Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Smellincoffee]

Recently finished Columbine by Dave Cullen. Appreciated his thorough sacking of various media myths, though I'm sure he overdid the "not bullied" angle for Klebold and Harris in favor of his "Harris as Psychopath" theory.

Now on to lighter fare with Bernard Cornwell's The Flame Bearer.

 

[dusters]

Goethe "Lamentations of young Verter" in German.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Nice! Frankenstein's Monster loved it, I feel anyone should

Recently I read Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener and Billy Budd. Love the guy, his prose is superb and analyzing his works is just all around fun.

This year among other's I finished Journey to the End of the Night and Master & Margarita, both some of the best books I've ever read and definitely in my imaginary top 10!

Currently reading Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet (loving it, almost done) and Wuthering Heights (for University). I really want to like the latter, I can appreciate it from an analytic pov but I definitely won't be re-reading it

 

[dusters]

What you don't like about Wuthering Heights? It is an epic prose on human psychology.

 

[JohannaK]

Unlike the Sorrows of Young Werther, which is literally "emo young man does emo things"

 

[Kozmos]

Read:

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

and

The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Now onto this:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821092-napoleon

 

[yung.carl.jung]

What you don't like about Wuthering Heights? It is an epic prose on human psychology.

Heathcliff's thrist for revenge really rubs me the wrong way. It's not really an issue with the book, rather a moral judgement

He is presented kind of ambivalently, both as a gothic villain, but also as one who suffers and overcomes hardship. I don't really feel like he deserves any sympathy, that's what I dislike.

Unlike the Sorrows of Young Werther, which is literally "emo young man does emo things"

I disagree completely, but atleast your post was funny.

 

[JohannaK]

To be honest I read at least 7 years ago and never got far.

 

[Flying Pig]

He is presented kind of ambivalently, both as a gothic villain, but also as one who suffers and overcomes hardship. I don't really feel like he deserves any sympathy, that's what I dislike.

That's not unusual in literature, though - think of Macbeth, who is a monster beyond doubt, but who dies courageously and dare-we-say heroically. The point is that people like him aren't just 'evil', in the sense that we should be booing everything they do: it's more complicated than that. Macbeth can be evil and deserve our admiration at the same time. Heathcliff can be an almost-literal monster and still have traits we see as admirable: if he didn't, you might argue, the character wouldn't be interesting at all.

 

[JohannaK]

Richard III is my favourite character in Richard III, and he's waaay more monstrous than Macbeth.

 

[Arakhor]

I've gone back to reading Manjit Kumar's Quantum - Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality. As I said in July, if you're at all interested in quantum physics, it's really rather good.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

That's not unusual in literature, though - think of Macbeth, who is a monster beyond doubt, but who dies courageously and dare-we-say heroically. The point is that people like him aren't just 'evil', in the sense that we should be booing everything they do: it's more complicated than that. Macbeth can be evil and deserve our admiration at the same time. Heathcliff can be an almost-literal monster and still have traits we see as admirable: if he didn't, you might argue, the character wouldn't be interesting at all.

I never implied that Heathcliff was evil though, far from it actually. I think he's petty. Maybe looking back at childhood Heathcliff I could see something about him that was admirable, but.. Not really if I'm being honest. I don't really see a single redeemable feature about him. Overcoming hardship and suffering in and of themselves are not admirable, it is the way you approach and overcome them that is. In H's case, he does not. You make a great point about either black or white characters being one-dimensional and flat, but H is pretty much just black to me without any of the white (heh). Which is also why I'm upset that he's being presented as this nuanced character, because to me he is not. Both Catherines for example are incredibly layered and multi-dimensional, subversive and alive. I don't see that with H, do you?

Interestingly enough many people are moved by H's and Catherine's romance while I mostly feel like ripping my hair out. Many times in the book Catherine is hinting at H to make a confession towards her; she even openly confesses her love for H to Nelly while H is listening, but H doesn't muster up the courage to do the same, maybe out of fear of being rejected, maybe out of a feeling of inferiority, I am not quite sure yet. Still trying to make sense of their relationship and whether I would actually call it "love", by my definition. What do you think? Why did he not confess?

Oddly enough the characters I love the most aren't really interesting to most readers (in my class.. no idea about you guys). I always thought Nelly was by far the most interesting character aside from the two Catherines. I also really like Joseph, he's great comedic relief, though obviously with little depth compared to the others. Not sure yet what to think about the second generation. I like Hareton, but not really as a character, it's more that he's the person you're supposed to be rooting for I guess.

 

[JohannaK]

On the topic of unusual favourite characters, does anyone else like Simon from Lord of the Flies better than anyone else in the bloody book?

 

[Mouthwash]

Started The Legend of Drizzt a couple weeks ago. It's not high art by any leap of the imagination, but it's surprisingly fun.

 

[Hakim]

My friends said "just read Homeland" -> in my book shelf there are currently 23 books in the series. It was a blast until I ran out of books.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm 200 pages into Glimpses of World History by Jawaharlal Nehru, which I've wanted to read since encountering a biography of him in 2009. I just received an interlibrary loan book (Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia, so I'll switch to that and knock it out first. ILL periods aren't usually very long.

 

[Mouthwash]

My friends said "just read Homeland" -> in my book shelf there are currently 23 books in the series. It was a blast until I ran out of books.

There are 33 novels, so I assume that's what you mean?

 

[JollyRoger]

Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T.J. Stiles

 

[FriendlyFire]

Three Body problem
Dark Forest
End of Death

Highly recommended, my sci-fi choice for 2016
From the multiple award winning Chui

Great warming period
A great read on the medievial warming period

 

[Hakim]

There are 33 novels, so I assume that's what you mean?

Hmm, then you're including The Cleric Quintet and some other books not about Drizzt? I was only reading the books about Drizzt and his companions. When I reached Gauntlgrym, it was the last book available. After that I had to wait for the other to be released which kind of disconnected me from the story (The Last Threshold is the "last" book I have).