."

But yes, I don't really see what the judges specific list is meant to achieve.

CCCubbon wrote: "What do you think about this as punishment?

A young Nazi sympathizer who downloaded bomb-making instructions has been sentenced to read classic novels including Pride and Prejudice instead."

Oh, I'm torn about this. I've just read the article, and I am usually very strongly advocating for avoiding prison sentences whenever it can be, and for using it as a tool to rehabilitate when it cannot be avoided, but it seems to me that he got off very lightly, and not in the best way.

First, I am not so sure this would have been the case if his skin had been several shades darker and he had amassed over the years terrorist and bomb-making reading material (reading the article sounds a bit like the "promising young man" bs served to that rapist in Stanford)...

And, as Mach's noticed already, I am not sure these books are the most appropriate to expand his white supremacist mind. At all. Not only are they all white (I mean, seriously!!), but also sometimes showing some very antiquated views of the "others" (Austen and Gypsies, Dickens and bad/too stereotypically good Jews...).

Something more appropriate might have been to slap him with some community service helping relevant charities and, indeed, some much more diverse literature reading (perhaps including some of the judge's suggestions). A completely missed opportunity, at least based on the information given in the article...

Hushpuppy wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "What do you think about this as punishment?

A young Nazi sympathizer who downloaded bomb-making instructions has been sentenced to read classic novels including Pride and Prejudic..."

Must own that I thought that he could simply read the many sites where these books are discussed in detail and combine it with a bit of skim reading. That’s what I would do!

CCCubbon wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "What do you think about this as punishment?

A young Nazi sympathizer who downloaded bomb-making instructions has been sentenced to read classic novels including ..."

Like many others, I have my doubts about this - could it work? If so, are the books chosen the most appropriate? I really don't know...

I'm not the best qualified to suggest anti-white supremacist reading - there are definitely some gruesome books about injustice towards blacks, but would the guy read them and learn any lessons?

I might have suggested some of the Easy Rawlins series (black PI often disrespected by whites, but comes out on top through wit and cunning) - which are entertaining and easy to read - and also allow the reader to enter into the mind of, and identify with, the victim of racism.

CCCubbon wrote: "What do you think about this as punishment?"

If the judge really wanted to punish John, he would have included modern poetry in the assignment.😉

Seriously, I think this kind of sentencing is absolute rubbish, based on the mistaken idea that reading literature inevitably enlarges one’s sympathies and instills compassion. As I noted earlier this summer, the Unabomber was better read than the vast majority of Americans, and read widely in classic literature both before and during his bombing career, in which he hoped to murder more people than he actually managed to.

For a fictional character, consider Alex reading the Bible in A Clockwork Orange:

… I would read of these starry yahoodies tolchocking each other and then peeting their Hebrew vino and getting on to the bed with their wives’ like handmaidens, real horrorshow. That kept me going, brothers. … I read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorns and then the cross veshch and all that cal, and I viddied better that there was something in it. While the stereo played bits of lovely Bach I closed my glazzies and viddied myself helping in and even taking charge of the tolchoking and the nailing in, being dressed in a like toga that was the heighth of Roman fashion.

Veufveuve wrote: "Seeing as he'd downloaded bombmaking manuals I think he should be made to read "The Secret Agent."

But yes, I don't really see what the judges specific list is meant to achieve."

Great choice Veuf,

Bill wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "What do you think about this as punishment?"

If the judge really wanted to punish John, he would have included modern poetry in the assignment.😉

Seriously, I think this kind of ..."

I hear you Bill, extremists bring their own prejudices and beliefs into novels they read and can pick and mix the sentences and examples they want to form an even more warped magpie jumble of nonsense. I am sure Anders Brevik is reading his way through prison libraries without changing his mind

I am pro-rehab/reform in all crimimal cases mind you, so i will hold out some optimism for this young lad.

AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "Seeing as he'd downloaded bombmaking manuals I think he should be made to read "The Secret Agent."

Great choice Veuf,"

I first read The Secret Agent in the late 1990s because I read that it was a favorite book of the Unabomber, who identified with the character of the Professor.

Most interesting.

I wonder what "end" the judge hopes to achieve with these "means"?

The defendant is either
a) a sociopath or
b) somebody who, in spite of the evidence, has feelings, whose compassion, or empathy, can be teased out by reading.

I also wonder how this judge plans to test him.
Asking for a summary would, obviously, be ridiculous. The only way to go would be to ask about opinions: "What do you think about X"? "What do you think about the way Y treated Z?" Only: if the defendant spouted the most appalling views, like e.g. "served the bitch right", there would be no consequences as he had fulfilled his part of the bargain by reading the book.

Altogether I tend to think it is a naive idea.
I also think it is an even more naive idea that anything at all, let alone anything better, could be achieved by changing the books to be more 'inclusive' aka NOT written by white +/-men +/- ~150 years ago.
Richard Wright's Bigger Thomas moved me to tears. Do you really think he would move a white supremacist to tears as well?

I believe that you have to meet somebody at the place where they stand. Tell the woman who has been going back to her abusive partner again and again that she is stupid, tell the anti-vaxxer/conspiracy theorist he is stupid, tell the white supremacist he is wrong/mean.

You might have not understood how any of them ticks (because that is indeed most difficult to understand). But you can tell yourself that you made good and unrefutable arguments after all and therefore are entitled to hug the (moral) high ground.

If I had been the judge I would have sentenced him to watching all documentaries about concentration camps and made him write about that. To start with....

Georg wrote: "Most interesting.

I wonder what "end" the judge hopes to achieve with these "means"?"

Der Mensch ist gar nicht gut
Drum hau ihn auf den Hut.
Hast du ihm auf dem Hut gehaun
Dann wird er vielleicht gut.
Denn für dieses Leben
Ist der Mensch nicht gut genug
Darum haut ihm eben
Ruhig auf den Hut!

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Just a few comments taking up some of yesterday's posts:

@Sandya: The Case of the Married Woman: Caroline Norton: A 19th Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women. Great review,..."

Thank you! I wrote that review in about 10 minutes flat, not counting later tweaks. I cried while writing it. I don't usually react like that when writing book reviews. It was borne in upon me how awful and punitive the law has been towards women throughout history. UK law before Mrs. Norton took her pickaxe to it was incredibly patriarchal. Men were given free license to be adulterers, yet got custody of their kids in the event of a separation, while women were deprived even of the right to continue to breastfeed an infant, if they were separated, and regardless of good character. The only women who had any rights to custody of their children were unmarried mothers over their illegitimate offspring and Mrs. Norton pointed this out frequently-that legally married women had fewer rights than those who were considered "outside" society. What I think brought tears to my eyes was the breadth of her sympathy for other, poorer women for example, who could not afford an expensive separation and for mixed-race children and slaves. Mrs Norton would not have described herself as a feminist, but she initiated practical changes that made a lot of women's lives better.

Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "Most interesting.

I wonder what "end" the judge hopes to achieve with these "means"?"

Der Mensch ist gar nicht gut
Drum hau ihn auf den Hut.
Hast du ihm auf dem Hut gehaun
Dann wir..."

Ah, Bill, there are no perfect comments, but this comes very close !

Bit underwhelmed by the start of She with endless greek inserts into the text and a rather weak style but the actual mystery sustains my interest for now

AB76 wrote: "Bit underwhelmed by the start of She with endless greek inserts into the text and a rather weak style but the actual mystery sustains my interest for now"

Your comments agree with my memory of reading She: A History of Adventure – I didn’t like the book as much as I expected, though I thought the ending satisfying and well done. I have a few other Rider Haggard novels (one as co-author), but I don’t know that I’ll ever be inspired to read them. He seems to have specialized in “lost race” stories, which is not a genre I especially enjoy unless it is handled in a non standard way, as with Wells’ “The Country of the Blind” or Mat Johnson’s satirical Pym, based on Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Related Tales.

On that Ursula Andress cover: I’ve had a suspicion that Oxford Classics’ occasional use of a movie still on a cover rather than their usual painting served as a kind of hint that this particular “classic” is not quite of the highest quality. The only other Classic on my shelves from this publisher with a cinematic cover is Dracula.

A map from Paramount Pictures showing where various locales were filmed while remaining within reasonable distance of Hollywood,

I have at last received 'The World of Yesterday' by Stefan Zweig, from the local library, so there is my next read sorted. It is a very old book. It has that comforting feel of the 1940's about it. Last read two years ago it seems. I find myself wondering if there is a friendship club for 'friends of friendless books' such as there is for abandoned churches?

It reminded me of, too me, a treasured book called something like 'The Economy of The Roman Empire'. I don't know the author, as it was a library book taken out of The Open University library. I had it for months during a period of insomnia, I was I think, probably peri-menopausal, and am very grateful for its influence on my life, for, as a late night read, and being so dense and full of fascinating facts. Two pages late at night, and I was fast asleep.

I did see some very interesting corollaries, between the very different eras, with the EU expansion at the time, and the Roman empire being increasingly undermined by cheap exports from the fringes of the empire so that the internal Roman (Italian) economy, of the ordinary Roman artisan citizen, began to suffer, and many Romans lost their living as they were always undercut by the cheap stuff from abroad.

I always meant to get round to writing to Gore Vidal at the time, and asking his opinion. He was living in Italy at the time, in Ravello. However I never got round to it, and within a year or so of me reading the book he had died (around 2012 I think). I still regret that I did not get round to it. I think Gore would have been fascinating on the subject. I went to the OU library a few years back, and asked them if they could find out what book I had taken out. There were only a few so would not have been an onerous search. Alas they told me they didn't keep records... I had a look in the section where it would have been, and there was nothing like it still being held there.

I feel like I should be setting up a society to befriend lost books now... Anyway at least a good historical perspective will wean me off the latest, very mixed bag, of SF...

Bill wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Bit underwhelmed by the start of She with endless greek inserts into the text and a rather weak style but the actual mystery sustains my interest for now"

Your c..."

i agree on the OUP covers using film stills, i will persevere with Haggard but find novels with slim descriptive passages can get dull fairly quickly, when a whole room or town is simply not given any description. in the opening scenes, first 50 pages, i dont think any physical location has been given a spare sentence!

Bill wrote: "A map from Paramount Pictures showing where various locales were filmed while remaining within reasonable distance of Hollywood,
"

Interesting Bill, its a remarkable state with so many diverse climate zones, though i have noticed Canada is being used a lot nowadays, even back in the 80s when Rambo First Blood was filmed in BC